Last call

In the AA mtg I attended last evening,  the speaker poignantly and honestly spoke about the despair and hopelessness she was drowning in when she had her last drink -- 33 years ago.   Many people shared what her story touched in them about the place they were in when they had their last drink.   Many people were in a blackout and awoke having had some kind of spiritual awakening that moved them to stop,  go to a rehab or get to an AA meeting.   I am continually in awe of the Higher Power that each of us alcoholics have in common and the miraculousness of how each of us arrived at putting down the bottle.
 
My last drink was in the late night hours of Labor Day evening,  1990.   I was with my 1st girlfriend and her good friend,  staying in a filthy, dinky bungalow on the Schulkyll river.  I was on a bender that took me to an all-time low.   When I wasn't drinking,  I was passed out.  I'd come to,  then begin drinking again.   Coors Light.   Piss-water.  Had to drink a lot of 'em to get any kind of buzz.   I vaguely recall that shots of Jack Daniels may have been interspersed between beers. At one point,  I was floating on an inflated tire in the river -- muddy,  mosquito-ridden and disgustingly dirty. I had not a clue.  I may have even dunked my face and took a gulp of the toxic water.  No more toxic than what I'd been putting in my body for 3 days straight.    I have little recall of that final drink,  other than to see the evidence the next morning:   soiled jeans wreaking of urine,  stale beer and doritos and a hangover to beat the band.   I don't know how I had arrived to my apartment,  but my girlfriend was absent.   I went to the freezer,  as I'd routinely do after drinking binges,  to seek solace and tremor relief from the bottle of Stoley's vodka that resided there permanently.  I opened the freezer door,  shaking and repulsed by my own odor,  and crouched down on my kitchen floor,  sobbing uncontrollably.   "I can't do this.  I can't do this any more."    I called a friend who was newly sober and asked her to come get me and take me to a meeting.

In my kabbalistic program,  we learn about our "future self".  It begins with a call and an answer.  It is the seed of our spiritual lives.   I believe it is the future self in partnership with a Higher Power that brings us alcoholics to a place of sanity,  to have a willingness and a desire to stop drinking.  To know that a better life is attainable when we are sober.    I'm very well aware today that my future self had been the nagging tiny voice in my head for about 2 years prior to me actually putting down the bottle.   I would get messages like:  "You know this is a problem"  or  "This has to stop".     And I would answer back in my head sometimes:   "What will life be like without drinking?"   "Who will I be?" 

I have no real recollection of that 1st AA meeting,  knowing only that I couldn't live in this fermented state any longer.  I have not picked up a drink,  EVER,  again.   And I don't miss it.  I pray I never do.