Day One – I am not alone

I am 1,040 days sober today. This is what I journaled about day one.

I can not explain what has happened to me but I know I am not the same person anymore. I am changed. Awake. Full. Serene.

I was broken, shattered. My soul was almost empty. I say almost because when I showed up at AA, I still had the smallest amount of hope left. Hey, I showed up didn’t I? I had hope that they could help me. Hope that they could help me, but fear that they would. How did I end up here? I don’t live under a bridge. I don’t drink out of a brown paper bag…Actually it was more like a box. Why can’t I just stop.

God (I don’t know what else to name it) was there at that 1st meeting. God was there in the form of 2 women who listened to me cry and tell them I didn’t know what else to do. Who listened , really listened, to me tell them some of the awful things I had done. I don’t remember if they held me, but it felt like they did. I felt a relief at that moment, like something was actually lifted off my soul. Like there was suddenly a tremendous amount of hope. At that moment I surrendered. I stopped fighting. I had gone there in pieces begging for help, for a release from the pain. They heard me, and I KNEW. I just knew there was something bigger there, I knew they would help me. I had the power all along to let it go and give it to whatever was out there, I just always lacked the courage, the faith. When I let it go at that moment, it was taken from me, right then and there. They said to come back the next day and I knew I would, I knew I needed them and I was not afraid to ask for help anymore. I really didn’t know how I would fall asleep without a bottle of wine that night, but I just knew I wouldn’t drink. This is where it was meant for me to be. I have been coming back every day since and when I can’t make a meeting I make sure I am talking to another alcoholic or several alcoholics. They understand me, they may be the only ones who do. There is nothing I can say that will shock or shake another alcoholic. I can be totally honest. I am not alone anymore and for the first time in years, I don’t want to be alone.

I have read AA literature since this first day and relate very much to the experience Bill Wilson describes in his story (in the book Alcoholics Anonymous). I was told in the beginning that I was having a pink cloud experience which is a euphoria some people experience upon getting sober that recedes after time. When this feeling did not recede, I was told that my experience was not common. I beg to differ, I am no different than any other alcoholic, or any other human for that matter. I believe that this experience, my experience, is not unique. It is possible for anyone who is in such a state of surrender and utter defeat, that when a fundamental piece of who they are is cracked and they are willing and able to hear the help that is being offered, that this experience is very common.