I am an alcoholic
Anonymous
I went to my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in February 1970 in Manhattan Beach, California. It was a Saturday Night Speaker's Meeting. The Speaker said he was a writer employed in the movie industry. The only other thing he said, that I remember was this: He said, “An alcoholic is someone who can drink a large quantity of alcohol, or he can get by with none at all. The one thing an alcoholic cannot do is drink just a little bit.” In other words, an alcoholic cannot drink in moderation.
I left that meeting and did not attend another one for eight more years. But those words stuck with me." The thing a real alcoholic cannot do is drink just a little bit.” Those words described me. I could avoid alcohol for a little while, but once I picked the first drink, I could not stop. I would continue drinking until I was drunk, passed out and hung over. In that process, I would say and do things that were embarrassing, humiliating, damaging and destructive, yet the alcohol goaded me on. In this state I could be insulting and derogatory to others. I could do things that were downright, stupid, and hurtful to others, and at times dangerous. I was out of control, when inebriated. When I recovered from my drunken stupor and hangover, I simply could not believe what emotional and physical havoc I had wreaked. That is the way of the drunk.
In all those years I had been fired twice from jobs, destroyed a marriage, wrecked at least one car, was prone to emotional fits of anger, thought of no one but myself, assumed everyone was against me because they could not recognize my intellectual brilliance. I blamed everything bad in my life on everyone and everything else. Once I destroyed a perfectly good, portable electric typewriter with my bare fists because it would not spell correctly.
In 1978, I tried Alcoholics Anonymous again. I went to just a few meetings and heard just enough, to once again accept the idea I was an alcoholic and couldn’t drink just a little bit. I also concluded that I didn’t need the good folks of AA because, after all, they were a bunch of drunks.
Four years went by, and I managed to curb or control my drinking. But my life was miserable and headed downhill. I blamed my plight on everyone else. By 1982, just about everything bad that would happen to me had happened. My marriage was gone. My career ruined. I was at the bottom of the pile emotionally, figuratively, spiritually and financially.
They say, when you are an alcoholic and you have reached your bottom, AA is the last house on the block. So it was for me. Once again I knocked on AA’s door. They welcomed me in. They said, “If you have a problem with alcohol, we can help. We can help you find a way of living without alcohol that is beyond your wildest drunken dreams.” That was in April 1982.
What I have found, and what has been freely given to me, is a family of friends and a sense of belonging that I'd always hoped for. Alcoholics Anonymous has helped me find a comfortable way of life without drinking. It has provided me with friendships that let me know I am not alone. I have found a host of friends over the years who accept me and understand me for who I am. I never have to pretend I am somebody else. We find unconditional love and acceptance in AA, in a way that we could never find in bars and taverns. And when I am down and feeling “less than” I always have somebody I can call or go have coffee with. If another alcoholic needs help, likewise I have a sense of worthiness to help and support him. Alcoholics Anonymous has led me to an of a higher power of my own understanding who I freely call God; a higher power that provides me with a sense that no matter what is going on around me that everything, EVERYTHING. . . will be alright.
And I have not had a drink of alcohol since!
