ReflƋcƚƩoƮs On SobƘƏƥƴy SepƚƋƭbƥƘ 2020

I shouldn’t be alive today. I shouldn’t have a usable brain today. Only through the grace of a benevolent God am I sober today. 33 years ago I was found in a coma from alcohol poisoning. In hospital I was told I had a lethal amount of booze in my blood. The doctor and nurses said I should have been dead. Might I have a drinking problem? The one thought this alky feared to face. I got into an outpatient 12 step lecture program a few evenings a week and learned that I had a disease called alcoholism. There was no pill, operation, or voodoo that could remove the psychic tumor in my brain. Only one thing was possible. Not to drink for the rest of my life. It worked through to the end of the course while I attended one meeting a week. It was not enough. After a few more weeks I was at it again. I tried to videotape “Days of Wine and Roses” but passed out half way through. I

had a solution; swallow a hand full of Valium and drink a bottle of Scotch. Again, almost dead. Hardly able to walk, taken to Queen Street meeting of AA I found folks I could relate to and started, day by day, to learn the program and try to practice it. I was dragged out to a 12 step call by a long term member to a travelling executive with bad DT’s and a briefcase full of cash from many countries. He tried to run from his disease at luxury hotels all over Asia. It failed! We took him to hospital put his $ in a lockbox and a friendly doctor put him on a drip for a few days. The man survived and returned to his family. I spoke with the doctor about my problem. He said if I don’t drink, I won’t get drunk. Pride went before my fall, but through the help and friendship of my Singapore AA friends, psychiatric aid and lots of meetings I put together long intervals of sobriety. After over one, two and three sober years I again picked up the bottle. Back at the Relapse.