Continually I am reminded of the blessings of recovery; by newcomers especially. Still raw and full of despair for trying to do things “their” way, while their disease has them bound and gagged at knifepoint for what seems to be an eternity.  If I wasn’t a dope fiend drunk my damn self, it would be incomprehensible to me how someone could get beaten so many times by this “thing” that tortures us.   Bloodstained, tattered, lost and alone … we claw our way to this “one last try”.  Pretty much convinced that it won’t work … that it’s a bunch of malarky … that all these people living sober/clean and happy – gotta be taking something. At the very least “Aren’t like me.”

I remember that very first moment of surrender at an AA meeting at the ripe old age of nineteen.  April 18th, 1992 and I was still swollen from my head bouncing off the windshield of a pickup truck.  Bloated from drinking, shame permeating my very sweat, eye contact NOT an option I knew succinctly … that I was simply a screw up. A reject. That it wasn’t drinking every day that was so much the problem; but an inherent genetic defect of LOSE.

See if I was “BAD” or “FLAWED” …  it was hopeless. Not to mention helpless.  If I could only pray more or read more self help books or write more poignant anguished poetry (lol) or get the right guy or lose more weight or be smarter or get more beautiful or get the right friends or … or … or …  you get the idea.  Lost-cause-ism. Total and infinite.  I felt ninety versus nineteen.  Drink – trouble – drink – trouble – smoke weed – munchies – then trouble – other drugs – MORE trouble.  I couldn’t for the life of me see the pattern.  We’re so sick that we don’t KNOW that we don’t KNOW … that we don’t … know.

I walked into that meeting.  The girl was maybe 30 that spoke.  She was well put together, confident, well spoken, and kind.  I thought “Good grief (cleaned up for reading enjoyment – I was a bit of a pottymouth back in the day) what the hell does THIS chick have to say about MY life?”.  And then … the magic happened.  Her first words were … “ I HAVE RECOVERED FROM A SEEMINGLY HOPELESS STATE OF MIND AND BODY. MY NAME IS … (I can’t remember her name that was 18 years ago jeeze )… AND I’M AN ALCOHOLIC.”

That got my attention.  But somehow she told MY story. She described the long lonely nights, the despair, the inferiority, the drinking patterns, the promiscuity (more of the “tease” variety, blue balls all around – so to speak), the suicide attempts, all the way down to the “self help book brigade”.  I could only hear the sick at the time.  That is why “drunk/drug-alogues” are vital.  If she had stood up and said, “We all know how to be sick blah blah blah”… I wouldn’t have heard a word.

BECAUSE she identified with the sick by sharing what it was like, my soul LISTENED. And the whole recovered thing? I liked that.  I’ve heard many folks spout that and people getting their panties all knotted about it.   But we have indeed recovered … from that seemingly hopeless state mentioned above.  We have joy and love and light in our lives today, if we choose it to be so.  Working 12 steps to freedom, going to meetings, working with others … doesn’t seem like an awful lot compared to the alternative.  To STAY recovered I must be willing to continue, every single moment of every single day, to work the program outlined in the Big Book. (Basic Text for my NA peeps). Hence the idea of continually “recovering”.  Working constantly to stay out of that sick.

Here’s the good news.  It becomes … rote. It becomes … innate.  Healthfulness can replace all that “innate bad” I used to think I had.  (Never really was bad, my sick told me that and I believed like Pavlov ringin’ that damn bell. Salivating Sickness. ooh I like that) We can get better.  There IS a solution. If we just don’t die first … there’s always hope.  You too can recover.

And remember … the elevator is broken – take the steps.

(the person I wrote this for knows exactly who he is. I love you.)