Voices of Long-Term Sobriety: Oldtimers Stories from AA Grapevine

By AA Grapevine

In this powerful anthology of stories from Grapevine, old-timers share their wealth of experience in staying sober for many years through good times and bad.

This Grapevine collection includes 42 stories from long-time members who arrived at Alcoholics Anonymous from “a dark place where there seemed nowhere else to go.” You’ll meet Keith, who hid behind a bush to see what AA members looked like before he ventured in his first meeting, and Norman, who lost his lifelong dependence on his best friend—alcohol--but gained 30 years of sobriety. AA’s valued long-time members are here to tell us: “Life happens, don’t drink, go to meetings, trust the principles of AA and be willing to stay willing.”

With the perspective of decades of successes and failures, losses and fulfillment, these inspirational stories illustrate that sobriety is a journey, not a destination.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AA Grapevine
• Release date: Aug 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781938413308

Book preview

VOICES OF LONG-TERM

SOBRIETY

Old-Timers' Stories

From AA Grapevine

Other Books published by AA Grapevine, Inc.

The Language of the Heart (& eBook)

The Best of Bill (& eBook)

Spiritual Awakenings (& eBook)

I Am Responsible: The Hand of AA

The Home Group: Heartbeat of AA (& eBook)

Emotional Sobriety: The Next Frontier (& eBook)

Spiritual Awakenings II (& eBook)

In Our Own Words: Stories of Young AAs in Recovery

Beginners' Book (& eBook)

Voices of Long-Term Sobriety

A Rabbit Walks into a Bar

Step by Step: Real AAs, Real Recovery (& eBook)

Emotional Sobriety II: The Next Frontier (& eBook)

Young & Sober (& eBook)

Into Action (& eBook)

Happy, Joyous & Free (& eBook)

One on One (& eBook)

The Best of Grapevine, Vol. 1 (eBook)

In Spanish

El Lenguaje del Corazón

Lo Mejor de Bill (& eBook)

Lo Mejor de La Viña

El Grupo Base: Corazón de AA

In French

Les meilleurs articles de Bill

Le Langage du cœur

Le Groupe d'attache : Le battement du cœur des AA

VOICES OF LONG-TERM

SOBRIETY

Old-Timers' Stories

From AA Grapevine

AA GRAPEVINE, Inc.

New York, New York

www.aagrapevine.org

Copyright © 2009 by the AA Grapevine, Inc.

AA Grapevine, Inc.

475 Riverside Drive

New York, New York 10115

All rights reserved

May not be reprinted in full or in part, except in short passages for purposes of review or comments, without written permission from the publisher.

AA and Alcoholics Anonymous are registered trademarks of AA World Services, Inc.

Twelve Steps copyright © AA World Services, Inc.; reprinted with permission.

ISBN: 978-0-933685-77-2, Mobi: 978-1-938413-31-5, ePub: 978-1-938413-30-8

AA Preamble

Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women

who share their experience, strength and hope

with each other that they may solve their common problem

and help others to recover from alcoholism.

The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.

There are no dues or fees for AA membership;

we are self-supporting through our own contributions.

AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization

or institution; does not wish to engage in any controversy,

neither endorses nor opposes any causes.

Our primary purpose is to stay sober

and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.

©AA Grapevine, Inc.

Contents

A Note To Our Readers

SECTION ONE

The Jumping-Off Place

A Power Greater Than CompulsionMay 1992

Absolutely RichardApril 1998

From Handcuffs to HopeFebruary 2001

The Perfect CurveNovember 2004

A Real War Story April 2002

From Rags to RichesJanuary 2005

SECTION TWO

Living History

Sober for Thirty YearsMay 1968

The Seven-Day TestNovember 2001

Practice These PrinciplesNovember 1997

From Wagon Trains to JetsJune 1995

It Works for Me September 2007

The Fishing Guide, the Bartender, and MeSeptember 1996

A Place of Either/OrApril 1999

How AA Came to Geneva, NebraskaJuly 2001

SECTION THREE

A Journey Not A Destination

The Quest for SpiritualityMarch 2000

Taking Gratitude for GrantedMay 2000

The Bottom of the GlassMarch 2009

Weeding out the CrabgrassAugust 1984

What AA Means to MeOctober 1998

You Can Always Tell Another AlcoholicJuly 2000

A Seat, A Cup of Coffee, and Lots of LoveAugust 1998

GratitudeSeptember 1979

Old-Timers in the Making December 1992

SECTION FOUR

The Challenge Of Change

Facing the Future Without the Froth April 1996

Freedom from AlcoholFebruary 1992

Portals of the ProgramDecember 2005

The Same Chance I HadSeptember 2001

… And the Wisdom to Know the DifferenceJune 1994

Anything and Everything Except SobrietyMay 1998

Who’s The Boss?December 1993

SECTION FIVE

Interviews

A Living Big Book May 2006

The Real Thing February 2001

Dateline, AlaskaAugust 2000

Reflections on 28 Years of Experience at our GSOSeptember 2002

A Fine Old TreeJune 2006

SECTION SIX

Making It New

Taking the Time to ListenDecember 1997

An Old-Timer’s ChecklistJune 1989

Why I Keep Coming BackMay 2001

Online and ActiveMay 2003

A New Way of Looking at LifeApril 1981

Reciprocal StrengthJanuary 1998

The Last Word

Words of Wisdom May 1998

Twelve Steps

Twelve Traditions

About AA and AA Grapevine

A Note To Our Readers

This collection presents 42 stories from old-timers about how they hit bottom and got sober, as well as vivid descriptions of the early days of AA. But colorful histories are only part of the book. Old-timers have a wealth of lived experience to share with the rest of us. They’ve stayed sober through good times and bad by depending on the Steps and their Higher Power. They’ve learned how to avoid complacency and renew their commitment to sobriety. They’re here to tell us, Life happens: don’t drink, go to meetings, trust the principles of AA, and be willing to stay willing. They have the gift of perspective and know that sobriety is a journey, not a destination—whether the traveler is a newcomer just heading out or a longtimer who has had his passport stamped many times.

A wry comment AA old-timers sometimes make, when they’re asked how to accumulate sober years, is: Don’t drink and don’t die. But how to be an old-timer and remain engaged, contented and productive? That’s another story—or stories. Read on.

SECTION ONE

The Jumping-Off Place

He cannot picture life without alcohol. Some day he will be unable to imagine life either with alcohol or without it. Then he will know loneliness such as few do. He will be at the jumping-off place. He will wish for the end.

A Vision for You, Alcoholics Anonymous

The phrase jumping-off place has two interesting meanings. The first is a remote place, somewhere far from human civilization. For active alcoholics that represents a condition that’s desperate, lonely and hopeless. At the end, the drunk feels cut off from the human community, if only in her own mind.

But the second meaning brings us hope after despair: a jumping-off place is also one where a journey begins.

The old-timers in this section describe how they came to that dark place where there seemed nowhere else to go, and how they found AA and the adventure began.

A Power Greater Than Compulsion

May 1992

AUGUST 5, 1960 marks the end of what I pray was my last drunken episode. It was a two-day affair, spent mostly in a blackout. It occurred after eleven months of meetings and so-called sobriety, triggered by a resentment I’d been nursing for several weeks against a coworker. This was the catalyst for a long overdue, genuine bottom. I was nearly twenty-eight.

I passed out in a restaurant booth, head on a table, in the most grungy, low-life bar in town—par for me by then. When I came to, the clock on the wall read 9:15 AM—or was it PM? Bleary eyes slowly focused on the half-glass of warm beer in front of me; there it sat, the symbol and true cause of all the misery and wreckage in my life.

A sickening knowledge struck me full on: alcohol no longer worked. My best friend and reliable source of comfort for years was now a mortal enemy out to kill me.

A power greater than compulsion prevented me from finishing that stale beer. Staggering out of the bar into the darkness, I somehow found my beat-up sedan, crawled into it, fired the engine, and hand over one eye, headed for home and family, ten miles away over dark, winding back roads.

God watches over drunks and fools; the car and I arrived safely, not at my house, but at my neighbor’s, a young lady who was sober in AA (I probably had some idea that I was heaven’s gift to women). That’s where my wife found me, drunk on the sofa, slobbering and incoherent. She drove me home, wrestled me inside, and I fell into bed, out like a light.

Next morning, I awoke nearly paralyzed, feeling as if the life force had drained out of my body during the night; I couldn’t get up. Realization flooded in: So this was what the old-timers meant about progression—I’d been sober for eleven months but my drinking had gotten worse.

It’s all over this time, I thought, convinced, God help me, that I was going to die right there. (A year earlier, I’d been on a terrible binge for ten weeks and not felt like this—just a big hangover and five days of the shakes.)

Disappointment, hurt, and sadness clouded my wife’s pretty face: Eleven months of hopes, dreams, and rebuilding were torn from her grasp, one more time. Our four little ones wouldn’t come near me; Daddy was sick and all messed up—again.

Lying there helpless, I knew I’d never be able to drink again and stay alive; I (finally!) surrendered, and accepted my alcoholism without reservation. Wonder of wonders, a new peace came over me. Later that day, still weak and shaky but willing, I phoned my not-so-surprised sponsor; he drove over and took my sick body, mind, and soul to a meeting.

Thirty years later, my Higher Power still grants me very clear memories of that last morning-after scene; they keep my forgetter from kicking in. Thanks to my God, AA, and the Twelve Steps, sobriety has become the easier, softer way for me. Life in sobriety rolls onward with its ups and downs, successes and failures, joys and pains. But compared to the old drinking or on-the-wagon days, and those uptight hellish eleven months of dryness, it’s a picnic.

Norm W.

Magalia, California

FROM AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN

December 1999

When I got to my lowest point, I knew I was beaten, and I cried out in desperation. Right then and there, I had a white-flash spiritual experience and was struck sober on the spot.

Plucking up my courage, I went to my first AA meeting. I got there early and hid behind a bush outside the building, so that I could see what alcoholics looked like. An old car rattled around the corner and shuddering to a halt, disgorged its contents of disconcertingly happy people.

After they’d all gone inside, I waited behind the bush till the lights in the meeting room went on, and then I crept in, hoping not to be noticed. I needn’t have worried. I was made very welcome indeed. A dear old lady wearing a tweed suit and a clear-eyed expression made me half a cup of tea, gave me some leaflets, and suggested that I sit down and listen. As the meeting progressed, my hopes began to rise, and I went home that night for the first time with hope in my heart and a real feeling of freedom. I had a fatal malady, but there was a solution to my problem. Since that night, the compulsion to drink was lifted and has never returned. I make a conscious effort to keep it simple, because the simpler I make it, the happier I become. I don’t need to hide in bushes anymore (that bush incidentally, has become a thirty-foot tree).

Keith J. M.

Clevedon, Somerset

Absolutely Richard

April 1998

MY STORY BEGAN on January 27, 1938, a cold snowy day in Syracuse, New York. My first remembrance of alcohol was my father coming home at eight every morning after working all night in the steel mill to put food on our table and a roof over our heads. He’d reach up to the cupboard, take down his bottle of whiskey and pour himself a strong one. Then he’d look down at me and say, This is Daddy’s medicine. This makes Daddy feel good. Both he and my mother drank every day, and I got the notion at an early age that alcohol helped whatever ailed you.

During my high school years I never drank because I didn’t want to be like my parents. I had an inner feeling that if I added alcohol to the severe emotional mood swings I was already having, it would be disastrous.

This changed in October 1956 when I was a freshman at Syracuse University. On the very day that Don Larsen pitched his perfect game for the New York Yankees, I attended a fraternity rush party and had to chugalug a pitcher of beer. As that beer went down my throat I felt the wonderful warm glow my father had told me about years ago. With my first taste of alcohol, I had a blackout and passed out.

I didn’t draw a sober breath for the next four years. I finished classes (the ones I went to) about noon. Then my drinking began with a couple of Manhattans, flowing into eight or ten bottles of beer, and finishing around eleven o’clock with a couple of whiskey-and-gingers. Then I passed out. The next day I got up and started all over again. I did this five days a week with variations on the weekends.

At the end of my senior year, after four years of daily blackouts and one half-hearted attempt at suicide, I contacted a young priest at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. His name was Father Joseph. I was told that he’d graduated from a very prestigious prep school in New England and gone through a year at Yale before becoming a priest. I felt that this man had the intelligence to understand me. After listening for an hour to the story of my drinking, he took from his desk drawer a pamphlet from Johns Hopkins University called The Twenty Questions. He asked me each question. I answered yes to about ten of them. Then he said to me, It says here that if you answered yes to three of these, you’re an alcoholic.

I was stunned. I thought this man was intelligent. I was ready to leave immediately. Then Father Joseph had the nerve to tell me he wanted me to meet an alcoholic that very evening. Well, I thought, maybe it would be good to see what one looked like, so in case I ever met one at a bar, I could stay away from him.

He sent me to the Twenty-Four-Hour Club, which was above Gotch Carr’s Grill on Warren Street. I stood outside the bar for half an hour because I didn’t want anyone to see me going up those stairs to the club. Finally I opened the door and a waft of smoke hit me in the face. Through the haze of smoke I saw that there was a guy waiting at the top of the stairs to greet me. I thought you weren’t coming up, kid. I’ve been waiting for you for over an hour! His named, it turned out, was Emerson.

He told me that it isn’t how much you drink, or when or where you drink, that determines whether you’ve crossed the invisible line into alcoholism. The determining factor was very simple: what happens to a person’s personality after he takes alcohol into his system. In my case, it felt like I was alcoholic from my first sip. I never had a period of social drinking.

I thanked Emerson for his information. I knew that I was pretty crazy, but I wasn’t ready to admit that I was alcoholic. So I began seeing a psychiatrist. I also got a job teaching fifth grade in a school district near Syracuse. For the next two years I never drank while in class, but I did come in with a hangover every day. I’m not proud of this. I attended one or two AA meetings during the period I was seeing the psychiatrist once a week.

Finally, in April 1962, an event happened that changed my life. I awoke one morning feeling fluish, sweaty, and very sick. Then an awful conviction took hold, that I had stayed home from school the day before and hadn’t called a substitute teacher. My God, I thought, how am I going to talk my way out of this one? I went to school and waited outside the principal’s door like an