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May 1992

AUGUST 5, 1960 marks the end of what I pray was my last drunken episode. It was a two-day affair, spent mostly in a blackout. It occurred after eleven months of meetings and so-called “sobriety,” triggered by a resentment I’d been nursing for several weeks against a coworker. This was the catalyst for a long overdue, genuine bottom. I was nearly twenty-eight.

I passed out in a restaurant booth, head on a table, in the most grungy, low-life bar in town—par for me by then. When I came to, the clock on the wall read 9:15 AM—or was it PM? Bleary eyes slowly focused on the half-glass of warm beer in front of me; there it sat, the symbol and true cause of all the misery and wreckage in my life.

A sickening knowledge struck me full on: alcohol no longer worked. My best friend and reliable source of comfort for years was now a mortal enemy out to kill me.

A power greater than compulsion prevented me from finishing that stale beer. Staggering out of the bar into the darkness, I somehow found my beat-up sedan, crawled into it, fired the engine, and hand over one eye, headed for home and family, ten miles away over dark, winding back roads.

God watches over drunks and fools; the car and I arrived safely, not at my house, but at my neighbor’s, a young lady who was sober in AA (I probably had some idea that I was heaven’s gift to women). That’s where my wife found me, drunk on the sofa, slobbering and incoherent. She drove me home, wrestled me inside, and I fell into bed, out like a light.

Next morning, I awoke nearly paralyzed, feeling as if the life force had drained out of my body during the night; I couldn’t get up. Realization flooded in: So this was what the old-timers meant about progression—I’d been sober for eleven months but my drinking had gotten worse.

It’s all over this time, I thought, convinced, God help me, that I was going to die right there. (A year earlier, I’d been on a terrible binge for ten weeks and not felt like this—just a big hangover and five days of the shakes.)

Disappointment, hurt, and sadness clouded my wife’s pretty face: Eleven months of hopes, dreams, and rebuilding were torn from her grasp, one more time. Our four little ones wouldn’t come near me; Daddy was “sick” and all messed up—again.

Lying there helpless, I knew I’d never be able to drink again and stay alive; I (finally!) surrendered, and accepted my alcoholism without reservation. Wonder of wonders, a new peace came over me. Later that day, still weak and shaky but willing, I phoned my not-so-surprised sponsor; he drove over and took my sick body, mind, and soul to a meeting.

Thirty years later, my Higher Power still grants me very clear memories of that last morning-after scene; they keep my “forgetter” from kicking in. Thanks to my God, AA, and the Twelve Steps, sobriety has become the “easier, softer way” for me. Life in sobriety rolls onward with its ups and downs, successes and failures, joys and pains. But compared to the old drinking or on-the-wagon days, and those uptight hellish eleven months of “dryness,” it’s a picnic.

Norm W.

Magalia, California

FROM “AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN”

December 1999

When I got to my lowest point, I knew I was beaten, and I cried out in desperation. Right then and there, I had a white-flash spiritual experience and was struck sober on the spot.

Plucking up my courage, I went to my first AA meeting. I got there early and hid behind a bush outside the building, so that I could see what alcoholics looked like. An old car rattled around the corner and shuddering to a halt, disgorged its contents of disconcertingly happy people.

After they’d all gone inside, I waited behind the bush till the lights in the meeting room went on, and then I crept in, hoping not to be noticed. I needn’t have worried. I was made very welcome indeed. A dear old lady wearing a tweed suit and a clear-eyed expression made me half a cup of tea, gave me some leaflets, and suggested that I sit down and listen. As the meeting progressed, my hopes began to rise, and I went home that night for the first time with hope in my heart and a real feeling of freedom. I had a fatal malady, but there was a solution to my problem. Since that night, the compulsion to drink was lifted and has never returned. I make a conscious effort to keep it simple, because the simpler I make it, the happier I become. I don’t need to hide in bushes anymore (that bush incidentally, has become a thirty-foot tree).

Keith J. M.

Clevedon, Somerset