Introducing Myself

As implied by the text below my profile, I have been sober a bit over twenty-four years. That's not a big deal, it just means that I haven't taken a drink and I haven't died. I've done it one day at a time just like everybody else. In the early years the "taking a drink" part was a close call a few times, and the past few years the "dying" part has been a little too close for comfort once or twice with emphysema, heart problems, strokes and a couple other issues.

But I'm still here, giving joy to some people and headaches to others. Some people are glad about that, some disappointed, but few are ambivalent. I'm not the kind of guy about whom people tend to be ambivalent. One friend told me the reason I'm not dead yet is that I'm not bad enough to go to Hell, but God doesn't want me in Heaven stirring the place up with a stick.

I have been known, you see, to voice opinions on this and that. I have also learned, these past two dozen years, that mine is not the only opinion, and that my opinion may very well be wrong. But, as another friend told me, "You sometimes tick people off, Bill, but you tend to make them think."

That, however, is for another time and another place; giving voice to opinion is not really my purpose here. Some opinions may creep in, but my purpose here is to share the joy that I have experienced in the spiritual growth that has been, for me, the process of recovery from alcoholism.

Someone asked me once about the "spiritual part" of the program of recovery, but for me there is no "spiritual part." My take is that recovery is a process of spiritual growth, and the closer one becomes to God and his fellow man the farther away one moves from alcohol. Recovery is not about drinking or not drinking, it's about learning to live. It's about shedding an old life and embracing a new one. It's about becoming a different person. Joe once told me "I don't want you to learn how to deal with your alcohol problem, I want you to become a person who doesn't have an alcohol problem." If you don't understand the difference, perhaps we can shed some light on that as we travel on this journey together.

I'll say this once. The program of recovery in which I gained sobriety is Alcoholics Anonymous, and I sincerely believe that I would not be sober without that body and its members. That said, this blog is not about AA and I do not speak with any authority for or about that organization. I will not say whether or not I am still a member of AA, and you will not see any references in this blog to meetings of that organization or any other.

Welcome. I don't know where we're going, but we're on our way.