The Gary and Rena, fast friends since their freshman year at OCU, turned 55 this week. 

Today, I’m 11.

Two different kinds of birthdays.

My “birthday” is the 11th anniversary of my first AA meeting and my first day of sobriety.

I had been drinking myself into oblivion every night for almost two years after my closest law school buddies asked me to leave our law partnership.  I was suicidal and had all my paraphernalia in the car to go out to the lake and take my own life in a way I thought would look like an accident so that the insurance would pay off to my family.

Instead, I got arrested and went to jail.

I came out of jail pissed off and jonesing for a cigaret.

Then, I had “a moment of clarity”.

What was wrong was my drinking.

I called a guy I had practiced law with when I first got out of law school.  He was a heavy, heavy drinker, but had sobered up five years before.  I called him and said I wanted to know how he did it.

He stopped what he was doing, left his law office and came to my house and got me and took me to the Western Club on 51st and Western. 

I didn’t know what this place was.  I didn’t know it was an AA clubhouse or an AA meeting until things got started.  I knew nothing, absolutely nothing, about AA.

All I knew was desperation.  I didn’t really want to die, I just could not live another day drinking.  I had reached the point where I wouldn’t answer the phone, open the mail or come to the door if someone knocked.  I couldn’t get out of bed most days.  I had sold my car to get money to drink.

At first, I went to AA meetings to get out of the house.  I couldn’t hear what people were saying because I was too busy thinking in panic what I would say if I were called upon to speak.

I had no car and no driver license.  I walked to meetings that hot summer from my house in Heritage Hills. 

I LIKE to remember what it was like 11 years ago.  It reminds me of what I must never forget.  I am an alcoholic.  My life of drinking was miserable and deadly.  All I have I owe to my sobriety because without my sobriety I would be dead.  My friends, my beloved family, my law practice — EVERYTHING — I owe to AA and my sobriety.

I would have missed my precious grandchildren.

Sobriety has not all been wonderful.  My 30 year marriage disintegrated and my father died by inches.  I could not have survived those events while drinking and while having my drinking attitudes.

I did not just live and I don’t just abstain from drinking.  AA has given me some wonderful tools to use to live a happy life, joyous and free.  Somedays, I trudge.  Many days I live from one prayer to another.  More often than not, I’m a pretty damn happy camper.

My best days are the days I live by the AA instruction manual, the so-called “Big Book”.  I honestly believe that book is as divinely inspired as the Bible’s gospels.  It tells me that if I have a problem with people, places or things, the first place I need to look for the problem is within myself.  It tells me that if I am feeling sorry for myself, the best cure is to find someone else with an even bigger problem to help.  It’s as counterintuitive for me as “turn the other cheek” and “a kind word turns away wrath.”

It works.  It really works.

Yes, I was clinically depressed and I went to therapy.  I take an antidepressant.  That helps, too, of course.  My therapist is Jolly Dr. Max.  I also owe my life to him and his professional help and his sturdy friendship that began before he began seeing me and goes on after he sent me along my way.

In AA, I found a belief in a “power greater than myself”.  It is not strictly the Christian God I was raised to believe.  It is a far more forgiving and loving God than the Baptist God I was taught.  As a Baptist, I often made the mistake of confusing God the heavenly father with my punishing and perfectionist earthly father.  It isn’t the fault of the Baptist church, it was my own childish thinking.

I cannot prove to you that God exists, I can only tell you that God proved to me he exists.  i could not quit drinking on my own.  I tried many many times.  When I asked for help from a higher power, I got it and quit drinking.   Make of that what you will, but I believe.

If you think you have a problem drinking, you may very well have a problem.  Seek out AA.  It really works.

It’s a very happy birthday for me.  I have a great deal to celebrate, starting with all of you.