When I was two years sober, I was out to dinner with my wife and my in-laws. There was quite a bit of drinking going on, but it didn’t bother me. After dinner we went into the alcohol store next to the restaurant. The owner told all of my in-laws that they could go into the lockers and help themselves to beer, and they did. And then one of them took a coke bottle out and tossed it over to me, because they knew that I didn’t drink anymore.
I caught the bottle and was instantly driven into an insane way of thinking. I thought I was going to go and open the locker and get alcohol, and if anyone got in my way I thought I would kill them. My wife looked at me and asked me what was wrong with me. I must have had a look of insanity on my face. I told her what was going on with me. She looked at me and told me that I needed to step outside of the door and pray. I did that and it worked. The insanity was gone and I was freed of the drive to drink.
The BB tells us that there may come a time when we will have no defense against that first drink. And there is nothing which can help us. We need to be able to pray and ask our Higher Power to relieve us of that drive to drink. And that’s the answer. And I look back and think of how blind I was and only my wife did for me what I couldn’t do for myself. Grateful to her and my Higher Power for that.
The reason I thought about this today was that someone brought up the question that they were going to go to some social event where there was going to be drinking and their sponsor told them to ask for help from the alcoholics at the meeting we were at today. I didn’t tell the above incident during the meeting, but I went up to them after the meeting and told them the whole thing, including the statement in the BB.,Hopefully they might have listened to what I and others said today. I know there are times in our lives, when what happened to me could happen to others. I’ve seen that too often before.
Anyway, it was a reminder once again of why I am here today. And that’s to stay sober one day at a time. Never want to forget that. Need to stop and once again thank my Higher Power, my old sponsor, those old timers back then, and all those around me today. I am grateful for all the help I have been given.