Margery K
Thank you for asking me to share my story. My sobriety date is June 21, 2004. I see my journey as unremarkable without many of the hardships and trauma so many of us have endured.
I grew up in northern BC as the middle child of a loving and dysfunctional family. I was not directly exposed to alcoholism in our home. My early years were spent in a logging camp with a brother and sister and no other children around. We moved from the isolated camp to the “big city” of about 10,000 people. My father drank with the men he supervised but rarely at home. Mom and her friends whispered about the alcoholism of a friend’s husband. I understood from them, alcoholics were selfish and lazy men who brought shame and poverty on their families. Women were never alcoholics, nor smokers, or worked outside the home. I decided, revealing my alcoholic brain, to be like my dad.
Dad was a leader, and stubbornly self-reliant. He almost died three times in logging accidents and managed to escape death – through (legendary) sheer determination to live. I learned if defeated it was due to poor (lazy) character and not trying hard enough.
My family relates that my first spoken phrase was, “I can do it my own self.” I was familiar with solitude and independence when we moved to the “city”. Not socialized to be with those my age I was more comfortable with adults; where I knew the rules. I remember being a chameleon watching for signs to reveal how to be. I appreciated this quality for most of my life as I could act like I fit in, without revealing my discomfort.
I felt part of the group when drinking, but always on the periphery of social groups. I moved towns and homes frequently in my 20’s and 30’s looking for somewhere to fit. I held various roles in business and was reasonably successful. I drank (and outside issues) with friends after work and on weekends but rarely drank in my own home. I moved from Vancouver to Calgary; a community I knew no one and did not fit in. I met, married and began to drink daily in my seven-year marriage.
I held a senior role at an airline and found my “family” of drinkers. When the airline failed, I went home to drink in isolation and work alone. I had one or two friends with whom I drank, and I visited silos of acquaintances and social circles keeping people, almost close.
During the last year of my drinking I met a man at a workshop, brought him home and he stayed. He invited his friend, recently released from prison, to stay with us for a ‘short time’. By the time they moved out I was close to bankruptcy, money stolen, with significant debt and almost no consulting income.
I am grateful for them. Until then, I had no mirrors to show me the progression of my disease.
Because of my choices I reached my bottom and the stark reality and shame of my alcoholic defeat. The gift of desperation.
I was suicidal. I went to see my doctor not knowing what was wrong with me. She suggested that two to three bottles of wine a day was a lot and I admitted to myself I was an alcoholic. She directed me to AA.
The We in the first step is the blessing of the program for this alcoholic. I did not know that asking for help was an option. I had so much shame from not being able to solve my problems on my own. Someone said to me early in sobriety, “the only difference between you and God, is that God doesn’t think She’s, you”, this resonated with me. My sponsor told me my pride and belief in my self-reliance would kill me. Wise woman.
My higher power brings me people to help at just the right time. When other alcoholics and the 12 steps showed up to help me, I began to realize how much the universe supports me.
I have a blessed life today. I have a sponsor and close friends whom I love, a community I cherish in Calgary and PV. I have five wonderful sponsees whom I can at times support with my experience strength and hope. I see the miracle of service work in my life and I belong. I go through the steps every year, and lately I have been using Step 4 to challenge the beliefs that keep me negative and fearful. I still have to be beaten into submission to surrender but when I do, the universe unfolds as it should. I do not meditate or listen enough, and I have faith.
My ego ‘springs eternal’ when asked to share at a meeting or tell my story. My sponsor reminds me that “no matter how far down…we have gone”, we can contribute and connect with another alcoholic. I never had an altercation with the law, been physically abused, or destitute. I have very few humiliating public drinking stories. I just lived in loneliness and despair entirely induced by alcohol. My false pride suggests I am not enough. Most of the time the internal demons are right sized, and I know I have a choice to let God direct my thinking and I accept who I am. I am on a journey and I am grateful I found a higher power and a path that works for me.