The Traditions and an alcoholic death were the topics today at our meeting. A young woman, a relative of a member, had just died as the result of her alcoholism. Not a pleasant thought.
However that is always the result of drinking alcohol for an alcoholic, unless we’re fortunate enough to find this program. I can’t help but think of this, when I hear such a story. That’s because I know first hand from my own experience. Alcohol almost cost me my life. I was ready to kill myself, because I could not stop drinking. Fortunately for me someone told me about AA.
I also know from my own experience that we cannot promote this program to a real alcoholic. I tried that with my younger brother and the rage that broke out I think drove him away from the program. I really don’t know, but it didn’t work. And, in the end, it was what probably took his life. Enough.
These traditions tell us that very fact. It’s attraction not promotion, which enables alcoholics to come in and get sober. If they want it. That was what happened to me and so many others I have known through the years. I had to learn, like so many others, that alcohol kills. It’s here we learn the fatal nature of this disease. I learned, as did others, that we have to accept and surrender to our being powerless over this disease.
I thank my Higher Power that I did.
I also learned that families are not able to help the alcoholic get sober, unless it’s by example, not preaching or words. I can only imagine how frustrating it is for families to see strangers able to do what they could not.
It’s a reminder to me how much a part humility plays in achieving sobriety. On the part of the alcoholic and those who love them. In fact I think of how big a part humility plays in all of this. The fact that alcoholics are willing to put their self centered egos aside for the good of the group, which allows AA to grow and exist and help alcoholics like me. The unity of the group. Able to practice that Fifth Tradition.
Anyway, as difficult it is to hear such stories, which I have witnessed over and over again, it is a blessing for those of us fortunate enough to be sober and be here and open to helping those, who want it. Makes people like me and others, whom I talked to afterward, so grateful.