Friend of Bill W.

Posting from AA Big Book, 4th Edition, Personal Stories: “The Perpetual Quest,” p 388-397 This lawyer tried psychiatrists, biofeedback, relaxation exercises, and a host of other techniques to control her drinking. She finally found a solution, uniquely tailored, in the 12 Steps

(2/2) If you are having trouble, try something that is even more difficult, to "show them." That was my philosophy. It was enough to drive me to drink, and it did. #recovery #sobriety #alcohol #alcoholic #12Steps #BigBook #odaat #aa

(1/2) I came home very sick and drunk. A few months later I went to bed with a bottle of Scotch one night and decided I would go to law school.

By the age of fourteen I had my first drunk, which ended in a minor police visit to my home. By the age of eighteen I was a daily drinker, and by age twenty-one I had my first year-long binge in France, which I euphemistically referred to as my study year abroad. #sobriety #aa

Despite my pleas, my mother married a violent man, and we moved away to a life that made my tavern life look really holy. I kept running away back to the tavern until it was demolished. I still fondly look at pictures of that place. #recovery #sobriety #alcoholic #odaat #aa

My mother worked for relatives who also lived over the tavern, and whoever had time looked after me. #recovery #sobriety #alcohol #alcoholic #12Steps #BigBook #odaat #aa

More importantly, my best friend was wonderful, powerful alcohol, and I loved it. Until I was four years old, I lived upstairs from a tavern. where I saw a few drunks bounced around. #recovery #sobriety #alcohol #alcoholic #12Steps #BigBook #odaat #aa

In fact, it was fear that kept me away from drugs - fear that I might not get called to the bar (that's the other bar, the legal one) if I were convicted of possession of illegal street drugs. #recovery #sobriety #alcohol #alcoholic #12Steps #BigBook #odaat #aa

We worked and played hard, camped and hiked and skied, threw fabulous parties for our sophisticated friends, and prided ourselves on staying away from drugs. #recovery #sobriety #alcohol #alcoholic #12Steps #BigBook #odaat #aa

I have been to too many premature funerals due to our good friend alcohol. My husband and I met and married in law school in a romantic haze of alcohol, twinkling lights, and much promise. We stood out as the only young married couple in our class. #recovery #sobriety #odaat #aa

The professor's kidneys gave out from one too many martinis; the exporting lawyer kept drinking until he died, despite a liver transplant; my ex-husband died in a fire on what was to be, he had said, his last drunk before going to A.A. again, when I was ten years sober. #sobriety

And I somehow unwittingly and even while drinking, turned into a corporate counsel and later, thankfully, became a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. #recovery #sobriety #alcohol #alcoholic #12Steps #BigBook #odaat #aa

Within a dozen years, three of these five promising lawyers were dead from alcoholism, struck down at the peak of their careers. The judge is still and always has been a sober judge. #recovery #sobriety #alcohol #alcoholic #12Steps #BigBook #odaat #aa

There was also a giant good-hearted bear of a man, who today is a judge, who spent more time listening and helping others than he did practicing criminal law. Into this office landed a pair of know-it-all, fast-acting, but not too experienced young lawyers: my husband and me. #aa

Why would he leave such an ideal, wine-drenched job in sunny climes to slog away at law school? I kept wondering. #recovery #sobriety #alcohol #alcoholic #12Steps #BigBook #odaat #aa

Then there was the new but world-weary litigation lawyer who told endless tales of his former life of white wine and bouillabaisse under the Mediterranean sun as he conducted his exporting business on the Riviera. #recovery #sobriety #alcohol #alcoholic #12Steps #BigBook #odaat

My favorite lawyer was the eccentric, disheveled, wild-eyed Irish law professor who was brilliant or crazy, depending on your point of view, constantly cleaning out his pipe bowl with a black fingernail and tossing back vodka martinis whenever he got the chance. #sobriety

When I was a newly minted lawyer starting out in the practice of criminal law, there were five of us in our law office. #recovery #sobriety #alcohol #alcoholic #12Steps #BigBook #odaat #aa

* End of Chapter - ‘Me An Alcoholic?’ *

My work is on a much deeper and more significant level than it ever was before, and I am today a fairly creative, relatively sane human being. And should I have more bad times, I know that I'll never again have to go through them alone. #recovery #sobriety #alcohol #alcoholic #aa