From the very beginning, when I came in, I wanted to know what was wrong with me. I mean, why was I drinking the way I did? Why couldn’t I stop drinking? Were others right that I lacked will power? That I was immoral?
I thought some of that myself, when I arrived at the doors of AA. After all, I suffered from a moral breakdown, while I was drinking. Under the influence, I seemed to have no resistance. The more my wife and others pressed me to slow down my drinking or stop all together, the more I seemed to drink. Why did I drink the way I did?
I asked my sponsor and he put the BB in my hands and told me to start reading it from the beginning. I opened to the Doctor’s Opinion and there it was: The description, the explanation of what was wrong with me. It instantly made sense. There was something wrong with me physically and mentally.
I never wanted to be an alcoholic. I didn’t pick up a drink and say to myself that this is the way I wanted to drink and live. But almost from the start of my drinking something happened. It was almost like a spiritual experience.
I felt transformed. I had, I found out later, a superphysical effect from the alcohol. Normal drinkers don’t have this. The result was that I went through a life changing experience and I would never be the same.
Today, I no longer struggle with or wonder about what happened or why I am this way. I no longer care about how things turned out in my life. Instead I am glad that I am an alcoholic; a recovering alcoholic. Especially since I am in this program. AA has provided me with the tools to change myself. I am no longer that person, who once showed up at the doors of this program. I have found a happiness and a contentment, regardless of circumstances, I could never have conceived I would achieve early on. I know today that I am not alone in what happened to me and that this is available to anyone who comes here and wants to stop drinking. Just that thought makes me happy.
I was thinking about this today and about all the changes I have gone through since coming here. I don’t know what would have happened to me, if I hadn’t had the opportunity to become an alcoholic. I don’t really care. The important thing is that I am and I am here today, not drinking and sober. I have been restored to sanity. The sanity the BB describes to us. The solution the BB promised me from the beginning. I am so fortunate and grateful that AA was here when I so deperately needed it.