Through the Red Door Blog

You know who they are—the gang that met at The Antlers after work, the neighborhood lush and expert outdoor griller, the brother-in-law, the couple you spent those skiing weekends with, and on and on. They’re the ones who will notice you aren’t drinking. They may ask “why” did you stop? They may really quiz you about this for the unspoken truth is that they fear they may be on the same slippery slope.

This is what I think about all this stuff. When I came in, I decided to cease fraternizing with those with whom I drank—close friends, been through a lot together, maybe a sister or brother, roommate. You spent a good deal of time baring your soul probably with that garbled fuzzy drunken lilt.

Quickly, I learned I should be deciding how to deal with my past “people, places and things.” The Program tells us we need to start looking for new friendships—ones who empathize with your illness, who are not afraid of developing a spiritual life, people who are aware of the trials and tribulations of others. In a word, you want to start associating with those who are interested in developing a higher quality of life whose values aren’t focused essentially on an alcoholic self-destruction. For the truth is that the unchecked alcoholic’s life will be destroyed by his or her alcoholism. There simply no other way out of this quagmire.

Where do you find these new friends and companions? At the thousands of Alcoholic Anonymous meetings. And don’t tell me “they are not like me”—no job or education degree, some don’t have any visual means of support, or an education degree, maybe their spouse just left and took the kids, or they live in a half-way house, I have a “hard time just conversing with them.”

Well, don’t sweat it. They’re drunks just like you. All that sadness is right out there. It’s knocking on the front door about to come in and turn your life upside down. You’ve earned all that grief by your alcoholic abuse of substances.

Just as you found that your drinking habits were easier protected by sticking with others of similar ways of living, so you need to shift your daily routines from folks like yourself who have learned to manage their lives without the haze this addiction provides. No, you need to find a new pack to run with, a sober one, one that is seeking new ways of living, who really do have a desire to grow a spiritual life, whose lives aren’t dominated by that daily endless cocktail “hour.” 

So, get rid of that that old life and the people in it and get on with working the Program. Keep coming back for it really does work if you work it.

Jim A/St X Noon, Cincinnati

This time of year, “Surviving the Holidays” is a frequent and necessary topic at meetings. And with all the family reunions, neighborhood parties and business receptions, the traditional gifts of wine or fine malt whiskey—the traditional Holiday temptations placed before the recovering addict are many and varied and sometimes bring back warm feelings of past celebrations. .

This year is different. The past norms of the Season don’t seem to be appropriate, maybe not even possible. Look, most of us haven’t been to any gathering of folks since mid-March. We have wrestled around and decided to make up for this absenteeism by using computers to speak to one another. 

Sort of a gimmicky means of communication, but it’s better than nothing.

One particularly sad fact is the necessary curtailing of family gatherings. We saw plans for Thanksgiving cancelled at the last minute, driven perhaps by an escalation of the number of cases in the hosts’ city, or someone contracts a seasonal cold or youngsters may have been exposed at school. All eyes were focused on aggressive defensive measures to avoid the tragedy of this raging pandemic.

So, what do we say to all this curtailment of the usual past joyous Holiday customs?

Our old reliable prayer gives us this answer. Its answer is avoiding worrying about those things we can’t do anything about.

To meet this, I need to remember the teachings of the Program, “Into action, do something you can do, be grateful for what you still have, reach out to those who have been damaged.”

Here are some additional ideas. Work on the spiritual aspect of your life, take your own inventory and work to correct what needs to be corrected. Look for the fellowship of folks busy searching for the “way, the truth and the light,” read a chapter in the Big Book or 12 and 12, call a troubled new member, chair a program for those confined to jail or an institution, write a meditation for “The Red Door,” spend an extra amount of time with your spouse and children, attend a Holiday Breakfast sponsored by the local general service committee.

But when we do run into that wall, and you’re over-whelmed, what can we do? We get to a meeting, read the Big Book, call our sponsor, work with a newbie, make the coffee, lead the group discussion for a month, talk to that new person.

And remember, “we never give up.” We know that if we keep coming back to the Program, it works for us and we need not suffer those Holiday Blues again!

Jim A/St X Noon, Cincinnati

“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level…” Isaiah 40:3,4

At this time of the year, we hear a lot of talk about “prepare the way of the Lord.” For those of us who attend church, depending on the church, we are liable to hear about going to confession, about cleaning up our act, etc. Until about eighteen months ago I gave little to no attention to the first part of the phrase, “In the wilderness…”

I was preparing to attend a retreat for those of us in the program and began to reflect on the phrase when it hit me “fair and square” as is said. I first landed in the wilderness the night of my first drink and began drinking alcoholically. From the beginning I experienced blackouts and, as my values deteriorated, the wilderness became increasingly empty and, at times, downright frightening, even as I projected myself to be sound in mind, body, and spirit.

The wilderness, however, which I later appreciated, was the wilderness in which I began to work and live the steps. Preparation for this wilderness was to acknowledge my powerlessness and unmanageability; came to believe in a power greater than myself that could restore me to sanity; made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understood God.

These three steps were the baptism that opened my heart and mind to hear God saying, “You are my beloved child in whom I am well pleased.”  It was out of this baptism that I was able to begin the remainder of the steps, the one that took me deep inside myself to look at the wilderness in which I had lived, to write about what I saw, what I remembered, what I heard I had done while under the influence.

I didn’t care for this wilderness. My addiction told me I was a great guy, the life of the party, the center of attention. In the wilderness I was able to see that I was neither the life of the party nor the center of attention. In this wilderness I came to grips with my moral bankruptcy; with my emptiness and the sticks and stones with which I beat myself. I came in contact with my EGO - Easing God Out – attitude of the trinitarian Me, Myself and I.        

In this wilderness I dug deep into the commandments, the seven deadly sins, the Ash Wednesday litany from the Book of Common Prayer and came face to face with the behavior and attitudes that resulted from my addiction to alcohol and drugs.        

In this wilderness I got off my mountain of pride collapsed and I transferred to the valley of humility. For too long, I had walked on crooked paths. It was time to straighten them out in order to see the road ahead. There was an unevenness about the road. There was a ridge between what I thought of me and, what my sponsor told me was the real me. He had me review a list of positive qualities and identify which one I thought were mine. I picked a few of them and showed it to him. Then he made me aware that, at my core, all of them were who I am.  These were activated when I was created in the image and likeness of God. Because of this wilderness experience I learned to say, “I am loving. Sometimes I’m indifferent. I am truthful. Sometimes I lie.  I am…..but sometimes I…  It was in this process that the uneven ground became level, this was the balance I had been looking for in all the wrong places.

It was in this wilderness that my Higher Power assisted me with the help of good friends and a sponsor to make straight the highway necessary for a life of sobriety. The work in this wilderness gave me the strength to make amends, to forgive and ask for forgiveness, to seek through prayer and meditation what is God’s will for me and ask for the power to carry that out.

Like a sheep I let myself be led astray. Like a sheep, I wandered into the wilderness. And it was there the Shepherd found me and brought me home within myself so I could celebrate the Kingdom of God within me. I could live one day at a time and be at peace.

This is my first time writing for this blog. I’m excited, and a bit nervous. I’m full of self-centered fear, wondering if you will like it. Fortunately, I have a program that helps me with that.

My name is Shane. I’m in recovery from alcoholism, from compulsive eating, and from my family’s alcoholism. I’m a miracle – and so are you! That’s what I know from the rooms, and my life.

I grew up in an alcoholic home, but I didn’t know that. I didn’t know our family was different from any other, so what I learned there I took out into the world. I learned that I couldn’t trust anyone to care for my feelings, that I wouldn’t be believed if I spoke my truth, that I could be shamed for showing weakness. I learned that I should make everyone proud, I should and could impress people, but that I would not be loved.

I was given room to develop my talents, but they weren’t a substitute for safety and love. As my rage built, I began looking for outlets and expressions of that rage. I found alcohol and drugs when I was 13, and I dove into the deep end. I went to all the places that the Big Book predicts – jail (juvenile detention), asylum (mental hospital), plus some that aren’t mentioned. By the time I turned 16 I had done these, I had gotten pregnant and miscarried in silence, I had tried to kill myself. I didn’t know that alcohol and drugs were helping me go to those places – I just thought I was crazy, and I didn’t care.

I got sober in 1985, when I was 28. Someone had me read the Promises at my third meeting. I cried because I couldn’t imagine ever experiencing any of them. It was like the universe inviting me to sing a song I didn’t know how to sing. But I kept coming. I wanted to feel better.

Since then, my life has been an adventure. I went back to school, got a Ph.D., taught for years. Then a new round of step work helped me leave and enter an Episcopal convent. After nine years, another round of work helped me leave there and serve a parish, and eventually found a new community with another woman. Now, eight years later, the community is flourishing and so am I.

When I got sober people told me to eat sugar if I wanted to drink. I did. I ate sugar long after I stopped craving alcohol, long after my weight became a problem. I didn’t get it. I’m an alcoholic, I’d say; food is not my issue. I just like to eat.

Finally, God sent some people into my life who helped me see that I was doing the same thing with food that I had with alcohol. I would try to control it, but it didn’t go so well. I didn’t diet, because that would be vain – and it would be hard. I thought, “I can use the Steps on this too,” but I never did.

Once I got that I had the same reaction to some foods that I have to alcohol, the path was clear. There was a place for me, another place. I could take all that I had gained in one and still learn more. Now I have the same freedom from compulsive eating that I had found from alcohol.

So, here’s the miracle: not that I entered the rooms, not that I stopped drinking and overeating. Those are indeed miracles, but the one I treasure is the hope, the reality of the Promises. If I will work, if you will work, the whole world opens up to us, to become the people God intended and dreamed of.

Whatever you have been through, whatever you’re struggling with, there are others who’ve been there. I’m one of them, waiting for you to reach out. Life is sometimes a struggle for me now, but only because I forget to use the tools offered by the programs. When I pick up the phone, the pen, the prayer book, I return to serenity. A new way opens up in the wilderness. One day at a time, miracles are happening.

Blessings on your journey, all year, every year.

In her book The Alchemy of Us, materials scientist Ainissa Ramirez discusses “how humans and matter transformed one another.” The opening chapter is about time, perception of time, clocks, and relativity. Ramirez explains that during intense times of novel experiences--childhood, for instance--the brain stores huge amounts of sensory data, Words, scenes, actions, emotions all become embedded into our brains in vivid detail. As we get older, we store fewer sensory images because not so much is unfamiliar anymore. Monotony creates few lasting impressions and days drag on one after another in a predictable way.

And here, now, today, we all are dealing with a novel coronavirus, a new disease called COVID-19, and an unprecedented pandemic. We are standing six feet away from others, our faces are masked. We don’t gather together; we stay away from our beloved activities and places.

What is this novel monotony doing to us? I’m thinking about images I first saw more than fifty years ago in Sociology 101: of children playing with sticks which were guns, bats or dolls, depending on how they were held. Kids make do with what’s available and do what children do: imagine and play. We adults, also, look at what’s available and cope by using the blessings at hand to do what adults do--live and breathe and have our being.

The first three months of my pandemic were simultaneous with the final illness and death of my beloved John. Now these ongoing days of social distancing are my days of grieving the loss of a love. My mourning is more hidden than it might otherwise be, but friends, family, my church and 12-step  communities let me know every day--gently, kindly, lovingly--that I am not alone. Three generations of our extended family--siblings and cousins, children and grandchildren--gather weekly for our weekly Sunday Family Zoom--more interaction than we’ve had for years. Friends who are themselves widowed reach out to me--checking in and assuring me that my feelings of confusion, bewilderment, and exhaustion are “normal.”  Incredibly and wonderfully, I live where my neighbors are Saints from our church, and we exchange baked goods and stories from across the COVID chasm.

I am developing new rituals and routines and solidifying others. I attend to my morning devotions and journaling much more faithfully than in the past. I Zoom around the world for 12-Step meetings and have made good friends in Dallas and Vegas and dotted all across the country--folks whom I will travel to meet in person when the world is a safer, gentler place.  I am more efficient in my shopping. Our golden retriever BridgetAdams and I walk a couple of miles almost every day. I can continue my work coordinating care for people recovering from substance abuse because of video conferencing.

The novelty of the pandemic is long over and monotony has set in. But I can smile. As a wise woman said to me once, “Look around--there is always something to be grateful for.”

Christine H.
Peterborough NH, December 4, 2020

Waiting…for what?

Once again, the old year has rolled ‘round, and we cross the threshold into the new. Advent is my favorite liturgical season: the light at night, the rich colors in church, and the music that gives voice to longing. At my age, one might imagine that I know what to expect. But, every year, I am initially disoriented.

What’s really going on? What am I supposed to pay attention to? The prophecies? The manger? The Second Coming? As an addict, I tend to think in categories of either/or, rather than the confusing and uncomfortable both/and.

I’m often not very good at waiting. Of course, much of it is sheer impatience; here I’m in good company with our ancestors in faith. They, like me, prefer decisiveness…immediately.

Isaiah cries to God, “O that you would rend the heavens and come down.” The Psalmist pleads, “Restore us, O God of hosts; show us the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.” In Mark’s gospel, we hear Jesus speak with urgency, “Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come.”

That’s a lot of anxiety. But, if I allow myself to be still, I begin to sense that Advent has a great deal in common with a 12-Step program. It never moves along as quickly as I would like, it goes places I couldn’t have predicted, and there’s a lot of work involved.

Today, when I hear the majestic language of Isaiah, Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, I think about the Ninth Step promises. If I have been diligent in working to level the obstructions, both within myself, and in my relationships, the promises will come true, no matter how far down the scale I had gone.

Did I want all those things to happen immediately? Of course I did. Did they? Of course not. I had stopped using, but I had no idea how to live, as an adult, on life’s terms. Time has given me the space to learn to live.

2020 has had more than its share of “life’s terms”: COVID, the economic devastation that has followed, and the cries for racial justice. It’s tempting to anesthetize the discomfort, to ask God to restore us right now, to wish it all away. But here is where we are, maxed out on waiting for things to “get back to normal”.

Recently, I found myself suggesting that Advent is an invitation for us to pay attention to the here and now, to be where our feet are. After all, we sing, “O come, O come, Emmanuel” – “O come, O come, God-with-us”. Not “God who was with us”, or “God who will be with us”, but “God who is with us”.

This year, in the quiet of these weeks, I will try to wait patiently. And, in the waiting, I hope to become attentive to God’s light peeking through the cracks in my everyday world.

Advent’s a funny time, isn’t it? What exactly are we waiting for? I know that more will be revealed. And I know that God is already with us. How blessed are we!

Paul J.

Ezekiel 36:24-28

“I will take you from among all nations; *
and gather you from all lands to bring you home.
I will sprinkle clean water upon you; *
and purify you from false gods and uncleanness.
A new heart I will give you *
and a new spirit put within you.
I will take the stone heart from your chest *
and give you a heart of flesh.
I will help you walk in my laws *
and cherish my commandments and do them.
You shall be my people, *
and I will be your God.”

Enriching Our Worship (Church Publishing 1998)

This Song of Ezekiel speaks about our recovery. In recovery, we receive a new heart and a right spirit. Our higher power takes out our stone heart and replaces it with a heart of flesh. We could not do this on our own. God helps us to walk by his laws, and we learn to cherish them and practice them.

I have one friend who has memorized this canticle and sings it every morning in the shower.  He is meditating and connecting to his higher power in the shower, no less. When people ask how to start their day, this is one suggestion that keeps coming to mind, especially if the person starts her day with a daily bath or shower. This is an image that has stayed with me for many years.

I am not good at memorizing scripture, but for those who are, I cannot think of a better way to start the day. Even if I cannot memorize the scripture, perhaps I can remember some lines. I am asking God to sprinkle clean water on me, to purify me from false gods. My favorite false gods are fame, recognition, work, and busyness.

I am asking God for a new heart, a fresh way to love, especially to love those who seem unlovable, different, those who seem to punch all my egocentric buttons that become harder and harder to hide, and those I perceive have harmed me. I pray for a new spirit, the Holy Spirit, God’s will, not my own will, to live inside of me and to lead me. I am well acquainted with and dislike the stone heart that quietly and subtly takes over and judges others and myself.

Take that hard, stone heart out of my chest. It is a too heavy and painful burden to carry. I pray for a heart that accepts my humanness and the humanness of others. I will try to follow the guidelines I think God has given me.

Help me not to believe in my hubris that I am better than others and above the laws you have asked us to follow. I want to stay connected today to you, God, even if it is a thin thread.

Perhaps I can remember clean water, no false gods today, a new heart, a new spirit, no stone heart, no hubris, staying connected for just one more day.

Some may have more time to be silent and contemplate in our prayer life during this coronavirus pandemic. We may have been given a gift of time, especially as we shower, to consider how God is sprinkling clean water on us to remove our heart of stone that we so carefully hide.

Joanna Seibert

In an October letter to the faithful in his Diocese, a Bishop of the Episcopal Church admitted he had a “problem with alcohol” and had checked into a rehab facility. He continued, stating that in part for this reason, he was retiring as Bishop of the Diocese effective the end of November.

We ask ourselves, “How can we help?” First of all, we can share our own story, “How did we get here?” For many of us, it was a sudden experience brought about by our alcoholic behavior. Maybe the family or our employer had “had enough” and presented us with an ultimatum. 

We can pass along to him that there was so much more: that the Program called us to take our inventory, to seek spiritual support and, where appropriate, make amends for our alcoholic behavior. In some ways, the beauty of the Program is that our assignment didn’t end there; we learned we were charged with a continuing obligation to periodically review our conduct and to change things where necessary. And importantly, we were left with a directive to cultivate our spiritual life.

I remember those first and early days of my surrender experience. I was relieved. A way to recover was freely given me. I felt cleansed. I found a new way of dealing with life’s issues. I saw joy in others when they had taken the same steps, the changes wrought in their lives, their new revived relationships with others. We attend meetings to learn but we also attend to see new lives come into being, new relationships growing, a deeper spiritual growth.

We don’t know how the Bishop entered our rooms or what drew him to seek us out. But we know that something called his attention to his addictive behavior—someone carried a message, a message of hope and a solution and a way to bring all of that about. We are relieved when someone enters our number for, we can hope and pray and in some way by our quiet examples, demonstrate that there really is an “easier and softer way” to respond to the life’s ills. Perhaps most importantly, when we surrendered, we learned we were not alone, we were blessed with our Higher Power to guide us, and yes, the Program was there when we sought it.

Maybe we will have a chance to share with the Bishop what we found once we took that first step of surrendering.

Jim A., St. X Noon

In an article in Shambhala Sun Magazine in September of 1999, Rachael Naomi Remen M.D., wrote: “Helping, fixing, and serving represent three different ways of seeing life. When you help, you see life as weak. When you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as a whole. Fixing and helping may be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul.”

When I was in seminary, I had an opportunity to spend part of my summer with youth who were, in one form or another, “handicapped.” On my first day I saw one coming down a flight of stairs in a wheelchair. Feeling scared for him, and not knowing what to do, I reported what I saw and, to my surprise, was told: “He’s really good at that.” I wanted to “help” but didn’t know what was needed of me. I saw a person in a wheelchair and concluded “helplessness.” I quickly learned these youth focus on their gifts and talents, not on their “handicap.” By the end of that summer I saw them as the artist, the writer, the photographer, and not “the handicapped” which is what society had taught me. I learned to ask, “Do you need help with…” instead of saying, “Let me help you with….

A few years later, as a new therapist, my supervisor told me: “Séamus, your role is not to fix or help the clients. Your role is to guide and encourage them to look deeper into themselves and they will find the answer they seek.” Here again, I wanted to be ‘the fixer” the “helper.” No one asked me to help; no one asked me to fix. My self-esteem was tied up in “helping” “fixing” as that is how I perceived the world around me, broken or weak. In my mind, I was, the one to help or fix.

My first few years in A.A. were years in a dry drunk. It was my belief I didn’t need any help or anyone to fix me. I was in denial of my illness. I had to attend AA to keep my job. In those early days I just knew I was going to be a great resource to the people in AA. because I had degrees in theology and counseling. The horse I rode in on was called Pride and very tall. It would be a few years before I fell off this horse and realize I was really a mule - hard headed, stubborn. I went on 12step calls to help “that poor drunk” and his or her family. I just knew if they listened to me, I could help them. As a counselor I was trying “to fix” the clients - I had forgotten what my supervisor had taught me. My attitude had become one of self-service, not other-service. I had forgotten a lot and lost a lot in Blackouts which I finally accepted I experienced.

I had to come to grips with my powerlessness; a deep realization that my life had become unmanageable. My bottom came when I finally realized I was among the walking dead – spiritually dead. It was at this point I was open to listen to others, to being guided by the principles of A.A., really listening at meetings and reading the Big Book and applying it to me.

Coming in early, setting up the room, staying afterward to clean up. - this was and is service. Attending the home group meetings, accepting or offering to serve on committees, was and is a work of service. To serve was and is to set aside my ego and learn to be present to the other, to be there for others. To serve is to do what is necessary without seeking acknowledgement. As Bill said “Our leaders are but trusted servants."

Becoming service orientated took some training. Being of service meant setting aside my ego, my sense of my self-importance and what I could do for others. It meant learning to stand back and see a larger picture. Being of service meant learning to understand that, what is often needed, is a sense of presence, a ministry of presence. Remen writes: “When we serve, we see the unborn wholeness in others; we collaborate with it and strengthen it. Others may then be able to see their wholeness for themselves for the first time.”     

With recovery I came to realize that my tendency to want to fix and help others was preventing them from developing their God-given gifs and talents. Being a servant, is simply doing ‘the next right thing,” staying sober one day at a time, maintaining an attitude of gratitude, and being the hand of AA when someone shows up to begin the road to recovery.

“Being of service meant learning to understand that, what is often needed, is a sense of presence, a ministry of presence.”

Séamus D.
New Orleans

In his book RECOVERY - the sacred art, Rami Shapiro writes: “Twelve step recovery is not a self-help program, but a selfless help program. We do not change our lives, we allow them to be changed…we allow ourselves to be changed. Allowing this is perhaps all we control, and even here it is more a gift resulting from hitting rock bottom than it is any willful force coming from our ego.”

To tell some folk in recovery that AA is not a self-help program may sound like heresy. Initially, the programed seemed to be to be a self-help program. After all, I had to do the steps, I had to go to meetings; I had to call my sponsor. I had to do all the work. No one did it for me. I had to find where and when the meetings were held and find a way to them.

>After attending the same meeting for some time, I was invited to come early and help set up, stay afterward and clean the ash trays (that was a long time ago). I did, but for selfish reasons. And even as it was for selfish reasons, I was being changed. I was giving up control without realizing it. My Higher Power was working through others to bring me along until such times as I realized that it wasn’t me that was working the program as much as it was my Higher Power guiding me through others to do the next right thing.

Looking back at that time, it was as if I was being carried along in a river of recovery with cliches and acronyms as life-preservers; one day at a time; do the next right thing; let go and let god; stick with the winners, HALT; Don’t get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired; HOW: Honesty Open mindedness, and Willingness.

Bill W. wrote: “What I needed was the humility of self-forgetfulness and the kinship with another human being of my own kind.”*  I had no idea I needed that and yet that was what was happening to me. I was not doing this on my own. I was being led by example, patience, compassion, unaware of my being reformed, recreated, restored to health.

In time I got to know that some of the men and women with whom I spent an hour a day were people of influence and affluence in society and yet, when we sat in that room, we were all of one mind. All that I knew of them initially was their first name and that they wanted to get or remain sober, which was more than I wanted at the time. In that room we were all one day or one hour away from a drink. The selflessness of the people around me was inspiring and I wanted to be like these sober individuals, even if it was my selfish intention. I was one of those individuals for whom my Higher Power works overtime. I had to be  guided, sometimes pushed, into the straight and narrow road not only in doing what was the next right thing but, more importantly, for me,  having the right attitude about what was being done.

Becoming selfless was a process and, for me, a long slow process.  There are times when I look back at those early days and wish I could have ‘got it” much earlier. And yet, because I was a slow learner, hard headed (hearted), I can now appreciate the journey to sobriety. Sobriety is a gift given to me by my Higher Power. I had little to nothing to do with it beyond letting myself be picked up and carried till I was strong enough to become a wounded healer.

I did not change my life. From the example of those who lived the program and worked the steps I saw what selflessness was about. Like a selfish child who does not want a particular present but still opens it, I did not want sobriety but it was presented in such a manner that I could not help but want it, then accept it.

Four and a half years into the program I declared bankruptcy I laughed and laughed. If the government came, they could take everything but my sobriety. That was when it hit me. “I am sober.” I had hit rock bottom spiritually and was given this gift of freedom. I had nothing to do with it beyond letting myself be carried, even when I didn’t want to. I accepted it grudgingly until I realized I was a danger to myself and others. As a result of living this program and working the steps I was gifted with a new life for which I am daily and eternally grateful.

Séamus D. 
New Orleans