hope started one year ago today

One year ago today, I went to the website of Alcoholics Anonymous in search of hope.

I didn't think it was possible for me to live day to day without drinking. But I knew for certain that I could no longer live my life under the constant influence and obsession of alcohol. I either needed to find a way to live without drinking, or I needed to die.

I was skeptical that AA would be able to help me. After all, it's where the courts send drunk drivers. I knew that I was a real alcoholic, and real alcoholics are hopeless people who either drink themselves to death or die in stupid accidents. So I didn't want to waste my time with AA if it just turned out to be a DUI/DWI correctional class.

AA's website had a link for the "Big Book" online. I read the chapter called "Bill's Story". At first, I didn't identify with Bill very much. I wasn't male, wasn't in the military, wasn't a "professional", was never rich, never married, didn't drink what he drank, etc.

But then I came to this part in his story:

"It was a devastating blow to my pride. I, who had thought so well of myself and my abilities, of my capacity to surmount obstacles, was cornered at last. Now I was to plunge into the dark, joining that endless procession of sots who had gone on before ...

"No words can tell of the loneliness and despair I found in that bitter morass of self-pity. Quicksand stretched around me in all directions. I had met my match. I had been overwhelmed. Alcohol was my master" (Big Book, p. 8).

This was the first time that I ever felt an ounce of hope regarding my alcoholism.

Why? For the first time in my life, I witnessed another human being feeling exactly what I felt -- the hopelessness, the fear, the shame, the humiliation, the desperation, the absolute defeat from alcohol. I came to realize that my problem wasn't so unique -- that even in the midst of my most lonesome grief, I was never alone in my experience of alcoholism.

The following chapters in the Big Book convinced me that my situation was not hopeless after all. I came to believe that I could have my life back.

That was one year ago today.

And today, I'm grateful to have my life back.