I will never forget the day I first screwed up the courage to say those words in front of a roomful of fellow AA members. I'd only been going to meetings for a few weeks, but it hadn't taken long for me to realize that I wasn't a problem drinker, I had a drinking problem. (Only those who have fought this battle---or lived with an alcoholic---know the difference.)
Up until that day, now sixteen years in the past, I'd thought I was in control of my drinking; after all, I didn't get drunk every time, and oftentimes I'd go as long as a year between binges. But there were also entire periods of my 20s and early 30s that I didn't even remember because I spent weeks and months inside a bottle. I had blackouts. I picked fights with my husband and treated him like dirt. I hid myself away from my children. And I did awful, embarrassing things that I never would have even THOUGHT of when sober.
And I'd thought I was in control...........:icon_roll
But as ashamed as I was to admit that I was one of 'those' people---the ones my parents (your basic upper-class lushes themselves) looked down their noses at because "they drink"---it turned out to be the most liberating act of my life. Suddenly I was free.......to explore who I was without the mask, to learn what I wanted to be when I grew up. At age 33, I had no idea of who I was; I'd started drinking at only 13 and was a full-fledged alcoholic by the age of 19, so I was still very immature emotionally. But every good thing that has happened in my life since I accepted my own powerlessness over alcohol, happened because of my sobriety. I would be nowhere without it, let alone without God, Who continues to make it possible every day. It's as simple---and as complicated---as that.
