An enthusiastic newcomer fell in love at first sight with my
old hippie jeans Sergeant Pepper jacket. She was from Romania and said it reminded her of a jacket she had and
loved when she was a young girl at home. I had been pulling for her at every meeting.
I get very excited when young girls are enthused about sobriety, because I was
a young new girl once and can see how they have their whole lives ahead of them
if they stay sober because that is what happened to me.
The next time I saw
her, I told her “I’ll make a deal with you. If you stay sober for one year, I
will give you the jacket”. A year is a
long time to go without a drink, to stay focused and dedicated to a program you
know nothing about, to learn the language of the heart, to trust in strangers,
to find a God that loves you, to invest in something that is totally foreign to
you. I know because I did it and thought that first year was 3,000 nights long.
She was thrilled. When she got 30 days she couldn’t wait to
see me at a meeting and tell me. I told her she just earned a sleeve of the
jacket. When she got 60 days she was jubilant. I told her she had earned another
sleeve. When she was 90 days sober, she earned the mandarin collar and I
started writing in the seams of the jacket absolutely sure she would be wearing
it. We were on our way.
Something seems to happen in that first year of sobriety,
confusion, wonder, struggle, and huge mood swings. My whole life I thought if
only I had the right clothes, job, boyfriend, etc. I would be happy. And so not knowing who or what to be after
being sober a few months, some of us fall back to that old agenda of
chasing outside things to make us happy.
That was what happened to the newcomer I
was saving my jacket for. She thought
new teeth would make her happy. She stole the money to get the new teeth, the
guilt set in and she disappeared. The enemy never sleeps. If only it were just
about drinking it would be so simple. The physical allergy to alcohol is just
the beginning of finding out how this disease manifests itself. It always wants
us to feel bad enough about ourselves to drink.
I would gladly give up every piece of clothing in my closet
to every newcomer if that is what it took for them to stay sober. When I was
new I wondered why these people were so focused on me staying sober for a year.
Then one night a man named Emil told me a story:
“A condemned man was brought
before the King. The King passed the death sentence for the crimes he had
committed and asked if the man had any final words. The man said, "I have
a proposition for you, King. Give me a year and I will teach your horse how to
talk." He was a very good salesman and after much talking and strong
persuasion, the King threw up his hands and said, "O.K. you have a year to
make my horse talk! Take him away!"
As the guards took him back to his cell they told him he was daft because no one
could get an animal to talk. The man simply said, "In a year, three things
could happen; I could die, the King could die, or the horse could talk."
That story I understood. I had been willing to give myself the time to
find out what reality was, what my life was about and how I could find true joy
without alcohol. Emil didn’t drink, he committed suicide, but he gave me that
gift before he went. I made my year sober and every year after that until this
day. As I slide my arm in the sleeve of my old hippie jacket, I know what makes
my heart beat and I think of all the newcomers I will always have have hope
for.
