It was February 1999 when my drinking peaked; things had gone completely out of control, my visits to hospitals and psychiatrists, nor medication could stop me from drinking. A couple of days of detox at the hospital would make me feel well enough to begin drinking again. My wife and son were in utter despair. There seemed to be no way out. I knew that it was my drinking which was causing all this damage to me and them.
One day a young sober fellow member just happened to walk into my wife’s office to discuss the possibility of starting an AA Meeting in the JJ Colony where my wife’s NGO was set up. He shared his life story with her and left a few AA pamphlets, which she brought home. She recited the story of the miraculous recovery of this AA friend, put the pamphlets on my table and gently asked me if I wanted to go to a Meeting. I don’t remember saying “Yes” or “No” then, but I did go through the literature, which included the “20 Questions”.
I read that I had to answer them honestly and that it would help me identify whether I was an alcoholic. I got 17 of them right. I had not been jailed because of my drinking nor had lost my family or job, the big “As-Yets”. The following day I agreed to go to a Meeting. I had had a few drinks and had no courage to drive myself. Both my wife and I walked into the School premises where the Meeting was being held and were welcomed by a suited-booted stranger who said that if I had a drinking problem, I was at the right place. This AA business had kept him sober. I didn’t know whether I wanted to be sober, but I certainly wanted someone to help me deal with the mess I was in. I had woken up that morning and asked God to simply take me away; my life had ceased to work, I had lost complete interest in the work that I used to love, and I had no desire to ruin the life of my wife and my son – I never had – I loved them…but I just didn’t know what I needed to do so that peace, harmony, and love could be restored in our daily lives.
Looking back with a sense of immense gratitude, I see this day, when I sat in that AA Meeting with a bunch of total strangers, as part of a plan, which a Power Greater than Myself had ordained for me. All my cries for help in my alcoholic delirium had been answered by bringing me to the doors of AA. Slowly, as I kept coming back, I began to listen to learn and to learn to listen. Slowly the realization dawned on me that death was not on my cards, that I was being invited to be born again. There was a promise of recovering all that I had lost and of a happy destiny.
After staying sober for several years, I decided to blend with the “Outside World”. I was doing well career-wise, there were invitations to travel, and one day I found a glass of red wine in my hand. I drank it and did not talk about it. I was sure I could get away with it. But the disease of alcoholism had not finished with me as yet.
I was taken to a rehab, where I stayed for a month. I came out, attended meetings regularly, and got involved in service. I “knew” what I needed to do to stay sober and was sober for a couple more years only to relapse into drinking yet again. Again in rehab for a month, came out three and a half years ago and have been sober ever since.
What have learned from this journey so far and from its travails?
It is clear to me today that I was not enjoying my sobriety. I talked about “Attitude of Gratitude” but saw that I was not practising it, for if I were, I wouldn’t be discontented deep down. Sober living had become mechanical. The Reading, the Prayers, the Meetings, the Service…and at home the food, the sex, the chatting at the dining table…somehow I wasn’t fully there.
My active alcoholism had taken away almost all the things I enjoyed doing – swimming, driving, and trekking – why? Because I was diagnosed with Alcohol Induced Epilepsy.
Today, sober by the Grace of God, I get up at 4:45 and enjoy the Quiet Time. I pray. I read literature, which helps me deal together with my Higher Power with the free-floating anxiety about what lies in store for me in the new day. I get into action. I play badminton five times a week with players twenty-twenty-five years younger than me and I am getting better at losing a game gracefully. I enjoy making different types of coffee for my family. I grind the beans myself and wait patiently till the machine warms up. I enjoy tending to my plants. I talk to them. I rejoice when they blossom and become a little sad when one of them follows the dictates of nature and dies. But I don’t despair. I pursue my passion for pottery by working with clay on the wheel three to four times a week. I accept invitations to give lectures at different universities and I enjoy preparing for them. I translate literature from a foreign language to Marathi and vice versa.
Wasn’t this what a bankrupt idealist that drinking had made of me always wanted? I am getting increasingly aware of the journey of Self-Discovery, which is from the Nut to the Gut this time around, and I am grateful for the Safety Net of AA.