Three days before I walked into my first AA meeting I was getting ready
for bed when I realized I hadn’t thought about a drink the whole day. I
found this strange because I was unemployed and had been getting drunk
twice a day for the past eight months. I had been drinking for the
better part of thirty years, yet the thought of a drink seemed to be the
furthest thing from my mind. What had happened?
Earlier
that day I spent my last $3700 on my Visa card to enroll in a treatment
program recommended by a therapist. But the program wasn’t to begin for
two days. No one suggested that I quit right away, but I was one day
sober as I laid my head down on the pillow and turned out the lights.
It was April 29, 1994.
I enrolled in the treatment
program because I didn’t know what else to do. Life had been leaking out
of me for many years. I had no interest or enthusiasm in looking for a
job or anything else besides watching lame daytime television with a big
tumbler of cheap red wine and my overflowing ashtray. There was no
technicolor in my life, only shades of gray. I wasn’t really sure
alcohol was the problem, but I was out of ideas. I had to try something
-- anything.
In AA I learned I received grace -- a free
gift I did nothing to earn. In removing the obsession, God did for me
what I could never hope to do for myself. Apparently, without know it at
the time, I asked God for help when I went to the therapist and
enrolled in the treatment program. Help is what I needed twenty years
ago and its what I need today. I ask for help every time I show up at a
meeting, work a step and connect with another alcoholic. If I want to
stay sober I must continue to ask for help by taking the actions that
were suggested in my first week.