My Story

[jimhere]

My name is Jim and I am a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was rendered sober on January 15th, 1991. For that I am profoundly grateful. It just occured to me today that I've now been sober as long as I drank.

I've told this story many times, but never in the medium of the written word, so I'm not sure how I'm going to go about it. I tend not to start at the beginning and go to the end when I speak, but to ramble around. My story has no real beginning-I'll expound on that in a few sentences; and with the exception of what I hope was my last drink, has no ending. And even that was not an ending, but a beginning. My sobriety has been a series of surrenders and awakenings. One thing I have awakened to is that my story, or my sobriety if you will, is not for me. My hope here is to convey to any newcomer who may be reading this that there is nothing to fear on this path.

I used to believe that my journey started when I got sober, but looking back it started well before that. Actually, it started before I ever took the first drink. I've been a searcher and a seeker my whole life. I do not believe that I always drank to escape, except at the end, when it was to blot out the consciousness of what I had become and what my life had turned into. I believe I was looking for something. For what, I had no idea at the time. Years before I took that first drink I had a sense of being different, of being torn within with conflict, with unease and discontent. I knew I was different, but didn't want to be. I could blame my condition on many things, mostly outside influences-family, home, schools, etc. Later on in life it was the wife, the job, never enough of anything, always it was "out there," or "them," or just a vague and mysterious sense of ache and longing. I didn't know that those worldly clamors came from within.

That is what I brought to alcohol just before I turned fourteen. I remember the effect that alcohol had on me-it took and "outsider" and made him an "insider" All of the sudden I was where I wanted to be, with who I wanted to be with, doing what I wanted to be doing, when I wanted to be doing it. That is a spiritual awakening and it is no mistake that alcohol has been called spirits for centuries. The effect was powerful, profound, and instantanteous. I chased it for the next seventeen years.

Other things happened of course-I drank too much, too fast, I got sick, did foolish things. Over the years, these foolish things became tragic. I didn't know that these things were the result of a phenomenon called craving that happens when I drink alcohol.I thought I was just crazy; yet it was a price I was willing to pay for that few seconds when I felt like a part of life. As the years went on, the effect became less and less. There was trouble-being asked to leave my mother's house at age seventeen, trouble with the law, with friends, with the marriage, but the worst was the trouble inside. I couldn't stop when it became a necessity. I always thought I could, but I didn't know the problem was centered in my mind and rooted in a spiritual malady.

I came to my first A.A. meeting ten years before I got sober. I went to four treatment facilities. I went to churches. I saw counselors and one pyschiatrist. I still thought my problem was outside of me and therefore the solution would be outside of me. What I know now is when I run from the problem, I run from the solution. By the end of my drinking, my life was a shambles-my family would have nothing to do with me and there was no place left to go. Thank God, because if there was, I would have went there. In the middle of November 1990, it was the beginning of the end. I was at the tail-end of a four day bender in a flea bag motel. I was alone. I was graced with the truth and gifted with desperation. I called A.A. and you came. Two men came to see that morning. They gave me their time. Time is another word for love in A.A. Those men were messengers of God to me that day. I didn't get sober that day, but the treatment I was given kept me coming around. Two months later, the power of God seperated me from alcohol. I can't even choose the day I get sober, much less the day I drink again.

In time, I encountered some men who were doing the steps and living a radically different way of life than what I had seen before. You could see it in their lives and tell by what they said. They said that they could show me precisely how they had recovered. I was shown how to take the steps and make them a way of living. I was told that my life would make sense to me, and it does today. Today I know what my life is about because I have been given power, purpose, and direction. I've been entrusted with great responsibility. I could fill pages with the experience of making amends, of the priviledge of being allowed to participate in the lives of others that goes way beyond the superficiality of casual acquaintance.

In closing, I have found what I was looking for. The story goes on forever because the Reality of God is immense beyond imagination. Sometimes I get caught up in the alcoholic warcry of "Where's mine?" I just retreat a bit, clear away what blocks me and then find myself awed by the immensity of what is mine. I have found true freedom of the spirit and found that my mind is not always a "dangerous neighborhood to go into alone." In fact, my neighborhood can be as big as eternity. Over the years I've been sober I've experienced there have been peaks, valleys, indescribable joy and sorrow that can't be put into words. I have experienced a God that is beyond thought, words, and emotion. There have surrenders beyond surrenders and bottoms beyond bottoms. I've made many mistakes and will make many more. In living the human experience, I've found true spiritual experience.

There is no magic in Alcoholics Anonymous, what we have here is real and permanent and lasting. They told me that I would never have to drink alcohol again in my life. To this point they haven't lied and it has stood the test of time. Life has not been pain free, they didn't promise that, but it has been rewarding and rich beyond measure. Thanks for giving me the space to tell my story.
Jim W.