Every time I run into someone, who has been around a long time, yet, who goes back out and drinks again and again, my mind asks why? I know how powerful alcohol is for people like us. I’m an alcoholic and I was possessed by alcohol. I couldn’t stop drinking no matter how many times I tried. It owned me. I was a slave to alcohol. I guess it’s just that.
I ran across a man I have known for quite a while in here. I’ve seen him do what we all do. Have a problem with alcohol and come to this program and try to stop drinking. Been here a long time and have watched others, one after another. Some come, surrender, and stop drinking and stay stopped. Others, like this man, do the same thing, but cannot stay away from a drink. Any excuse will serve them to pick up a drink once again.
When I spoke to him earlier, before the meeting, I mentioned the importance of pain. Suffering. It changed my whole life. He looked at me and said he was in great pain. I told him that was perfect. It worked for me. I could only hope it would work for him.
The program talks about this. The Fifth Tradition talks about carrying the message to the alcoholic, who suffers. Suffering is what changed me. I was in deep despair. I couldn’t go on living with what I was going through. The First Step in the 12&12 talks about this that we need to be in pain. It’s what gets us to surrender to our being powerless over alcohol and to listen as only the dying can listen.
When the man, who came to help me, a friend, still a practicing alcoholic at that time, I listened to him, when he said there was a place where men and women met and stayed sober together. That message suddenly changed what was going on within me. For the first time in years I finally had hope. And that hope was what got me to pray to God for the first time in a long time. To ask that I be relieved of alcohol and to stop living the way of life I was living. I said I’d be willing to whatever God wanted me to do.
I could only look at this man during the meeting and hope that he was listening as only the dying can listen. I hoped he had enough pain to seek the answer we all need. To surrender and accept this way of life, free from alcohol a day at a time. I’ve seen so many succeed in doing this, that it always renews hope and definitely faith that this program works.
Anyway, as the meeting went on, I hoped he would find the answer he needed to do as we all have done in the past. To be in enough pain and find the hope that there is a solution to what he’s suffering from. His alcoholism. And to surrender and accept and believe that there is an answer. The same answer we all found and which changed us.
I have to be grateful for all that I have found in here as a result of being able to surrender. In all of this time in here I have been relieved of having to desire a drink of alcohol. I never want to drink again. Ever. I am so grateful, and, as always, I am grateful that I can stop and think about why I am here once more. I’m here to stay sober one day at a time. I can only hope that young man can also find this.