HERE’S TO YOUR HEALTH
This week, HTYH is beginning another personal story. This is Bud’s story.
I started going to A.A. meetings in California where they clap a lot and if a new guy pukes and goes into convulsions there, he gets a standing ovation.
Somewhere out there is an alcoholic who’s getting ready to slip again, you already have it planned and by golly nobody is going to change your mind. I’ve only been an admitted alcoholic for perhaps 37 years.
Before that, I was a serious social drinker and its OK if you laugh and don’t believe me because nobody back then (except me), believed it either.
I always drank like a gentleman and nothing bad happened to me, of course, nobody but me, believed that either? I like addressing new people in recovery who don’t know what’s going on, but what they don’t know is us old guys don’t know what’s going on either?
If you’re new to A.A. you probably don’t like anybody you’ve met here and you’re probably especially ticked off at the old timers even though you’ve not yet heard their stories? Your home baby, you’re in the right place, you just don’t know it yet. I know how you think and feel because that’s exactly how I felt and thought when I first got here.
Welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous! I didn’t just wake up one day and say, “I think I’ll go to an A.A. meeting and see what those drunks are doing.” Nor did I come to Alcoholics Anonymous because I thought I needed it, I was brought to A.A. by my attorney.
After you’ve been around here for a while you’ll learn that we are diseased; that ought to scare the heck out of you? A.A. says that we have a disease of a two-fold nature; an allergy of the body coupled with an obsession of the mind. And, in my case it turned out to be two-fold also except with me it’s an allergy of the body and an “absence” of mind because most of the time when I was socially drinking alcohol, I couldn’t remember what happened the night before; they call that a black-out? But that’s what often happens to social drinkers of my type. What they didn’t tell me in the beginning, and the book Alcoholics Anonymous doesn’t tell us, is that alcoholism is a contagious disease that’s caught at A.A. meetings, from other people who have it too. And, none of us had it when we got here and so, if you don’t want what we have, you better stay away from A.A.
Alcoholics are strange people who love to infect other people with their disease. The reason for that is, once they infect somebody else they get rid of a little bit of their problem. They never get rid of it all, but they get rid of enough of it that they feel better. And that’s why the sober alcoholics always say, “Keep coming back!”
I didn’t feel better in A.A. until I started infecting new people and now I do it at the drop of a hat. Once I tried to infect an Alanon lady who didn’t drink alcohol, it didn’t work, but it made me feel better. Bud’s story to be continued.
> Read More Information About Us
> More Articles Written By Our Staff
- Community Invited To Paint Rocks For Urban League Project - April 26, 2024
- The “Bad Guys” In Your Garden & What To Do About Them - April 26, 2024
- Why Voting In The Primary Election Matters - April 26, 2024