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AA Grapevine April 1997

I have told the following story at several AA meetings as a reminder to all of us not to be too complacent concerning our illness: An old man stood in front of us with tears running down his cheeks. He could hardly speak as he began to tell us his story. He'd been sober for thirty-four years and things were going quite well for him. His life was under control and there were no real pressing problems plaguing him. He was walking past a liquor store and for some unknown reason decided to buy a half pint of whisky. A half pint won't hurt me, he said to himself as he walked through the doors. Within a few days he was up to a fifth a day. His friends in AA discovered he was drinking again and helped him to regain his sobriety once more.

I just celebrated my twenty-second year of continuous sobriety, so I had my sobriety well under control, or so I thought. Little did I know I was about to be exposed to a situation that tested my resolve and caused me to revamp my attitude toward my sobriety.

My significant other was going on a business trip to California and asked me to join her on the weekend to meet her father. I'd wanted to meet him for some time so I jumped at the chance.

Her father was a member of a band that plays in various bars around California on the weekend. He asked us to come listen to him and I didn't see any harm in that. My friend had just celebrated eight years of sobriety, and I had twenty-two years of sobriety. What could go wrong?

The evening was really fun. The band was great, and my friend and I discovered a new wonderful aspect of our relationship by learning to dance together for the first time since we'd become a couple.

People in the audience were buying her father glasses of straight whisky that he was drinking on stage as he played the steel guitar. During one of the short breaks that the band took, he came over to our table to chat and brought his glass of whisky with him. While he was at the table with us, someone brought him another glass of whisky that he put on the table in front of me. When he went back to the stage, he left this glass of whisky on the table.

As I turned to watch the band, I saw the glass of whisky sitting before me. For the next hour and a half, that glass of whisky tempted me beyond what I thought was possible. I thought all those years of sobriety would protect me from even being tempted. But I was wrong.

All kinds of reasons kept going through my mind as to why it would be okay to take a drink of that whisky. "One little sip won't hurt anything. I'll take a sip while my friend is in the rest room. I have breath mints so she'll never know. Just one little sip is all I'll have. Nobody will notice if I take just one little sip."

My Higher Power and all I'd learned from AA throughout the years kept me from taking that drink. Knowing other alcoholics' experiences proved to be helpful to me in this situation as well. I remembered that elderly man with thirty-four years of sobriety. I remembered how he slipped, and it was enough to keep me from making that fatal mistake of taking the first drink.

I acquired a new respect for my illness that evening. I learned it was just lurking under the surface waiting for the first opportunity to raise its ugly head. I learned it truly was cunning and baffling.

Rawlins R. - Tucson, Arizona