There was a time when nearly every strong emotion in my life seemed to point toward the same solution.
A difficult day? Drink. A painful disappointment? Drink. Angry at someone? Drink. Lonely, afraid, exhausted, embarrassed, rejected, or overwhelmed? Drink.
Even happiness could become a reason. A good day deserved a celebration. A bad day required relief. If life had been unfair, alcohol was compensation. If I had worked hard, alcohol was my reward. The reasoning changed, but the conclusion never did.
“If you had the day I just had, you’d drink too.” “I deserve it.” “I need something to take the edge off.” “I just need to stop thinking for a while.” “No one understands what I’m going through.” “One drink will help me settle down.”
Those thoughts sounded reasonable because they were spoken in my own voice. They appeared to be conclusions, but they were really instructions. Every one of them was trying to move me toward the bottle.
The Argument I Could Always Win
Before coming into the rooms, I did not understand how badly distorted my thinking had become. I believed I was evaluating my circumstances and choosing an appropriate response. In reality, alcohol had already been selected as the answer. My mind’s job was simply to manufacture a convincing question.
- Had I been mistreated? Then I deserved a drink.
- Had I mistreated someone else? Then I needed a drink because I felt guilty.
- Was I worried about tomorrow? A drink would help me stop worrying.
- Was I ashamed of yesterday? A drink would help me forget.
Alcohol was not one possible response among many. It was the conclusion around which I organized the evidence.
The Big Book describes our drinking careers as being marked by “countless vain attempts” to prove that we could drink like other people. It calls the belief that we will someday control and enjoy our drinking “the great obsession of every abnormal drinker.” That obsession was not limited to believing I could control how much I drank. It also persuaded me that alcohol could control the way I felt.
But alcohol never healed an emotion. It only interrupted one. It never resolved resentment. It postponed it. It never removed fear. It temporarily muffled it. It never processed grief. It anesthetized it. It never restored a relationship, corrected a mistake, or gave me the courage to face the truth. At best, it provided a brief escape (which honestly, was all I really wanted). Then it returned me to the same problem, often with additional damage attached.
“I Deserve It”
Few lies were more persuasive to me than, “I deserve a drink.” The word deserve made drinking sound like justice. I had endured something difficult, so alcohol became my compensation. I had carried responsibilities, tolerated people, swallowed anger, or survived another exhausting day. Surely I had earned some relief. But what exactly did I deserve?
- Did I deserve to awaken with shame?
- Did I deserve to lose control of how much I drank?
- Did I deserve to say things I could not retrieve, make promises I would not keep, or hurt people who had done nothing wrong?
- Did I deserve another morning trying to reconstruct the night before?
The Big Book tells us that once the alcoholic begins drinking, there often comes a point when control over consumption is lost. That means the first drink was never merely a reward. It was an invitation to consequences I could not reliably predict. “I deserve it” was not self-care. It was self-deception dressed as compassion.
“If You Had My Problems…”
Another favorite argument was, “If you had the day I just had, you’d drink too.” That sentence placed responsibility for my drinking everywhere except where it belonged.
- The boss made me drink.
- The relationship made me drink.
- The bills made me drink.
- The loneliness made me drink.
- The traffic, the disappointment, the rejection, the pressure, and the people who refused to behave properly made me drink.
But millions of people experience terrible days without drinking themselves into oblivion. The problem was not simply that life was painful. The problem was that my alcoholic mind had trained itself to interpret pain as permission. The day did not pour the drink. My thinking carried me toward it.
That does not mean the pain was imaginary. Recovery does not require me to pretend that betrayal does not hurt, that fear is not real, or that grief can be dismissed with a slogan. It means I must stop treating alcohol as though it possesses the power to solve what hurts.
The Day My Mom Died
Yesterday, July 10, 2026, I sat beside my sweet mom, Pat, as she took her final breath. I loved her deeply. I wanted more time. More conversations. More laughter. More stories. More opportunities to hear her say something determined, independent, stubborn, and unmistakably mom.
She was 85 years old and had lived a rich, full life. She loved her four children, eight grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren, her family of origin, and the family she chose along the way. She faithfully served her church through committees, choir, and bell choir. Most of all, she loved God.
She was fiercely independent right to the end. Not long ago, despite knowing how physically difficult it might be, she made the long trip to South Dakota for our family reunion. She told me, “Nothing was going to get in the way of me making that trip! Nothing!” That was Mom. When she was diagnosed with cancer in 1996, she declared, “I am going to die, but NOT – FROM – THIS!” And she was right. That was classic mom. Determined. Adventurous. Occasionally exasperating. Doing life her way.
Only 92 days earlier, we had said goodbye to my dad, Joe, her husband of 51 years who she loved deeply. Then she was gone too. I was devastated. I was (am still) in shock – just numb. I can’t believe she’s gone. And this was precisely the kind of pain my old thinking would have used as evidence.
“You deserve a drink.” “No one would blame you.” “This is different.” “You need something to get through tonight.”
But alcohol could not give me one more moment with my mom.
It could not honor her life, could not make me more available to my family, could not help me grieve honestly, could not strengthen my faith or help me accept what I could not understand. It could only make me absent from a moment that required my full presence. The bottle could numb me, but it could not comfort me. There is a difference.
The Spiritual Toolkit Is More Powerful
Even though I was covered in grief yesterday (still am at the writing of this the morning after), God laid something very clearly on my heart: Do not go home and sit alone with this. Isolation had once been one of the quickest routes back into my own distorted thinking. Left alone, I could build a case for almost anything. I could turn pain into permission, grief into justification, and loneliness into what sounded like a perfectly reasonable excuse to escape.
So instead of going home and disappearing into my grief, I went to my home group. I sat down with the people who have walked this road with me. I joined our Big Book study, and we were in Bill’s Story. I shared honestly about my mother, about sitting beside her as she took her last breath, and about the enormous grief I was carrying.
I did not pretend I was fine. I did not spiritualize the pain away. I did not try to convince myself that because I believed she was with God, I was somehow not allowed to feel shattered. I told the truth. I loved that woman more than any other person on this planet, and losing her hurt more deeply than words could express.
But I also knew something else.
The spiritual toolkit that had been laid at my feet was more powerful than any thought or emotion I was experiencing, even the grief of losing my mom. The feelings are enormous, but they are not more powerful than God. The thoughts are loud, but they are not more authoritative than the directions in the Big Book. The grief is real, but it does not get to dictate what I do next.
The Big Book says, “If sex is very troublesome, we throw ourselves the harder into helping others.” The immediate subject of that passage is sex, but the spiritual principle reaches much further. When something – anything is troublesome, when my thoughts begin closing in, when my emotions threaten to turn me inward, I do not retreat deeper into myself. I throw myself harder into the solution.
- I pray.
- I show up.
- I tell the truth.
- I open the book.
- I sit with other alcoholics.
- I listen.
- I become available to someone else.
Last night, I had to follow the directions I had been given. Not because my grief was wrong. Not because I needed to get over it. And certainly not because helping others would erase the loss. I followed those directions because grief needed companionship, not isolation. It needed expression, not intoxication. It needed God, fellowship, honesty, and service. For years, my emotions had given me orders. Last night, I felt them fully without obeying them blindly.
Recovery Does Not Remove the Low Spots
Sobriety has never promised me exemption from heartbreak. People I love still die. Plans still collapse. Bodies still fail. Relationships still change. Fear still visits. Grief still arrives without asking permission.
The Big Book does not say that we will avoid the trials and low spots ahead. It tells us that we survive them by enlarging our spiritual lives and working with others.
In Bill’s Story, Bill describes being overcome by self-pity and resentment, only to discover that helping another alcoholic could lift him and set him back on his feet. He calls the program “a design for living that works in rough going.” That is the miracle I understand today.
Recovery has not made me incapable of pain. It has given me somewhere to take it.
- I can take it to God.
- I can take it to my sponsor.
- I can take it into the rooms.
- I can take it to another alcoholic.
- I can take it to people who will sit beside me without trying to fix what cannot be fixed.
I can cry (which I have – a LOT). I can pray. I can remember. I can tell stories. I can laugh at the “How to Parent Parents” manual no one ever gave me (LOL!). I can be angry that I did not get more time. I can also be grateful for every day I was given. What I do not have to do is drink.
The New Direction
The Big Book gives us practical instructions for the thoughts and emotions that once ruled us. When selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear appear, we ask God to remove them, discuss them with someone immediately, make amends quickly when necessary, and turn our thoughts toward someone we can help. That is very different from swallowing the feeling. Recovery teaches me to walk through it.
Today, when my mind becomes loud, I have learned to question the voice speaking. Is this thought leading me toward honesty or escape? Toward connection or isolation? Toward God or deeper into myself? Toward healing or merely toward numbness?
My feelings are real, but they are not always reliable guides. They can tell me that I cannot survive something I am already surviving. They can convince me that immediate relief is more important than lasting freedom. They can make an old poison look like medicine.
The day my mother died was one of the most painful days of my life. And I did not need a drink.
I needed God. I needed my family. I needed my home group. I needed the Big Book. I needed the Fellowship. I needed to be present beside my mom as she completed her journey. I needed to feel the terrible weight of losing her because that grief is inseparable from the depth of my love.
The bottle was never the solution. It was only the place I once went to avoid looking for one.
Today, I know better. Today, I can grieve without destroying myself, I can hurt and remain sober, I can sit honestly among my people, open the book, follow the directions, and allow the spiritual toolkit God has given me to carry me through. Today, I can place my mother in the hands of the God she loved and trust that the same God who carried her home will carry me through the days ahead.
Rest well, Mom. I love you always!
You did it your way.
And by the grace of God, I will walk through losing you sober.
Whoa … what a powerful message that really illustrates what Appendix 2 (p.567) means when it describes recovery as a ‘profound alteration in our reaction to life’.
This article appears in the blog of Rick W’s excellent website ‘Take the 12’. Rick W has over 38 years of sobriety and offers excellent free resources including his outstanding book ‘The Prep Steps: Setting Up Action In A.A’