Is there a Sufficient Substitute?

The last 2 lines in the first full paragraph on page 152 in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous read as follows…I know I must get along without liquor, but how can I? Have you a sufficient substitute? We read this tonight in a meeting and I have read it at least 100 times before but it was like I heard it for the first time.

I know, of course, in my sassbriety today that there is an amazing substitute for alcohol and I shared as much. Upon reflection it dawned on me that the alcohol was the poor substitute for what I have today.

I was drinking to NOT feel anything. To escape. For instant relief. To fit in. To feel “normal”. There was always a reason and never a good enough reason to not drink. I thought not drinking would be boring. It sounded like a depressing life. But by the time I got to AA I was in so much pain, I was so empty that the thought of going on this way was unbearable. So I resigned myself to the fact that I would go to AA and become this whiny pitiful creature smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee commiserating with other alcoholics about not drinking anymore.

This was not what I found in the rooms of AA. I found love, compassion, understanding, companionship. I found people who laughed and shared personal things about their lives. People who cared if I came back. They told me and showed me what they did to become so happy and at peace and SOBER (all at the same time). I found when I fully did what the showed me to do, honestly and thoroughly, that I started to discover the me that I was running from for so long. I discovered a power greater than myself (my ego) that was always with me. Whatever you want to call it, my light, my spirit, my god, my divinity…It was there the whole time. This came with an unimaginable joy and peace that stays with me. This is a light that is always there in any situation. Even in sadness I can find peace.

The alcohol was a very poor substitute for what I have today. The ability to help others and live one day a a time. To find joy in the everyday things. This is what I have today. This is what is there within us all and there is no substitute for it.