- Alcohol
- Faith
Submitted by: Susanne Johnson
J.J. got a white chip in a 12 step meeting four years ago on New Year’s Eve. Only alcoholics that don’t want to die get sober on New Year’s Eve, so she did. She was told that if she likes to drink she should put that white chip into her mouth and if it melts, she can take a drink. It hasn’t melted yet.
Being raised in a crazy home, she felt unable to escape her feelings and as she found alcohol she thought that was her golden ticket out of her misery. From there on, she drank, and she drank hard. She drank for oblivion from day one, trying to overcome problems of emotional, physical and sexual abuse. She stole the liquor from her parents, from neighbors, at babysitter jobs and anywhere she could get hold of a bottle.
As time went by, she failed at school, drank herself out of jobs and at age 19 a friend took her to her first meeting. She could not and did not want to relate to the people in the rooms of the 12-step fellowship. She focused on the differences, not on the similarities. She stayed dry and miserable for a couple years until she returned to alcohol. She lost more jobs and a long-term relationship in the years following.
J.J.’s universe began to shrink to a few blocks and a few people. Home, job, bar, all was within a short walking distance and for a while this triangle was the only movement in J.J.’s life. She sold her car since she had no need for it and didn’t want to get a DUI anyway. Her bar tab was rising, until she couldn’t pay the bills for her everyday life. Her utilities were shut off often. Eventually she called a meeting hotline and returned to a meeting. She still refused to get a sponsor and tried to work the steps by herself. She tried to separate her recovery from her life as far as she could. Somehow she managed to stay dry for the following 15 years. She was miserable and still had this hole in her soul that didn’t want to go away. “I knew I was an alcoholic, but I didn’t want to be an alcoholic. I refused to be part of the fellowship and the program,” J.J. says.
Fifteen years later she had a partner who had two boys. Her partner had never seen J.J. drinking and did not know much about alcoholism at this time. She asked, “Can’t you have by now a drink or two?” and being an alcoholic J.J. picked up a drink again at some point. “Alcoholism is the only disease that tells us, that we don’t have it,” J.J. says, “While we are sober it is out there doing push-ups, progressing and waiting for us to come back, when we think we are okay.”
J.J. worked in Chicago at this time and commuted on weekends to Kentucky to be with her family. She was hiding her drinking again and during the week. At this New Year’s Eve she was housesitting a place in Chicago, a house full of liquor. She was drinking herself into oblivion every day for some days until she found herself one day with a glass and a bottle in hand and crying. She didn’t want to drink anymore.
She got on her knees and asked her higher power for help. J.J. went back to meetings. This time she got a sponsor, she reads the Big Book and works the steps. It made all the difference in the world for her. “My life is very different than it was four years ago,” said J.J. She enjoys sailing today, looks forward to meetings, loves to spend time with her family, has friends and a good job. While in the car, she listens to speaker recordings of 12-step meetings and talks regular with her sponsor. She found her own happiness in her life.