It went wrong, and right!
IN 1980, I had been discharged from the army, was alienated from my family, and wandering around drinking myself to death. I was sleeping on a piece of cardboard in a disused house along with other misfortunates like myself, with hardly a penny to my name. Thereafter, I landed up in a psychiatric hospital after slashing my wrist. Life was not worth living and I wanted to end it. At this point I had no idea that alcohol was my problem and blamed everyone else for my troubles.
Over ten years earlier whilst travelling to school by train, I remembered reading an article which included 20 questions to determine whether you are an alcoholic. I was horrified to learn that I could answer “yes” to all the questions, except that I had never officially been treated for alcoholism. That was a red-light moment, but I just pushed it aside and hoped it would go away or could be prevented.
I was blessed with wonderful parents who I would not have swapped for all the world, although like everyone they were not perfect. My dad and quite a few others in the family were pilots and it was my dream to follow them. I was sent to flight school even though I had not completed my schooling, and the result was the same miserable failure. I also missed many other opportunities which passed me by. So, looking back now with all the hindsight of being sober in AA for 41 years, where did it all go wrong, or one could look at it differently and say right?
After all this time thinking about it, I am an expert on what happened to me, ‘my story’, but not on alcohol per se which is a vast subject. At the age of 13 I discovered alcohol which gave me the most fantastic feeling. Gone was my shyness and inability to mix with people. Drinking seemed to evaporate all my fears and insecurities. At the same time, I had a personality change in that I started to tell more lies and be more dishonest than previously. I failed at school and left without any qualifications largely because I could not concentrate. Because of that I could not find a decent job and must have had about twenty different menial jobs. I landed up in jail four or five times, but thankfully the longest period was for three weeks. Eventually, I ended up living in my car then on the streets or in a homeless hostel and finally, by the grace of God, in an AA meeting. I was a broken young man.
During this time, I was harbouring a terrible resentment against one of my sisters regarding a business that she had taken over from me. It is often said that resentment is like drinking poison and hoping someone else will die. I spoke to many members of AA about how to rid myself of this awful affliction. They rightly pointed out that my sister was sleeping peacefully at night whilst I was tossing and turning, and that I should treat her as a sick person. They advised that I pray for her to have everything that I wanted for 21 days, and that if I missed a day I had to start from the beginning. It was like a miracle because after ten days, my ill feeling towards her left and to this day has never returned.
What have I learned in AA? That the Higher Power is what I believe it to be, there are no barriers, and it is personal to me. I saw that my intentions were usually good, but my problem was a lack of power. As I started with the Twelve Steps, I put my hands together and asked for power. For the first time in my life, I felt it flowing into my life. I made new friends and began to see light at the end of the tunnel. Living one day at a time makes everything much easier. I made a vow to be honest in all my affairs and realised that dishonesty was tantamount to picking up a drink. I began to work on the Twelve Steps but being a perfectionist, procrastinated quite a bit. The Higher Power intervened and there was an AA member in our area who decided that too many newcomers were not working the Steps, so off his own bat he hired a hall and for 12 weeks we went through all the Steps. I had a gradual spiritual awakening and could see myself warts and all, as my mother would see me.
The Promises were read out at every meeting, so I started to ‘take stock’ of my strengths and weaknesses. I am hopeless with my hands and as previously mentioned, left school without any qualifications. But of the two, I thought I had more chance of studying something. They always say that if you apply yourself to the Programme things beyond your wildest dreams will materialise, and that is absolutely true. But before you start dreaming of owning an elephant, make sure that you have enough space in your back garden. Anyhow I started off slowly reading many books on ‘how to study’ before having to do a school qualification, and proceeding to university to complete two degrees and eventually becoming a solicitor. In all, it took me 18 years of part-time study which I very much enjoyed. Thanks to AA, I had become reborn in every sense of the word. I met my wife in the Fellowship and this year, after living together for 20 years, we finally got married. I am now happily retired and still an active member of AA. I do not think I will ever be able to repay the debt of gratitude that I owe to the Fellowship and my Higher Power in that order.
PIP B
