“My drinking career was short and destructive, and my alcoholic progression was very fast. I got drunk for the first time in October. By November people were willing to wager that I could not go one week without a drink. (I won and, in celebration, drank myself sick.) By January I was a daily drunk and by April a daily drug user as well. I didn’t last too long.” Big Book, 4th edition, page 423.
This excerpt is from the story “Window of Opportunity”. Substance abuse resulted in the author walking through a second-story window and falling twenty feet landing headfirst into a concrete window well.
I used to balk at the Big Book. I would self-righteously declare ” I am not an alcoholic. This book cannot teach me anything.” Forty years later, I have been reading it daily for decades. What changed my mind? I kept coming back, and I now identify with same disease, different substances.
The author got into alcohol and drugs. I got into food. He progressed rapidly. So did I. I was overweight as a child and sought relief from doctors, pills, diets, pay and weighs. It was an endless battle of lose and gain, lose and gain some more. Alcoholism is called a merry go round. The same can be said for compulsive overeating.
This person recognized that his life was becoming unmanageable when he was 19 years old and drunkenly walked through that window. It took me much longer. I was 39 years old before I became convinced that I was powerless over food.
This young man got help in 12 step recovery early in life. I got help in middle age. Both of us were stubborn and slow to make progress at first. He was suicidal while drowning in pain, fear, misery, anger, resentment, and despair. I was cocky and quickly regained the 100 pounds I had quickly loss soon after joining the fellowship. Obviously, we were both missing the essence of the program.
We both were saved by the grace of God and the help of the fellowship because we kept coming back. Is your life a train wreck even though you are in program? Listen and learn. Keep coming back!
Jacqueline Length in program 40 years (June 1985) Length of imperfect but enduring abstinence 36 years (August 4th, 1989) 120-pound winner