With her permission I'm pasting the story of MIP's own Lady Eli from the Grapevine online edition Dec 2011. Amazing lady indead.

Web Exclusive: Angel in the Glass

A woman looks back at the ups and downs of 10,000 days of a sober life

 

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The alcoholic gene runs strong in my family, and I picked up my first drink at age 12. I was a guzzler from the start. What I sought from booze was some ease and comfort, and a respite from my gnawing sense of separateness and inferiority. What I got from booze was falling down, vomiting, the spins, and humiliation.

I was determined never to do that again! Was I not a straight "A" student? A little actress, singing and dancing on stages? A nationwide television model? I had been a very successful child until 12, and surely I could choose not to drink.

It was after my second drunk that I became really afraid. I had made a solemn vow to myself, that I would never touch another drop of that horrible stuff again! I knew I had meant it. I was already doomed with that vicious "peculiar mental twist" that erases the memory of the "suffering and humiliation of a week or a month ago."

My alcoholism dragged me to all the predictable places. I heard at a meeting, "Alcohol disagrees with me. It makes me break out in spots. Spots like detox, jail, Florida!" Spots for sots, I visited them all, and as my disease took darker and darker turns, I became increasingly isolated, violent, homicidal, suicidal.

During the later half of my drinking, my daily drunken mantras crowded out all else, "Just one more" and "it doesn't matter, I'll be dead soon." I wished for death. Selling my plasma to buy alcohol was terrifying. The nurse taking my blood pressure would notice the fresh razor cuts to my wrists.

My last drunk was no more disgusting or outrageous than the thousands of drunks that preceded it. I vaguely remember dropping a beer bottle on the floor, and after so many years, of being so angry at alcohol for making me smashed, I enjoyed that sensation of smashing it back! Thus began another drunken insane tirade, this time against everything made of glass in my fathers house. Nevermind that I was barefoot.

An angel lifted me from my jagged pile of glass shards, and deposited me in my precious seat in Alcoholics Anonymous. My heart still weeps in gratitude for that magical day July 23, 1984my re-birth day!

I knew the best A.A. could ever offer me was protection from that terrifying first drink. I would learn to cope with feeling horrible every day. I could take it, I'm tough. However, I couldn't imagine that anything could erase my obsession with booze? AA has given me protection from that first drink and the 12 Steps and have released me from those constant instrusive thoughts about drinking. I have been bathed in the riches of this miraculous way of life!

My sponsor Roxanne, "Rox the Detox Fox," was my first teacher. She was gritty and tough, and I was able to begin learning from her. She gave me my first trip through our 12 Steps. I loved her. She saved my life. She drank again.

AAs and the Big Book told me that alcoholism is fatal. I knew they were all just trying to scare me. Then, my AA friendssome in their 20sbegan picking up that first drink again ... And dying. I see their faces still and hear their names: Harry, Carol, Candy, John, Ora, Milo, and many more.

During the first twelve years of my sobriety, I was showered in gifts: sobriety itself, friendships, a college degree, a home, a sober husband, the birth of a beautiful baby boy, opening a wonderful 1950's cafe named after our son!

But even greater gifts than these were the intangible rewards of our program: peace, joy, delight, freedom, hope, purpose, dignity, laughter and love!

Gods grace was evidenced even stronger after my 13th year of sobriety. A man ran a red light and annihilated our life forever. Our boy was four years old and sitting in the back seat. Both my husband and I sustained serious injuries. When our son was five, I had a stroke due to my injury and became wheelchair-reliant. A year later, my husband died resulting from his injuries. I lost my ability to work and our beloved cafe. A vision impairment due to my injury, meant I could no longer drive.

And finally when my boy was 8, a friend was driving us to a treatment center, to carry AA's message, and a drunk driver hit us head on. Due to the horrific barrage of trauma, my son now has chronic mental health issues and has been repeatedly institutionalized. Thanks to God and Alcoholics Anonymous I never picked up the first drink!

And in AA, all tragedies are put to precious use when we carry our message to our newcomers. When I was new, I needed to know that God could and would keep me sober through all of the delights of life. But grander evidence of God's power to me, is sobriety through the inevitable tragedies of life.

Approximately two million alcoholics worldwide die annually of our disease. We, who are blessed to get to keep coming back, will know many who succumb. On the 9th of December this year, I shall celebrate 10,000 days of continuous sobriety! Based upon my research, I estimate that 68 million alcoholics worldwide will have died in the 10,000 days since I began recovering from this disease. What would any one of them have given for the chance to live? Keep coming back!

Lisa R., Denver, Colo.