40 years ago today, I trembled my way into an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, accompanied by a woman I had just met. It was a typical church basement meeting room with unflattering fluorescent lights, a long table, and folding chairs, and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee filling the air. There were neatly dressed, well-groomed men and women, a few who looked sickly and bloated, even a little yellowish, many in jeans and tees, some chatting, others quietly reading a thick book, most with a cup of coffee or can of soda in front of them.
It took me several of those meetings before I could choke out the words admitting that my name was Beth, and yes, I was an alcoholic. And yet, why else would I have been there? You don’t just wander into a 12-Step Group for fun. You go because you don’t want to live like you have been. You go because you don’t know what else to do. You go because you are sick and tired of being sick and tired. Maybe you go because a judge has ordered you to. And like me, maybe you go because you think you may have a problem, but you surely aren’t that far gone yet. (Hint: If you’re there, it’s because you DO have a problem and yes, you DO need to be there.)
I could not imagine a life without drinking wine with Italian food, a day on the lake without plenty of beer, a nice dinner without a few cocktails beforehand (which turned into during, and after…). I was just in awe of those speakers who had 10 or 15, or even 25 years of sobriety, and knew I could never do that. It was just inconceivable. My group of friends all drank. I wouldn’t fit in anymore.
And yet, here I am, 40 years sober.
In those many church basements and a few dedicated clubhouses, I was shown a blueprint for living my life through the 12 Steps. It was so simple: Admitting I was powerless over alcohol and that my life had become unmanageable….Came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity…..and so on, one step at a time, worked through on your own timetable. And you could go back and repeat. And people would encourage you and talk about their own experiences, openly. There were often tears. There was genuine laughter. There were hugs.
The only rule was that for the next 24 hours, one day, you couldn’t drink. I was given a small metal coin with AA engraved on one side, and told that if I felt the urge to drink, I should drop the chip into the glass, and when it dissolved, I could have the drink.
People gave me their phone numbers, told me to call if I felt shaky. When I came back, I was welcomed. And I watched them do the same with so many others, whether or not they had succeeded in not drinking that day. “Keep coming back” was the mantra. “Good things happen to alcoholics who don’t drink.”
In those rooms, we discussed and read the 12 Steps and the 12 Traditions, one at a time, over and over. Many speakers told their stories and left us with the assurance that if they could do it, so could we. I learned that the difference between my story and that of someone who had lost home, family, health, maybe even liberty, was that I hadn’t had to go down those roads YET….the lesson being that drinking/using never ends well and it can be a simple matter of time before you get there, in the dungeon of self-loathing and lost blessings.
One step at a time. Rinse and repeat. Meetings. The Serenity Prayer was never far from my lips, and especially in the beginning I used it constantly to keep me focused on what I needed to do, giving me strength to live a minute at a time on some days. It wasn’t just not having a drink, it was knowing that the drink was not going to be an option to help numb the anger or resentment or pain or fear. It was figuring out what I could change and what I couldn’t, and sometimes desperately pleading for the wisdom to see and be able to live with the difference.
When you live life one day at a time, it is much easier to manage. When you have an outline of how to manage your feelIngs and relationships, and how to move forward in a kind and positive way, it is life changing, one day, one step at a time. It never gets old. You are never “done” with any step, because if you are living, you are changing and evolving. The 12 Steps are as relevant to me today as they were at the beginning of this journey. I did not do them perfectly nor always as suggested, having just the *slightest* tendency towards following my own drum. But the outcome has been positive.
I am so grateful for these Life Lessons, this blueprint for being, that I came to in such a desperate and pain-filled way so long ago. I see them reflected in teachings from our great Ascended Masters, of Buddha, Master Jesus, Quan Yin, Sensei Usui. I have found them in movies and novels. I see them sometimes in news stories about the helpers who appear when there is desperate need. And I still work, one day at a time, to use them in my own life and responses to the world’s hurting and injustices.
Spending more than half my life as a recovering alcoholic was not one of my life goals. But those choices led me in a positive direction when I stepped into that basement room, and I am filled with gratitude for 40 years of stubborn determination to not drink for the next 24 hours, and to follow, however imperfectly, the 12 Steps.
The Serenity Prayer
God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.
— Reinhold Niebuhr
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