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Planting the Seed

It was 1988, six years before my last drink. Bill S., a massage therapist, came to our home once a week to massage my wife and me. He always came right after I came home from work before dinner. Since it was cocktail hour I would gulp a couple of quick scotches before my massage. Just to get relaxed you know.

I remember Bill talking a little about AA while he worked on me. Then one day he showed up with a Big Book and a Twelve and Twelve. I skimmed them over drinks one night and promptly gave them to a friend who "really" needed them.

It was about this time that my marriage broke up. Since both of us got drunk and argued virtually every night, I decided not to drink for a while. I was a week or so without a drink when Bill came over for my massage. I told him I wasn't drinking, but I wasn't ready to quit for good.

Was there anything else besides AA? Bill said, "well you can go to ACA." "What's that?" I asked. "It's Adult Children of Alcoholics" he said. "To go there you don't have to admit that you're an alcoholic, you just have to admit that your father was." No problem.

I ended up going to ACA meetings staying sober for thirteen months, even working a few of the Steps. Life got better. But of course, my father wasn't the real problem, I was. The inability to admit that I was an alcoholic sentenced me to four years of a downward spiral into full blown alcoholism. But the seed was planted.