Thank you Carlotta for starting this thread.
I came into AA in 1978 after three treatment centers, two detoxes and a half-way house; I was 13 years old. My welcome wasn't universal but it was a good mix - many believed that there was no way I could be an alcoholic at such a young age but there were many who accepted me and welcomed me. The former group were sufficient for me to stay sober on a resentment and I did so for seven years.
It is said that our sobriety is contingent upon the maintenance of a spiritual program. Though not intended as an excuse, there is some difficulty maintaining a spiritual program when you are killing people. By twenty years old I had been a combat veteran for three years and I sought an escape and relapsed. During the next seven years, I didn't draw a sober breath. I found crack immediately and within a week was smoking an ounce a day.
Seven years into my relapse my addict wife was in prison for life without the possibility of parole, I was facing seventy years myself and I was dying. Without hope that the program could offer me anything in the way of help but lost with no options, I went to an NA meeting. A few days later I decided I would get clean and sober or die. I did both. During detox I was pronounced dead after my heart stopped and stayed stopped for six minutes. Then I wasn't. I was mostly dead with a pulse, brain damage, nerve damage...they are still with me today. That was twenty-one years ago. I am still clean and sober.
My wife's conviction was overturned to life with the possibility of parole and she was released 19 months ago after serving twenty-four years in prison. About four or five months ago she relapsed. After getting caught by her parole officer and facing life without, we won another chance and she served only twenty days. Three days later she relapsed again. That relapse terrified her as she knew without a shadow of a doubt that she would never use again after her twenty days in jail...
She went to treatment for twenty-eight days and today has seventy days clean. She's been going to NA meetings every day - usually two or three a day, is doing step work diligently with her sponsor and has gotten very active in service work - even last night baking cookies for the first time to take them to a meeting.
They were good cookies.
I've been going to Nar-Anon from the moment I learned of her first relapse and am really enjoying it. Anywho - just a quickie introduction and I look forward to visiting this thread often.