I started drinking alcohol regularly at the age of sixteen. I didn’t like its taste in the least when I first tried it, but wanted to impress my friends and get “high” with them. I drank mostly beer with these friends and pretended to enjoy it and got really drunk each time. I didn’t know that these drinking sprees were setting the stage for my future drinking experiences. I drank to get drunk, not to enjoy alcohol in a moderate way.

When you are young, getting drunk and doing crazy things is accepted by your friends, even allowing you a sense of being above the crowd, so to speak, having friends talk about your exploits as if praising you. Others hear these stories and soon you are a popular guy! I didn’t share with my friends the puking or the terrible hangovers I suffered the next day, because these would have detracted from my glory. I began seeing myself as a pretty cool guy just having fun the way many kids do.

Sooner or later the fun turns a little ugly. It wasn’t long before I was put in jail for breaking the law! My crime was classified as a felony and punishable with time in prison. At that time my girlfriend’s father had a personal friendship with the judge assigned to determine my guilt or innocence and decide my sentence. I had very recently turned eighteen, the age of being tried as an adult. The judge determined to treat my case as a juvenile matter rather than as an adult, and my sentence was probation. I spent two weeks in jail during this process, and upon my release, I vowed never to do anything that could result in lockdown again. Strike one narrowly avoided!

Most people would probably have stopped drinking after that experience, realizing that the effects of alcohol for them were too negative. But I could not resist trying it again and again. I had some very "good times," seen from a young man’s mind, but every time I drank, I got sick and suffered the all-too-familiar hangover most of the following day. I couldn’t quit drinking alcohol! Somehow alcohol was controlling me, not the other way around. I could go a few days without drinking and then a compulsion to have it would overcome me and I would give in and drink it to excess, and suffer the consequences.

I lived this lifestyle for several years. I spent a year in Vietnam in the U.S. Army, finished college and became a CPA. I had accomplished some of my important goals, and I was very proud of that fact, but my drinking remained a big problem. Reinforcing my problems, several of my workmates at the large, international CPA firm at which I worked were big drinkers also. And on the days when we would quit work early and go out for drinks, I kept good company and did not stand out as a problem drinker. My superiors were all well pleased with my work and I rose in the ranks.

I got my first, and last, DUI one weekend coming home from a bar, but wouldn’t you know that the stop was almost across the street from the parking lot of the apartment complex in which I lived. For whatever reason, the police officer asked me where I lived, and when I pointed across the road, he allowed me to go home without a citation! I really didn’t deserve such luck. Had I received a citation for driving under the influence, it could easily have ended my career with my employer, and maybe as a CPA. Strike two avoided, but when would my luck run out?

I managed to stay out of jail and free of DUIs for the rest of my drinking days! But not because I deserved it. I should have received a thousand DUI citations and served years in jail based on the miles driven in a drunken state. Blind luck again, you might say. But was it luck? I might have entered an alcohol treatment facility much sooner had I been arrested for driving in that condition. Then I could have learned how to live a clean, sober life years sooner than I did.

Several years passed, and I finished my career and retired with a very good retirement. My wife and I moved to the Willamette Valley in Oregon, much closer to all three of our sons. I was free of work responsibilities, able to spend more time with my sons and grandchildren and enjoying all the good things to see and do in our new surroundings. But I was really troubled. An alcoholic doesn’t enjoy a quiet, simple life. It seems that there must be contention, disagreements and rivalries to quell the angry beast inside. I began searching out new drinking places. I often wonder now if this familiarity I was seeking in my habit was the driving force behind my anxiety. I needed comfortable places to get drunk because that came before everything else in my life. Alcohol was my god!

I tried many times to stop drinking alcohol. I knew it was destroying my life, harming my family, destroying my health and endangering my sanity. Unfortunately, I had lost the ability to control my drinking. Normal drinking simply was not programmed within me. When I took the first drink, alcohol would take control of my mind and convince me that a thousand drinks would be so much better. But did I ever quit drinking entirely? Of course not! But I tried, oh yes, I tried! Here are just some of the methods I used to control my drinking: drinking beer only, limiting the number of drinks, not drinking alone, drinking only at home, never having any alcohol in the house, vowing to quit my job if ever impacted by alcohol while working, joining the gym, reading books that might help—these and many more. I had no real success with any of them. To be gravely affected, people do not necessarily have to drink large quantities of alcohol. It is not what we drink or how much that defines us as alcoholics, but rather what the first drink does to our brains, our inability to stop drinking no matter how great the desire. I simply could not quit drinking on my willpower. God knows I really tried. I was powerless over alcohol!

I grew more anxious and depressed. Life didn’t matter much in that state of mind. But what could I do? I knew I could not take a first drink unless I wanted to get wasted, but I really needed that drink. What a desperate state of mind that led to! I thought of suicide, thinking death was preferable to being in that frame of mind, but I knew I couldn’t bring such sorrow and shame to my family. Desperation is a terrible state of mind, but it can also be a gift from God!

I just started praying, asking God to help me, to relieve me of the terrible obsession with alcohol. I told Him I wanted to quit but could not do it without His help. I admitted to God that alcohol was my current god but that I wanted Him as my God instead. I cried bitter tears. I remembered having read an article about the AA program and how it had helped many people to quit drinking and turn their lives around. I looked on my computer to find a meeting of AA nearby and printed the address and time of the meeting. If you had asked me at that moment what I was thinking, my answer would have been straightforward. I wanted a new life, a way of living that would never again include alcohol. I couldn’t have been more specific because I had not lived without alcohol as an adult. The thing I was most convinced of at that moment was that I wanted to change.

I attended the meeting the next day and was surprised at the friendliness and cheerful smiles of the people. They treated me with respect while knowing I was an alcoholic. They shared their stories, their experiences, strengths and hopes, as AA calls them. I saw that I wasn’t the hopeless drunk I had been calling myself, and I knew then that my drinking was a problem because I could not handle alcohol. What a relief it was to gain this clarity! I stayed after the meeting to talk with several people and to learn more about this program. I knew that quitting drinking was something I couldn’t do alone; my drinking history had shown me how true this was. I resolved then and there to adopt the AA program to help me do it. This was certain to require consistent AA meetings, and these can be time-consuming. But for a reason I could not yet understand, I became willing to go to any length necessary for sobriety.

This was a very fortuitous decision. I learned the ways and means AA has developed for helping the “hopeless” drinker recover from his obsession with alcohol. It truly is a God-based program, emphasizing that nothing much can come of any program that doesn’t stress God as its foundation. It was therefore necessary that I develop a closer relationship with my new “Higher Power” to provide a basis of trust and respect with which to go forward in my recovery. I had never had a meaningful relationship with God, having cried out to Him for help only when absolutely necessary in Vietnam! This was another time of great need, I sensed. So I prayed daily, learning to honor Him and thank Him for keeping me sober. I also went to AA meetings daily, listening to others share the stories of their trials with alcohol, and sharing my story with them. This is how we help one another in these meetings, sharing our experiences in the hopes that they will provide strength for others to use in fighting their battles.

Some days were very difficult. I had to keep my mind from thinking about a drink and refocus it on the ways to stay sober that I was learning from AA. But alcohol can be a very strong foe. Some days I ached for a drink. I needed one so badly to stop the torment going on in my head, those thoughts trying to convince me that a drink would solve my mental agony and give me rest from the battle going on within me. I imagined that alcohol was my old friend and ally, there to help me get through life’s ups and downs, there to give me a boost from the difficulties life tosses onto my path. Of course. I knew better, but in those times of need, I could actually believe these things. I just wasn’t strong enough to withstand these urges. But God did for me what I couldn’t do for myself!

The first part of the twelfth step of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous refers to "having had a spiritual experience as a result of these steps," and I suddenly realized that I had, in fact, had such an experience! I began reading the Bible from cover to cover. I prayed daily, asking God to teach me His Truth, without even knowing what this meant. I kept telling God that I wanted to worship Him in Spirit and in Truth, and knew I was asking this in sincerity. I had read parts of the Bible before, understanding little to nothing, but suddenly the Scriptures came alive and I understood them clearly! I didn’t yet have a clear view of the whole, but the pieces were enchanting. Before long I felt compelled to join with like-minded people in my worship. To find such a group, I prayed that God would connect me since He certainly knew where to look. I had His Word to guide me to them since they would be commandment keepers, a characteristic that was a must in my search. I studied various groups of believers and chose the Church in which I am now a baptized member, the United Church of God. I liked its style of governance and its smaller size, among other qualities. I don’t know of all the places where God’s people worship Him, but this Church is where God wanted me to be, so here I am.

I am so grateful to God for His mercy in delivering me from my spiritual Egypt. I am living a sober, happy life today, restored to sanity. I still attend AA meetings from time to time and Church services each Sabbath. These are two places God wants me to be. I grow in grace and knowledge in both places. I surely hope my story will be of help to some others.