Daniel Bartnikowski, 44, outside our family home. Photo by Nicole Bartnikowski
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Daniel, helping others with another chance at life
Daniel, helping others with another chance at life
By Nicole Bartnikowski
Daniel Bartnikowski, my father, faithfully attends mass at Divine Mercy Parish two, sometimes three times a week. As an immigrant from Prasnysz, Poland, Bartnikowski, 43, treasures his Catholic religion and the Church, which is located just a short distance from our home in Pennington, New Jersey. There, where he has a close friendship with the priest, Father Marcin, he can be found on Sunday morning attending the Polish speaking service with his wife, my mother, Sylwia, and their four children, me, Vanessa, Ollie, and baby Maya.
But Bartnikowski wasn’t always prioritizing church in his life. Before he became a follower of God, he was a follower of alcohol.
“I wasn’t supposed to be here,” Bartnikowski said recently. He believes he wouldn't have been alive had he not realized he had a problem with alcohol. Before he got sober four years ago, in April 2018, he had abused alcohol for almost two decades. His drinking started causally enough, having a few beers at weekend barbecues with friends.
Bartnikowski, self-employed, works as a mason, where he and his crew of workers, also friends, lay bricks for owners of homes and businesses. After a job, they would head to the nearby bar for a few drinks, prolonging already long work days. For Bartnikowski, it was often a few Jack and Cokes, then a few more. It devolved to downing glass after glass, day after day.
Many of his nights ended with him drunkenly quarreling with his wife, only to be repeated the next day, and the day after that. It wasn’t until his addiction caused these drunken moments with his wife to become physical, one night in early-April 2018, that he realized he had to change his ways.
“I was in shock, it really was my lowest point,” Bartnikowski remembered, “because I knew I didn’t want to lose my family, or my wife because I love her.”
Six months before, one of Bartnikowski’s friends from work tried to talk him into going to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, hosted at the church, but Bartnikowski was reluctant to listen or engage. “At first I judged him for going to AA,” Bartnikowski said of his friend. He didn’t believe he had a problem, that he could become addicted to alcohol. “But after that encounter, I had no choice," Bartnikowski said of that regretful moment with his wife, “I needed to do something with myself because I knew that if I lost my family, I’d end up on the streets.”
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"I was crying, asking God for another chance, that I wanted to fix myself."
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Bartnikowski immediately started attending AA meetings, twice a week, at several different churches in our area, often driving over an hour to Doylestown, Pennsylvania to attend meetings hosted at a Polish Cathedral, the National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa. There, he learned how alcoholism is an illness. “But the obsession with drinking was still in my head,” he admitted. “The fear stopped me, but the obsession was in my head. I didn’t want to, but I had to fight myself on it. ”
Bartnikowski turned to God for forgiveness. He recalled a night in spring 2018 where he had, what he described, an out-of-body experience while he slept, that brought him closer to God. He remembered his soul moving out of his body, standing in the corner of his bedroom, near the door. “I was looking at myself dead in the bed,” said Bartnikowski. “I was crying, asking God for another chance, that I wanted to fix myself.” It was in that moment, Bartnikowski said, that he was reborn. From that day on, he said he hasn’t once had the urge to drink alcohol again.
While attending AA meetings, Bartnikowski has journeyed through the 12 steps of the program, with his friend as his sponsor. Step one was admitting the power alcohol had over him, and that his life had become unmanageable. The steps reflect biblical principles, such as believing in a greater power. For Bartnikowski that meant devoting his life to God. Currently, he is at the fourth step of admitting the nature of his wrongs to God, himself, and others.
Bartnikowski became friends with the other members of the AA group, as well as their families, regularly inviting them to barbecues and hangouts at our home.
He had been in the program for two years when the coronavirus pandemic shuttered the world. The in-person group meetings switched to online. His newfound community remained in contact, helping Bartnikowski continue his sobriety. He also continued to attend church services with his family via Zoom. Once some restrictions were lifted, Bartnikowski began hosting AA meetings for church members in our garage, providing coffee and donuts.
“It’s like a second family,” he said of the men in the group. Bartnikowski makes a conscience effort to help those in AA who are new to the program. In his journey, he has also taken in those who, because of their addiction, were sleeping on the streets, or paid rent and brought meals for those in desperate need.
Since his sobriety, Bartnikowski and his wife have welcomed two more children, Oliver, now 2, and Maya, 9 months, to the family. He believes: “God gave me these two to take care of," allowing him to focus his attention on raising his youngest chidren, something he missed out on with me, now 20, and Vanessa, now 14, due to his then all-consuming addiction.
Daniel Bartnikowski, right, with his wife Sylwia Bartnikowski, left, and their two youngest children, Oliver, left, and Maya, right, at Maya’s Christening in January 2023. Photo provided by Nicole Bartnikowski.
To note his five years sober on April 6, Bartnikowski took his AA brothers out to a Polish restaurant in Hamilton, New Jersey.
His devotion to God has become a way of optimistically approaching his life. Without the journey with his illness, Bartnikowski believes he wouldn’t have turned to spirituality as a method of preserving his life. “I’m glad that I’m an alcoholic," he said, "Nothing would've happened if I didn't end up reaching my lowest point."
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