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Littlest Things May 1997

      (Excerpt)

      When I poured out my last bottle—what I pray was my last bottle—I again trembled with fear. In my heart, I knew that if my multiple sclerosis (MS) got worse, I’d surely drink myself into the ground. No one would dare to stop me. After all, if my MS got worse, I would deserve to drink.

      MS is a chronic, disabling, and incurable neurological disease that steals from its victims many physical abilities most people take for granted. It’s particularly cruel in that it steals these things sporadically, and then if one is lucky, it just as sporadically gives them back, until the next exacerbation. MS has taught me to thank God for things that most people take for granted: the ability to see, to speak, to walk, even the ability to go to the bathroom.

      In the summer of 1995, my worst nightmare came true. The symptoms got so bad that I was no longer able to perform my job. Within weeks, I got worse and for the first time in my life, I was actively suicidal. My rage at God soared. Sobbing uncontrollably, I screamed at God, “Why have you abandoned me?”

      Initially, I had a burning resentment against anyone with strong legs. My anger served as an iron shield, and I refused to remove it for fear God would send me still more pain.

      I didn’t want to ask for help. I wanted everyone to marvel at how stoically I coped with adversity; and I hated to bother people. I figured they were too busy doing more important things with far more important people than me. But without a drink, it’s tough to be stoic. Once I was able to swallow my pride and pick up that hundred-pound telephone, I discovered that there were a few people in AA who actually cared about me. For example, when MS affected my ability to drive to meetings, a friend gave me a lift.

      Much to my amazement, I survived that summer from hell and have regained some of the physical abilities I lost. Every morning, I thank God for the ability to see my partner and my cats, to hear the birds outside my window and to hobble over to my meditation chair, where I start the day with a prayer.

      Eventually, I realized that God hadn’t abandoned me at all but that I’d abandoned him. Yesterday, missing my old body, I burst into tears for the umpteenth time and tasted that old craving for a bottle of wine. Just go to the liquor store and get a bottle, I told myself. It will make everything feel better.

      Instead, I picked up the phone and called my sponsor, even though I knew she was at work. Sometimes it’s easier for me to talk to an answering machine. Then, because I still wanted to drink, I picked up the phone again and called another friend, who was able to talk on the job.

      I’ve never taken my sobriety for granted because I know I’m only one drink away from ruining my life. Having MS can be hard some days, but doing it sober usually makes it tolerable one day at a time. Each day, I ask God for serenity to accept the unacceptable. The Big Book never promised me a life without problems (although I still keep looking for it between the lines).

      If anyone had told me I’d still be sober despite MS, I would have thrown a drink in their face. Learning to live life on life’s terms—not on my terms—has been the ultimate miracle. If you’re new or coming back, don’t quit before your own miracle happens.

      MARSHA Z.

      Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts

      (From Dear Grapevine)

      In reference to “The Band Played On” (June 2004), I have been HIV+ for almost twenty-five years and have been living with AIDS since 1995. I got sober in AA in 1998. My fear was that being a gay man with HIV, I was doomed to be left out and alone with both my diseases. However, over the past six years, AA has provided every need that has come up for me both in sobriety and in my AIDS situation. I have been close to death over five times in the past six years and literally hundreds of AA members have come to my side bearing unconditional love and acceptance. I have had married men come to stay with me for two to three days at a time and feed me, change my bed clothes, and bathe me when I could barely sit up in bed. I have never wanted nor needed anything that an AA member wasn’t willing to supply me. AA also provided the most loving and caring man as a live-in attendant to assist me when I have seizures. One mens’ meeting has an “Everett” commitment, which means that I never have to find a ride to a meeting. So I don’t fear for the future, because I am in the loving arms of AA.

      EVERETT A.

      Santa Monica, California

      I have been sober for twenty-three years. It is often voiced in AA meetings that God will find you a parking spot, “right in front of the meeting” and that nothing bad can happen to you once you’re sober. When I came into AA, I believed this too. Now, I do not think God is at all interested in my daily existence. I believe there is some Higher Power, because I cannot otherwise explain why I haven’t had a drink. But God is not some loving power or guiding force in my life. God makes decisions and I live with them. Last July I was diagnosed with colon/rectal cancer. I had been suffering with a chronic illness for some time before this and he wasn’t very helpful. I prayed, but God did not cure me of this malady, nor did he send doctors to help me, although God knows I saw enough of them. Nor did he supply me with the kind of courage I needed to face my dilemma. My friends are a different story.

      I have wonderful friends in AA, but I had no idea how wonderful. After I found out about the cancer, the first phone call I made was to my friend Vic. Vic had cancer the year before and he immediately invited me to stay with him for my first couple of weeks out of the hospital, knowing I wouldn’t be able to take care of myself. This was only the beginning. I had friends call who I had not heard from in years. People I didn’t know called every day and others volunteered to do anything I might need. I was quite surprised at the response to my illness. I had always seen myself as a bit of a curmudgeon and thought that people tolerated me more than appreciated me. I was learning otherwise. It is very difficult for me to accept help. It is easy to give help because in some ways that doesn’t really involve me. But accepting help in a gracious way from people who are offering it graciously is a much more difficult task. When I began to take the cure—an operation, chemo, and radiation therapy—I was told it would be a six-to-eight-month process. I was not looking forward to the “journey.”

      At this time, I had a young, healthy girlfriend named Anne-Margaret. We had been together for two years, and it was the best time I had ever had. She was lovely and full of life and wanted to do everything. Her mother called it flying around. “Anne-Margaret’s out flying around,” she would say. Anne-Margaret kept me from taking myself too seriously and, along with my AA friends, made my life bearable—almost enjoyable.

      When I was ready to go home, my sister came to look after me for a week. People from AA called and left messages and sent emails every day to find out if I was all right and if there was something they could do. They brought over sandwiches, books, magazines, and videotapes. When they found out I didn’t have a DVD player, they brought one and then brought me DVDs. One AA friend from the city where I sobered up flew down to clean my apartment and another offered to help pay my phone bill.

      During this time, I had to go to the dentist for root canal work. Then, after I returned home, my knee went out and I had to undergo arthroscopic surgery six weeks after the cancer surgery. I was limping with a cane and I couldn’t lift my hands above my head because of the pain in my stomach from the cancer surgery. I tried to delay the knee surgery, but the chemotherapy had to start within a given period after the cancer surgery in order to have the most impact.

      Chemotherapy was given to me in a place called the Chemo Co-op. I would go into the hospital on Monday at noon and they would hook me up to an IV, and I would take fifty hours of chemo. Then they would send me home on Wednesday afternoon. The chemo forced me to stay in bed from the Wednesday they released me to the following Monday or Tuesday. I was then allowed to recover and repeat the process the following week. At the Co-op, Anne-Margaret and AA friends came every day. And they came in droves. They brought books and magazines,

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