I was reading the first step in the 12&12 yesterday and was thinking how powerrul Bill’s essay was. The picture he painted was overwhelming. As I was reading it, it struck me that it’s a wonder anyone of us ever got sober. What an overwhelming disease this is! We’re condemned to drink ourselves to death. Yet, here we are, safe and away from this disease.
Sitting there, years away from the end of my drinking, I could see just how destructive my drinking was for me. It reminded me of a number of people I know, who just couldn’t grasp the program. It made me think how powerless we are to get into the mind of an alcoholic, who comes in fresh off a binge. No wonder they can’t hear us. They’re still under the influence of booze. The drink still owns them.
Bill concludes that essay with an emphasis on bottoms and their importance in getting sober. It makes me realize just how fortunate my bottom was for me. I might have missed this opportunity to break free of the power a drink held over me, had it not been for that. Certainlly no amount of reason would have been able to penetrate my alcoholic soaked mind. To me it’s a miracle. Yet I don’t know why it was me, who was provided with so much pain as to get my attention and not some others.
I was reminded of this last week. A man, who came around the meeting place I go to, was found dead under someone’s porch last week. He was just a little bit older than I was when I came in. He just couldn’t stop drinking. He was living on the street and still drinking. He wasn’t dumb, he was just another drunk like me. His death made what Bill wrote an accurate portrayal of just how sweeping and all consuming illness this is.
It’s a healthy thing for me to remember just what my bottom was and to remember that last day drinking. How could I ever forget it? I know if I do, the drink will once again begin it’s seduction on me. I pray that never happens.
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