I entered SA in August 2017, having heard of it a year earlier. My first meeting was on a Saturday morning in the city of Ghent, Belgium, where I live. It was in a messy but cozy living room of a presbytery. SA had been very warmly welcomed there by the old local parish priest who gave us the room when approached by a fellow in 2014. This Saturday meeting has been my home meeting for the last 6 years.
I am 71, married with two adult children, and currently living in a country at war. I am not on the battlefield; I don’t have children at home to care for, or children in the military.
While participating in a Twelve-Step workshop last weekend, I had the opportunity to share my experience, strength, and hope on the topic of forgiveness. After the workshop, I was asked to write down my share for the ESSAY magazine, which follows here:
I am sober by the SA sobriety definition eight years now, by the grace of a Higher Power. I like the number eight because it reminds me of the infinity sign. And even though I'm still learning to live within the day, the program offers me endless hope, day by day.
In the chapter on the First Step in the White Book, in the last paragraph it says: "A broken and contrite spirit—the spirit of the First Step—is the key that opens the door and sets us free."
I wrote this prayer to help me when I’m working with others; it’s adapted from chapter seven of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Recently, I was working Step Two with a sponsee of mine and God decided to grace me with a revelation that has completely changed how I see my recovery. As this revelation is still settling within me, I ask God to give me the clarity of thought, the presence of mind, and adequate words to be able to relate this spiritual experience.
Step 4 was not an easy one for me. After a lifetime of burying feelings, it was hard for me to recognize when I was feeling resentful and afraid. But I did my best knowing that it doesn’t need to be perfect and that I will have my whole life to go back and rework the Steps as I continue to grow.
A few years ago, I read a book, the theme of which was hiding from love. When I entered SA, I discovered—like many addicts—that I had been hiding from love my whole life. For me that’s seventy years which is no short time. A friend in SA who means a lot to me, shared that he too was hiding from love, but that God was working powerfully in his life to change him from the inside out. Slowly, a new desire for real loving connection with people began replacing his old tendency to keep away from people.
Recently during a noon meeting, we were reading Bill’s story out of the Big Book of AA. The secretary stopped us about half way where Bill wrote, “A tumbler full of gin followed by half a dozen bottles of beer would be required if I were to eat any breakfast. Nevertheless, I still thought I could control the situation, and there were periods of sobriety which renewed my wife’s hope. Gradually things got worse.” We call people like this beyond help.
