I was pretty sure I had hit rock bottom when I ended up in the psych ward for four days. You meet some pretty interesting people in there. You think you have problems? Try having a guard shine a flashlight into your face every fifteen minutes, for twenty-four hours a day, or trading lunch meats with a bunch of paranoid schizophrenics. It puts things in perspective.

Like I said, I thought that was my bottom. But it wasn’t enough to make me stop drinking. It turns out you can get dragged along the bottom for quite a while. So instead, you’re sitting in your car in a parking lot in Greenwich and waiting for the liquor store to open at 9:00 a.m. You look at the clock. 8:53 a.m. Such a long time to go.

You think you’re the only one? Nope. Get in line. It’s a pretty sorry-looking bunch of people. One of the guys ahead of you doesn’t seem to know where he is or respond to simple questions. They still sell him a handle of vodka. Somehow he gets back into his Range Rover, and he’s off. All of a sudden, you say to yourself, enough.

So that’s Step One. It’s acceptance that you’re powerless over alcohol, or drugs, and that your life has become unmanageable. It’s the foundation of every other part of the Program, and until you can be totally honest with yourself about it, you’re not going to get anything out of going to meetings, reading the Big Book, working the steps, whatever.

Here in the Program people talk about high bottoms and low bottoms. No matter how low you think your bottom might be, there’s always somebody else with a worse story. You think it sucks losing your job, your house, your wife, your kids? That’s routine. DUIs, cracking up cars? Please.

Plenty of people have done long, hard time in jail, been homeless. I’ve met one guy who killed somebody behind the wheel of his car. While drunk, of course. Try living with that. Or paralyzing your three-year-old in a car crash while you made it out without a scratch. As one famous AA speaker put it, when you come into the Program, you’re not exactly on a roll.

So now that you’ve hit rock bottom, or so you think, you come into the Program. In some cases, you’ve been scared straight and you’ll end up never taking another drink again. If so, you’re one of the lucky ones. But the problem is that when you’re at the bottom, that’s exactly when it seems like taking a drink would bring you the most relief. It dulls the pain, just like it has all the times before. Now the pain is the most acute, so the cure is at its most inviting.

People come in and out of the Program, sometimes for years. Eventually they might have that epiphany that we talk about, and the Program will stick. That’s turning it over to a high power. That’s Step Two and Step Three. Accepting that only a higher power can get you out of this mess, and then surrendering to it. And that’s where it gets tricky.

Because why would a higher power care about a piece of shit like me, or anybody else, for that matter? Many with better morals and more faith than me get killed in earthquakes or plane crashes every day. Let’s just say that when it comes to deserving to be saved, I don’t belong at the front of the line.

But folks in here with decent sobriety will tell you that AA is just a plan of action, nothing more. It doesn’t require a Master’s degree in philosophy or theology. It doesn’t matter whether you can rationalize the intercession of a higher power, or not. Either you turn it over to God, or you’re screwed. Because if you don’t turn it over, you’re going to keep drinking, and you’re going to hit a lower bottom. And for a lot of us, that means death.

So just follow instructions, listen to your sponsor, work the steps, keep coming. “It works if you work it so work it ‘cause you’re worth it.” So they tell me. Is it true? Who knows? But in the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story of life, which hasn’t worked out so well so far, I currently have two choices. One: hope that the people in these rooms, in these church basements, know what they’re talking about. And two: well, we all know what’s behind door number two, don’t we?

A couple weeks ago, one of the guys in my regular meeting with several years’ sobriety stopped showing up. On paper, he was the most upstanding citizen you could imagine – husband, father of three, soccer coach, hedge fund manager. And in the rooms, he was somebody with a great story who you could always turn to for support. Turns out he hung himself. Sad, but not surprising. It happens more often than you’d think. For a lot of people, AA is the last stop before the end.

On the flip side, a few months ago after a meeting, a local doctor in the program told me there was nothing he could do to get sober. He was showing up every day—twice a day.

So I asked him, “What’s it going take to get your sober for one day?”

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“Just try to get one day,” I said. “Forget about the next day. Assume you’re going to drink the next day. Just get one day.”

He got one day. Then another. When he reached 30 days, I only had 22 myself. Now he has 94. What’s the moral of the story? We just don’t know how this is all going to turn out. But if you can get just one day – today – then maybe you’ll get another tomorrow. And that’s a start.

This is my story. I will tell you how it started, how it went, and how it’s going, but not yet how it ends. I’m praying that this is also the beginning, of something.

 

COVID update: In light of the increase in addiction and relapses since the COVID-19 pandemic began, visit this resource for alcohol rehab and treatment.

http://www.eviecourtlandt.com/2018/08/29/pink-cloud-over-greenwich/