Double Digits
On this morning ten years ago, I woke up and said goodbye to my best (and my worst) friend. After 12 years of attempting to drink like a lady, I was finally willing to surrender to the fact that I was a slave to alcohol and that it was ruining every good thing about my life. I was unwilling to say that I was giving it up for good and told everyone in my life that I was willing to try AA for a year. I even found a sponsor who told me that she would buy me a drink if I still wanted to have one on my year anniversary. Not only do I love a good challenge, I always think that I am the exception to the rule. I was convinced that there was a loophole in AA for me. I was convinced that I wasn’t as bad as everyone else. Surely, I would beat the odds, find a way to clean up my past, and move forward in a casual relationship with my former master.
Ten years, several sponsors, four therapists, hundreds of shitty cups of coffee, three existential crises, one sociopathic president, and one pandemic later…I’m here to tell you that there is a solution and it looks nothing like what I thought it did. For me, and countless others, the solution lies in helping others. I’ve had moments when I have come really close to giving it all up. Most recently it was on an airplane, on the way home from my last vacation in 2019. I was one tiny bit of willingness away from giving up nine years. The only thing that kept me sober was that I had plans to speak at meeting later that evening. Most people wouldn’t dream of speaking in front of a group of 30+ people a few hours after a transatlantic flight, but there has always been a willingness in me to say “yes” to service and I know, without any doubt, that is that willingness that has kept me sober for another year.
Ten years ago, my biggest dream was to be able to look in the mirror and not dislike the person staring back at me. Obviously, I had hopes and aspirations outside of loving myself, but at the very core of my being, that was the biggest motivation to give the road of recovery a real try. It only took about sixty days of living my life without alcohol for me to find that self-love that I was looking for. One morning, I looked at myself in the mirror and was shocked to see who was looking back at me. No longer hiding behind bloodshot eyes, I was staring at a person who had gotten very lost but had somehow found the way home.
The first time my sponsor read the Doctor’s opinion to me, my heart swelled at the words “Though perhaps he came to scoff, he may remain to pray.” Of all the words I’ve read in my life, these ones might mean more to me than any others. In Alcoholics Anonymous, I’ve found friendship, I’ve found hope, I’ve found faith, and I have found myself. Over and over again.
