One Day at a Time

Nearly Lost My Head

During the summer of 1998 it was not easy to stay sober - just not drinking and going to meetings - at least one a day had nearly reached the point of tedium - but at least I was not drinking anymore and I was put into a place of fellowship and camaraderie where I could hear the message. No one seemed to know just exactly what that 'message' was - but supposedly there was one and it would solve my problem once it would eventually find me. 

Too bad I almost died waiting.

The welcomed and wonderful band-aids of the Fellowship with which I had covered my wounds were beginning to reach their full saturation point. The spiritual bleeding continued.

It was five days short of my second sobriety anniversary on a curiously warm night for New England in October and a drink was the furthest thing from my mind. I was driving home from my office and feeling rather at ease.

It had been a productive night. Our production (sales) was excellent, I had hired some new very promising people, and I was in a fantastic frame of mind. I had just gotten off the phone with my sponsor, and we had shared some great recovery talk. Suddenly it occurred to me that on such a great day "It is a damned shame that I cannot drink anymore."

It would have been the ideal time to unwind -- kick back, and REALLY enjoy my good fortune, my imminent sober anniversary and my apparent serenity.

Two days later I awoke in a motel room, the Brockton Holiday Inn - just five minutes from my office in Randolph. I was in bed, naked, sweating and shivering cold, and coming off a blackout. I had relapsed. I have no memory of what happened to me from the time the insanity of the first drink entered my thoughts, to the time I came to.

Anyone who thinks that a real alcoholic cannot be "struck drunk" hasn't studied enough the malady. I drove home - back down the Cape, to Cotuit - where my wife Nancy waited - had been waiting. The pain in my soul was so extreme -- I felt that death was the only possible way out. The sickness in my own soul had hit my absolute threshold. I knew it was not possible for me to take even one iota more.

I would hear folks talk about being in jail or losing their families or businesses, even health, believing that the resulting pain and self pity was their "bottom'. That sort of bottom seemed a piece of cake on this night. I finally understood.

I had a shotgun in the house. It was in the basement. I thought that if I put the barrel in my mouth and pulled the trigger with my toes I would be relieved. Unless you have been to this place - this place of the alcoholic at his alcoholic bottom it may be difficult to grasp this sort of situtation. It is a place where eventually all alcoholics who manage to stay alive long enough must go - a place that can only be entered through the ages old iron gates of mental insanity - whereupon once entering one must adapt and survive on terrain so treacherous that only a tiny percentage of those who enter ever find the way back. Even fewer ever live long or happily. I really did not want to die but I knew that to live this way any longer was equally impossible.

But I knew the shells were old and with a shotgun in my crotch - if it misfired -- it could be very painful and unfortunate if I lived. Yet death was the only way out.

I did not know it, but THIS was a jumping-off place where I had never been before - the one spoken of in the Big Book, "Alcoholics Anonymous".

I headed for the basement to bring the gun back upstairs to bed. On the way, I stopped. I stood on the balcony outside of the bedroom and looked down at my son's room, where he lay asleep. "What about him?" I thought. "What of him growing up without a daddy like you did?"

Then I thought of my wife behind me, lying in bed. What horror would she experience to hear the explosion and watch as my head splattered across the ceiling; possibly with bits of my splattered brains dripping down on the bed next to her; my headless body lying beside her? Was this what she bargained for when she married me?

Had she any idea? I turned around and headed back to my bed, and put my head face down into the pillow and I prayed to God. A cry that came from deep down from my solar plexus - my "soul" if you will.

I asked of God not to live; neither did I ask to die. I made no promises in exchange for anything. I just abandoned all hope for myself of doing anything and asked (prayed - begged) that anything He wanted would be. I must now either die or live, whichever was His choice, because only one or the other was possible in that moment. All I knew was the way I now am, could not possibly continue.

At this same moment, when death seemed so appealing, I had what would be termed as a spiritual experience.

With it came a sudden, breeze of cool, sweet smelling air through the room. The sheer draperies that lined the glass door leading out into the outside deck rolled and fluttered and I heard the voice of God. He said that He loved me and would help if I would have Him, that there was a better way to Him. It was a path paved by those who came before. It would lead me back to Him. I could see this with a vision and clarity that I still have today.

I got up to close the windows and door but was astounded to find that they were already shut tight as tight as a crabs ass -- not even the hint of a draft was leaking into the room. The breeze had not emanated from outside. Confused but still grateful, I thanked God, and I cried for my past arrogance – returned to my bed and fell off to sleep.

The next morning, after sleeping only a few hours, I awoke feeling well rested. An old-timer came into my life a few days later. He offered and I accepted his help in guiding me through and practicing the Program of recovery using the directions outlined by the first one hundred alcoholics who authored the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous.

I began to see the results immediately and forty-four days later, I was a free man. Did you get that? IMMEDIATELY I experienced results. Within five weeks I was a FREE MAN. I was completey sober without so so much as the slightest temptation to ever drink again. What is sobriety but freedom from alchohol? There where no years and years of recovering and struggling with the desire to drink. No avoiding temptation. No ten or fifteen AA meetings a week. No months and years of psychoanalysis or counseling. I am saying that I was placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected from ever drinking again simply by following a few simple rules - twelve to be exact. I began to seek out fellow alcoholics in who also followed or sought the same path and started working with others to show them the same solution.

If you are alcoholic, suspect that you  may be alcoholic or think you have an open mind you are alcoholic - and-  then I invite you to follow along with me as I convey some of my experiences through an alcoholic life as an active alkie as well as one who has found the solution and recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of body and mind.

If you’ve been exposed to POP-AA or modern day “Addictions” treatments being sold in treatment center and rehabs - then you may find some of my experiences conflicting with your opinions. Good. But I am not an authority on recovery methods, organizations, God, alcoholism or spirituality nor do I speak for anyone but myself so don't take me so freakin' seriously - OK? If you have no sense of humor - you may not 'get' much of my scribbling. I am not a member of any organized religion or cult and I have no axes to grind. I simply express my experience and my observations as a RECOVERED alcoholic.

While not EVERYONE CAN recover from alcoholism, ALMOST anyone can - simply and quickly - within days, not years. I am simply writing about how I have been freed - in forty four days - from the prison of alcoholic torture. If you don't want what I have then please do not do as I have done or what I do to keep what I have. There are plenty of other knuckleheads like me writing blogs and blowing smoke about how THEY stopped drinking and are STILL RECOVERING, yada yada.

But if you would like to recover, as the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" proposes, then maybe some of my experiences will help. I write of my experience only and I am not here to rant opinions about a recovery experience I have never had. That I promise.

"Maybe you have disturbed him about the question of alcoholism. This is all to the good. The more hopeless he feels, the better. He will be more likely to follow your suggestions" (Alcoholics Anonymous, 94:1)

Peace and Love,

Danny S

^{This Blog and its content is not in any way affiliated or associated with Alcoholics Anonymous World Services (AA) and content herein expresses the sole experience or opinions of the author. Anything posted here concerning alcoholism or recovery from alcoholism that cannot be reconciled with the AA book, "Alcoholics Anonymous"  with regard to comments about AA or it's Twelve Step Program should be ignored. This  blog is not a form of Twelve Step work for the author nor does the author claim to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous since if he were a member of AA he would violate AAs traditions in saying so publicly and he would also be lying if he were a member and denied it. Accordingly in order to respect that organizations traditions he does not admit or deny membership in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous}