I remember someone knocking on our door years ago. It was a man who my dad used to refer to as "one of the town drunks". I remember him being very loud and obnoxious and my dad's voice steadily growing from calm to angry. Then I heard a door slam and the man was left staring at a closed door. My dad came into the family room where we were and told us that he wanted to come in and when dad refused to let him, the man started threatening to hit my dad. My dad said he couldn't figure out why it was so important to the man to come inside our home. He muttered, "Sick SOB" and went and got a beer from the fridge. We didn't have any AA meetings in the town in those days. There were no AA doors open because there were no meetings, so the alcoholics were pretty much on their own unless maybe they had some caring family members and/or friends that were able to get them in a rehab. I'm not sure, however, they even had those in the "Mayberryesque" town I lived.
Several years later, my dad's own drinking increased and he became "one of the town drunks". When I brought this up to my mom, she angrily told me that he was my dad, I must respect him, and to never say that about him again. Dad's drinking had gotten to the point where he was acting in an inappropriate manner toward me as well as doing other things uncharacteristic of the man I remembered. He walked through the doors to an AA meeting one time. He came home and told my mom, "That place is not for me. There's a bunch of winos in there and I am nothing like them!" That was in the mid-1980's. He died-- a town drunk-- on Jan. 1, 1994. The doors to AA were never closed to him, he just refused to open them because he was "nothing like them".
I used to deny I had a drinking problem and was nothing like my dad. I would down drink after drink and never admit that because I didn't believe that I was. When bad crap started happening as a result of my drinking and I finally did "kinda" get it, I opened the doors to an AA meeting. Then something would happen which would upset me...stupid crazy stuff. I'd get my feelings hurt, either at a meeting or my boyfriend would look at another girl and I'd want to drink, or I'd just forget how bad things were when I was drinking and think I would be alright to give it another go. Every time I left AA and had that "stinking thinking", it was a longer period of time before I would open the doors to a meeting again. A lot more drinking would happen. A lot more bad stuff would happen. I never "got" anything except more booze and more stupid crazy out of it.
Now I know and admit I am an alcoholic. I don't think I am any better or any worse than anyone else in the rooms of AA. I think I am so much like them and we all need one another more than we need another drink. I have continued to go through those doors to Alcoholics Anonymous for almost 10 months. The doors were left open for me to open when I was ready to change my life and I hope and pray I will never let them close for good behind my drunk ass whenever I leave there after my meetings, because I truly need to keep going through them to keep me alive.
When my Dad used to drink, we never knew what to do. No AA, no disease concept. Just resentment and disappointment. When I got sober in AA, my Mom did not know what to make of it. Initially she resented AA because she did not understand. The she grew to love AA and attended all my thanksgivings. She died when I was 16 years sober. My AA friends bawled their hearts out, because they came to love her so much.
Today I understand alcoholism, and I try my uttermost to help the still suffering alcoholic. Sometimes I wish things turned out different for my Dad. I never saw him sober. But things turned out different for me, because I used the AA program to stay sober and bring joy and peace to my wife and children.
Thanks for all of your encouragement, Mike D. Means so much to me to get to know you and read your postings here.
gonee posted..."because I used the AA program to stay sober and bring joy and peace to my wife and children."
I am sorry you went through that gonee. I am glad that you are recovering and have a different outcome than your dad did and your family has happy, rather than painful, memories of their time with you. I lost my husband and daughter because of this disease. My daughter still doesn't want to see me and I have to deal with the pain I caused and wonder every day what coulda shoulda been. Can't undo the past and I imagine she has about the same amount of respect for me which I had for my dad in the heavier drinking days of his life. I have so much more of an understanding of this disease now than I did when my dad was still alive. I had a bunch of resentments toward him as well as my mom. I think this 4th Step, which I will have completed in a few days, has shown me that resentments can only cause pain and hurt to ourselves and there was so much I could have done differently for my part in it. So I just have to accept things more for what they are, than what I wished they were. I am hoping that my daughter and ex will eventually forgive me. I cannot change the past and I am trying not to fear the future. All I can do is accept the gift of today, which God has blessed me with, and live it the best way I know how and that is to try and help my new family, which is my AA family now, and it brings me great joy every day trying to help other alcoholics.
BTY
-- Edited by betterthanyesterday52 on Wednesday 19th of March 2014 09:22:50 PM
