The Newcomer

I was just getting ready to go to my Thursday night women's AA meeting and I couldn't help but think about the newcomer.  Terrified, exhausted, empty, hurting, maybe hungover, maybe drunk or high, and my heart just started weeping.

I remember walking into that room for the very first time.  All I was thinking about was when I was going to get my next drink because "I wasn't an alcoholic".  I just needed to stop for awhile until I got everything else in my life in order.  After that, I would be fine and I would be able to drink like everybody else.

When I first walked into AA, I was on antabuse...a drug that makes you unable to drink alcohol or else you get violently sick or even die.  It was working for me because I really didn't want to be in the mess that was my life anymore. 

Of course, everyone welcomed me with love and smiles and told me that they were glad I was there.  The thing that stuck out the most to me was how everyone seemed so normal.  Everyone was smiling and laughing and talking about their lives as if nothing was wrong with them at all.  They didn't look like they wanted to bang their heads on the wall or fall down in the middle of a room and start kicking and screaming like a 5 year-old like I did.

The meeting began and someone read a passage from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous (I only remember this because this group is now my home group and this is the way we do it each week...otherwise I don't remember much about this first meeting).  It wasn't until I got sober almost 6 months later, that I realized how importan the Big Book is.  I'm very sure that someone mentioned how important it was because they all knew that I was new and that I was still struggling.

6 months after that first meeting I ended up in rehab in West Palm Beach Florida in the most wonderful place I have ever visited in my life--Behavioral Health of the Palm Beaches.  This place saved my life!!!  By the time I decided to go, I was ready to admit that I WAS an alcoholic.  I needed help and I needed it fast or this disease was going to kill me VERY QUICKLY!

The program that BHOBP (an abbreviation for the facility pronounced B-HOP) followed was the AA and NA program.  I loved EVERY second that I was there.  It was like I was back in college only this time, I was there not to learn a trade but to learn how to save my life AND that there was a solution for for my problem.

One of my daily assignments from my councelor was to read "The Doctor's Opinion" in The Big Book and give my opinion about it at our next meeting.  The same night that I read "The Doctor's Opinion" I found it so interesting that I just kept reading.  I couldn't stop IDENTIFYING with what was written on those pages!! I found myself crying then laughing and most importantly saying "Oh MY GOD!! They wrote this book about me!!!!"  There I was in a book written in the 1930's!  I saw myself in line after line and page after page!  Before reading this, I had already accepted the fact that I was an alcoholic, but if I hadn't I sure as hell would have sitting there reading this life-saving book that night!  I remember thinking, "Why in the hell didn't everybody at those meeting fall at my feet and BEG me to read this book??  Why didn't they hold me down and shove it in my face while screaming at me to read it??"

Which brings me back to the newcomer.  I know now that those women in that first meeting could have begged me to read that book BUT...I wouldn't have listened anyway.  I wasn't ready at that moment in time.  I wasn't ready until I was ready and only by the grace of GOD did I get ready.

The absolute WORST part of trying to help someone with this cunning, baffling disease is that you can't help until they are ready to surrender.  Until they are so sick and tired of being sick and tired that they are forced to listen to you as a last resort.  The truth of this matter is is that more times than not, that moment comes too late and the disease wins which means that many of us die at the hands of this monster disease.

This disease WILL kill you unless you surrender to it's power.  It might be in a car accident.  It might be suicide.  It might be an overdose.  It might be liver disease or some other part of your body that fails you because it can't take the poison anymore.  Any way you look at it, alcoholism will get you someday unless you decide that it can't have you.  It's a progressive disease which means that with each drink you take, the monster is growing inside you and getting stronger.  Progressive means that even if you don't kill yourself because you are so empty and even if you don't crash your car while driving blitzed out of your mind, it will get you when your body just can't handle how much you need to drink to disappear and one day it will be too much.

So I say this to the newcomer....get your hands on THE BIG BOOK OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS and start reading it now!!!! You don't even have to read the whole thing because you will have your answer within a few pages.  Just pick it up, if you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, and start reading it!  I BEG YOU!! If I could reach through the screen and scream at you and make you read it somehow, I would in a heartbeat.  Reading this book could save your life!!

If I could buy a copy for every newcomer that walks into an AA meeting I would do it in a heartbeat.  Reading this is your chance.  It's the universe's way of telling you that now is the time for you to save your life!  You have no idea what could happen the next time you pick up a drink.

 I hope one person is reading this.  Maybe you've stumbled on me because you are looking for an answer-a way out of the absolute HELL that you are living.  Maybe you are scared to walk into an AA meeting because you aren't sure if you are an alcoholic or not.  If you have found me, by the grace of God, I hope this helps you.  I hope this can be your first step towards a life that you could never imagine.  My life is so filled with love and hope and happiness and I couldn't see passed the darkness just over a year ago.

I wish you all the pain and suffering in the world because that's what it's going to take to get you to find your seat in AA.  I love you with all of my heart and I pray for each and every one of you still out there suffering and looking for a way out.

Remember...THERE IS A SOLUTION and the solution is spectacular!!  You don't need to suffer anymore.

All my love and until next time......God bless and be safe.