Marking Time

22 Years ago August 28, 1989 I limped into an AA meeting with more resolve than I could ever imagine. After a bout of 6 years of cocaine addiction I knew that it was time to put down the drink too. I had already figured out how to live without the white powder and 1000 days to the day later I had to figure out the same with my remaining drug of choice alcohol.  

Cocaine accelerated my drinking and as I eliminated that habit my drinking took off into the stratosphere and I was consuming ½ a quart a day of vodka. I was lucky that I had not lost my license due to a DWI, been arrested, crashed my car or hurt anyone physically due to my drinking.  Some have died from this Dis-Ease and still others were doomed to the fate of the chronic relapser, in and out of meetings desperate to collect their elusive 90-day token.  

Call it luck, persistence, fate, adherence to the suggestions of AA or just divine intervention I remained sober without a slip for nigh on 22 years. Did it happen by accident I don’t think so? For me it was giving myself a multiple-choice test as to what my remaining choices were. 1) I would die either quickly or a long slow death. 2) I would spend time incarcerated. 3) I would be confined to a sanitarium. 4) I could choose to stop.  There was no 5th choice and  I think it  was the lynchpin that kept me sober one day at a time.  Choices are at the heart of AA and whether you believe in the program or not alcohol is a choice not a disease nor is it some inalienable right we are entitled to once we reach the age of majority.