1984. The length of time sober is really of no importance to me. I am sober today, and that is how I take my program—one day at a time. I feel that quality of sobriety is more important than quantity.
I am writing this mainly with the hope that fellow AA members will relate to it, no matter how old, how young, or how long sober. We are all in the same boat—alcohol destroyed our lives and we came to AA for help.
I drank three years of my life away—three years of living hell. The three years of drinking are not what brought me to AA. The “hell” is what brought me here, just as it is what brings most of us to AA and to a better way of life.
I just finished reading an article in a 1982 Grapevine, in which the writer stated he was worried about dually addicted members taking over AA meetings; he didn’t feel he could relate to them. Well, I have friends who are dually addicted in this program and I, too, like other members, sometimes don’t relate with their drug usage. But I don’t look down on people who are dually addicted. I try to relate and to be a friend in the same way that they help me—by being friends.
To me it doesn’t matter how we get into AA (thank God it’s here to get into!). It doesn’t matter how much, how little, or how long we drank, just as it doesn’t matter how old or how young we are when we get here. What really matters is that we didn’t control drinking—drinking controlled us.
I have had many older members tell me they are proud of me for being so young and getting into the program. What they don’t realize is that I am just as proud of them. Some say, “You’re lucky you’re young,” and it’s true, I am lucky—not because I am young, but because I have this program to share in fellowship.
K.H.
OBERLIN, KANSAS
Twenty-One and In Trouble Again
July 2003
There I was, twenty-one years old and in trouble again. It seems kind of odd that I would look at it as being in trouble, since at the time I had been in prison for over five years.
I had spent those years drinking and hiding from all the guilt I felt inside. You can get anything you want in prison, and the things I wanted most were of the mind-altering variety. I had spent those five years going day to day either drinking the “bootleg” alcohol that we used to make or chasing down a half a pint of grain alcohol somewhere. Finally, it caught up with me. I was sitting in the hole for drinking and using, looking at the very real possibilities of having my expected stay lengthened by at least a year, having my mother turned away on visitation day by a prison guard who’d say that, once again, her wayward son had gone and messed things up for himself.
When I was first put in that isolation cell, the only thing I could think to do was send word to one of my “friends” to send me something to “ease my mind.” Thankfully, God’s will for me that night was not peace of mind. For the first time in my life, while sitting in that small, dark and lonely cell, I realized that every single problem I had ever had in my life was because of the very thing I thought was the solution.
As the weight of a life gone drastically wrong came crashing down on me, I knew that I had to stop drinking or I would never get out of prison. That night, I said the first prayer I had said in many years. “God, please help me.” No promises or demands, no deals to make or bargains to be had, just one alcoholic’s desperate plea for help.
I don’t think I realized it at the time, but God began to work in my life immediately. The warden of that unit decided that he didn’t want to deal with me anymore. I was sent straight from the hole to another unit that was just opening. I spent the next nine months trying to stop on my own. I would be sober for a few weeks at a time only to go on yet another binge.
Then one day I was standing in the hallway, drunk as usual, when another inmate, who was in the program and whom I had known over the years, asked me what I was going to do. This guy was twenty-two years old with a life sentence and knew he probably would never get out of prison, yet every time I saw him he had a smile on his face. I always thought there had to be something wrong with him.
Being my usual self, I said something smart to him. Then he said something that to this day I thank God for. He said that he meant, “What are you going to do with the rest of your life?” For the first time in my life, it dawned on me that I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do. I knew right then and there that I was lost, but I honestly felt that God had sent this guy to talk to me. He ended up becoming my first sponsor.
I began working the Steps and making the meetings. I spent my time working and reading the Big Book (which became my constant companion). By the grace of God and the miracle of the Twelve Steps, I have not had to take a drink since December 18, 1999.
I was sent to another unit once again, but this time for positive reasons. Today, I go out to schools in and around Little Rock, Arkansas, and share my personal experiences with teenagers. I am the chairperson of the Wrightsville AA Group (who, thank God, constantly remind me that I ain’t no big deal), and I regularly have the opportunity to attend the area assembly and district meetings. I cannot begin to express the overwhelming love and support that I have received from the members of the Fellowship. My relationship with my family has been restored with love and support that I never could have imagined possible. I have developed a conscious contact with a loving God, as “I understand him.” And I am looking at the very real possibility of being released from prison this year.
Today I can honestly say that I know a new freedom and a new happiness. I don’t regret my past, nor wish to shut the door on it. I have seen how my experiences can and have benefited others. I comprehend the word serenity and I know peace. And I realize that God is doing for me the things I cannot do myself. I also know that none of these things has come about because of me. The only thing I ever accomplished was getting myself put in prison. I owe each and every day of my sobriety to God, and to you, the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, especially those of you who carry the message to us AAs in prison.
HOWARD W.
WRIGHTSVILLE, KANSAS
Young and In Pain
Dear Grapevine, July 2003
When I came to my first meeting in 1980, I was twenty-three years and eleven months old. Most members of that group were age thirty or older. They tried to treat me like an alcoholic, but I felt their patronizing attitude. A few told me, “If you are not an alcoholic in disgrace, you are in time to stop and save yourself fifteen years of the pain we suffered.” But one said, “You are not an alcoholic. Don’t waste your time here. Go outside. Find a girlfriend and take her to the movies.”
The words of those members were not enough to stop me from attending meetings. I knew, I felt, there was something in the meeting room for me. After ten years of drinking, I was ready to receive help. After suffering an internal pain for years (loneliness, resentment, hate—the relief for which was drinking), I was touched by God’s grace and decided to get what those AA members had. I hit bottom in my country, Mexico. I lead my first AA meeting there in 1980. I have not had a single drink since.
If you are a young alcoholic, older members will see you as being different. But it doesn’t matter. Don’t let them stop you. It’s your life, not theirs. Go to meetings, find a sponsor, get into service, until you get what the winners in AA have gotten: a full and sober life.
JOSÉ A.M.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
