Becoming Ready

I’m coming to believe I needed every single painful experience to become ready for the miracle of recovery. I needed to drink every drink, take every drug, and tell every lie. I needed the two drunk driving arrest with nights in jail; the divorce; the bankruptcy; all the arguments with loved ones; the stupid decisions; the job losses; flunking out of college; and all the rest. I couldn’t have done with one less of anything. Which drink could I have passed up?

The Bedevilments on page 52 of our book describe what it was like for me before AA.  I was having trouble with personal relationships. I lived with the loneliness I believe only alcoholics truly understand. I was filled with resentment and simmering anger. I was taking Prozac for depression. I was unemployed and running out of money but unable to muster up the energy to look for work. I woke up every morning with an ache of fear in my gut. I wasn’t any real help to other people because I didn’t really care about other people unless they had something I wanted. I had no energy or enthusiasm for anything other than drinking and using. I was dead inside. Toward the end, everything was shades of gray. I drank for technicolor.

I’m so grateful for the “what it was like” part of my story. I needed all the pain I suffered over my thirty year drinking career to become ready to receive the priceless gift of willingness. Today I consider my alcoholism a blessing. There’s no way I could have traveled from where I was twenty five years ago to where I am today without having a disease that was going to kill me unless I treated it spiritually.