In Preparation To Receive A Gift


           One evening in January, 1984 I was sitting propped up against the wall of the apartment I had to vacate the next morning, a half empty bottle of scotch on the counter that I was fixing to finish when there was a knock on the door. My wife had left me and we’d sold all our earthly possessions and split the money, so I had $250. And I could take all I had left, put it in a really old beat-up car and have room for passengers. My life 16 years out of high school was not a testament to the American Dream.

            When I answered the door, the husband of one of my wife’s coworkers was standing there. He asked me if I thought I might have a problem with my drinking. I remember looking at my sorry pile of possessions in a couple of cardboard boxes, looking back at him and saying No, now beat it.

            By December of that year the wife was back, I had the best job I’d ever had, and I was living in a condo on the Gulf of Mexico with Gulf views from every window. My drinking was accelerating but try telling me I had a problem then when I was on top of my game, living life large.

             Five years later the wife was gone again, this time for good. I had traded my seaside condo for a dingy room, and my life was filled with despair, fear, vodka, and thoughts of suicide. When I look back on it I sometimes feel that I’m watching a movie of someone else’s life, or it was all a bad dream. The life I’ve been granted in sobriety stands in such stark contrast to my active alcoholism that it couldn’t be just one life. And had you known me at the end you would have said “That poor wretch is going to die.”

When I was just three months sober I heard a man share something I’ve never forgotten. “I was laying in a gutter one rainy night, again, ankles oozing pus. And I’ll never forget the disgust on the faces of the people standing over me. What no one knew at the time was that I was in preparation to receive a gift.” He was 22 years sober at the time.

AA doesn’t give up on anyone, and there’s no case too difficult for God.

 
I remain forever grateful that I'm Done Drinkin
Yours In Recovery
John C

http://donedrinkin.blogspot.com/