No One Is Hopeless

I would like to share what it was like, what didn’t happen, what happened, and what it is like now. Those in AA who have stayed sober since day one, perhaps after this reading, can be a little more grateful to their Higher Power for their sobriety. Those among us who have had difficulty in accepting the program can find hope in the fact that “no one is hopeless.”

I exhibited signs of anger, frustration, and resentment at an early age. In desperation my mother took me to a child psychiatrist who suggested I receive more discipline. I was already fertile soil for addiction.

My growing up school years was normal in most aspects, however, I always felt like an outsider with a sense of not belonging to the “in crowd”. Although I possessed a big ego I remained alone and withdrawn.

When I grew older I discovered alcohol. I now had a friend who could remove my inhibitions. Alcohol gave me a false sense of courage, which enabled me to socialize with my peers. I could now date and dance with girls. I now felt like a member of that “in crowd.”

Three months prior to high school graduation my mother died and my father remarried within a year. I now met a new friend called denial. It would stay with me for years to come. Once again there was anger, frustration, resentment, and temper tantrums.

It was the Korean War era and I enlisted into the Air Force and after a stormy courtship I married my high school sweetheart. I was on my way to do battle for my country but the real battle to come would be long in duration for it demanded surrender to attain victory.

While in the service my drinking escalated. I had now developed an affinity for the cocktail lounge. I had found “Fantasy Land”. This was a world where all of my ego driven ambitions would come true in my intoxicated state of mind. The dim lights, the jukebox music, and that ever- present mirror behind the bar stimulated these dreams. I had found that spot “over the rainbow where bluebirds fly”. In the romance of the bar I had at last found my refuge from reality.

The reality from which I was trying to escape had a habit of reappearing and during the time period of the birth of my children it became evident that I was too irresponsible to handle the obligations of family life. The situation at home had become intolerable. The constant arguing, fighting, resentments and displays of anger over the shortage of money and calls from bill collectors were commonplace. I had now developed a fear of reality; a fear of the unknown. This innate fear would last for many years to come. Reality was becoming more and more painful as each year passed. My escape from this pain became more desperate and in spite of this evidence I did nothing to resolve the situation. The two old friends I had met earlier, alcohol and denial, was now my family.

In spite of the chaos in my life I received an honorable discharge from the service. I attended college on the GI bill but quit after two years. Drunkenness and academia could not coexist for me.

I returned to my hometown and got a job as a salesman for a Fortune 500 company in New York City. My co-workers had new cars, nice homes on Long Island, while my family lived in a public housing project in New Jersey. We couldn’t afford any luxuries because the rent on the barstool had gone up.

I attended my first AA meeting in Brooklyn, NY in the early sixties. I looked around those tables and I saw older men in there 50,s and 60,s and only an occasional female. I rationalized that when I reached their age I too would be willing to quit drinking. I attended AA meetings on an infrequent basis after that because I was too young.

I will always be grateful to those good “old timers” who sat with me into the wee hours of the morning trying to convince me that my only problem was alcohol. They had planted the seed of sobriety but it would take many years to blossom. They said it would get worse for me if I didn’t change. They were right.

My world was falling apart, my wife left me and she also remarried too quickly for my liking. My friends left me and I soon found myself unemployed. I was spiraling downward. I now entered a new phase of drinking. I would play sad songs on the jukebox and tell every bartender my sad tale of woe. If I had the money they seemed to have the time. I was now in the “self pity” phase of alcoholism. The fun of drinking was slowly being replaced by a sense of despair and remorse.

I decided to take my first cure. It was of a geographical nature. I returned to live with my parents but due to my drinking I soon had to leave and I was on my way to Chicago. This cure had a major flaw in that I took myself with me.

I was now broke in a strange city with no family, no friends, no job, and no money. I was doomed. My thoughts went back to those wonderful AA people I had met in New York. I recalled how they had tried to help “poor souls” like myself get back on their feet. I called AA again but I was shooting angles in my call for help. Yes I might perhaps have a “little” drinking problem but I needed a place to eat and sleep before I could undertake anything as drastic as sobriety.

I still remember “Papa Frank” (who later became my sponsor) making a Twelfth Step call on me in a small closet sized room at the local YMCA. I pleaded for a treatment hospital but in those days they were not as commonplace as today. I recall Frank saying “If I could sweat it out, then you can sweat it out too! He did, however, take me into his home for dinner. A wonderful relationship was born that day and it lasted through the upcoming dark and bright years of sobriety that would follow.

I began to attend AA meetings on a regular basis. I attained six months of “dry time” and gave an AA talk. My big shot ego took over and I got drunk.

The years that followed were the most confusing period of my life. I wanted the rewards of sobriety while still drinking and that was impossible. I now drank with guilt. I couldn’t forget those sober and happy members of AA. I had one foot in the bar and one foot in AA and I belonged nowhere.

In the mid sixties, during a drinking spree, I met a German girl who had just arrived in the States. We began dating and were married. I had a drinking partner at last! Her drinking soon increased at such a rapid pace that I suggested that she should go to AA. She did and soon we were both slipping in and out of AA. Truly, these were those days of “Wine and Roses”. There were days of sobriety and hope followed by days of doom and despair. We were a pair of slippers who didn’t want the program bad enough.

I had sunk to the bottom of the ladder career wise. I worked daily labor in factories, served hamburgers, and finally landed a job in a small “revolving door” sales operation with no salary or benefits. I hustled on this job for 10 years. I was going nowhere fast.

I can remember how desperate I became to understand how this program really works. I began to take notes at meetings that I would study later at home. One old timer asked what I was doing and I told him. He instructed me to throw away my note pad and said he would tell me after the meeting how AA works in just three words. My anticipation grew and I could hardly wait for this simple formula. He said to write the following: “ACCEPT, ACCEPT, and ACCEPT.” My God the wisdom of those old-timers! His entire program could be reduced to 3 words.

I can remember the patience and tolerance Papa Frank had for me during those dark years. I can remember the love and closeness of the AA family in those days. My wife had managed to stay sober for 2 1/2 years while I continued to drink. Finally Frank was having some second thoughts about my commitment to sobriety. He advised my wife to divorce me for her own well being.

Thanksgiving Day approached that year and I began to think of what had happened to others that I had known who had slipped. The insanity told me I was different. The insanity told me the next drunk would be different. I recalled Ron, a handsome young man, who, in a blackout, shot himself in the head. He left a wife and two small children.

I also remember Ted, an older man who worked with me in that sales “boiler room.” I took him, during one of my dry spells, to his first and only AA meeting. He commented, after discussing the first Step, that he was impressed with what everyone had done with their lives. He could not identify because like myself he thought he was different. Ted died six months later from dropping a lit cigarette on his bed while drunk. This list could go on but was I really different? Would that next drunk really be different?

On that Thanksgiving Day I entered my favorite tavern and ordered a shot and a beer. I commented to the bartender “I really shouldn’t drink because I’m an alcoholic.” The bartender replied “so am I” and the gentleman at the end of the bar said “I just got out of a dry-out joint and I’m an alcoholic too!” I remember asking: “Then why are we drinking?” I went out that evening for a few more drinks but that question “then why are we drinking?” consumed my thinking. I returned home and went to sleep. That was my last drink, by the grace of God, after slipping for 13 years in and out of AA. Thirteen fruitless years after that first seed of sobriety was planted at my first AA meeting in Brooklyn, NY.

The snake of alcoholism is truly cunning, baffling, and powerful. It would raise its head to strike once more. On a Friday night, after six months of sobriety, I entered a tavern and ordered a drink. I paid for it but couldn’t drink it. I can still remember the sweating, the pounding heart, and the mental confusion. Why didn’t I take that drink? After all I had done that for 13 years. I pondered on that for a week. The light in my minds eye then enabled me to see for the first time in my life that I feared that first drink. It meant death, jail, or being institutionalized sooner rather than later. I was convinced something terminal would happen and at last I was going to stay sober for myself.

The spark of honesty six months earlier when I asked “then why are we drinking?” had ignited into 100% honesty with myself. I can’t drink! This was my “moment of truth.” I was 100% honest and God’s grace was given to me that day because of that honesty. I had ordered my last drink that night and realize now that we alcoholics are all going to face our “moment of truth.” Honesty will let the light of God’s grace rescue us.

I have enjoyed 28 years of uninterrupted sobriety as of this writing. Those dark years of doom and despair have turned into clear, sunny, and bright years.

Permit me to share some reflections that separate those early slipping years from the latter years of continuous sobriety.

During those early years I was told to keep it simple. Instead I continued to analyze and dissect every aspect of our program. In fact, the program seemed too simple for me to grasp. My life was like a jigsaw puzzle thrown across the counter of the local bar. There were no two pieces fitting together. I had failed to realize that I only had to put one piece of that puzzle in place (not taking that first drink a minute, hour, or day at a time). Today I hold that first piece of the puzzle in place by working the Steps of recovery to the best of my ability. The remaining pieces of the puzzle have blended together to form a wonderful picture of the reality of life; that same reality I once sought so desperately to escape.

I admitted during those 13 years that I was an alcoholic but I never accepted it. This is evidenced by that question on my last day of drinking: "then why are we drinking?” Today drinking is not an option.

In retrospect I can now see that I had also become the “Prosperity Drinker”. I would forget the pain of that last drunk while becoming overly elated in the improvements in life that the absence of alcohol had brought. This situation would trigger an automatic desire to celebrate. To celebrate meant to drink. To drink meant to get drunk. That inevitable cycle would again repeat itself until once more pain forced abstinence. I couldn’t handle success. Today I have learned to use the Serenity Prayer in times of success as well as in times of difficulty.

I was truly the “jaywalker” during those 13 in and out years. I found an excitement in living on the edge and in the fast lane. I enjoyed dodging those cars and trucks. Today I have found true peace and happiness in the safety of the sidewalk of sobriety.

I was a victim of the MOM syndrome. It has nothing to do with motherhood but rather the making of mountains out of molehills. I was escaping reality by making everything in my life a federal case. Today sobriety has given me perspective on the happenings of life. These perspectives are as simple as “This too shall pass” to as profound as “What does this mean over a lifetime?”

I have long ago replaced those two devious friends of alcohol and denial because they betrayed me. I met a new friend I call my Higher Power and he will never betray me. His divine providence has a “game plan” for me. When bad things happen, good will ultimately come out of it. I don’t have to understand why bad times come to all of us.

I do understand that God can see over the mountain and I cannot. Who but my Higher Power could have seen I would once again be employed by another Fortune 500 company ending in an early retirement? Who but my Higher Power could have seen that I would again be in good grace with those I had hurt in the past? Who but my Higher Power could have seen that German girl and myself married for over 30 years; both being active in AA while living a sober, serene, and comfortable life in retirement? Our Higher Power can see such things.

In closing, now that I am in the autumn of my years, I can reflect on those bad years, the good years, and the in between years. I compare it to a forest that I have traveled through, stumbling and getting lost but always guided by a friend I never knew was there. Today I can see the whole forest in its entirety while realizing how beautiful it is. How blessed I have been to have safely traveled through it.

When I finally take that last step into eternity I will go with faith that the same Higher Power who’s grace kept me sober over these many years will say “Welcome”. I cannot envision a Higher Power whose grace kept me sober saying “Go to Hell”. He knows I have already been there. To those who have never slipped, again I ask you to be a little more tolerant toward those having difficulty accepting the program and please be a little more grateful for your own sobriety. To those of you who are having difficulty accepting the program, never give up. Please remember it’s easier to stay sober than it is to get sober and as all of us have heard at meetings Keep Coming Back because truly No One Is Hopeless.