me, with God's help, to do my best to set the situation right. I had learned in AA the power of forgiveness and the freedom it offers, both in being forgiven and extending it to others. I wanted that freedom.
My friend was dead; I could not change that. What I could do was make amends for selfishly nursing my resentment. I had burned much energy in useless anger and hatred, and the best way to set that right would be to do what I could to promote healing.
Taking a friend with more than a decade of sobriety, I went to visit the killer in the mental institution. I was clumsy and fumbled my words, but what came out was what was truly in my sober heart: "The person you killed was like a father to me. He meant the world to me. I loved him more than I can put into words. But I have come to a place where it's okay. I used to hate you for taking him away from me, but I don't anymore. I forgive you completely, I sincerely wish you all the best in your life, and I hope you keep getting better. I knew it would be good for me to come here to tell you that, and I hope it will help you to know that someone who loved him very much and was affected really hard by losing him has moved on and forgives you and it's okay."
Grateful that my voice didn't crack and that I didn't get sick from the butterflies dancing in my stomach, I took a deep breath and said a silent prayer of thanks. Then, I sat and watched as the human being in front of me expressed the most sincere sorrow and regret I have ever seen. It allowed me to make peace with my loss. Now I believe that mental illness had robbed this woman of the power of choice, and my friend had died because he was just in a bad place at a bad time.
As I walked down the sidewalk back to my car, I felt the deepest level of forgiveness I've ever known. A 500-pound weight was lifted from my shoulders. I felt free and cleansed. I had just found wings, and they were mine.
Holly H.
Huntsville, Alabama
The Mouth That Roared
August 2001
I ALWAYS TALKED TOO MUCH. Long before I picked up my first beer and long after I put down my last scotch, I talked too much. When I was afraid, I talked to hide my fear; when I felt inadequate, I talked to convince you that I was hip, slick, and cool; when I was in trouble, I talked in such convoluted circles that many times teachers or policemen or sergeants threw up their hands in defeat. I talked so damn much, I got good at it. Or so I thought.
But as my years of sobriety added up, I decided it was time to take a fearless and searching look at this character defect. It was then that I discovered something alarming about myself: in order to fill the air with my words, a lot of what I said was negative. In fact, many of my monologues were little more than verbal volleys against people, places, and things — from the President down to my in-laws, and including my friends and my fellow AAs.
One beautiful fall day, I had a moment of clarity as I was driving with my wife and another AA and his wife. The AA was someone I'd been sponsoring for years. He was also one of the few people who talked more than I did. As we drove along, I began to monitor what he was saying. Here's how his talking went that day: first, he presented the problem, then some dumb so-and-so's solution (which not only didn't work but made the situation worse), then his solution, followed by a series of events that proved his solution was the only successful one. When a new topic sprang forth, my pigeon would listen for a while — but not too long. Then he would begin his cycle all over again.
Listening to him — I mean really listening to what he was saying — opened my eyes (and my ears) to what I'd been doing all these years. As I listened to him, I heard myself. If you sponsor people, you'll never need a mirror.
As soon as I realized this, admitted I was powerless over my tongue, and took a fearless look at the defect, the solution came: if I only said positive things, I'd be talking half as much.
From that day in the car, I've tried to live by this simple edict. When I start badmouthing someone, I quickly curtail my tongue. I've gotten in a lot less trouble since then. (And since I've shared this with my pigeon, he has too.) Oh, I have slips. I revert to type. Before I know what I'm doing, I'll hold forth on so-and-so's latest debacle or so-and-so's program or marriage or whatever. We are not saints. I'll never get this idea down pat. But I'm a better person than I used to be.
The person I used to be is always waiting around the corner. If I close my eyes, I can see him. He's wearing a black leather jacket, smoking a butt, leaning with his back against a building and one knee bent. He's waiting for me to split a six-pack and join him in cussing and complaining and cutting down everything from his ex-boss and the Army to the church, academia, the government — and AA.
But when I close my lips to vicious talk, the old me gets tired of waiting around for someone to commiserate with him. When I say only positive things, the old me disappears. He flips his cigarette into the gutter, turns up the collar of his jacket, and walks away. He just doesn't want to hear it.
John Y.
Russell, Pennsylvania
A Remarkable Sensation
March 1997
I WAS ONE OF THOSE AA newcomers who chafed at the "God parts" of the Twelve Steps. I thought it was beneath my dignity to believe in God. As a budding alcoholic in my early twenties, I had become infatuated with existentialism, a philosophy that contemplates the role of the individual standing alone in an absurd world. Existentialism seemed to dignify my feelings of isolation and uniqueness and to impart a kind of tragic poignancy to the drunken impulsiveness I liked to think of as acts of free choice. When I entered Alcoholics Anonymous, I desperately wanted to stop drinking and to turn my life around, but I was pretty sure I didn't need the help of "God."
However, even during my first days in AA, I was wary of poking holes in the program, lest the whole fabric rip apart. I suspected that if I were to allow myself to make even one exception for myself — such as determining that I would ignore the God Steps — I might open myself to a justification to drink. Therefore, I determined to find a way to live with the whole AA program, including God.
But what did Step Three mean? "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him." How on earth did a person make such a decision? Turning my will and life over sounded like an enormously complicated procedure. And even if I could figure out how it was done, what would become of me if I complied? I worried that by following God's will, I'd end up doing something brave and self-sacrificing — and utterly repellent.
The "Twelve and Twelve" said that the only thing required to take Step Three was "a key called willingness." I thought I was willing. Imagining myself holding this elusive "key," I waited for transformation and felt nothing. The book also compared one's awareness of a higher power to electricity flowing, hidden and potent, through the circuits of a house. But I was unable either to feel the movement of this force or to find the switch that would activate it in my life.
The key finally turned, the electricity finally surged, in a way so quiet and simple I could never have consciously willed it.
At the time I got sober, I had been living with a man for several years. Our relationship had been in trouble for quite a while, and my new sobriety only aggravated our problems, for he felt threatened by my growing reliance on AA, and I was uncomfortable with his continued drinking. I would wake in the middle of the night and discover that he had not come home, and I would fly into a two-pronged panic that he had died in a terrible accident or that he was with someone else. I lay in bed with my eyes wide open, my heart racing until I heard his key in the lock.
One night began typically. I woke, realized he was not home, and felt the fear surface. Then something altogether different happened. I understood that
