A number of people, who had gone back out and drank again, were at the meeting today. That got a lot of people talking about their experiences with drinking and getting sober. Perhaps examples of hope for those coming back.
My thoughts were about the risks of what they were doing by drinking again. Death was the first. To drink for alcoholics like myself is to die. I know exactly what it was like at the end of my drinking career. I wanted to die rather than go on drinking and I was willing to take my own life. Obviously I didn’t, because I’m still here. Only because a bartender stopped me and got me help from a man, who drank with me, but who had talked to an AA member the day before.
He was the one who told me that, if I wanted to get sober, there was a place where men and women met and stayed sober today. And that led to the “black hole” within me. Several men talked about that black hole within themselves, which got them to come to AA seeking help and sobriety. In my case, when he said that, a light went on in that darkness and I finally had hope. I knew nothing about AA back then, but I became willing to go and I did.
I keep thinking about what the 1st Step said in the 12&12. That we have to hit a bottom before we become willing to come in and practice this program. Who’s willing to work these Steps unless they know they’re going to die? Good question. And like that Steps says, it’s here we learn the fatal nature of our disease.
I know that no matter what people in the meeting said today that there is no way those people will grab onto it, unless they are ready and listening. I know at my first meeting I got hope. I heard the stories those men and women told about their drinking and I identified immediately with them. But, when they talked on how this program had turned their lives around and helped them stop drinking, I would have drawn a blank, except it gave me hope. Maybe I could do exactly what they did.
I believe that unless we’re ready to listen and grab on to what’s being offered that alcoholics like myself are standing on a slippery slope. The threat of that next drink will be there to take them back to the edge of their lives. I had to want to get sober. Desperation and hope pulled me in here and I have been sober ever since.
Anyway, the meeting helped me, as I know it did others. It served as a reminder of why I’m here and what it is I need to do, if I want to continue to live this life this program offered to me. It saved my life and I am ever grateful for what it has done to change me from a drunk to a sober individual today. I owe it all to the 12 Steps and my sponsors and those old timers I met back then. And I know that the introduction of a Higher Power has made all the difference. It’s my dependency on the God of my understanding, which has carried me over my time in here. I need to thank Him everyday and I do.