We don't have to drink to die

The following was written by a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.  I have deleted his name to protect his anonymity. The names in the original letter have been changed too.





We don't have to drink to die.



We buried him yesterday. The County Coroner had published the required

notices for next of kin and nobody had claimed the body. It was just myself

and his sponsor, no preacher even, the county doesn't pay for those. Not

much of send-off, and not the one Bill had asked for. A cheap coffin, a

backhoe dug a hole, and that was it - another old AA gone.



He had been sober over 20 years and in AA over 30, a stern and rigid man

who tried to soften his edges and never could. He was a loner, a fringer, an

isolated man at the edge of life's good things. He hung in there... and in the

end hung himself. I don't know why; I can't know. I know there had been a

diagnosis of senile dementia, and I know that the doctor had added cancer

to the list. But, I've seen AAs deal with such things before... I don't know

why Bill decided he couldn't.



It isn't the first time I've been through this in Alcoholics Anonymous. I've

known several over the years who just up and walked out life's door one

day. Sober, but not happy. Sober, but not at peace. Sober, but they died of

alcoholism. Our disease doesn't need us to drink in order to kill us. I wish

more folks knew that, and appreciated it.



Alcoholism is the only disease that is entirely capable of fighting back, of

taking care of itself, and of emerging in new places and new forms when it

isn't properly treated. That's because of the spiritual malady. Most people

think that has something to do with prayer or with God. It doesn't. It has

to do with 'our spirit'... that force which animates, motivates and propels

us. As an alcoholic, my spirit is ill. It is flawed. My character, or basic

nature, doesn't work right. At its root, it is a fundamental and irresolveable

insecurity...a hole that can't ever be filled. It is an instinct run rampant, a

desperate need for acceptance and love that cannot be met. It hurts. It fills

one with fear. The selfishness and self-centeredness of the alcoholic lies

here... we are totally preoccupied with what is going on with ourselves on

the inside.



The slings and arrows of experience warped by this need drive us to the

fringe, and the voices of the committee in our head keep us there. We are

obsessed with ourselves, and from this condition of mind...the insanity of

feelings gone haywire, we become self-medicators eventually. We discover

alcohol or something else...and the stuff quiets the voices, provides the

relief we've never been able to find in any other way. It isn't any wonder we

drink, or drug, the way we do.

And some of us don't develop an addiction...in attempting to meet these

crying demands of our spirit become ill, we develop other malformations of

behavior, and suffer in a hundred different ways.



God broke Bill's obsession to drink. But, I don't think Bill ever truly

understood his disease. I say that because I watched him struggle with

those old unresolved issues of his heart for years. His rigidity, coldness,

aloofness, isolation and difficulty with other people were a reflection of the

pain in his heart... of the disease of alcoholism gone deep inside, and still

active.



Alcoholism didn't need Bill to drink in order to continue trying to kill him,

and in the end...it succeeded. In the end, instead of self abandoned...Bill

abandoned hope...and discovered a bitter end.



Our recovery from alcoholism through the Steps must be a three-fold

process. It is not one dimensional. When we say, in AA, that we have

a triangle...recovery, unity, service...we mean it. In working the Steps, I

clear a pathway for two purposes...first, to come into a group of human

people and away from the fringe of society where I have spent most of

my emotional life. Secondly, to discover 'belonging' through service to the

people within that group. It is only this entire, threefold process that heals.

It is especially true for those of us who suffer from the spiritual malady to a

great degree.



Perhaps the 12th Step says it best: "Having had a spiritual awakening as

the result of these Steps (recovery), we tried to carry this message to other

alcoholics (service) and practice these principles in all our affairs (unity).

You see...I cannot hold back. I must not continue to suffer that shyness,

aloneness, that overwhelming sense of self...in my affairs. I must get

involved in a group of people to practice these principles in all my affairs.

Only the total approach is healing. Anything less is little more than driving

my disease deep...and if I do that...it will continue to eat away, trying to

destroy me.



It destroyed Bill. This is a memorial to an old AA who gave his best

shot...and I think Bill ended up on the plus side. It wasn't his fault; he

seemed to have been born that way. There were a lot of old ideas about

self that Bill could never muster the willingness to let go of. He is at rest

now. But it says somewhere that "no matter how far down the scale we

have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others."



Bill cannot speak to his experience any longer; I am speaking

in his memory. And I think that if Bill could talk to us today, he'd

say "Understand your disease thoroughly, and work the complete program

of recovery"!



God Bless!