Getting and staying sober has been the biggest hurdle for me in this life so far. I have been at it since 1986, and that is A LOT of in and out of recovery. Six months here, three months there. One excuse after another, but I think it boils down to the unfortunate idea that I thought I was too smart for the simple program of recovery that has saved literally millions of lives. Too smart to get sober. The perilous mindset of countless alcoholics.

My Personal Backstory

I go to high school and interact with hundreds of people followed by college, which allowed me to have a broader understanding of the social variances in the population. I learn that there are many different types of people with varied types of experiences out there. Yet they all seem, in my eyes, to share an underlying cohesiveness. A common viewpoint about what is useful and meaningful in each of their individual lives and collective communities. But I don’t think I have the filter or focus that others have. In fact, I KNOW I don’t have it. My joy comes from shocking others, the way I balk at their connectedness. I am at the fray, the subversive outcast. I search out the differences and shun the similarities. I drink to numb my otherness.  This is when I feel the need to fit in. 

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Alcohol Made Me Think I Was Invincible – I Was Wrong

I drink more and when I do, I begin to understand the connections all these people have to one another. I can talk without fear of saying the wrong thing. How glorious this is! Albeit a little louder than I intended. Everyone around me is laughing at my jokes, confiding in me with their secrets and ideas. Conviviality is finally mine! And I drink more, and get louder still. And the stories I tell are less my own and more creative in origin. And I see doubt in some eyes. Then I feel the heat of anger in my face. Because I know that for tonight, this is the end. The spell has broken. The window has closed. No more laughs. They are walking away as I speak. Another drink and another. A couple of these people are still near me, though it seems more out of responsibility and fear of what I might do if they leave me alone than of camaraderie. Then, nothingness. I awake without my keys or my wallet or my phone. The only thing I seem to have left on me is regret. 

The 12 Keys to the Kingdom

I’m handed what the recovery community call, the “Keys to the Kingdom” in these 12 Steps[r1] . So simple. Sure, let me give it a whirl! I work through them with a hungry fervor. And I feel alive again for the first time in a long time. A glimpse of clarity. I’m told these tools will only work if I work them daily. But I’m smarter, quite frankly, than MOST of these drunks who need it every day. So I set them aside. And the fog slowly returns. And before long I’m drunk again. No wallet, no phone, no comprehension of how this could have happened again. 

Almost 3 Years Sober!

Now, as I approach my 3 years sober mark this time, I occasionally think I’ve outgrown the program. I don’t need to run every idea by my sponsor and that meetings are just for fellowship. I’ve read the literature to the point of being able to recite it all from memory and have confidence that I can do this alone. Experience has taught me time and time again where my intellectual independence leads me. 

I go to a meeting and call my sponsor. I read my literature, sometimes out loud to a new sponsee! I get on my knees and pray. And because I do all these things on a daily basis I don’t pick up the drink. I don’t question why it works. Or how. I don’t try to out-think the magical simplicity that arises out of surrendering, cleaning house and helping others. I just do it. And I begin to focus on the similarities. And I recognize my story in others. I begin to feel our commonality and our connection. And in connection I find the truth about all knowledge. That we each have unique, personal experience, and therefore a limited understanding of the world. But we can see everything through the eyes of one another.

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