If ever I needed to witness the power of alcohol, I saw it today. I was sitting next to a man, who was being overwhelmed by craving. I’ve been with this man on occasions before, but he never spoke about his cravings. He did today.
I thought about his condition. I know he has other problems, none of which I know for certain. He definitely falls into that category the BB talks about. Grave and emotional mental disorders. The capacity to be honest?
Aside from the question of honesty, did he have the capacity to know what some of us talked about? The Second Step. The need for a power greater than ourselves. A God of his understanding.
It doesn’t matter what any of us think. I think some felt that he could think his way out of the cravings. Manage it with just making up his mind not to drink. In my experience and the Doctor’s Opinion, craving is limited to people like us. It’s physical. It may affect our thinking and overwhelm it. The mental obsession. The compulsion to drink.
When I was like that, and I was, the only help I found at the end of my drinking was prayer. Begging and pleading with God to stop me from drinking. Becoming willing to do whatever it took to never drink again.
I don’t know what will happen with this man. I only know what happened to me and for me. I know that it has worked for so many others I see in these rooms. I can only pray that somehow it will work for him.
On the way home, two of us talked about this incident and recounted our own experiences. Both of us felt empathy, not sympathy, for the man. And both of us admitted that we’re sober in spite of ourselves. Without a higher power in our lives we both knew that we would have been gone a long time ago.
Anyway, we both had to express our gratitude for what we have been given. I pray I may never forget this. I think my friend did too.