February 12, 2001



My name is Andrew. I am an alcoholic.

I am the oldest of seven. Five boys, then two girls. Neither of my parents were drinkers, and never used drugs. Both had severe emotional and/or mental disorders. The paternal side of my family is riddled with alcoholism, and I have several cousins who have recovered in the fellowship. Three of my brothers have died as a direct result of drinking, two by their own hand and one in a motorcycle wreck. My surviving brother is a drunk living on the skids in another city. Neither of my sisters has ever used alcohol or other drugs to excess. At least one cousin also died drunk, by his own hand, and my one paternal uncle died drunk of liver failure. I was once a successful suicide myself; thankfully the junkies I hung with knew CPR and were willing to work on me for several hours until I recovered. I have survived motorcycle and automobile wrecks the likes of which have killed others, due to circumstance or severity of injury.  

My earliest memories are of intense fear. I always saw myself as different, was always watching my back, and expecting only pain and hardship. This is what I expected, and this was always my experience. As a child I had a craving for sweets, and would literally stuff myself with sweets, especially chocolate. I started drinking coffee and tea, heavily laced with sugar and cream at a young age. I started sneaking cigarettes at about six years of age, and was inhaling and smoking daily at nine. At about six or seven a ditch digger working in the neighbourhood sodomized me. At about eight, I discovered that sniffing gasoline would give me a buzz, and for about a six-month period I used it, often to the point of passing out and awakening sick as a dog. At about ten, I had my first drink, and loved the effect immediately. In my early teens, grass was available in the small town I lived in, and I sought it out, obtained it and used it and any other drugs I could find. At fourteen I was injecting drugs as often as possible. At sixteen I was committed to a local psych ward, receiving electric shock treatments and being given drug therapies.  

These treatments were effective in so far as my giving up drugs for about a year, and getting back into some semblance of normal behaviour. I went back to school and finished grade twelve.      

And during that year I began to drink more and more, and was soon using grass again. I went to work for a while, and began picking up my drug habits again until I was fired or quit and found myself in the penal system a couple of times, and this pattern went on until 1982,when I found I could not stop drinking. Up until then I just did not want to stop, this time I simply could not, although I wanted to, as I had a very good job where the buzz was that I was headed for a management position. I was a reclusive drunk by then, and one day I was somewhat sober enough to attempt a night shift. I went in, and soon was experiencing severe DT's. I had no idea what was happening, and the hallucinations and physical sensations were about what I remembered from the time I was committed thirteen years earlier. I went to emerge in the morning and told the Dr. that I was a nut, needed to be locked up and shocked back into reality. He asked me some pertinent questions, which I answered, and suggested I spend some time in the local hospital before going to the nuthouse, which was about a thousand miles away, and after all, it was the start of a holiday weekend.  

It was about my third day in hospital, when in walked this fellow introducing himself as a drug and alcohol counsellor. We sort of talked for a while, long enough for me to know that this fellow did not know a thing about where I was at, and was simply a government paper pusher. He did suggest a friend of his come and talk to me about his life and how he had recovered in Alcoholics Anonymous. By this time I would have agreed to anything to get rid of this person. I had been hanging out in a video room downstairs watching Fr. Martin tapes and others and had an inkling as to what my immediate problem was, and that there just may be another way of living that was possible for me. The next day this fellow came in that I had seen around the plant doing work as a contractor, and had spoken with on a few occasions. He started to speak of his own experience, and I immediately related to him. Here was a fellow who had lived like I did, had tried to die like I did, and was just as insane as I was. And he assured me that there was another way, and I believed him, at least enough to have a look.

I was discharged a few days later, and the next day I went to mass. I had learned from the tapes enough to know that God was to be the answer from now on. The only connection I had with God was what I had learned from childhood in the church. I had been an altar boy and had fond memories of that time. I had always liked the solemnity of the rites and the mystery surrounding the sacraments. The incenses and candles and the Latin Prayers had been a great comfort to me then, and I returned to it with no hesitation whatsoever. The form had changed from my memory of it, but the essence was the same. At one point I prayed with sincerity a version of the third step prayer, abandoning my self to God. There was a moment, a holy instant, when the ego was entirely absent. I knew then, and can look at subsequent experiences to witness to the great fact that everything had changed. There was no need to live as I had been. The moment passed, the ego returned, but there had been a tremendous shift, one I had no understanding of at all. I had found a strength I was unaware of up until then.  

In that eight days, I had taken the first three steps of our program of recovery. I had identified the immediate problem. I was powerless over alcohol, and my life was unmanageable. When I drank, I could not stop when I wanted to. And when I was dry, it was worse. I was insane drunk, and it was worse sober, so I would drink again, and on it would go. And I had seen what the solution must be. That there was a power greater than myself that could and would restore me to sanity. There was another way. And in that moment of clarity during mass, I had turned my will and my life over to the care of God.  

I went to see my boss the next day, and for the first time admitted to being an alcoholic. Within minutes the plant manager had approved a paid leave of absence for a thirty day treatment centre, airfare included, and I was scheduled to leave in a few weeks. I attended my first meeting that night and was blown away. Here were people who had sobered up and seemed to have it all together. When I mentioned going to the treatment centre, an old timer, one of those who knows exactly where it's at and the only way to get there, told me I would be wasting my time, would not stay sober, would be drunk on the flight home, and real AA was only in these rooms. And there were others saying pretty much the same thing, which was fine by me, it was what I wanted to hear, as I did not relish the idea of going there anyhow. I mean, what would people say! The hardcore at work would think I was a sissy, and there were a few fellows from work at the meeting, I was sure they would pass the word, along with management staff, and my secret would be out. So I waited a week or so until all the paperwork had cleared head office, and went and told my boss I had changed my mind. Management was not impressed and I knew then that any chance I had at being promoted was gone.  

I stayed clean and sober for about thirty days, learned that peace in sobriety was definitely possible, and started taking again. Within about eight months I was drunk. My attitude then is best described as king baby from Search for Serenity, and my work up north was about done. I moved to the city, got work and the pattern of drunk/dry continued for about three more years, until I got another bad case of DT's and wound up in the local detox for the first time, and did a thirty day treatment program. I stayed clean and sober for about sixty days, and went back into the madness. A couple of years later, back to detox, and on to a residence recovery program, where the twelve steps is the centre on which recovery revolves. I wrote out a first step, did a third as suggested by the book and took the fourth, not as suggested by the book. I took the fifth step not as suggested by the book, and flew right over six and seven to the ninth, with my eighth step list in hand and ran into the wall. I was befuddled as to why I could not bring myself to begin making direct amends and played no heed to the suggestions of others that I go back and do a proper fourth, as suggested by the book. I chased my tail for several months before drinking yet again.  

Another round in detox, a little humbler, I began taking the steps again, as suggested by the book, and completed them to my satisfaction, amends and all. I got very smug, full of myself, until I drank again. This time I decided to try out a sponsor, a novel idea to me at the time. I choose someone I had sponsored while I was in the residence, to make him feel good and so I could say I had a sponsor now, all was well. I went to do the two week day program at this residence and they were giving these psychological tests now, under the guidance of a chartered psychologist, also an AA member, and scored the second highest of anyone up until that time. A high score on these tests is not a good thing. He asked a few pertinent questions, which I answered, and then suggested I seek some professional help. I chose to see him, and opened a can of worms I had sealed up many years ago.  

This was ten years after my experience at mass in 1982,maybe even to the day, or very close to it. I was about to enter the most intense period of my recovery so far. We went almost as far back as infancy, to my earliest memories, and put a light on every incident in my experience I could recall. I found an abuse counsellor, who happened to also be a recovered alcoholic who put me in a group of people who had similar experiences to deal with. And I had been attending a metaphysical church where I met someone who helped me to find some balance for the trauma I was reliving. As close as is possible, I believe, I began to make some sense of the insanity I had been living, or to put some perspective to the thoughts ,feelings and perceptions that I had based my version of reality on. Once again, a perceptual shift was occurring, through which I began to see everything in a whole different light. As I think, I am, as I see, it is.  

And this process is continuing today. As Chuck C. so often said, uncover, discover, discard. That is what the steps are all about to me today. To uncover the attitudes that govern me, to discover the effect they have on me, and discard the defects of character that block the light within and all around me and all of God’s Creation that I may truly recover. To recover the truth of who and what I am in reality. Not the one I made based on the attitudes I learned and bought into in the past, dragged into the present to project into the future and ensure the cycle continues. To remember the only thing true about that past is that it is not here, exists only in memory, and therefore is not real today.  


Andrew A

Andrew A attends AA meetings in Area 78 in Alberta and would enjoy hearing from you.

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Glen H
Revised: 30 Oct 2005 03:40:40 -0800