One of the greatest benefits of sobriety. . .
AA HAS brought me numerous gifts in addition to sobriety, but all of them pivot about that one central necessity for the alcoholic: to gain and maintain sobriety. Without that I would again lose my direction and my identity and revert to a weary wanderer in the wastelands of alcoholic stupor.
One of the “fringe benefits” AA has bestowed upon me is the return of choice.When drunk, I had no choice but to drink. Now I do not drink and I am immediately confronted by a choice. On the one hand, the good news of AA is that I do not have to drink; on the other hand, I do not have to refrain from drinking, so I have a choice in that matter. This is no small thing for one who threw away choice for more than twenty-five years.
Furthermore, by virtue of being sober, my choice extends to many activities besides drinking. In fact, it covers the whole category of functions classified in the Serenity Prayer as the things I can change. The fact that most of these things are inside me in no way detracts from this reborn gift of freedom.
The area in which freedom of choice is operative lies almost entirely within the boundaries of my own attitudes which I can change, if I have the desire and the courage to do so. In order to have such desire and courage, I, as an alcoholic, must remain sober. When drunk, the only desire I had was to get drunker. Drunk, my courage dwindled practically, but not quite, to the vanishing point. Somehow, my desire to keep on drinking kept my courage alive just enough to force me to make the necessary show of steadiness required to secure another bottle. Usually, this false courage was short-lived. Frequently, this microscopic courage deserted me and I just gave up. It was during one of these moments of surrender that I called AA, and the results have astonished me. Literally, defeat was turned into victory–not merely concerning alcohol but touching every activity in which nature has fashioned me to have freedom.
My life has a purpose only if I give it one. To do this, it is absolutely necessary that I remain sober. Not to drink is merely the negative prelude required to set the stage of my life so that I may give it direction and purpose. The positive ingredients needed to fill this stage with meaningful activity are all attitudes. Jesus once said: “As a man thinketh, so he is.” A very wise AA friend of mine defines slips as: “A slip of the mind before bending the elbow.”
If I think sobriety, the chances are good that I shall act it likewise. If I think peace, peace of mind is likely to be the result. If I think kindness, it is surprising how often I act kindly toward other people and have this kindness returned. This is no hog-wash of do-gooder sentimentality–it is sound, practical psychology as well as everyday Christianity. In addition, it is the essence of the AA way of life, as I understand it. The “proof of the pudding is in the eating.” In short, it works.
It works for everyone, everywhere. Time and again, I have had the privilege of hearing AA members in prison groups tell what changing their attitudes has meant for each of them during a period when physical freedom was sharply curtailed. This has been extremely good for me and I am deeply grateful to these inmates for teaching me a little more about the art of being free within myself. It is the only kind of freedom worth a tinker’s damn. I know, for physical freedom availed me nothing as long as my own attitudes made me a slave to feelings, thoughts and sensations whose only outlet was through the neck of a bottle inserted in my mouth. Once I thought this would free me from myself, but all it did was enslave me to the unknown god of unconsciousness in whose domain all freedom goes down the drain–sometimes quite literally.
Due to this return of choice, plus numberless other benefits, I take my AA sobriety with gratitude rather than for granted. If I took what AA has done for me for granted, I should be very near one of those “slips of the mind,” so aptly expressed by my friend. Moreover, I should slam the door in the face of open-mindedness which is the attitude on which depends any potential possibility of gaining the wisdom to know the difference between the things that I can and cannot change.