My Alcoholism & Recovery

I wandered along in AA for a while thinking that AA had went somewhere that its founders did not intend it too. Many people talk about their childhood and “getting over it.” I had this picture in my mind of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous being guys that grew up in happy homes and just made mistakes later in life that led them into alcoholism. However I read a little and found out that is not the case.

Bill Wilson was abandoned by his father first. His father left on a business trip when Bill was ten years old, this ended up being permanent. Well, I think to myself, things could not have been happy at home if his father decided to leave and not come back.

Next Bill’s mother left. She went off to study, he was still only ten years old. He then lived with his grandparents.

I do not blame parents for alcoholism, I think that childhood has a strong effect on how we are for the rest of our lives. People that have learned to value and take care of themselves when they are young don’t seem to developed this problem. I am not saying they don’t have problems, they have different ones.

I have thought if I truely cared for my health I would never have poured that amount of alcohol and drugs into my body. There was no honnymoon period for me, it was bang right from the start as a teenage alcoholic. A shit way to start life.

I had so many problems finding anything to identify myself with in Bill W, that I thought we were quite different. But the more I have read and dug into his life I am happy to say I don’t find that the case now. And why should this be important anyway? I want to be part of this thing that has saved me from the misery of my former existence.