- Alcohol
Submitted by Sidney
My name is Terry and I am an alcoholic.
My sobriety date is November 23rd, 1981. Let me tell you what I looked like on that date. I was 155 lbs., opaque yellow, propped up perpendicular to the horizon with a stick. My left eye watered and twitched. I couldn’t swallow whole foods, so I would tap a hole in an egg and hold my thumb over that hole and tap another at the other end and suck out the raw egg. It was my idea of getting protein into my body. I would buy sandwiches to eat but after a bit or so, seeing as I couldn’t swallow, I would put them in my coat pocket for later. Later never came.
I was running from the sheriff of Arkansas County, Arkansas, and ended up on the sofa of an ex-wife who had two of my children.
There I saw an ad for AA on late night TV. I called AA, and immediately a member I now know as Paul returned my inquiry and directed me to the Tower. He was very personable and not a bit condescending when he spoke to me that night on the phone. He had confidence in his voice that I once remembered having myself. I wanted that back. He was my first hero in recovery. It wasn’t until sometime later in a meeting that I identified his voice and knew him for who he was.
My first few years in recovery were like drinking from a spring after a long desert march. Everything my early Bible lessons taught me came back in spades and soothed my crippled spirit. The great spirit took hold of mine and nurtured me to health. I was astonished. Still am, to a great degree. Everything the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous said it would do for me came true. I have even discovered more, like it says. More will be revealed!
My mother was a devout Baptist and took me to church three times a week till I bolted. I had a seven year attendance pin when I was 12. “Churched” is what they called it. I used to tell my mother, who saw me at rock bottom, “Mother,” I would say, “I am 10 years sober in AA now.” And she would say, “Maybe so, but you are still going to Hell.”
It was good that she did that, because it made me draw from my early churching. You see, the Baptists don’t have much to say about Legion; they don’t relate. To them, it’s just a story, a Bible story. But to me, I found the body of Christ alive in that teaching and in Memphis, Tennessee. I am a member of the first church of Legion (AA).
I am not going to hell—been there done that. I am doing what Jesus told Legion to do: “Go tell the others.” You know Legion asked Christ if he could follow him? Christ said, “No.” Legion asked, “Then what am I to do?” As Christ told him—and as he tells me now—“Go tell the others.”
You see, I was traumatized the first time I drank alcohol. Trauma stores into a part of the brain that has no clock. Unlike a memory, trauma is always “just right there.” When I would wreck a car or break up from a wonderful relationship, the memory would begin to fade by the next day. Trauma on the other hand, shhheeww. Reliable, there, present—and the only thing left in my life of wreckage and dismay.
My sobriety date and walking away from that wreckage was a lot like trying to stop a train going down a mountain. It had so much momentum and all I had were the fellowship and tools of AA to stop that momentum. With each passing year, it got slower and more manageable.
I took a job on commission selling advertising for a weekly newspaper. I went from selling 180 inches to 600 inches and held it there for a year. With that track record, I got a real job selling telecommunications and made my goal two deals a day. They moved me to Oklahoma City and told an office of twelve personnel, “This is Terry F. You sell the way he sells and you can keep your job.” I continued to sell two deals a day and the accumulated office of twelve did only seven the first month. I bought a new Lincoln and parked it in front of the elevator so it was the first thing you saw when the door of that elevator opened. I lived in an apartment complex on an island and joined Kiwanis. I rented everything I ever wanted and furnished that apartment. But most of all I used Blue Cross Blue Shield to replace my hip. I had been crippled for 14 years from my alcoholism.
I won the respect and affections of the woman who I intended to get sober for. After one of my previous episodes, she had looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, “What’s the matter with me?” That’s when I knew it wasn’t her, but me. Everything I have and everything I have become is from that very first contact with Paul, who introduced me to the Tower, which loved me back to life.
My current situation is a result of being available. I met a friend through a friend on Facebook, a lady who I was classmates with in grade school. We hadn’t seen each other in 45 years, but we began a dialogue on Facebook that lasted a year and ended up in a visit to Israel where she had settled. She had made a place in her life for me that later included my daughter from a former marriage. We married in Hot Springs last August and brought Alexis back with us. She is studying Viola at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and learning Hebrew. She is an accomplished violist who performs regularly and earns her own way already. I have a B&B on the outskirts of Jerusalem in a small village (birthplace of John the Baptist) near the site of Mary’s Spring (where Mary the mother of Jesus met Elizabeth, the mother of John). We cater to tourists from around the world who pilgrim to this holy site and are dazzled by my accent. Seems nobody from the South has wondered this far out of bounds. My new wife still teaches a few days a week at a major university and I have for all practical purposes retired. Just applied for my Social Security benefits and Judy is soon to follow this December. I have passed all the requirements of Israel to become a permanent resident and consider myself an ex-patriot. We live without a TV or a car. We don’t have screens on our windows (left open year round). I can put all the beef I have eaten this year in my front pocket. I have lost 64 lbs and 10 inches in my waist. My new wife has reconfigured my intake and adjusted my exercise habits. She wants me around for another 20 years, so I let her. My daughter Alexis thrives here. She is free to roam Israel without fear. Everybody here is family and no one means another harm. I love my life.