A sober decision leads to a career
When I was five years sober, I was twenty-three years old and I had just been laid off from a seasonal job. I had a new wife, new child, and had put a college education on hold in order to take care of my family. I was learning to deal with life on life’s terms. I was attending meetings regularly, had a home group, and was in service there. My career goals were slipping away and I was struggling to raise a family, pay bills, and hoped to improve from the financial situation I was in. Out of desperation, I shared a thought I believed was insanity with my recovering wife. I had told her I was thinking about the military as a solution–that I could have a steady paycheck, get some money for college, and get out in a few years. She thought it was a reasonable idea.
I did not check with anyone in my group or with my sponsor, because I sensed I was being foolish and they would stop me. Nobody in my home group had ever joined the military before. I saw a recruiter from each of the services, and then I went to my home group and I reluctantly shared my recent experiences and what I thought was the solution. We had a podium that seemed to bring the truth out of people when they began sharing.
After the meeting I was told that it was a sane thought, and that I had been sober and active in AA long enough to be able to make such life decisions. My sponsor recommended I take an inventory of the situation and I did. It turned out that the second person I asked to listen to my inventory was the child of a military officer who had grown up in the lifestyle I was considering.
I joined the Army in February 1989 with five years of sobriety. I cried when I said goodbye to my home group. During basic training, I used the chapel as a means of spiritual guidance because meetings were not available. Once I arrived at my first duty station, I followed the directions of those who had been sober and traveled or sober and incarcerated–I found a meeting. I was told that it is critical to find a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous as soon as possible, and preferably within the first twenty-four hours of arriving to a new location or leaving an institution. This is important for me because the thought often creeps in “nobody knows me here.”
I called AA before the furniture arrived. I made contact and found there were meetings on base. I have since learned that most military installations have at least one meeting on post and usually several nearby. I had lots of preconceived notions about sober life in the Army, which eventually was replaced with the truth as I gained experience, strength, and hope. I did not think it appropriate to go to meetings in uniform since AA is a place where there are no leaders and there ought to be no rank. Well, when that is the suit you wear all day, it is difficult to change and it is especially impractical to change in the middle of the duty day. I learned that we are all equal inside the rooms, anyway. I learned to call people “Mike” in the meeting and “Sir” once we left.
I enjoyed success in the Army, and looking back, I believe it is mostly because I was sober and mature enough to be ready to be a good employee. I had a desire to serve and was put into the personnel administration field.
I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up, so I thought the recruiters would give me a test and tell me what I should be. I had rationalized that if they told me I should be a firefighter, it would be God’s will and the pressure for me to make a decision would be off. Instead, they told me I tested very well and was qualified for any job they had. They handed me a list of jobs to choose from. All I knew from AA was that I wanted to be of service to God and my fellows. They suggested I be the Chaplain’s Assistant. I would have taken it buy my misunderstanding of career progression in the military led me to assume that you would someday be promoted to Chaplain, and I didn’t think that was for me. Today, our Chaplains Assistant takes care of the collection, makes coffee after our service, and sets up chairs for our socials. Who knew that these were skills I had already honed back in my original home group?
The office job I had envisioned was not accurate either. I spent over half my first two years in the field with an airborne unit. It was a new and exciting experience to jump out of airplanes. I used the Third Step prayer every single time I jumped and still do to this day. In 1990, we were notified we were deploying to the Middle East. I was afraid; I had drifted away from AA, finding my new group did not feel as comfortable as my first home group. I prayed and wrote a letter to the General Service Office asking them to forward a Grapevine and to pray for us. What I got was an incredible experience!
I truly was worried about staying sober even in a country that was reputed to have no alcohol. Upon arriving, we were very busy, much of our equipment was still green and had to be painted or exchanged for desert camouflage stuff. We lived in tents at first until a contracting officer could find us a better home. We later moved to an old horse stable, but the cinderblock buildings were a great improvement until the ground war began.
I put a notice on the bulletin board that said, “Friends of Bill W. meet here every night at 1900 hours.” I waited with a Big Book in my hand which I thought was easy to recognize for anyone familiar with AA. Nobody ever came. I relied on my literature, and a few tapes through the next few months. Once, when I was so lonely and desperate the thought of a drink came into my mind and I began to feel the desire to drink. I considered the choices, considering the black market supply I knew had come from Bahrain, or the near-beer they served in our recreation tent. I began to be consumed by the mental obsession, even after seven years without a drink! I cried myself to sleep that night and postponed the drink for just one more day. “One day at a Time” truly saved my life, because the next day did not seem so bad. The Scud alerts were becoming more frequent and fear was a real part of my life. Even though these weapons did not turn out to be extremely devastating, the fear at that moment was very real. I took the Big Book and a picture of my family to the bunker every time there was an alarm.
About this time, the miracle began to occur, just when I needed it the most. I began to receive my first pieces of mail from members of AA who got my address from the Loners Internationalist program at GSO. This is what our General Service Office did for me when I wrote and asked for help. They placed my name and address along with other service members on a list and circulated it among trusted servants in the Fellowship. The result was that when I put off that drink for one more day, I began to get the love of our Fellowship delivered in a mail pouch. At first it was a few letters and a card from an AA group. This was enough to give me hope. As the days went on the amount of mail increased. I was now getting cards, letters, speaker tapes, literature, and even a care package with goodies in it. I often got five to ten pieces of mail in a day, although the delivery was sporadic and we usually only received mail three times a week. At the peak of this postal miracle, I got thirty-six pieces of mail from AA members all over the country. My fellow soldiers did not know why I was getting so much mail; I told them I had a fan club. Actually I did; I had a host of friends who loved me through one of the darkest times in my recovery even though they had never laid eyes on me in their lives. We still shared a common bond and they were able to send the hand of AA halfway around the world to be there.
I returned home safe and sound as most of us did during that war. I continued on in my military career and still serve after sixteen years. So much for getting the college money and moving on.
I have found that the military is a great place to serve Alcoholics Anonymous. I am successful in my profession and have been blessed to pass my experience, strength, and hope on to many uniformed and civilian alcoholics. During each deployment I have been familiar with since my own experience, I seek to repay those who helped me by sending letters and literature and seeking out those who might be trying to not drink a day at a time.
Today there are many military members serving in harms way who have battled with alcoholism and been defeated. Alcoholics Anonymous has worked to help us meet calamity with serenity in a variety of circumstances. Since World War II, members of AA have used literature to help carry the massage of hope to our service men and women in recovery. From my own experiences and many observations, they will return transformed in some way.