Christmas can be a wonderful Day, a Day the family will remember. You’ll recall those Mornings around the family’s usually very highly decorated Tree, presents being opened, piles of wrappings, happiness with that sweater but maybe a wrong size, the usual check from Grandparents, that special computer gizmo for the oldest kid, watching the kids and their joy and perhaps disappointment when Santa delivered the wrong book. The kids will remember that Day from their perspective of their carefully prepared “Want list.” I believe Christmas Day is one of those experiences that through the years is always relived with various recollections and maybe tears.

But for the person still living an alcoholic life, there may be a different recollection of Christmas. Sometimes it’s as dark as can be, maybe forgetting the family had planned to visit a few neighbors, or you had promised to stop and get batteries for the kids’ gifts, or promised to pick up the gifts for the Pastor and her family. These and more such incidents are recalled and sting us with shame which stayed with us.

But my surrender and constant work with the Twelve Steps now enables me to remember to visit those folks, to get the “kids’ batteries,” to assemble that bicycle before 1 AM Christmas Eve.

My sobriety brought a finality and comfort to Christmas and New Year’s days even with their travel difficulties, weather problems, flight delays and cancelations, heavy traffic—and everyone racing about, anxious to get through it all. Now I’m able to get all the things I need by the 31st—your business may close its financial year on the 31st, and you have to be certain your income tax material is in good order. Perhaps the most wonderful time of Thanksgiving and Christmas is the gathering of the family, calling the families “to come home,” and now they come.

This recovering alcoholic wishes to close with a description of our family gathering this recent Thanksgiving. Twenty-five or so children, grandkids, serious boy and girl friends, parents, brothers, sisters, a friend of mine, and eighty-year-old “grand-folks”—they all came to my daughter’s house for Turkey Dinner. Gathering around the fire pit, we found ourselves in the middle of its warmth plus all flavors and varieties of cheese, foreign crackers, and more. Everyone talked of special past Days, the sometimes strange gifts or broken toys, the time the tree almost fell over. We received several recipes of pumpkin pies, two 25-pound turkeys (all consumed that day), then more cakes and cookies and candies—and an ongoing variety of those cheese and crackers—again all consumed.

That Thanksgiving week the family returned from their homes from all over—from Chicago, Milford, Cincinnati, Michigan, Baltimore, Prospect Park, Katonah, Washington DC, “SLO, CA”, St Andrews College, and me from my home in assisted living in Lebanon, Ohio.

I am cognizant of the fact that this 87-year-old recovering alcoholic was able to assist with its organization, enjoy the time together, and recall and laugh at so many of those happy past days of Christmas. I thought to myself of the passing this year of my wife of 65 years and the joys she brought to Thanksgiving and Christmas.

There is one Christmas which I always recall at this time: the family was then living in Coffeyville, Kansas. We had invited two uniformed soldiers as guests. It was 1944 and I was 6 years old. After dinner, both soldiers quietly huddled around our small fireplace. The backs of their shirts reflected very heavy sweating.

Each Christmas, without fail, I quietly thank God for assisting Bill W and Dr Bob with the workings of the Program of Alcoholic Anonymous and the saving Grace it brought and continues to bring to us. I recall the times at St X Noon, the folks I met there and elsewhere. I thought of the importance of reaching out to others still living in their alcoholic morass.

With that, this recovering alcoholic passes to all of us a “Merry Christmas” and a “Happy New Year” and reminds us that “It works if I work it.”

Jim A, St X Noon, Cincinnati