As the group was talking to a fairly young person today, I had to ask myself what happens to a person, who has come here to get sober and goes back out again. I’m sure there is someone who thinks they know the answer to this. I know that I can only guess.
I do know there are those who come here and are not convinced they really are an alcoholic, because I have talked to them after they come back. Sometimes I think this is basically what it is that brings on drinking again. Not convinced. Having never really gone through the pain within, the despair, which brought someone like me through these doors. I always feel sorry for those, who feel they have to drink again.
Often times I think about that man in the third chapter of the BB, There Is A Solution. The young man, who was being treated by the Swiss psychiatrist Dr. Carl Jung. He had spent a year with Dr. Jung and then was going home thinking he had succeeded in getting sober. This was just before AA came into being. Anyway, the story I heard was that he was on his way home to the US and had stopped in Paris where someone invited him to have a drink. He did and ended back up in Switzerland desperate once again. That’s when Dr. Jung introduced him to a spiritual solution.
This was before psychiatrists were “allowed” to do such a thing. However this young man had his part, in a way, in helping AA come into being. My take on him was that he thought he was “cured”. My guess anyway. Back then there was no idea that alcoholism is a disease for which there is no cure. There is, as those of us who have experienced long term sobriety, what is called a “spiritual solution”, much like what that young man went through. He never drank again and stayed with that solution in his life. He was sober when he died. Alcoholism can be arrested we have found out in this program. The fact that millions have come through here and stayed sober the rest of their lives seems to prove that.
Anyway I know that I came here in total despair, suicidal because I could not stop drinking no matter what I tried. I found hope and prayed and got free of alcohol and came here to find the help I needed not to drink ever again. So far it has worked in my life. I wish I could convince others of the hope, which turned into faith, and has blessed me with that new happiness and new freedom, beyond my wildest dreams. So amazing to be restored to sanity, as far as alcohol is concerned. To have what is called the spiritual awakening. Similar to the “spiritual experience” of that young man.
I know I have never had to drink again. And I just do it a day at a time. I learned through my sponsor and those old timers, the BB, and the meetings I have attended over time in here, how to put this program into action in my life. I really had no patience when I came here, but over time I began to learn that this is not an overnight event. I had to learn to begin to slow down in my expectations. That took quite a bit of time in here. However I had begun to learn that I will have this disease the rest of my life. So I began to learn that it’s all right to take the time needed and continue to learn and to practice this program. I will really never finish it. I’m just happy that I have had the opportunity offered me in here.
Anyway I just had to stop and think about this. I often go back to that young man’s story, which is not known in too much detail. Bill W. was familiar with him. In fact the man, who came to Bill in the beginning of all of this had been shown what was called the Oxford Movement by this man, and he passed it on to Bill. Bill later got in touch with Dr. Jung before the the doctor passed away and told him about the young man he had treated. In fact kind of gave the doctor a lot of credit for this program back then. It’s about people like Bill and Dr. Bob, and all who followed that we are able to succeed in having sobriety.
Just grateful, happy, for all I have been given. Like my sponsor pointed out to me, I’m not responsible for my getting sober and finding this program, but I am responsible for staying sober and putting this program into action. Nice.