OKaysez

 

Made A Decision 

(4)

Staying Sober No Matter What

The best part of having long term sobriety is to know it’s possible for anything to happen and to know for sure there is no need to drink over it. 

Over the years I have personally experienced the suicide of close friends; the death of my nephew to an overdose; the brutal murder of one of my sponsees; health issues; the death of my parents; financial loss; personal loss … and the list goes on. 

Sober or not - life, death, and shit - happens.

       My list, of course, overlaps with the lists of others. My nephew who died was the son of my brother, also a recovering alcoholic. My brother didn’t drink over his tragic loss. 

The mother of my murdered sponsee, also a recovering alcoholic, didn’t drink over her devastating loss. 

My brother and I both lost our parents and our older brother in the years of our recovery and neither of us felt the need to drink over it. 

          Our losses are our pain, but we are no longer alone, and pain shared is made bearable.

       I remember a man in a noon meeting sitting with his head bowed, his hands covering his face as tears slid between his fingers and dropped to form a puddle at his feet. He had learned that morning his only daughter and her children had been murdered by her estranged spouse. He didn’t drink over his loss that day, or in any of the days, weeks, months and years  that followed.

       I remember when an AA friend lost his only child, his beautiful college-age daughter, to a road accident in which she was killed by a drunk driver. My friend stayed sober. He’s still sober.

      I remember the wracking sorrow when a young sponsee of mine buried her beloved husband, dead of brain cancer, on the morning of what would have been their third wedding anniversary. She didn’t pick up a drink  …  

I remember another sponsee of mine telling me her own cancer was inoperable. She died a few months later, but she died sober ... 

I was there when the best friend I’ve ever had told me she had stage four breast cancer. She stayed sober in all the months of painful treatments that followed and remained sober till the very end.

             So I admit I feel impatience (make that annoyance) when I hear AA members whining and wanting to drink over far, far lesser things than those I’ve named. But then I remember - again - that our disease is above all things - “cunning, baffling and powerful.”

 Even the smallest of things can send a drunk back to the bottle when we don’t remain vigilant. 

Keep sober.