Alcoholic for Life

I couldn’t believe it. So you’re telling me that I was born with whatever condition, or disease, or alcoholic tendencies and there was nothing I could do about it? Yes, I drank a lot of sodas as a kid, but I was a kid. Same applied to beer, I was in college. That’s what college guys do!

So I find myself in AA twenty 29 years later, and here’s what they tell me:

“DO these twelve steps and you will have a spiritual awakening. God will heal your disease, this is the only thing we’ve found that works for people like us.” Keep in mind there are only a few guys that have been sober 20 years. Starting at 50.

How am I supposed to believe in the God that made me an alcoholic to begin with? The same God that took my mother? Why would he do all of that to me, just to make me come beg for forgiveness?

AA didn’t work out for me, but I learned a lot of valuable information. Live and let live, one day at a time, do the next right thing. These are all sayings posted in AA rooms around the country, and at first they seem just as corny as stop and smell the roses. Until they don’t.

Step Twelve says “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried our best to practice these principles in all our affairs and carry the message to the alcoholic that still suffers.”

Read that again. THE result of these steps is having a spiritual awakening. Do them and you will believe in a higher power, that is the promise of the program. Let go and let God.

Stubborn as I was, I had to find another way.