At The Brink Of Taking A Drink-Again

I found that when I sobered up-in the first 30 days to 6 months-I was completely broken down and lost in life. I had to eat dried beans daily and could not find any work. I mean it: no work was available. Even day hire spots had no people waiting to be picked up. I could not find a toilet to clean even if I paid to clean it myself. I did not have a roof over my head that I could pay for and I was financially paperless: I had no checking account and was banned from obtaining one. I had and still have to this day a hard time feeling grateful, because now my health suffers. I had a car and I was alive so I guess I could be grateful for being able to get to AA meetings. I remember hitting some study groups and they happened to be on the 12th step; step 12 is similar to being at the apex of your sobriety. Several people were sharing about their warm and fuzzy existence now that they had arrived at Step 12; this grossed me out but I stayed in the meetings. I was not at the point in my sobriety were I wanted to be hearing grandiose speeches especially when they were coming out of people that were probably as broken down as me at one point. I remember that I just kept going to those AA meetings, but I definitely needed "something" else to keep staying sober; if maintaining my sobriety had rested solely on the AA meetings and 12 Step work in this nasty little area of the world I would have been back on the bottle in a flash. The recovery community in my area falls short of the mark. Believe me, I "worked" the program as it was suggested, but I saw more people like me going from AA than coming to it. In my humble opinion AA has a high failure rate and a dismal record given the enormous amount of available alcoholics out there to work with; its "attraction rather than promotion" etiquette is not attracting and retaining addicted people. Very few of us are fortunate to enter AA and have it stick on us or have us stick in it. At AA we are taught that if you fail in the program it is because of your inability to be honest. I don't buy it. I think AA has to realize that it falls short of the entire recovery solution and admit that fact honestly. One of the main concepts in AA doctrine is that you need to find your "higher power". This is not AA's invention, but they sure use their in-program God like they invented it. That is why I believe the greatest recovery book that I have ever laid eyes on is actually the Bible. Even atheists and agnostics can use the Bible as a recovery tool and knock it up to reading a work of fiction that gives good advice. Mentioning the Bible brings me back to the point I was starting at the beginning of this blog. The only thing that kept me sober those awful and hard days when I was piss poor and could not afford to eat was the phrase out of The Lord's Prayer, "give us this day our daily bread". Struggling with my faith and all other aspects of my life I just clung to the few tools I had: my wavering faith, a pet and AA meetings.