Over the hill gang

Interesting day Saturday. For years at meetings of AA/NA I used to say that the people I ran with when using and drinking were mostly just too sick to get better. And for many that was true. Some died by suicide, some have been unable to sober up yet, some are still using drugs, some died of drug overdoses., and some died early deaths from health complications of alcoholism. Some I don’t know about.

The one exception I knew about was my ex-wife who got clean/sober about 14 or 15 years ago. I think she mainly goes to AA now even though her problem was as much drugs if not more than alcohol. . She got clean in NA and sort of gravitated to AA, most likely due to a better quality sobriety. She still goes.

So much to my surprise she got in touch with some of the people we used drugs with and drank for years. And surprise surprise: they are clean and sober.

One lady has 17 years clean/sober and her sister is also clean /sober a similar amount of time. The lady with 17 years got clean/sober at the ABC club in Indio I believe. She mentioned to me that NA was non-existent in the Coachella Valley when she got sober so she went to AA. Then she started the first NA meeting in that part of the world.

These people knew me for years. The things we did together are the sort of thing you talk about in your 5th step. We grew up together and spent our early 20’s drinking,drugging until we went over various ways to jails, prisons, mental hospitals etc.

Anyway, on Saturday we had a re-union get together and it was interesting. Sort of a homey home group meeting if you know what I mean. We talked about old times, how crazy we were then , and how amazing we thought it was that the other was sober. One of my pals I used to go get high with in my teenage years showed up also. He mentioned he goes to AA meetings now, but not so often.

A good time was had by all I think, and we had some interesting discussions. I showed the lady with 17 years a copy of the First Edition of Alcoholics Anonymous which she had never seen before. My ex-wife is beginning to doubt the truthfulness of “the disease concept” and I had a lively discussion with the other lady about the same thing.

For the record, let me say this. AA does help some people to a certain extent. We sort of ended up agreeing AA is just a spiritual kindergarten. The ultimate help we need to find from God (The Salvation of the Lord) is rarely there in AA.

Needless to say they were all flabbergasted when they saw me leaving for church in the morning. 40 years ago it would have been a trip to the liquor store (or worse) to start the day. Times have changed. Thank God they have.

BTW, the gun in the picture is not real.