The Miracle Of Alcoholism - Introduction

My childhood contains enough trauma and dysfunction to fill a month of Oprah Winfrey shows, that is when the show was still on the air.  From incest, pedophiles to drug and alcohol abuse.  Although I have never thought of myself as dysfunctional, I thought I came from a pretty normal family home structure that had its challenges.

We were poor, but unknowingly, I remember a good childhood, I was not particularly good in school, but I was smart. The seventies was a decade of sex, drugs and rock-n-roll, that is how I lived it, pretty much in that order, there was no moral compass, there was no second thoughts it seem liked the natural thing to do, women were promiscuous as much as men, everybody was having a good time.  I never thought that someday I would have second thoughts of this behavior in the future and if I did I doubt if I would have cared, as I look back now, I can't honestly say "If I knew then what I know now", would I be in this mess?  of course I would, lets not forget there is no luck, there is no choice, what we did was part of a very big plan thought out with an intelligence far greater than anything here on earth, ever in time.

What we go through, the experiences, trials, challenges, friends, lovers, relatives - all this this is meant to get us were we are today, we have always been right were we belong, right on time, without missing a beat.  Destiny, fate? hmmm, I still don't know.  I am what I am today, this is my realty, I am here where I am because that's were I need to be to grow into the human being I need to be right now.

Did it hurt, does it hurt right now, yes, am I am sorry, sometimes.It is what it is, after all that partying, during the seventies my mind started to clear a little, I was working, I was playing bands, I started to grow up, I started to realize realty, the realty my EGO created, I started to see the world through eye's conditioned by the world and my EGO, it was scary, I did not like it, I realized the world took itself very seriously, it had a lot of rules that seemed upside down, unfair and insane, there were people who were poor, because they could not make money, they could not get jobs, there were people who had jobs, they did not make money, at least not much, there were people who made more money because they did something that supposedly had more value, there were people made good money, because what they did had even more value, then there were people who made a shit load of money, because they could.

Who assigned the value to those who made more money, I was very confused by the time I was in my mid twenties about the world, I was losing my ideology, the magic was fading, it was no longer "sex, drugs and rock-n-roll", it was paycheck, bills, material wealth, the more you had the bigger, better and higher you were, I was not high anymore. I was this little guy, insignificant, a nobody, I wanted more, I was depressed, the world had changed, I was left behind.

I was not educated, I was not connected, I was not at the corporate top, I was not in politics, I had no power, I was a nobody - so I thought.  Welcome to the EGO's world!  I have failed, now I wanted money, power, a nice car, a nice home, a wife, kids, security, prestige, comfort, luxury, I wanted power and I wanted to be rich, but I spent most of my life getting sex, drugs and rock-n-roll, I did not know how to get this new stuff.  I was depressed, I drank, I did more drugs, I felt sorry for myself, I was depressed.

By the time I was 28, I was an assistant warehouse manager, I was married, I had a somewhat nice car, a pitiful apartment, a nice drum set and very disillusioned. The wife left, I lost the job, the car was repossessed,  I filed bankruptcy, I sold the drums for alcohol and drug money.

Then someone told me I was an alcoholic? A what? A alcoholic, I had a problem, I had a lot of problems, I was depressed, I was addicted to alcohol, it was chronic - FOREVER!, I could never drink again, holy shit!
How the fuck did this happen?  I was smokin, I was on fire, now all there is left is smoke, when someone said I had a big fuckin problem, that I was a fuck up, I had hurt my life, other people's life, I was fubar - "fucked up beyond all recognition", how did this happen, just a couple years ago it was - sex, drugs and rock-n-roll.
why did this happen to me?

I was told to go Alcoholics Anonymous, what? an alkie, a bum, skidrow, Maxwell street junkie!
your fuckin kiddin me.

So I went to a meeting, nice people, glad I am not one of them!, 12 steps, interesting, everybody should do them.  I don't belong here.

And so that was my first meeting, and there would be thousands of them to follow.  I tried to become an pro AA person, I tried getting my wife involved, no way was that gonna happen, she did not want anything to do with it, it horrified her, I tried to get my family involved, they made some feeble attempts, those attempts disappeared.  I was on my own.

I did not like being labeled, an alcoholic, an outcast, weak, pointed at, I was in a great deal of denial, I did not want to be a alcoholic, there was something deep inside that said this was impossible, I felt I was sentenced to die for the rest of my life, I resisted, I cried, I fought.

A doctor named Elizabeth Kubler Ross wrote a book about dying back in the seventies, that explained quite well what I went through when I was told I was a alcoholic.

The stages -

• Denial - Obvious
• Anger - why me?
• Bargaining - there's gotta be a way out, I am different
• Depression - self explanatory
• Acceptance - NEVER!

 And so it goes, I have been in and out (as they say) in the program for 25 years, I have explored other programs, I have researched the disease of alcoholism on line till I was blue in the face, I have tried new treatment drugs, talked countless hours with counselors, psychiatrists psychologists,  sponsors, you name it.

I have been in so many treatment programs, 28 day's, 30 days, hospitals, detox's, salvation army, 12th step house, halfway house, three quarter house, transitional living, sober living communities - so many times I have lost count, so what is wrong with me?

To quote from how it works -

"Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average."

So is this me?
Am I not honest, how can I not be after all I have been through, all that I have lost, the pain, the despair, the suffering, how can anybody be not honest, how can anybody be of heart who after 25 years of the worst suffering imaginable on earth not be honest with themselves in this matter.

Maybe there is a flaw in the philosophy of AA, as beautifully as it is written,  only the Constitution of the United States has been better written than "how it works" of the AA literature, it is said that GOD speaks through man, ah but man has filters, we've seen what has happened to the bible, oops.

My personal belief is that much of the AA literature needs to be updated to the 21st century world as it is today (yuck!).

So where does this leave us, good question, there is a certain blindness that encapsulates the AA solution, there is assumptions that this is the only game in town, that within AA that "yours is not to question why, but yours is to do or die", yipes!

Any attempt to question the last statement, and you will be bombarded with accusations of denial, don't get this author wrong, AA is a great program, its success rate fluctuates greatly to be very low to somewhat moderate, there is a lot of failure, this is often seen as "He/she is not ready", has not "Bottomed out yet", needs more "research" etc.  Sad.

On a more positive note the people of AA are the most truly spiritual, helpful, loving, caring that I have ever met, I believe their integrity and sincerity is beyond question, what I am starting to realize is the biggest problem of all is the truth of us and this world.

The first question - What are you and who are you - Know thy self!

The second question - who created this world - We did, not GOD


The first answer - You/we are sons of the sonship of GOD - That's right were gods
The second answer - we (our EGO's) created this world without love, in defiance of GOD our father

The two questions and answers are referred to as the "fall of Man"

Chapter One - "If I am special then everybody is special"

2B continued...