Today I did something I need to do periodically. I went back to the BB and reminded myself of who and what I really am. Had to laugh, when I found that I have the page I want to read marked with a card. Appropriate.
The idea that we’re like other men, or presently may be, has to be smashed. That’s the delusion I suffered from for so many years. Just couldn’t stop drinking. Yet, like so many of us I was on my way to absolute insanity and death. Still tried to control my drinking, but, like I said, I could not no matter how hard or what I tried.
The word alcoholic I didn’t know or understand. But a lot of those I drank with kept trying to tell me I needed to stop and get some kind of help. Imagine other drunks had my number way before I did. I never forgot how many times they would come up to me and tell me I needed to leave the bar, because I had lost control of my drinking.
Yet I stuck around no matter what. I went through hell in those years and gradually sank deeper and deeper into alcohol. There was a time early on, when I could drink anyone under the table. Toward the end I remember a man standing near me in the bar saying to another man that it was a shame that someone like me couldn’t hold their liquor. That moment I remember as being a moment of shame. I was humiliated. But I couldn’t stop.
By the end I knew that I was helpless and that’s what got me to beg the God of my understanding to stop me and stop me from living the life I had been living. That I guess was my first spiritual awakening. I came to the program five days later not drinking. The compulsion, the mental obsession, the craving was gone. In all these years it has never come back, except on one occasion. And with the help of my wife I was able to pray and get the help I needed. I haven’t had to drink in all this time. The program and the spiritual answer has kept me safe and sane, as far as alcohol goes.
Anyway, I had to stop and go back and think about where I came from and what was wrong with me. I never ever want to forget. I’m not cured and I’m sure of that, because I have watched so many through the years go back out and drink again. Many of them die, as did my first sponsor. Never can forget that.
This disease is insidious. Like the chapter More About Alcoholism states, this is a disease. I know I was born with this in my system. All I had to do was get drunk and the fuse was lit. It never stopped for over 20 years. But my Higher Power and this program has arrested it. And I believe, as I was told, that though it’s not in my consciousness, it’s still progressing deep within me. My sponsor and those old timers told me that, if I was to pick up a drink, it wouldn’t be like it was so many years ago. It would be like I had been drinking all along.
Anyway, like I said, I need to stop at times and look objectively what is wrong with me. What happened and what it’s like now. And now is great. So far away from where I once was. The new happiness and new freedom promised us came true. The serenity and peace within me is often amazing to me. The spiritual awakenings I have had has demonstrated over and over again how powerful my Higher Power and this program is. And the many many alcoholics I have known over the years have helped and guided me into this way of life. This sober way of life.
When I look back, I can’t help but be grateful.