When I stopped drinking, there was really no alternative to having some sort of new life, as my life at that time was completely centered on alcohol. About the only time I went where it wasn't was at the high school I was teaching at, and that was mostly to make sure I had money to drink. I had no friends who didn't drink, in about the same fashion I did, and couldn't really picture life without it. The question was what sort of life I was going to try to have without drinking. Was it going to based on AA, its principles and a higher power or would it be based on ego, ambition or other addictions. I was fortunate in that AA was the only place I could think of going with my drinking problem, although I was pretty reluctant to go to an organization that was based on stopping drinking rather than finding ways to try to control it. I recall once seeing a cartoon, I think in a Grapevine. The departed's family was gathered around a coffin about to be lowered into the ground. The grieving widow was talking to the clergyman, saying something like, "He tried everything, hypnosis, acupuncture, clinics, psychiatrists, rehabs and religion." The parson asked if he ever tried AA, and the widow replied, "Oh! He was never THAT bad." Sitting in a hard chair with people thirty years older than me listening to drinking stories I almost envied didn't appeal all that much to me, but they did seem to help me stay dry, and I could at least face the next day's work if I did. I went to about ten meetings a week because the rest of the sober world seemed cold and unfriendly and I really couldn't think of much else I could do without going nuts. I did try going to bars sober but, in that condition, they were no better than anyplace else outside of meetings. I was reminded of a time when I was a kid and went to a sort of picnic party at a place on the Rock River in Illinois. I didn't bring my swim trunks as doing that there would be hazardous to health. But several other kids did, so I sat on the edge of a pier, fully clothed, hoping to fall in. At a meeting I went to a couple years ago someone said, "Going into a bar for a Coke is like going into a brothel for a good-night kiss." One night, in a pub across the street from a meeting I had, accidentally on purpose, gotten to early, I did that and a drunk woman on the other side of bar looked at what I had ordered and said, "You didn't come in here to drink THAT, did you?" It occurred to me that I didn't, so I gulped down the Coke as quickly as possible, hit the toilet and got out of there. I can hardly recall going into a bar to drink anything since then. When I got home from meetings, I would read a bit of AA literature as a kind of sleeping pill and got onto the Steps by reading things like "Came to Believe." I would often say the Serenity Prayer even before I could say I believed in the God part at the beginning of it. I figured it was only one syllable, easy to say, and no harm would be done if there was Nobody there. It did remind me that I should accept whatever was bugging me, as I could seldom do much about it. Over time AA friends replaced drinking ones and I learned to follow my conscience instead of my urges. At one meeting, a guy was talking about having slip after slip and then said, "I go to meetings when I can, but I don't make it my life." It hit me right away that this was the problem. I don't make AA my whole life, although I probably would have if I could have back then, but it has to be what my life is based on, not like a Christmas ornament that is hung somewhere on the outside of the tree and falls off when anything brushes against it. Some time ago, there was an argument between those the say, "AA is my life." and those who reply, "Get a life!" I see a middle ground, with a life based on AA and its principles that is not confined to meeting halls and service in the fellowship. As an English teacher, I found that things went better when I tried to be of service to my students. When I was in my professional phase, about four years sober and deputy director of a rehab in Sydney, I went with some residents to speak at a Catholic girls' high school. At the back of the hall, there was a poster with a picture of an old sailing ship on it. Below the picture, it said, "Ships are safe in harbors, but that's not what ships are built for." There is a time for them to be in a safe harbor for refitting, and harbor are always nice to return to, but a ship that never leaves serves no real purpose. The real test and purpose of this program is how I apply it to my life outside of meetings. I think that the biggest reason why I'm still here is that I never got to the stage where I thought I could take control of my life again and didn't need AA or God. They have been the most important part of my life since I got here, but I have also been able to be self-supporting and get along in the world outside, even though I wasn't always comfortable there. Attending meetings, even those held in Japanese, help me keep my balance and stay reasonably honest with myself. They are not what AA is about, but those who don't attend them seem to more easily lose track of what AA is about, and generally those who do seem to be more content than those who don't. In this area, there are only three meetings a week within an hour's drive, although this area has about 110,000 people. There were several, but the older members who were supposed to provide the models only attended a weekly meeting on occasion and that came to become regarded as the norm. It is true that some can stay sober on that, as there are still a few about, but it is also pretty clear that most can't, which is why we are down to one meeting a week. The three meetings I attend, including one an hours drive east, are the high points of my week. I really enjoy attending them, but also feel some responsibility to do so. I have found that, over time, staying sane and sober has not really gotten easier but it has gotten more enjoyable. |