Keep coming back
MY name is Adam, and I am an alcoholic. For years I could not say it or even believe it. I was deluding myself, convinced that I was a heavy drinker because I surrounded myself with people just like me. I was a public, sociable drinker or so I thought – my Step Four inventory suggests different. I was a true Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde when it came to drinking. Once the ease and comfort of the first drink had passed, and I was in the full swing of yet another bender, my personality changed 180 degrees. Once in blackout the usual consequences followed which was always the end result of taking a drink for me.
This was my recurring story for well over two decades, during which time I sought out help for my drinking problem after friends, family and partners would happily tell me I had a problem. On two occasions I attended the local help agency for one-to-one counselling and was given a drinks diary to fill in. Needless to say, my motives for being there were selfish and dishonest. I searched online for the safe limit of units for a male adult and wrote that down on the diary, and would fluctuate it from week to week, meanwhile I was drinking twice as much.
It’s true when they say alcoholism is a progressive illness. By the time I walked through the door of my first AA meeting back in May 2018, I had lost the power of choice whether to drink or not. I was in the full grip of king alcohol, and my life as I knew it was falling in around my ears. My wife was on eggshells around me, my young children were scared of me, the school were starting to ask why the kids were saying daddy is always shouting at us and mummy at home. I was always in the Monday club at work, ringing in with the same lame excuses for my sickness, but they knew I had been drinking all weekend long. The relationships with my mother and sister were awkward due to the fact that I would ring them up at any hour during the night, while in blackout, and tell them I was going to kill myself. I took away their peace of mind for decades.
Sunday 13th May 2018 was my first ever AA meeting and by the grace of God I have not had the need to take another drink since then to the present day. That is not my doing, it is down to the love and Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and the belief in a Power greater than me. I will never forget the experience of my very first AA meeting that night, an old-timer greeted me and told me to listen for the similarities and not the differences in the shares that evening. He also said do not be scared off by the God word on the scrolls – we’re just a Group Of Drunks helping one another stay sober through sharing our common experiences.
For once I listened and was attracted to AA from hearing the very first share, he spoke my story and I identified with everything others were sharing as well. By the time it got round to me I said, “My name is Adam and I think I have a problem with alcohol,” they all laughed, shook their heads, and told me to keep coming back. I did, went to four or five meetings a week and got to know other male members in my local meetings, collecting a host of numbers which I still have today. Once I passed day 15 – the longest I’d been sober for 23 years – I started to hear the suggestions at the meetings I was going to.
I made the Sunday night meeting my home group and I was given the teas and coffees service post which I really enjoyed. After seven weeks in the Fellowship, I approached another male alcoholic whose depth and weight of his message of recovery in the meetings I respected and understood and asked him to sponsor me – and he’s still my sponsor today, five years on.
At our first meeting my sponsor asked me am I willing to go to any lengths, I replied yes, and then he asked me to pass the message on to another suffering alcoholic to which I said yes. That is my purpose today – to stay sober and pass the message of recovery onto the still suffering alcoholic. Having had a physic change as a result of working the Twelve Steps of recovery through the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous with my sponsor’s guidance, I can honestly say today that I am not the same Adam that walked through the doors of AA for the first time years ago. I came to AA for my drinking and now I stay for my thinking. My amends to my children is to not pick up that first drink on a daily basis. The ripple effect of this has run through my family and resulted in restored relationships with my mother and sister.
Today I take immense pleasure in paying forward what my sponsor gave me free of charge, through sponsoring other alcoholics, and doing service within my home group as GSR keeps me in the centre of the boat. I have witnessed bereavements and separation from my wife in my recovery. However, a drink was not even on my mind, as it says in the big book “…we have ceased fighting anything or anyone — even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned.” (BB p.84) I have a Programme for living life on life’s terms just for today, and that makes me a grateful member of Alcoholics Anonymous. The Fellowship teaches me a great deal about myself each day and for that I will Keep Coming Back.
ADAM, Gloucester, Severn IG
