Saving My Life

I mentioned in an earlier post I went to a meeting today, at which the topic quickly switched from "Step 7" to "Advice for ________ (Insert my name here)" after I shared the test I'd be faced with at a function I had to attend. The response was overwhelming.

At the 10:00 meeting tonight someone said something along the lines of "I always feel like I have to say something amazing and life saving when I share, but I'm just an alcoholic and addict."

I thought for a minute about what she said, then I thought about what happened at the meeting earlier that day, and I thought about my best friend (an addict and alcoholic). Quickly I said My Name's _______, I'm an alcoholic and began to share.

I'd like to go back and address something Tara said. I explained to her what I had dealt with just a few minutes prior to that meeting. I explained to her what had happened at the 12:00 meeting earlier. I then said something I never thought would ever come out of my mouth "Without Alcoholics and Addicts I wouldn't have been able to make it though having an open bar at my disposal on day 4 of my sobriety, and I wouldn't be on day 4 of my sobriety or here in this room either."

The fact of the matter is that Alcoholics and Addicts stories are what made me realize I was an Alcoholic. Listening to these stories made me come back to AA. The advice Alcoholics and Addicts had offered earlier that day had kept me from drinking on day four of my sobriety.

It was my best friend (an addict and alcoholic) who had gotten me to go to my first AA meeting in the first place.

I told Tara she should always share her story, no matter how insignificant she may think it is. To me everything I've heard at AA has left an impact. The stories I've heard are what led me to realize I'm an alcoholic, and the wisdom and experiences that have been shared by others are what have made me want to stay sober.

While telling Tara this I realized something, my best friend had saved my life.

There is no doubt in my mind that had I taken that first drink tonight I wouldn't have stopped. I would have gotten out of control, made an ass out of myself, and likely gotten fired from a job I've worked extremely hard at for 7 years. Not only that I would have gotten in my car afterwards, likely to a bar where I would have continued to drink, and then driven home wasted beyond belief and more than likely killed myself and possibly someone else in the process.

Thats the point in my life that I'm at. I can't moderate my drinking, I can't just have one.

It's funny how life works out. Here I am with my best friend, my partner in crime for the last year. My fellow enabler and I at an AA meeting together, sober. Sober together for the first time in god knows how long. There we were, together in a meeting, the person who I would have most certainly died with had we kept going at the rate we were - and she had saved my life.

I'm starting to believe this higher power business, because no way in hell could this be a coincidence.

"A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it."

There it was, SMACK, right in the face... destiny.

Everything had happened for a reason, and the fact it had happened with my best friend was no coincidence.

Maybe it wouldn't have happened tonight, tomorrow, maybe not even for a year or two... its not a question of if - just when... inevitably I would have died as a result of my alcoholism.

My best friend saved my life.

I'm an alcoholic...