What I was like

I thought that my intervention could save any situation. I collected histories of the world so I could learn from the past and be ready in a moment to rescue humanity from catastrophe.

Foreign invasion, volcanic eruption, epidemic, or famine – I would be ready with a bon mot and a five-point plan.

As a child I fantasised about saving the wagon train from desperados or yelling savages and winning universal gratitude.

Later on, it was girls, whom I charmed with grandiose promises which I reliably failed to keep.

I fuelled my narcissism with alcohol and narcotics, and as the evident impacts of my interventions – bad debt, disappointment, anger, tears – moved ever further from my elevated view of myself, I needed more and stronger fuel.

What happened

And then, in my sixth decade, the fuel didn’t work. I was a quivering heap sitting in an AA meeting. I limped from a fall, was covered in bruises, impecunious, and furious.

It was an outrage that I should be so dishonoured. What the hell was God thinking, to use me thus?

I tried a couple more times to rev my engine with more and stronger fuel. The outcomes, especially the paranoia, were worse than ever.

Then as I prepared, despite many meetings, to fly again to my special place, my sponsor (wise to my plans) said

“You have the mind of a child. Nothing you say or do makes any sense. Listen to what I am telling you and do not get on that aeroplane”.

I called him a c***, as I sobbed my toddler outrage. What infuriated me most, was that he was right, and at some level I knew it.

What I am like now

Something changed then, as for the first time I took the advice of another sober human being.

I made a list of my disasters. It was a long list. It covered many years and many places. How many times had caring friends and colleagues tried to help me, to meet with scorn and derision?

I said the step three prayer. I tried to listen in meetings instead of composing witty shares to win laughs.

I told God I was helpless. I said “You made me. I belong to You. Do with me as You will” using the words of a tiny Irish nun who had held my hand years before as I was wheeled away for cancer surgery.

And what a relief that was. Now I am well into my fourth year of sobriety. I laugh a lot, mainly at myself, and start every day with a list of things I am thankful for, and a request to be useful and of service.

The inescapable truth of my sponsor’s words, offered out of love, had stopped me in my tracks, when nothing else had.

The day I gave up the struggle, and ceded control, was the day I got my life back.

Anonymous