Each and everyday I hopefully begin with prayers and thoughts about staying sober. May seem to be something I need to do in order to stay sober. Why? After all I haven’t had a drink of alcohol for a long long time. Isn’t it enough to get up and go to meetings?
And yet I can never forget those last few days, in fact the last day, when I was still drinking alcohol. And that’s something I can never ever forget. I can close my eyes and see that bar I was sitting in drinking those last drinks. I can almost remember everything going on then. Sitting and looking into that mirror behind the bar and thinking those awful thoughts, which were leading to my going out and committing suicide. The despair I went through is right in that thought.
I guess I’ve often written the fact that I did not know anything about alcoholism. Nor did I know about this program. All I knew was that I could not go on with life the way alcohol was dragging me down into darkness. Again, despair. No hope.
However, just as back then, I can still see that bartender, a moonlighting US Army soldier, who, when I started to leave and kill myself, grabbed my wrist and pulled me back, and asked if he could help me. I have never had any idea how he knew what was going on. But he brought a friend from work next door, who came over and told me what he had heard, when medically treating a man the day before, who asked him why he was drinking alcohol he smelled on him. That man told him about this program and what he said gave me hope for the first time in years.
That was the night I finally went back and prayed. I begged God to free me from the bondage alcohol had over me. I told the God as I was praying that I would also want to give up the life I was living and I’d be willing to do anything God wanted me to do. I fell asleep that night and woke up and alcohol was gone. It really has never returned in all of this time. Five days later I was able to come into this program and have never gone away since.
And here I am starting another day where I want to stay sober once again. It’s only one day at a time that I do this. That’s what my old sponsor and this program have taught me. I never want to forget this. When I came in I was convinced that I knew what I was doing and I thought I could stay sober on my own for the rest of my life. A day at a time? No. And that’s where this program showed me the danger I would be in, if I continued that thought. And all I had to do was today.
After I was shown this dedication, I realized how dangerous it was to believe I would never ever drink again. I later realized that if I was to do this, someplace along the line, I would forget. That’s when i began to learn that this is a genetic disease within me. Not just a habit. I can always remember that woman, who was a social drinker and forty years old. And at forty she suddenly lost control and ended up almost dying from the alcoholic rampage she had fallen into. I knew a doctor, who knew something about this, who told me about the nature of this disease. He told me that part of that is a “clock” in each one of us, which opens the door to the rampage of alcohol, when the time is right within us. That also reminded me of the fact that I had drank on and off for years, with no craving for alcohol. And then I drank one night with my older brother and that’s when alcohol took over my life. That I have never forgotten either.
Anyway I needed to stop and think about this today. I’m grateful now that I can stay sober this day. It has worked for me for so long now. Doesn’t mean my life is perfect by any means. The only thing is that I can do this by dedicating myself to sobriety from alcohol one day at a time. The result is that I have been given peace and happiness. A way of life, which has restored my sanity, and also given me a spiritual awakening. I have been able to develop hope, faith, and love. Compassion for others. A new way of life. I am grateful for this and more within. I need to say thanks to my Higher Power, this program and all the people within it, who have helped to change me.