Once again I was reminded today about my alcoholism. Not any thoughts of drinking alcohol, but what is behind it and how did I get it. After I was sober a while I learned how I was given my alcohol as a disease. I discovered it was my father, and all the male members in our family.
Up to that point I never knew anything about the nature of alcoholism. In fact, I had been drinking alcohol for so many years that I had no knowledge of it’s cause within us. Back then there was no knowledge publicly about alcoholism being a disease. In fact there were few, if any, physicians dealing with it as an illness. There were no detoxes, no rehabs, no hospitals in general taking care of alcoholics.
I had never heard of AA, or alcoholism. All I knew was that I was drinking all day, and often into 4:30 a.m. Also I was going through a lot of dangerous situations, such as shootings, knife attacks, and other things. I finally had slipped into total despair and was getting ready to commit suicide. I was on my way out the door of his bar next to where we worked, so that I could step in front of these very fast buses in the city we lived in.
That was when a drinking friend of mine came up to me and told me what had happened to him that morning, when he was treating a man, who turned out to be an alcoholic in AA. He told me that the man had told him about a meeting of sober alcoholics, who could help us, if we wanted them to. We could go to a meeting with them in four days and they would help us.
That gave me what I so desperately needed. Hope. I went home and knelt down and prayed to my concept of God. I asked my Higher Power to take alcohol away, and I would do whatever He wanted me to do. I fell asleep. The next day I woke up and the alcohol was gone. I never even thought about a drink until that night, but didn’t want a drink even then.
I have never had a drink since then. I came into this program and began to change. I was able to listen to these old timers in here. My first sponsor and a friend of ours, both with ten years away from alcohol, slipped back into drinking again, got drunk from resentments they had, and died. That woke me up and I got a new sponsor, an old timer, who woke me up. He told me that I didn’t know that I didn’t know. I only thought I did. And, for some reason, it made sense to me.
That’s when he opened the doors for me, by introducing me to the Second Step. The spiritual way of life and a relationship with my concept of the God of my understanding.
Over time in here, a day at a time, I began to change. I’ll stop for now. It is enough to help me talk to new people, like I did today. It once again reminded me of all I have been given up to date, and hopefully helped me to reach out with others to talk to this new man. Hope, faith, and love within. Gratitude and peace of mind. Compassion and caring, freely giving what was freely given to me. I need to say “Thank you” to my Higher Power and all those who have helped me through the years.