As I write this I am now 100 days sober, my longest length of sobriety

ever in Singapore. It’s been exciting, scary at times, yet a deeply

fulfilling journey so far.

When I first entered the rooms in Manila, The Philippines in August 2014,

I really did NOT want to be there. In fact it was my wife who escorted

me to the meeting, met up with someone who we contacted via the

AA hotline before the meeting and she saw that I stayed there until the

end of the meeting too. During the meeting itself, I was absolutely

petrified. When everyone went silent to share I thought it was a sign for

me to share! So I rambled on about how I was broken by alcohol and

drugs, but it probably wasn’t my best share to date. Prior to this

meeting, I had reached my rock bottom. I was visiting the Philippines to

see my wife and 1 year old son for 6 weeks. As I was working in Saudi

they couldn’t join me since we weren’t married yet. So I went on a

prodigious bender whilst in Manila for 3 days with plenty of booze and

drugs involved. When I came back to our little studio flat that we were

renting, my wife had gone, I had no money left and I felt spiritually,

mentally and emotionally absolutely broken.

Fast forwarding to September 2017. I was walking with my wife before

our Thursday Homegroup meeting and she mentioned something that

truly surprised me. What she said was; “You seem to be taking this

program much more seriously than before.” I was genuinely shocked

by this. I didn’t really realise I was doing anything different. My wanting

to be -even earlier- than the 20 minutes before the start of the meeting

had been noticed by my wife however, as well as my general attitude

towards the program.

So what’s changed in the three

years since I first started visiting

First of all my willingness to take

direction and listen to people who

have a lot more experience than

me working the program has increased

significantly. As a result of that I have most certainly commenced on

a spiritual journey but there is a long way to go until I reach my

Without a doubt my attitude towards AA has turned a full 360

degrees. At that very first meeting in Manila, I was of the thinking that I

had nothing in common with these people in the rooms, “my drinking

isn’t that bad, after all I don’t drink every day”. However the

consequences were ALWAYS getting worse and despite the fact that

I’ve had three close friends pass away (all who were roughly the same age as me) within the last 2 to 3 years, directly and indirectly

due to this illness it still didn’t stop me drinking. My sponsor once

described me as “an extreme case”, so clearly I was in a lot of self-

denial that didn’t allow me to see the true damage that my drinking

was doing to literally everything in my life.

I’ve now started to develop true friendships in the fellowship, I

actually look forward to meetings, rather than dread them as I did at

first and I really, truly look forward to being able to help others who

are even newer to me in this programme.

Prior to coming into the rooms of AA gratitude was not a concept that I

gave much thought to in my life. There would be occasions when my wife would say we were really blessed to have the life we had, to which I usually

gave a mumble of agreement, without bothering to try to understand much

what she was really going on about. Deep down I think I felt my life should

have been better than it was.

In my first couple of weeks coming to the rooms I attended a couple of

gratitude meetings at Boomerang – didn’t make much of an impact at the

time. However, as sobriety became more a way of life and I started having

to deal with the good and the bad without alcohol to dull the senses, I

began to appreciate what I had in life a lot more. Oddly some of the more

difficult situations to cope with such as my father’s illness increased my

gratitude rather than making me feel bitter as I might have expected. I

appreciated being sober and that helping to cope with the situation.

Attending meetings overseas at this time did make me feel a deep sense of gratitude for the support of being able to talk to complete strangers with

whom I only had one thing in common.

Back in Singapore I attended a couple more gratitude meetings with a much

better understanding of what was being said. After listening to the shares of

other members I decided to start writing a gratitude list at the end of each

day. From an idea that not so long ago I would have branded as, at best, a

waste of time, it is now something that has become a very positive daily

ritual to remind me of, and make me think about all the good things in my

life, however big or just as importantly, however small they may be.