Letters from Readers
A number of readers have recently been in touch with Sober
24, telling their stories and sharing their experience, strength, and hope with
us. If you’d like to be in touch, too, you can “Tell Us Your Story” at www.sober24.com/E_Zine/Submissions/159/.
We’d love to hear from you.
‘Thanks’
Sober24 is
as valuable to me as my F2F meetings. I have "met" some great people
who have given me all kinds of valuable information and ESH. Thanks for
providing this service -- and for making it free!
Meghan D.
‘All the booze in the
world’
I can’t
possibly share my whole experience, my entire history, with you in this forum,
however let me assure you that there is hope – that hope springs eternal.
I believe
alcoholism is a disease of the mind, body, and most importantly, the spirit.
All the booze in the world could not quench my insatiable thirst, nor all the
food in the world fill my hunger.
But, I have
been saved by a program called AA. It has given me hope when there was none as
far as I could see, which was about to the end of my nose. My story is not
unique, but I am a unique creature. God has a better idea of what my life is
and will continue to be. Now, the trick is to listen to his leadings, guidance,
and sometimes still small voice.
I have a
wonderful support system, a great wife who has stuck with me since May of 1980,
and 2 children who have graduated from top colleges. I was close to death and
have suffered through depression, weight gain, and the deaths of an uncle who
was very dear to me and a cousin at age 47, both due to alcoholism. Sometimes I
forget to be grateful and am prone to sporadic episodes of depression and
doubt, but deep down I know that a loving god has always been there for me, the
same as he is for you.
Greg
‘My darkest months’
I recently
read an article in Guideposts magazine that mentioned your website, so I am
writing to say hello. November and December are my darkest months. I recently
called a former counselor about going on disability. I have not given up yet.
One of the open AA groups I know closed with the Lord’s Prayer: Thy will, not
mine, be done. Thanks for listening.
Susan H.
‘No one to blame but
myself’
"All I
want for Christmas" is a new beginning. This is my year to "hit rock
bottom." I divorced after 31 years. I lost my family and friends due
selfish, irresponsible and illegal behavior stemming from my gambling
addiction. My good life as I know it is over. I have no one to blame but
myself. I ask for your prayers and words of support.
Dianna
‘All I have’
My name is
Richard and I am an alcoholic and drug addict. I have been sober for 8 years. I
lived in a cardboard box for the last 17 years before I got sober in 2000. I
was in the last stages of alcoholism, suffered from alcoholic paralysis. My
liver was shutting down and there were no hospitals that wanted to deal with me
anymore.
Today I am
an active member in AA, have a job in the counseling field, and have my own
apartment. This is all because -- as the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says
--spiritual well being must precede material and emotional well being. All I
have comes from a power greater than myself and I must continue to seek that
power. Of myself I am a hopeless drunk. If God can restore a wreck like me, the
miracles he can perform are limitless. The book says no human power could have
relieved me of my alcoholism, but God could and would if he were sought.
Richard T.
‘I can’t just have a
few’
I'm the
"weekend warrior" type. I'll drink on Friday after work till the beer
is gone or I am. But, I could never stop at just a couple. I’ve tried and even
did a few times but would always end up overdoing it. I've quit drinking a few
times, once for a couple of years. I thought now that I'm older I could handle
it. It would be fine for a couple of months then I'd notice I'd be sneaking
down the basement to have more beers. On other occasions my wife would go to
bed so I would stay up and keep drinking even realizing I should just go to
bed. I always thought I wouldn't do that again but the next night I'd do the
same thing.
Finally,
last Friday I left work a little early, stopped at a bar and had a couple
beers, then had some shots. I wanted to get home at the regular time, but when
I got up to go I realized I was really drunk. My friend drove me home. I went
straight to the bathroom and my wife asked what was wrong. I said nothing, but
she opened the door and saw me drunk off my ass. Then I puked all over the
place, which I never do, and she thought something was terribly wrong. She
called the ambulance thinking I was going to die because I am also on Zoloft
and you're not supposed to drink alcohol with it. The EMTs came and checked me
out and said I'd be fine, to just get me to bed to sleep it off.
Well, now I
know that I can't handle alcohol. I can't just have a few. I got the gene. So I
quit and this time it's forever.
Paul L.
‘An alcoholic can be
a lot of things’
The other
day I listened to an acquaintance tell a story about how her teenaged son
heroically chased a menacing drunk down the street after witnessing that he was
too inebriated to determine the correct combination of bills to surrender in
the 10 items or less lane. The man promised that he wasn't driving, but
stumbled out of the grocery store and slipped right behind the wheel of his
vehicle. He proceeded to take out a half dozen shopping carts, jump a curb and
sideswipe a parked patrol car before fleeing the scene. The son was able to
flag down a passing ambulance and give the driver enough information for the
police to track the man down at his home, where he was already 3 cans into
another six-pack, smoking an unfiltered cigarette while lounging around his
double wide in a dirty wife beater and scratching his filthy 3-day stubble with
his grease-caked, auto-mechanic's fingernails.
ZZZZZZZzzzzuuuuppppp
(sound of a needle being scratched across a vinyl album)!
Okay, so I don't really know what the man
looked like or what he was doing when the authorities apprehended him, but I do
know that it was a lot easier for me to visualize it going down like that than
to imagine that the police busted an impeccably groomed drunken man wearing a
smoking jacket and ascot passed out face down across the open Wall Street
Journal in the study of his sprawling mansion.
When you're
eating finger sandwiches at a ladies' tea and the woman next to you says that
she won't let her child play at so-n-so's house because her mother's (stage
whisper, hand cupped at the side of mouth) an al-co-hol-ic, what kind of
horrific mess does your imagination conjure?
When you're
a middle class suburbanite, it's easy to imagine that alcoholism is an
affliction reserved solely for those further down the food chain. An alcoholic
is someone with a bad haircut and neglected personal hygiene who can't hold a
job and wastes grocery money on booze concealed in paper bags, hidden under the
front seat of an uninsured vehicle. An alcoholic is the mom who can't make it
to school functions because she drank her breakfast after the kids put
themselves on the bus, disheveled and dirty with Diet Coke and Twinkies in
their lunchboxes.
But I know
better.
Sometimes
an alcoholic is a well-dressed mother of 3 with impeccable grooming skills who
buys the pint-sized purse pack of cheap Polish vodka and, the picture of
innocence, demurely asks the cashier, "Is this OK to cook with? I'm making
vodka rigatoni...” That pint (and a pack of gum) is a lifeline, a crutch, a
security blanket during the events where all the "responsible"
mommies only have one glass of wine -- a way to stem the panic that accompanies
any alcohol-free or alcohol-limited event.
An
alcoholic is the volunteer for everything who can organize enormous volumes of
data, chair community events, raise money for multiple causes, get the kids to
and from their activities on time, run a business, keep the house clean (well,
most of the time), pets fed and bills paid -- all from within the cocoon of a
hangover.
An
alcoholic can be young and attractive, athletic, artistic and amusing. She can
be a spectacular cook and master of all things baked. An alcoholic can be a
doting, caring mother, a loving wife and a great friend. An alcoholic can be a
lot of things. But generally speaking, one thing you can bet she never intended
to be was an alcoholic.
Lilly