Dying to live ...

When I was a girl
all of my fancy took flight
and I had this dream
could outshine anything
even the darkest night
now I wait like a widow
 for someone to come back from sea
I’ve always known
I was waiting for me.     ~ Indigo Girls


The moment I awoke this morning,   there was a somberness in the air.   It had nothing to do with the lowering of the temperature outside or the grey clouds hovering above.    I was acutely aware of the anniversary of a death; 19 years ago today,   I buried my best friend.   And her name was alcohol.   The me "who is" today is not mourning,  but rather it is  the one in me who thought she couldn't live without her.

At tonight's AA meeting when the chairperson posed the question:  "Are their any anniversaries today?"    the room fell silent.    I had made a decision that while I had not drank for exactly 19 years to this very day,   it did not feel like a "true"  sobriety date in the way I've now come to understand what living sober means.   And,  as exquisitely divine as AA  meeting messages always are in terms of getting exactly what you need,  tonight's was no exception.   It was chairperson's choice and she read a piece from the AA magazine,  Grapevine,  entitled "We are not saints".    This is a line from "How it works"  which is read at the beginning of every meeting and is an excerpt from the Big Book.     The main message of this reading centered around our active role in our own sobriety,  including:  service,  attending meetings,  working steps and taking pride in our sobriety date.   The reading connected these things to our willingness to acknowledge and turn over our character defects.     As I sat in the 3rd row of our basement gathering,   my heart began to beat through my neck.   This was my cue that I needed to share.

I was the first one to share tonight after the reading.   I first acknowledged to the group that I admitted that I was powerless over alcohol exactly 19 years ago to the day and that I hadn't picked up a drink since yet I never moved past this first step for the next 18 years.   People began to say "Congratulations"  and while I could take their statements in for what they were,   I also needed to say that I regarded my sobriety date as the day I stepped back into these rooms and made a decision to really work the steps.   Which would give me a little under 9 months of living sober.   You could hear a pin drop after I uttered these statements.  

9 months.  This is how long it takes for a child to develop and to enter the world.    That's how I feel today.   And in order for me to be born as I am today,   the one in me who lived to drink had to die. Along with the one in me who couldn't turn her will over to the care of God.  And the one in me whose character defects were camoflauged.  And so on,  through the 12th step.

After sharing tonight,   I experienced this tremendously full feeling that I've had periodically in my kabbalistic healing sessions when suddenly there is a moment of absolute clarity.   The place you arrive when you can see the "who was"  that was you  from the place you sit now.   I call this the  "baby dinosaur taking its first peek at the world as it pops out of the egg" moment.   

And here is an equally amazing realization that occurred today.   19 years ago I was working at the same university where I am currently employed as an adjunct professor.   On this date in 1990,   I called out from work because of my hangover and because I was going to my 1st AA meeting.   Today,  I proudly entered the exact same building at this same university and taught 2 research classes.  

We are born.  And then we die.   And then we are born again.    This is what it feels like to be living sober.