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August 2010

This is the story of my family and what AA has done for us. This is a sober story. Suffice it to say we all belong. It starts with my father: I was almost 5 the first time he quit drinking. My mother had threatened to leave him before, but this time she had packed our bags. There were four of us kids and another on the way. My mother would have had no choice but to go on welfare and somehow survive with us.

My father promised to stop drinking and see a psychologist. He even went to a couple of AA meetings and decided to stick with therapy. This worked for almost nine years. Things improved greatly financially. A couple of years later my mom and dad bought a piece of property and began to build their dream home.

About a year before we were able to move in, my dad started drinking again. He had become an everyday drinker. Instead of disappearing for a couple of weeks at a time, he now had the opportunity to drink all day. Any shouting that happened between him and my mother we kids chalked up to the added stress of building this huge house for us.

We moved in and a few months later I came home from school to find a realtor’s lock on the house. When I asked my mother what was going on she said that they needed to show the house to figure out the value.

I had started drinking and taking drugs a few years before and was now beginning to get into trouble because of it. My brother, who is one year younger than me, started drinking. He and I got into all kinds of trouble over the next few years. Things were getting progressively worse, and I noticed that I never saw my dad anymore except at work.

My mom told me that my father was an alcoholic and that he was going to AA to try to stop drinking. My dad seemed like a good businessman, didn’t get arrested and didn’t beat my mom. In other words, he seemed normal. He was my first impression of an alcoholic.

My father knew that if he ever drank again he would lose everything. He jumped into AA with both feet. He was going to meetings, a lot of them, and things got better for him. My brother and I, on the other hand, couldn’t stay out of trouble or the police station, and the two youngest boys were just trying to stay out of the way.

Just as I turned 18, I got into more trouble with my brother. Because I had no record, I got a fine. My brother was about to have to go to the training school (juvenile hall), but my dad got the judge to sentence him to AA instead. He started to go to meetings. After a couple of months, he told me he was going to give this sober thing a try. Who quits drinking when they’re 17?

I took off to college for one semester, and when I came back my brother had turned into someone I barely recognized. He talked about being a good guy and wanting to get along with everyone.

What radical ideas were they filling his head with at those AA meetings? We had spent good quality partying time together. Now it seemed that AA was going to take him away from me. In his senior year he made the honor roll and he went off to college.

In the meantime my life was spinning quickly out of control. I ended up in a detox. It was not a pleasurable experience. They talked to me in great detail about my drinking, but I was convinced that my drinking was out of control because I was taking painkillers.

Still, when I left the detox I came to AA. A lot of people seemed to know my name and I began to understand what “saving a seat for me” meant. I stayed sober for three months and went out for a night. When I woke up in the morning I couldn’t believe what had happened. I drank with little or no control. I had not done any drugs so that wasn’t the problem. I was definitely an alcoholic. It was devastating.

I came to AA for the next six months but couldn’t seem to stay sober for more than a couple of days. I never considered how hard that must have been for my dad and brother to watch until years later. I drank for the next three years with little or no thought to the consequences. I was going to die an alcoholic.

A lot of AAs tried to give me a message of hope, but I was lost. I did pay attention to a few people who talked to me about things they wanted to do in their life and then somehow did. I could argue about what people said but not about the way they lived. The difference between them and me was that they were sober. After three years I got into an accident and, to please my mother, I returned to AA. I knew I would end up drinking again. I was doomed.

I had several resentments against AA. In my mind, AA had turned my father into an old softy and my brother into a “tree hugger” who talked about walking the earth softly with God. What on earth happened to the hell-raiser I knew? But I couldn’t deny that they were both much, much happier than when they were drinking.

What happened was that five older guys (my dad’s friends) took me under their wing. None of them seemed impressed with what I had to say, and they were far less impressed with what I was thinking. They practiced ego deflation at depth on me. After six or seven months, a little bit of hope crept into my life. Maybe if I just continued to follow the suggestions that these guys were giving me, I could stay sober too.

Right after my first year I got a call from my youngest brother. He was away at college and found himself in some trouble. My other sober brother and I went to see him. His drinking was out of control and he wanted to stop. He was 18, and had watched what had happened to us and didn’t want to go down that road. We took him to a meeting. When the semester was over and he returned home, we brought him around to the local meetings, where he began to get active. He talked about how hard it was to be honest when everyone knows your family and expects you to be as sober as they are.

A woman started coming to our group around the same time as my brother. She was a piece of work! She was in the middle of a messy divorce, worked as a waitress and bartender, and had attitude written all over her. I was sure that she was going to end up drinking and I wanted nothing to do with her. But after a year and a half we began to talk a little and found that we had much more in common than either of us thought. We began dating and eventually got married.

A few years after I’d come into the program, my sister began to let stories slip about how much her husband was drinking, and some problems that were beginning to pop up. His life had all the earmarks of an alcoholic life. Finally my sister had enough and asked him to leave. He decided to come to AA in the hopes of saving the marriage. Their relationship has gotten better. It still catches me off guard when we talk about how God works in our lives today. We never argue about the outcome of our surrender anymore.

A year after my father helped my brother-in-law into AA, my father got a call from my aunt: Would he be willing to talk with her new husband about his drinking? He didn’t think going to AA was a bad thing. He just didn’t see the point in it. Still, after talking with my father he began to attend a few meetings regularly. Shortly after that he stopped drinking. He continues to attend meetings and he no longer wants to drink. My sister-in-law also got sober over the next few years.

Then my daughter began to have troubles with alcohol. There were a few instances that worried me, but there is one I will always remember. I was at work on a Saturday when I got the call that she had been involved in a car accident and I needed to get to the trauma center as quickly as I could. My wife was just getting there as I arrived. We were told that the accident had happened late the night before and that my daughter was not waking up. Her head had struck a telephone pole; she had shattered her orbital bones and her face was swollen and cut all over.

We were scared beyond words and weren’t prepared to handle any of this. When we went back to the waiting room to let the doctors work on her, we couldn’t believe what was waiting for us. When my wife got the call, she had made two phone calls. One was to my office, and the other to a friend because she didn’t think she could drive herself to the hospital.

In the waiting room were about 30 of our friends and family, ready to support us through this in any way they could. Two phone calls. Not a guy who was prone to tears at the time, I fell into their arms and let the tears come. I have never been more amazed at the power of the group than I was that morning. It also reminded me of the countless emergencies when my parents had to come see their son.

Our daughter healed in time, but her drinking continued to escalate. It was obvious to everyone that her drinking was out of control, but the last thing she wanted to do was go to AA. It broke my heart to know that the answer was so close to her.

I talked with my dad often about how much pain I must have put him through with my drinking. It seemed karma was working overtime in my life. We surrendered to the fact that we might have to watch her die.

At a July 4th picnic we got a call from her, asking for help. She came kicking and screaming into AA. It was so familiar to me that I couldn’t breathe. I’d gotten sober by the skin of my teeth, and I had wanted it to be easier for my daughter. Again this brought me closer to my dad. All he told me was that I had to trust that AA and God could handle her.

Eventually, she asked one of our best friends to be her sponsor and started to work the Steps into her life. When she sits on our couch now it is to laugh. She has friends who are sober and she doesn’t want to drink anymore. She still doesn’t want to have to belong to AA, but recognizes the need for it. Recently she gave birth to our first grandchild. We could not be happier. This may be the first child born on either side of our family to sober parents. Our hope is that the legacy of alcoholism will stop here.

When I speak at meetings I usually wind it up by giving the legacy of sobriety that is my family. My father came to AA 31 years ago, heard a message of hope and recovery, and hasn’t had to drink since. My brother came to AA when he was 17—27 years ago—and hasn’t had to drink since. I am 23 years sober. My wife is 22 years sober. My other brother is 22 years sober. My brother-in-law is 18 years sober. My uncle is 17 years sober. My sister-in-law is 14 years sober. And my beautiful daughter is four years sober. That’s 178 years around my dinner table.

Not all of my family has made it to our rooms. My aunt died from the devastation of her stomach and esophagus caused by her drinking. I buried my 42-year-old cousin on the night of my 17th anniversary. His death was due to liver failure. Both had known of AA and had also watched what it could do for someone. It just wasn’t enough for them to surrender.

I don’t know what it is that has brought so many of my family to our Fellowship. I don’t believe that God’s grace extended to me and not to my cousin. I don’t believe that all the people I have witnessed in AA who have died from this disease were any more or less capable of being honest with themselves. We are all broken. The key to accepting a spiritual way of life came from that brokenness in me. Without surrender I don’t stand a chance.

I am always aware that people are watching to see if this AA thing really changes someone’s life, or if we just white-knuckle it. I tell them that I grow more in love with my wife every day. We are beyond just being satisfied. I have keys to all my families’ houses and we get together as often as we can. We are a loud bunch who love to sing and dance and laugh together. We never end a conversation without saying “I love you.” We have more friends than we can readily spend time with.

I am living a life far beyond anything I ever dreamed possible.

Alan D.

Pascoag, Rhode Island