Ramblings of an Inquisitive Mind

Thirty years ago today, I decided to get serious about my problems with drugs and alcohol. I woke up this morning with a feeling of extreme gratitude and the tossing and turning of my mind and soul that tell me I need to write. I am hopeful that my sweet editor Diane will be able to transform this jumble of emotions into a post that makes sense. I feel a need to share with you part of my journey of getting sober. This morning, thinking back over the whole experience, I realized that my Higher Power put certain people in my life long before I even dreamed of the course my life would take.

I had lunch with Diane on Monday and she asked if this week marked 30 years of sobriety. Me being who I am, I said, Yes, but I feel like I should be much further along than this. She asked, Where would you be today if you had not gotten sober? I responded that I would be dead.

That may sound overly dramatic, but I truly believe it. I see no way I could have survived this long if I had continued to live the way I was living. People sometimes say to me today, Well, it has been so long, can’t you just have a drink? What I know today is that I do not know how to have a drink. I don’t want to just have a drink; when I drink, I totally lose control.

I remember so many times reaching that perfect feeling–just enough alcohol mixed with just the right amount of drugs, and the world was wonderful. I literally felt like I was floating. But I could never just stop there. I drank until I was falling down drunk and had to be carried out of the bar by my buddies. Thank God someone cared enough about me to drive me home on some of those nights, to walk me to my door and drop me off.

In one of my recent posts I mentioned my friend Barbara, the one who first told me that in AA, they say if you are blacking out you might have a problem with alcohol. I remember the first time I met Barbara. She was in Waynesboro with a guy I knew from high school. He was gay and had moved to Augusta, and I guess that’s where the two of them met. I was working at the bank at the time and they stopped in and asked to see me. That was the start of a crazy time in my life–and also the moment I met the lifeline who would save me from those times.

At that time, there were four of us I knew who were gay or lesbian who had grown up in Waynesboro and escaped to Augusta, where we felt at least somewhat free to be who we were. We started hanging out, going to bars in Augusta and other cities nearby. Gay bars were not easy to find then, and they were not always in the best of areas. We vacationed together along with other people, spending most of that time hanging out in bars and drinking. Barbara was one of the people we all knew in common, so she was usually with us on these adventures. Today, I look back and realize that two of those guys I knew from Waynesboro died from HIV, and my friend Barbara passed away about six years ago. That is sobering in and of itself.

Anyway, getting back to getting sober. At some point during those years, Barbara stopped hanging out with us. I would see her now and then but she was not drinking. I talked to her about it and she told me she was trying to get sober. I knew about AA because I had relatives who had gotten sober in AA and were very active in the recovery community.

I reached a point where I needed a place to live, and Barbara let me move in with her. She was staying sober and she had this drunk for a roommate. This was a period of heavy drinking for me. On more than one occasion, someone would drive me home, walk me up the stairs to the apartment, and dump me on Barbara. Thank God she loved me. Thank God she didn’t throw me out into the street. She just asked me to go to meetings. She would say, I could really use some support and would like for you to go with me. She tried everything she could to get me to go to a meeting. But I continued to drink. I moved in with another friend and kept partying.

But no matter what I did or who I hung out with, I just never seemed to fit in; I never felt good enough. In Augusta at that time, there was a group of five or six women who I regarded as the cool people–the people everyone should want to hang out with. Man–did they drink!!!! I would tell other people, I know I drink a lot, but if I ever get that bad I will get some help.

Well, I finally became part of that group. We basically started drinking every Friday and didn’t stop until Sunday night. We would all go out to the bar on Friday and head back to someone’s house after the bar closed. First thing the next morning we’d drink a beer to get the weekend started. Every weekend there was a house full of people sleeping everywhere.

This group had an annual, weeklong beach trip to Jekyll Island, and that year I was invited to go. This was right around Labor Day 1987, and I was SO excited. Before the group left town, they had the living room full of cases of beer (because beer cost more at the beach) in preparation for the trip. I could only go for part of the week. I drank from the time my girlfriend picked me up all the way to the beach. I don’t remember arriving at the beach, eating supper, or anything else from that first night. I was so drunk and out of control that I remember very little of that trip. Needless to say, my girlfriend was no longer my girlfriend after that trip.

What I do remember was this: With a beer in each hand, I stumbled to one of the walkways leading to the beach. As I stood there I heard a voice deep within me say, You do not have to live this way.

I stumbled back to the room. Drank the whole ride home; got back to the apartment I shared with my roommates and drank the rest of the beer I had in my backpack, never even asking if they wanted one. Went to my room, and the next morning, I called Barbara and asked her to take me to a meeting.

I told my roommates and one of the women from the beach group that I was going to AA. They all said, We were going to talk to you about your drinking. Remember, these were the same women I was talking about when I said if I ever drank that much, I would get help. Wow–drunks telling another drunk that she’s drinking too much.

Anyway, Barbara took me to my first meeting and I stayed sober for a while. But I kept doing drugs, and it took until December 6^th for me to be honest about what I was doing. At that point, I was living with Barbara and her partner Hope. They were both sober and it was a good place for me to be. I finally told Barbara what I had been doing. She said, There is a meeting at North Augusta tonight–you need to go and pick up a chip. She and Hope were not going to the meeting, so I drove there myself.

The meeting was packed because someone was celebrating their first year of sobriety. At the end of the meeting, someone always stands up and hands out chips to mark your time in recovery. A white chip is the first one, the one you pick up if you have a desire to stop drinking and start on the road to recovery.

Like I said, the room was packed, and I thought, There is no way I’m going up in front of all these people to get another white chip. I will just get it tomorrow at the noon meeting. That’s the meeting I usually go to, and it would mean more to the people there if I picked it up then.

So they start handing out the chips, and I just stand there. Then, all of a sudden, someone pushes me from behind. I turn around and there stands Barbara. So I go pick up that damn chip in front of all those people–and it was the best decision I ever made. I am still so grateful to Barbara and to all the other people who loved me until I could begin to love myself.