36 Today:)
According to my late sponsor, I took my last drink on Saturday 9 Feb 1980. I got my self to AA with the help of a very kind 12 stepper who spent his entire Sunday afternoon with me. I was at death's door and only 22 years of age. I didn't know much about the drinking problem, all I knew was I wanted the misery and madness to stop, and I was willing to do anything to make that happen.
I went to meetings, I got a sponsor, I took antabuse, I took the steps. I didn't really have any faith, I felt hopeless, I didn't think I would last 21 days, my previous record. 21 days is such a long time. I never even took a note of the day I stopped.
I had no belief in a god, no experience of a happy sober life, all sobriety had been miserable in my experience.
Three months later, I am into step nine, my sponsor rings and tells me I have 3 months up! I couldn't believe it. While I was plodding away with the steps, the desire to drink had gone and it never came back. The whole world seemed to change at that point, from cold and forbiding to warm and welcoming.
My ideas and attitudes changed too, though often in spite of my self.
As I look back over 36 years of continuous sobriety, the striking thing for me is that none of it was my work. I never succeeded in changing a single thing about myself, I did not engineer my own recovery, nor lay out my life plan. I don't think I had much to do with it at all. The things that happened in my life, the doors that opened, the people I came to know and love, have all been beyond anything I could have imagined.
I came to AA a non believer who was willing to believe if I got some proof. I followed some simple suggestions and I got my proof. The central foundation of my sobriety today is a loving God as I understand him through experiencing the work he has done on me. My relationship with Him has enabled me to withstand all that life has thrown at me without the need for a drink, and it has given me the freedom to go anywhere that free men can go. In fact it has given me total freedom from alcohol and/or the influence of alcohol in my life. And it has been done pretty much in spite of myself (That means the credit goes to Him not me)
Thank you for being here and sharing this moment with me.
Just a parting thought. I found the steps impossible to understand in advance. I took the action first, and the understanding came some time later.