When I got to AA 35 years ago, I was only 28, had drank for nine years and didn't have much of a drinking story compared with most. I came here more because I didn't think I could hang onto my job unless I did something about myself, and booze seemed to be the only thing outside of my own head that was screwing me up. I did not want to stop drinking, but I was sick of myself and willing to do something about that if I could, including trying to stop drinking for a while until I sorted my job situation out. Most speakers at meetings seemed to be saying that stopping drinking had done all sorts of things for them, seemingly almost right away, as there wasn't much talk of recovery, mostly I heard far worse tales of drinking than mine as well as a bit at the end about how wonderful it is to be sober. I couldn't identify with either end of that as I was really wondering whether sobriety was better than drinking, and staying dry certainly wasn't doing much for my problems as a high school teacher, although I was showing up and spending a lot of time on it. At least I was consistent while drinking and not as scared of the kids I was trying to drink. Almost uncontrollable anger was coming to the surface in a way it never had before, and I felt like a scared kid with adult responsibilities. I felt like I needed to get to ten AA meetings a week and spend most of the rest of the time I wasn't eating, sleeping or moving about on my job, with the idea that being thoroughly prepared was about the only defense I had there. Someone wrote here that the two years in his life he would least like to repeat were his last year of drinking and first year of sobriety, but nobody was saying anything like that in the meetings I went to, and I came close to going back on the booze because AA hadn't worked and I must be some other sort of nut because stopping drinking was not the answer for me, as it seemed to be for just about everyone else in AA. Perhaps I wasn't really an alcoholic because alcohol wasn't really my problem, and actually seemed to help whatever my problem was. I thought alcohol was the problem, at least for everyone else in AA, and sobriety was the solution, although it hadn't worked for me. I did not know that a problem with alcoholism is very different from a problem with alcohol. Stopping drinking doesn't stop it. It is just going off the medication which was the answer to dealing with it until it became a problem in itself. It was probably a combination of pride, hope and help from a Higher Power, although I hadn't really come to believe in much more than the Serenity Prayer that kept me here. I wanted to get up a bit of sober time as that seemed to be part of the AA game and I wanted to see what it was like. I thought having to keep going back to zero after a slip was a bit rough, and thought I should be able to keep at least half. And there was at least the hope that things would eventually get better for me too, however unlikely that seemed. I could see that going back on the booze was not the answer. At least people kept telling me that, if I was an alcoholic, there was a treatment and things would get better. The only advice I'd had on my other problems came from a shrink who said, "I don't think you are psychotic or neurotic, but I would suggest that you get a job in which you don't have to deal with people." That didn't seem to be much of an answer either. I know now that feeling like I went nuts after I stopped drinking was a sign that I was an alcoholic rather than one that I wasn't. I could tell someone in my position then that sobriety is the problem and it is what AA and the Steps are there for. Recovery is slow but sure. Trying to speed it up can ,just get it out of balance, such as using hypnotism to get self-confidence. Being screwed up, with self-confidence, is worse than just being screwed up because I didn't know where I was going but I was racing to get there. Things will get better, then worse, then even better, in spite of fears and screw ups, as long as we stay sober and keep trying to work the steps. Some at meetings would say that their worst times sober were better than their best times in sobriety. That used to bug me because it certainly wasn't true in my case. It that is the case, about the only reason anyone would drink would be that they had simply forgotten how bad drinking was, something a lot of members did seem to think, saying that they go to meetings to remember what it was like. I asked an old timer about that, and he thought that what they probably meant was that for them sobriety now, this week, this month, this year is better than drinking ever was. I would heartily agree with that now, but not then. It seems to me now that many of us who did not drink our way into hell have to go through what at least seems to be hell in sobriety before things really do get better. While life is great most of the time for me now, I sometimes get a bit more of it than I really care for. After moving here to retire last year, I had gotten into doing a number of things each week that I really enjoyed and felt quite content, thinking that I had finally found a sort of heaven on earth. Tasmania seems about as close to that as I can get. Summers are very cool and, though winters are chilly, grass grows and flowers bloom with only a bit of the white stuff to be seen on distant mountains. Things seemed to get a bit too dull in my first couple year here when some of my activities stopped for summer, a boring four day weekend started for Christmas and my computer burned out on Sunday. I felt for a while like I'd been arrested under Murphy's Law, but I actually feel great now. I'm still enjoying life in spite of all that and have lost any fear of the Ghosts of Christmas, Past, Present and Future. It seems to be like losing the fear of economic insecurity by going through a rough patch and realising it isn't all that bad. Often the best way to exorcise fear is to experience whatever it feared. I recall that someone here said that they used to suffer from insanity but now rather enjoy it. I find that still learning about my quirks and how to either live with or deal with them keeps all this quite fascinating. After writing on Christmas last week, I realized that I was in the mess instead of the message, definitely not living in the day and really in need of attitude adjustment. I think I can say that I sit her adjusted on a great summer day in Devonport. |