"So our rule is not to avoid a place where there is drinking, if we have a legitimate reason for being there. That includes bars, nightclubs, dances, receptions, weddings, even plain ordinary whoopee parties. To a person who has had experience with an alcoholic, this may seem like tempting Providence, but it isn't.
You will note that we made an important qualification. Therefore, ask yourself on each occasion, 'Have I any good social, business, or personal reason for going to this place? Or am I expecting to steal a little vicarious pleasure from the atmosphere of such places?' If you answer these questions satisfactorily, you need have no apprehension. Go or stay away, whichever seems best. But be sure that your motive in going is thoroughly good. Do not think of what you will get out of the occasion. Think of what you can bring to it. But if you are shaky, you had better work with another alcoholic instead!"
So right off the bat, when God got me sober in April of 2014, the house I lived at at the time was a weekend party house. Not that they had alcohol problems, just normal fire pit weekend drinkers. The weather was getting nice and they were having functions every weekend. I had a good reason to be there in that I lived there.
I drank tea and coffee around the fire and observed their behavior. I played with the children and went to bed on time. I had thought that it would be like in the movies where I was being tortured by a "craving" to drink. The alcohol was out of my system so the only thing I had to "do" was the next right thing and keep my mind from trying to convince me that I should just drink.
One time I had an issue. My roommates were distilling moonshine. I could smell it through the house...it smelled awesome. I knew that I would drink again if I didn't step it up. I was 15 days sober and was only doing an online real time meeting. I was working the Steps on my own via websites and worksheets-not the Big Book. I thought I would just do this alone on my own terms. But God said, get to a meeting of AA. I found one at a local church.
I walked there, took an hour, but what else did I have to do? I think that was a turning point for me. Was I willing to go that extra mile to really stay sober....It was symbolic. I was early and humiliated that I didn't have a car to drive. I was humiliated at where I was in life at 37. Where most people my age were married and having children, I was about to walk into AA. I sat out there crying and waited for the place to open. I went in and helped set up chairs. Right there I went from humiliation to humble instantly. It's been an amazing walk since.
I do not think about alcohol or avoid it. It is a non issue. I have it in my home if someone wants it. I make tinctures out of it, but I don't consume it. Just like if I have an allergy to anything, the restoration of sanity in me isn't gonna ingest something I know will kill me. I KNOW that if I drink my allergy (an abnormal reaction) with take over I will develop the phenomenon of craving. It would just be like putting a gun in my mouth and pulling the trigger.
I didn't have the knowledge of that when I was drinking. I didn't have the willingness when I was drinking. I didn't have the power and protection from God against the first drink when I was drinking. I didn't have any spiritual armor whatsoever. Now I do. I keep coming back not because I am white knuckling or using the meetings to replace a hole that drinking left, I keep coming back because I get to build my spiritual muscles and help others to do the same. This is part of my 12th Step.
We move beyond the initial reasons we first got here and show the newcomers that it can be done. I thought I would always "crave" a drink or miss it. I had heard that alot in the modern rooms of AA and in films and television. The BB told me that I would get free. That I would recoil at the thought of it, that I would walk about the world a free woman, that I would be restored to sanity. That I would recover. No, I can't drink again, it will kill me, the point is, the whole point of it is, is that I don't want to drink.
I think that transformation is a miracle that I get to share. I drank every day for over 15 years as a high functioning alcoholic. God shows us miracles every day. It's my choice to acknowledge these miracles or just stay stuck in white knuckle meeting based sobriety.