—Jarret L.
I was born the youngest of four in a city in the Deep South. I grew up not needing anything. I like to think I had a silver spoon in my mouth when I grew up. We were an upper middle class family who worked hard and play hard, too. We traveled a lot together and spent a lot of time together. However, I had a deep feeling that I was different than other people. It was a feeling that had dogged me for a long time. There was a deep secret also. I had a drinking problem, which had started when I was seven years old. I kept it in check until I reached my teenage years. That was when it took off like rocket.
At 14, I did what any Southern Baptist boy would do at that time–I got saved. I thought it would save me and make me happier, but it didn’t. I didn’t realize that, as with anything good in life, you have to put some work behind it and learn a little patience. I wanted everything then and there.
At the age of fifteen, I attempted suicide. My sister stopped me and never mentioned it to anyone. Then, after being “dry” for six months, I picked up drinking again. The six and a half years that followed were the worst hell I have ever experienced in my life.
I barely got by in high school. At seventeen I had DTs for the first time. When I was 18 to 20 years old, the DT’s had gotten worse, and hangovers were the norm. I had become physically addicted to alcohol. Something I did on weekends had spilled over into the weekdays. I had become a daily drinker. It didn’t matter that I was off and on academic probation repeatedly; that my family was getting tired of my going out and staying out not just for nights, but for days at a time. It was definitely one big hurricane after another.
When I was twenty-one, I signed up for the Marine Corps–to play music–while in college and working for a retail store. I was put on delayed entry to finish out the semester. Around May of 1992, I went out like I always did to meet up with my girlfriend at the time to celebrate my recent success. It was supposed to be a happy time. I left the nightclub to drive home, and started to drive on the wrong side of the street. I got upset because I noticed that my girlfriend wasn’t behind me. She had told me she was going to follow me to make sure I got home safely. So, I turned around and went back to the nightclub I had come from. I didn’t see her anywhere, so I decided to drive home again. The insanity of it all is that I was driving down the wrong side of the street again.
The only thing I remember is playing with my car stereo, then waking up to a faint “click”. The next thing I remember is people cursing me out, yelling that I went the wrong way. When I got out of the car, staggering, I looked at traffic and the way it was going, and hung my head down because I realized that I had caused the accident.
When the cops arrived, they gave me a field sobriety test. I failed with flying colors as expected. One of the cops asked if I had ever seen the television commercials about drinking and driving. I told them yes, but I never thought that I would do this. Two weeks later, out in front of my workplace, I was officially arrested for vehicular homicide. The girl who got hit in the accident did not make it.
Before my sentencing, I went to a therapist who strongly encouraged me to go to A.A. I reluctantly attended my first meeting. I didn’t say anything. The next one I went to, I admitted that I was an alcoholic for the first. Thus the healing process began, and the long, hard journey that awaited me had begun.
I received a two-year sentence to prison. I was in a military-style boot camp that specialized in drug and alcohol rehab. I went to A.A. meetings in there, and couldn’t wait until I got out so I could got to meetings outside of prison.
I was released from prison a year later. I got a job and went to meetings, but not as many as I should have. Then, after my first sponsor went back out and I fired him, I got a new sponsor who did not cut me any slack. We worked the twelve steps. I went to more than one meeting a week. I got involved in service work almost immediately. I also started sponsoring other guys, and chairing meetings, too. There is one thing that I did not do well when doing the steps and that was learn to forgive myself–“Letting Go and Letting God.”
I moved to Alabama after my first nine years of sobriety. After I had received an 11-year chip, I didn’t feel like someone with double-digit sobriety. I still felt tremendous guilt, shame, and remorse over my accident. So I had re-worked the steps thoroughly, and asked God to allow me to forgive myself. Gradually over time, I have finally forgiven myself. I have stated to love who I am. My relationship with people on a one-on-one basis has gotten much better. But more importantly, my relationship with God has improved a lot.
Now, at 23 years of sobriety, I know more than anyone that there is still a lot of room to grow spiritually. I have goals with the job that I have worked for over 19 years. I have educational goals. But I also still want to grow spiritually one day at a time. For the first time in my life I am actually happy and content with who I am as a human being. I still look forward to going to meetings and working with others. Sobriety has given me a life that I had never imagined I could ever have. I owe everything to God and Alcoholics Anonymous for my life today. So thank you everyone!