In one of my first AA meetings, I heard a woman share how blessed and grateful she felt being in recovery! I was not sure I believed her but I wanted what she had and I wanted to feel the way she felt. Her message was very attractive. I was at an AA meeting because I had to fulfill my legal obligations and my treatment facilitator said it was a requirement of completing treatment. After my third DWI in 4 years, I had quite a mess to clean up. I was on probation for 4 years along with no license for one year (this was prior to blow and go) and an alcohol sensor on my ankle for 90 days. My previous consequences had given me some jail time, whiskey plates, and time without a license but each time I would just dig myself out of trouble and try to be more careful. I would feel remorseful for a time but nothing would really change. This was all while getting divorced and with three kids at home. My wanting what you had started at an early age of wanting to have nice clothes, boyfriends, and to feel free of shyness and awkwardness. Alcohol, lying, stealing, and overspending gave me these things for a while. I was mostly a binge drinker until the last five years when the drinking became an everyday occurrence.
When I began an Outpatient Program, I was on the fence about whether I was alcoholic or not but I knew my life was unmanageable! I couldn’t deny that I identified with so many things I heard and read during those early days in AA. But I was just trying to get my life back one step at a time. I immediately felt physically better and the longer I was sober the better my life became. I remember first attending my home group on a Sunday morning, and everyone was so happy, helpful, and friendly. Many women at that meeting gave me rides every week until I had a driver’s license. At about six months sober I found a sponsor that I could relate to and I wanted what she had. I lived 6 blocks from the Minneapolis Intergroup so I stopped by and started answering phones. My home group had many service opportunities and my first was making coffee. Eventually, I had the money, signed letters and the year had passed so I could get my driver’s license back.
Before that would happen, I justified driving one night to take my dad to the emergency room. I chose to drive several times in that last six months because the tow company failed to remove my plates from my vehicle. I just put those whiskey plates in my car but not on my car! On my 364th day of sobriety, I got pulled over going home from my home group Sunday morning and arrested again. The next day I went to my meeting and got my 1-year coin and my sponsor said it is just a bump in the road but you are still sober! Six months later I would go to jail one more time and lose my license for 90 days in sobriety! What I realized was that I took my will back when I chose to drive. I was welcoming recovery and I was openly attracted to what I saw in recovery but the dishonesty was severely lacking. I love my life in recovery and it is full of blessings, friends, and family. My work at The Retreat has added many new friends and experiences to my recovery as I see “me” every day in these men and women we serve.
