20 years of sobriety and new life

This day 20 years ago I had the first waking clue that my life was about to be upended in three weeks’ time—my 13-year marriage was about to end overnight.  My daughters at the time were 11, 8, and 5.

It hadn’t been an overnight process for my then-wife; it had been months in the making.  In those days I was wedded to my job as a safety and security manager for a global-brand oil company, travelling the vast country at the whim of my employer and to satisfy my clamorous ambition.  In those days I wouldn’t do marriage counselling—didn’t think it was required.  I was sorely mistaken.  It’s ironic now that I’ve counselled over 50 couples as a couple’s counsellor.  It’s also ironic that in those days I managed an alcohol and other drug program, breathalysing truck and train drivers when I was the one who had the problem.

20 years ago today I was still trying to understand how I could control my overuse and abuse of alcohol.  I used it to destress from a work life that had a course of its own.  In those days I didn’t have the capacity (or desire) to feel my emotions—instead I loved pleasure and would numb my feelings and feel the euphoria of tipsiness, tobacco, and top it off with a little marijuana.

Pleasure was my weakness.
It dominated my second 18 years.
But not my third 18...

These days, and for the past 20 years, I’ve been stone-cold sober, and it has been THE BEST life.  Not only have there been no regrets, but there have also been unequivocal joys, amid many realms of gratitude untold.  Not that life in the past 20 years has been without pain—separation, rejection, loneliness, divorce, career transitions, workplace trauma, child loss and grief amongst others.

BUT.  I have not one single regret for having QUIT drinking all those 20 years ago.  Not one.  Not one hangover have I had.  Not one embarrassing encounter to regret because of my drinking.  Not one single thing to cover up because of my drinking.  Not one day where I would need to change a narrative or manipulate a plan just to drink.  Not one seedy morning.  Not one day worrying about my overuse and abuse of alcohol.  Not one day feeling paranoid driving to work because of the alcohol I consumed the night before.  Not one single day of agonising when and how I was going to wrest control from the demon drink—and the drink was a demon to me.  Not a day concerned about the health consequences I was reckoning for myself in bathing my organs in a carcinogen.  

Not one.

In the genesis of my recovery from alcohol I spent 11 months in AA, attending 159 meetings, most weeks attending 4-5 meetings a week.  In many of those meetings I shared my story in the 10-minutes generally allowed, so many times saying, “Hi everyone, I’m Steve and I’m an alcoholic.”  Sharing my story like this, honesty was applauded because that is where the power is at.  The last six months of my time in AA I was secretary of the Kwinana Town Group.  I opened up each Thursday night and set everything up, tea, coffee, biscuits, welcomed newcomers, invited someone to chair the meeting, the last to leave having tidied up.  

I was so grateful to be free, 
free from the drink and any resentment, 
to have benefitted from age old wisdom, 
to have had the opportunity to serve.  

In a paradoxical world, service is freedom.

My journey as an “AA” started the night after my marriage ended.  I needed the fellowship of AA more to get through the grief of losing my wife, home, and family as it was than I needed AA to recover from alcoholism.  AA connected me with its tenets: RECOVERY (in my case, not only from alcohol, but more in terms from grief), UNITY with others especially wiser men and women I needed, and SERVICE—I learned a servant heart principally from AA not the church.

20 years later and I look back on a couple of decades with a grateful bittersweetness that comes from a period of life that has had countless astonishing ups and myriad calamitous downs. 

Yet, by faith, especially as I look back, 
God has been with me every step of the way!

Even through the rock bottom sleepless pain-riddled nights crying myself eventually to sleep because I missed my wife and kids so much.  Even through those jarring moments of panic in broad daylight as I bore the stark reality of my seemingly hopeless circumstance.  Even as it was so clear that one life had ended and another life that I at times resisted had begun.  Even as I existed solely for God, my girls, my parents, my family.  I had little of the material world left, and the paradox is there was freedom in that.  Not much more could be taken away from me.

Even though I’m often overwhelmed with my workload these days, I am so grateful that my life has turned out, that I DID recover, that I arrived at many forms of reconciliation.

20 years ago today, my parents had no idea how much they would be called upon to listen to a broken son.  But they never missed a beat, as they have always been, right there in the thick of it for their entire family. 

It’s a year since Mum died, 
and in honour to her, 
I say, Thank you, Mum.

~

My message to you in this: 
you that perhaps may be struggling today;
hold on by your faith and hope that things 
will turn for the best, because they will.

That’s the message that my 
Mum always communicated.
Hold on, you will make it through.

~

Today also marks one year since we 
learned Mum had just days to live. 

Rest with Jesus and all 
our lost precious ones, Mum, love you.