Time For Thanks

All Recovery Takes Time

 Just like me, this blog recently celebrated an AA Aniversary.  

Anniversaries are great things.  Every year, about a month ahead of my ‘birthday’ I remember my life as an active drunk.  I think about the countless days of substandard living and depression.  I think of the never ending party.  A feeling of quiet reverence grips me as I count my many blessings and thank God for my sober life.  Once the day comes, I want to share it with others. 

Once as a relative newcomer, I told a friend how I didn’t announce my birthday because I thought it was selfish (and kind of stupid too).  He informed me that I was the one being selfish, and that it was more likely that others would be strengthened by my being able to stay sober than just me. 

Of course lately, another drunk.  One that has yet to stay sober, informed me that since I had been sober for a while, I couldn’t possibly understand how he was feeling or what his life was like.  Drunken self-centeredness never ceases to amaze me.

Interestingly, this drunk likes to get loaded and call up the local AA hotline.  That’s how I first spoke to him.  Between 2 and 4 am, I listened to this crazy drunk deride AA and explain the tenets of Rational Recovery to me.  While he slurred his words and carried on, I surfed the internet and read the blog of the RR founder, Jack Trimpey.  The interesting thing is that half the ideas “put forth” by Trimpey sound an awful lot like the same ideas you hear at meetings, the other half of his comments are just trashing AA.  Its interesting, because I’ve visited his site before, but in conversation, most AA members I know haven’t even heard of it.

After listening to this guy ramble for two hours, we exchanged phone numbers and we’ve spoken quite a bit since, never mutually sober.  I even brought him to a meeting, but he brought more alcohol with him than recovery away from the meeting.   

My experience with this guy, and so many others, really confirms how lucky I am to be sober today.  I can look at my problems and they really are so small compared to the mountain of problems I came in with.  The growth as a person that I’ve been able to experience makes it seem surreal that I was once such an angry, depressed person.  Working with wet drunks or even people able to get sober reminds me of how I searched within my own mind for a way out of my turmoil, only to end up more confused and more angry.   And like my new friend,  trusting someone with an answer was not on MY agenda.  Oh, no sir.  If there was a way to get better, I would figure it out myself. 

Thanks to AA and all of you fellow members out there for a year of sobriety!