Yesterday was tough. Amanda and I attended our fourth
funeral of 2019. Every funeral is emotional, but losing my close friend
suddenly was particularly shocking and after everything, I have found a new
perspective on my sobriety.
I have to be brutally honest here. In the back of my mind,
for years, I’ve always had the thought that maybe, just maybe, when I retire,
or I get old enough that everybody who I know and cares about me is gone, I
could try some controlled drinking. Maybe I could hire a bodyguard to protect
others from me, and hire a driver so that I could drink the way that I want to.
I could just sit by the lake (by my cabin I don’t own yet) and have a few beers
or a margarita. Don’t worry, this is perfectly normal thinking for an
alcoholic, what probably isn’t normal is admitting it, and openly writing about
it. But I have to do this to help me process this new found need for permanent
sobriety.
Having and end in mind for sobriety, or even thinking I
could handle a controlled drinking life, is the end to many an alcoholic. It’s
how my friend started his relapse that lead to his demise, and even in the Big
Book, it speaks heavily on what a waste the idea of controlled drinking is.
My longtime readers will know that when I relapsed sometime
in 2006, I started with one beer in a classy Italian restaurant with my
girlfriend at the time. The next night I sat at a bar alone and finished a
liter of Jack Daniels and blacked out sometime after I laid down a vomit-trail
to my house. When I woke up in my piss-soaked clothes the next day with the
worst hangover I ever had, I promised myself I would never drink again. And I
didn’t. For three days.
Three weeks after I started drinking, I started doing meth,
and then it was the year 2015 and I had nothing to show for my life. I was
dying very slowly, and fortunately, I was hit by a fast-moving trolley car
called prison and I was able to turn it around. But this doesn’t mean I’m safe.
None of us is ever safe.
That last line was in the original draft of the eulogy I
wrote for my friend. I thought it was too ominous, and I wanted to stay as
positive as I could for the moment. When I delivered the eulogy, my eyes welled
constantly and I kept thinking that somebody would be doing this for me if I
ever have one drink. One sip. If I ever stop going to meetings or talking with
my sober network, if I ever stop giving back, calling my sponsor, listening to
the newcomer, speaking in front of groups, I will die. Now that’s ominous.
The day that I found out my friend died, I received a letter
in the mail stating I had finally been approved to bring meetings into the
McLeod County jail. Service work is where I thrive, and I’ve always wanted to
bring meetings to people in custody.
(Just now, the four-year-old came to me on
the couch crying because she wanted to give me a hug and a kiss. I obliged but
she snuck the kiss in before I realized she had a large trail of snot streaming
from her nose and when she touched my face I quickly pulled away and we sort of
reverse Lady and the Tramped it and she laughed, I gagged. This is my life
now.)
When I was in St. Cloud state prison, we were able to leave
our cells very little. You could go to church, school, meals, occasional
recreation, and meetings. In the beginning, I went to church and meetings
because those were the only places in the building with air conditioning. I
stopped going to church because it just wasn’t for me, but I kept going to
meetings. I kept listening, and eventually I started sharing some of my story,
and people listened to me. And then I started going because it made me feel
better. Every time I left a meeting, I was happy. And to this day that remains
true, and it’s why I kept going to meetings after I wasn’t forced to do so when
I got out.
Bringing meetings into a locked facility will give me the
chance to give somebody else that opportunity. I’m only bringing the meeting,
they still have to show up, but it will be there for them.
Today I choose to think of my life without chemicals
forever, and it doesn’t sound impossible or boring. My sobriety can define who
I am, and it can help others, and it makes me tolerable. I will picture myself
by the lake by my cabin (that I don’t own yet) surrounded by grandkids and
family, with a clear mind, a clear conscience, and a loving heart. I don’t have
to drink. Ever. I just have to put in a little work to make sure I don’t. So I
will.
