Why I'm a Grateful, Sober, Recovered Alcoholic

Dear O,

I realize I'm writing this email somewhat out of the blue but I didn't get a chance to give any feedback yesterday at the noon speaker meeting during which you said "I wouldn't go so far as to call myself recovered.... Next thing you know I'd be one of those guys saying I stopped going to meetings and went back out again..." (or at least, that's what I Heard).

I gotta be honest I was taken by surprise by that and felt a somewhat attacked by it. Obviously, you know where I got the idea from, my sponsor, but I wanted a chance to explain why I say it.

What had happened to me after my relapse was a total implosion of my self-confidence. I had been doing half-measures and getting nowhere. Not only that but on the outside, things seemed to be getting worse; divorce, bankruptcy and family conflict - these were the payments I was making for clearing away parts of the wreckage of my past and I was miserable.

Then the thought came to me, what the hell was I waiting for to be happy? Would the outside circumstances ever be just so that I could finally get on with the business of enjoying life?? If not now, when??? I made a choice that day to be happy, a choice to abandon myself completely to the program of AA & my Higher Power and I made a choice to be recovered. In effect, that was my spiritual experience.

I think a lot of people hear the word cured when I actually say the word recovered and so they take it to as a form of arrogance or cockiness. I look at it like this, if you crashed your car into a ditch and tore the wheels off that sucker, you couldn't go anywhere - you'd be powerless and helpless until some tow truck came by and pulled you out. At that point, the car is recovered from the ditch - it's no longer in that position of powerlessness - it's as recovered as it'll ever be. Now, you may not be able to drive it for a good long while, it'll take some work before it's road worthy again and it certainly isn't immune from going back into that ditch either, it isn't cured, but neither is it powerless any more.

The last thing I'll add is that if it's good enough to be in the big book, it's good enough for me.

You're a guy with way more experience than me, in the program and in life, and I'm not trying to prove me right and you wrong, this is just my side of the story. I hope you now understand what those words mean to me and can appreciate it for whatever its worth. 

Best Regards,

David t.