Hi there, Tex here, in Australia,

started binge drinking as an older teen, and can now see that it was almost always out of control to the point where I would not remember parts of the night. I now know that this is called a blackout, but back then I thought it was normal and when reminded of what I had done or said, would feel shame, but cover it up by laughing, or just trying to ignore it.

This ignoring events in my life was a big part of my drinking, and once I had escaped some dangerous or stressful situation I simply laughed about it or ignored it, trying to move forward, but never quite seeing that many of these events were extreme risk taking which could have resulted in death of myself or others, and other events were emotionally devastating. So of course I kept on repeating these sort of things while drunk or sober.

I have always had a job during my drinking, but this has simply been a way of getting enough money to drink, and my deep fear of becoming materialistic was a way of giving myself permission to spend whatever I got on alcohol, toys, clothes, women, justifying that "you only live once", or "money is the root of all evil".

I have been in car accidents, lost my licence once for drink driving, and I used to think this made me smarter than others, but in actual fact I was just lucky, having driven thousands of times while over the limit, including driving to work the morning after many times. I have been pulled over three times while extremely drunk, but somehow avoided getting tested, and I also once avoided a breathalyser station by parking illegally and walking home, even avoiding a parking ticket, picking my car up the next morning.

There have been two marriages, another engagement, and a few other failed relationships, and yet I still never say alcohol as a problem.

Slowly, inexorably, I began to drink more, but the rate of change was so slow that I didn't actually notice, and always I rationalised that it was okay, because I now had a job where I earned a lot and had a lot of time off, so if I wanted to drink during the week one or two days, it was like my weekend, and if I wanted to drink during the day, well why shouldn't I?

I began smoking cigarettes when I drank, because being a non smoker when not drinking meant that the combined effect of alcohol and nicotine gave me a slightly stronger feeling of escape from reality.

All the while, I have known that my behaviour is unhealthy and that I would eventually cause myself to suffer from some sort of self induced illness such as cancer, ulcers, malnutrition, brain damage, liver damage, kidney damage, or just causing any disease or illness I got to be much worse due to my regular and heavy alcohol consumption, but I could never stop.

Whenever I drank too much and woke up feeling ill I would say to myself that I would start to take it easy, but always when I drank again I found an excuse to drink too much, "just today, then I will slow down a bit".

Finally, I came to AA three years ago and have had up to fourteen months sobriety, during which my second wife left me, and the fact that I didn't drink for six months after she left meant I actually went through grief for the first time in my life without numbing myself to it by using alcohol.

This in itself was a miracle and an amazing experience, because I learnt to cry, sobbing my eyes out in AA meetings, and after a week or two I noticed that I was not so down all the time and had periods of happiness, and gradually the grief subsided and I grew. I learnt to not hold a resentment toward her, to pray for her, and to wish her the best in my heart, and I now feel that way toward her.

But I drank again. For five months, every second week on payday I drank, gambled, smoked and then stopped for two weeks, still attending AA, but not menitioning that I was drinking. Finally I talked about it, and it stopped for 120 days, but then I didn't go to meetings for two weeks and somehow decided that I could drink "just one or two every now and then" and didn't need AA. I drank one day, not too much, then the next, not too much, and again on the third day, only had three beers, but it was every day, not 'every now and then', then on the fourth day I spent a lot of money on gambling, stayed up drinking till 7am and smoked a packet and a half of cigarettes.

It was time to admit and accept that I am powerless over alcohol, and despite my desperate ability to hold some parts of my life together, many parts of my life do become unmanageable.

Since then, in the last 32 days, I have experienced a new way of feeling. I have a number of personal growth experiences happening to me, and it is only through not drinking and attending AA that I have been able to hear the messages I need to hear, and to have the ability to do something about me.

I am dealing appropriately with anger for the first time in my life on a regular basis, I have gained the ability to listen to criticism, see where it is valid, but most of all not react with anger, and especially to retain some boundaries around what and who I am and what other people say or think.

What they think of me is none of my business, and most of the time what I assume they think of me is not even true.

Today I feel calm, empowered, gracious, able to surrender to what is, without needing to attempt to control everything in the world to be the way I think it should be.

I can see the desperate fear present in that need to control things in order to make sure I am safe and nothing bad happens, but the bad state of mind I can create by trying to ensure perfection and safety is far worse than any of the things I hope to create security around.

Today I am grateful to be able to just do the right thing, stay calm, exercise, eat properly, communicate with friends and family, attend meetings, meditate and pray, and know that if I just do those simply things, the big things will take care of themselves.

Most of all I am grateful that I am learning to listen, which is a gift I have, and one I can freely give every day, and which costs me nothing.

Wish all people well,

love to all.

P