Sometimes the help we get comes from the strangest places. I had to go back and think about that today. I was talking to a friend and he brought up the name of a guy we knew in school. And that name reminded me of a man I knew in AA back a few years ago.
This man was a big help to me, because he had gone back out drinking after he had been sober for ten years. I had only been sober about five years and was going through some difficulties. The man I’m talking about was back in the program almost a year after his “slip”. So, when he asked me out for a coffee, I was glad to have someone to talk to.
While we were sitting there over coffee, he told me why he wanted to talk to me. He said he wanted to tell me about his relapse back to drinking. Being that I was all into myself at the time, I didn’t recognize that people could see what I couldn’t. As he talked, I found myself concentrating on him and that opened my eyes.
He told me that the first five years of his sobriety he really concentrated on his recovery and had thrown himself into it with all of his heart. He applied the steps to his life, attended AA meetings every day, meditated and prayed every day and worked with others. But, at the end of five years, something began to happen to him. He said that he began to slow down on praying and meditating. He began to get irritated with some people at the meetings he attended. He started to skip meetings he didn’t like. Soon he found that it was getting harder and harder to pray and he had quit meditating altogether. His meetings got down to once a week because he had developed resentments against many who attended them. Then he began to resent certain groups and finally all groups. He stopped going to meetings.
His wife of many years, who was also in recovery, left him. She told him that he was impossible to live with. And that for him was the last straw. He drank again and after a period of time he ended up in a hospital where he was detoxed and treated for some physical problems resulting from his drinking.
He was in that hospital for an extended stay he said. While there he had a lot of time to think about what had happened to him. He said that the last five years of his ten years without a drink was a slide into another bottom. He came to realize that none of the things, which he thought were a problem, like his resentments and the breakup with his wife, had caused him to drink. And then he said something which really got my attention. He said to me that he had picked up that drink five years before he drank it. He didn’t realize this until he was back in recovery and had to get honest with himself.
That man gave me comfort and aid. He woke me up and made me aware of what we learn in here. That we only have a daily reprieve from alcohol and that if we are to remain sober we have to take action or we drink again.
We became close friends and stayed that way until his death a year later. Why he picked me out to tell his story to, I can only guess. But he must have spotted something in me and felt that I needed to hear what he had to say. Like I said, it was a wake up call. I never forgot his words that he picked up that drink five years before he drank it.
Anyway, I was reminded of him today and just had to sit down and think about it.
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