Phil posted the other day about going to meetings. When I finally got to a meeting later that night it really made me reflect on putting First Things First.
After my last drunk (almost 15 yrs ago) I had a brief moment of clarity (and a BIG helping of Grace) I phoned a number I'd written down several months earlier while in bed staring cross-eyed drunk at the TV at 2:30am. (knowing many alcoholics are doing just this thing at this hour, it was an ad about getting help for alcohol problems)
A bit of background ... My last year or so of drinking left me firmly convinced that I was completely at the mercy of this terrible drinking obsession. However I fought it valiantly and continued to climb back in the ring .. only to be pummeled over and over again. I knew about AA yet somehow it didn't really to occur to me that I might find an answer there. I'd gone to a few meeting years before and they seemed like a miserable lot. At least that's what I recalled. So I read whatever books I could find in the library about alcoholism... the statistics, scientific data and possible genetic aspects of the illness (no AA literature was read however). Maybe I could find an answer or some way out of my downward spiral. Yet, for all my efforts, I'd still wind up with my empty gallon of sherry, port or tokay, cross-eyed drunk reading this material wondering where it would end. With enough grey matter left to know where things were going to end up I was quite despondent and often ended the nights drinking in my basement tying a noose to the rafters. Never got the nerve however. So perhaps a day or two would pass and I'd somehow completely forget the hangman's episodes ... the obsession would kick in and my palms would start to sweat in anticipation of my next "private party". I say this because at this point my drinking was mostly solitary.
Back to the phone call ... I spoke a bit to the doctor at the number I'd jotted down and pretty much explained what I mention above. He asked that I come in to see him that day. Well, you see, I was a high-bottom drunk with many responsibilties. I had several projects at work I was responsible for, etc. etc.
He pointed out the despair and "noose" episodes I'd mentioned. A bit of light started to shine on that denial I had going and I agreed to see him which basically was the start of my sobriety and a new lease on life. I was 30 years old.
The reason I mention this all is because it often seems sometimes we (I) get sober, ,things clear up, life starts to regain it's luster and we forget to put First Things First -- at our peril.
Meetings keep it green for me. They do a lot more too but keeping it green is a biggie for me. And if I don't keep it green (love that expression) that horrible amnesia which I mention above is sure to revisit. Anyone who's been to enough meetings has surely seen the result of not putting first things first.
One more thing apropo from the book Alcoholics Anonymous:
"Acceptance was the Answer" (aka "Doctor, Alcoholic, Addict") Today there is absolutely nothing in the world more important to me than my keeping this alcoholic sober; not taking a drink is by far the most important thing I do each day.
Well it sounds like we are in the same boat. Same thinking going on. i can remember sitting in my parked car, in the sunshine, coming out of a really horrible blackout, reading through the first one hundred or so, pages of Alcoholics Anonymous. For the first time, ever, in those pages I was reading, I could finally see how others made it. But it also made me cry really hard because I had convinced myself that I would not be able to get there. I had had so many set backs in attempting recovery, and I thought those years of going in and out, in and out of the AA Program, were my lessons I needed to understand that I was not going to be one of the fortunate ones that made it. (looking back at that moment in time, sitting in my car, my head, and body in so much physical distress, I think I could feel my hair hurting, Ha). Amazing how the mind will hold you back. Well ONLY by the GRACE of GOD did that turn out not to be true.
And today, after not having to pick a drink in over 15 years, i am also looking for a way to get things back to those first five or so years in recovery, where everthing was hard, and everthing was great.
And so, if we are both struggleing with this, I think it is a good thing, the stuggle part. Thats what made it good, back then. Right?
Anyway, thanks for you Post. I am in the middle of a little "refresher course" glad to see I have a "classmate"
I have certainly been at that place Bill called the jumping off point- Like there were (at least) three inhabitants in my body: one who wanted to stop drinking, one who wanted to keep drinking, and one who just wanted to die. Those were not easy days to live through, but things are getting much lighter today-
I like the acceptance thing. I think it is not necessarily a call to fatalism or passivity, but to taking an honest and objective look at our situation, and then acting accordingly.
