When I was about 90 days sober, I thought I was going to drink again. I knew what “drinking again” felt like. I had previously relapsed four times in the last 18 months of my active alcoholism, after repeatedly vowing to never drink again.
After a Tuesday night meeting at St. Asaph’s, I approached my sponsor, and I told him the truth-that I felt like I was going to drink again. He reached for a piece of paper, and he quickly wrote the following:
I still have this piece of paper, 28 1/2 years later. Of course I do-it helped save my life. What did he write on that piece of paper?
1) Ask God for help staying sober in the morning. My recovery doesn’t come from me. My recovery is a gift from a Higher Power. I am convinced of that. On April 30, 1990, I got down on my knees, crying, and said “Help me God”. God helped me that day. Two days later I was at my first AA meeting, and I haven’t had a drink since. So I don’t mind asking my Higher Power for help. I need it. For more on this topic, see my essay “I Need Help”.
2) Thank God at night for that sober day. Every day that I have asked for help staying sober, I have been kept sober. Every one. As of today, that is 10,379 days. So I thank my Higher Power at night for this sober day.
3) Go to a meeting. At the time, my sponsor was gravely concerned about my sobriety, so he suggested that I go to a meeting every day. So I did. I don’t get to a meeting every day now, but I do have substantial contact with the program every day. Every day I listen to the First Step or the Second Step in my car, and talk to another alcoholic. When I’m on an airplane (a frequent happening in my life) I listen to a meeting on my phone.
4) Call your sponsor. My sponsor is one of my role models. I speak to him as much as I can. For more about this topic, see my essay “Role Models”. My sponsor always changes my perspective when I speak with him.
5) Read the Big Book. I believe that the first 164 pages of the book “Alcoholics Anonymous”, (also known as “The Big Book”) represent the best spiritual writing I’ve ever read. I have copies of all four editions of the Big Book, as well as copies on CD and on my phone. When I can’t get to a meeting, I read or listen to the Big Book.
6) Avoid Hungry, Angry, Lonely & Tired (“HALT”). Alcoholics are susceptible to “triggers”- things that make us susceptible to a drink. For me, some of those triggers include being hungry, angry, lonely or tired. In order to practice self-care, I need to avoid these triggers, using tools like having a healthy snack, talking to my sponsor, being with my family and friends in recovery, and taking a nap.
7) If all else fails, help another alcoholic. On page 89 of the Big Book, it says “frequent contact with newcomers and with each other is the bright spot of our lives”. It’s true. Speaking with a sponsee, or another alcoholic in distress, helps me like nothing else can.
Now there is a postscript to this story. I looked at the list my sponsor handed me, and I asked him if doing these things would help me recover from alcoholism. I was absolutely certain that he was going to say yes. But instead, he said no. So I asked him what this list of seven tasks was, and he explained to me that since I thought I was going to drink, I needed to do these seven things every day until the feeling passed (and for a long time after, as well).
I then asked him what I think is the most important question I’ve ever asked any person: What do I need to do to recover from alcoholism? And he answered, “if you want to recover from alcoholism, you need to work the twelve steps”.
We started working the twelve steps together that same Tuesday night, and my life has not been the same since. I’ll write a lot more about the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous on this site. Those steps are the most important gift I’ve ever been given.
With Love,
The Recovering Urchin
