When the drinking stops, the alcoholism persists.

The alcohol was but a symptom of the alcoholism. When the drinking stops, the alcoholism persists. There are ways to have a daily reprieve from alcoholism, and to have the only creditably that matters, from your higher power.




With so many alcoholics, myself included, we stop drinking and start to take recovery seriously. My experience in 2003 was this. I was working to get my Juris Doctorate at a local university and had just emerged from a serious bender with legal implications of the unfavorable variety. I was cursing myself for being so foolish and knowing through my whole drinking career I needed help. I did not know what to do or where to turn but I had limited experience with AA prior and my step mothers words echoed in my mind "one million sober drunks cant be wrong" . So to a local AA group I went.




I was an absolute mess, spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. My heart hurt, my fear of not being able to pass the ethical part of the bar loomed, and I was by far the most educated person in the room. I found a home group and got as involved as I could while collecting chips and gaining the requisite time to do a more fitting job for my group other than making coffee or cleaning up. I became treasurer after one year and was happy to have the responsibility warranted a person on my career path. I felt I was successful in not drinking, that people respected my program.




The truth of the matter was I sounded great in the rooms but as soon as I got out of a meeting I was a dry drunk. My anger was building, the pot wasn't helping, and I was too lazy and busy to work with my sponsor. Anybody who had anything to say in the realm of criticism was a simple minded fool and couldn't articulate their argument to dethrone my way of thinking. I had figured out this not drinking thing. Nobody was going to tell me different.




One fateful night they did. The chair of our candle light meeting said "we have a problem. The kids from the halfway house are coming over to the candle light and talking about things other than drinking." I said "big deal, what do you want me to do about it?" I pointed out that these other things were symptoms of the spiritual malady and that they were welcome here. He disagreed and pointed to the fundamental AA tenant that alcoholics suffer from a dichotomous disease; the mental obsession with alcohol, and the phenomenon of craving after the first drink. I didn't know the Dr.'s opinion well and threw it out as just an excuse to keep people out. Regardless of the merits of each argument the resentment was laid. I said "fuck AA, fuck this group, I am done. I am not going to be disrespected for my time as treasure by some low life drunk."




And like that I was out of AA. I unplugged, I stopped going to meetings, i stopped calling a sponsor, I was done. Then a few months later a moment to bond with an in law came up involving some drinking. I said what the hell, its only one......The relapse had begun.....




Now that I am removed from my relapse by six years and have one super solid year of sobriety and one completed trip through the steps I can clearly see the error of my ways. The first was arrogance.




I was smarter and different than everybody. I knew more about this simple program since I could read and write legalese. This time around I knew I didn't know shit about recovery and that I needed to shut up and listen to the people with lots of sobriety. Especially someone with several sponsees who had their own sponsees. The inverse of arrogance, which I didn't have, was humility. I couldn't let myself be wrong and I couldn't let people be differing in opinion. Today I accept there are many ways to recovery, I have benefited from one. This also begs a discussion for acceptance which I have written about prior.




The second was not practicing these principles in all of my affairs. Like I said earlier, I sounded good in meetings. When I left the meeting, anything would set me off; coworkers, bosses, my then girlfriend, cars in traffic, bill collectors, family, you name it I was pissed off. Today I have a spiritual toolkit to use when my thinking starts to spin out. I can stop and remind myself that I am expecting people, places, and things, to be as I would have them. This is wrong thinking. Once I release them to be as god would have them I am free to be humble and of service. If I don't rid myself of expectations these turn into resentments and carrying resentments can lead to disastrous results, look at what happened to me. If I cant shake a resentment I have the 10th step to remove the thinking. If I cant get past it I get to do a 4th step inventory and a subsequent 5th step with my sponsor. This is truly amazing stuff that reminds my I don't have to let the alcoholism persist. I can practice these principles in all of my affairs.




Although I have a working program of recovery today I realize that I cannot let my guard down. I have to continually work at my recovery, a day at a time, to stay in a good place. I simply cannot take a course on recovery, get my certificate, and be on my merry way. Recovery is for life, and for this I am grateful.