No matter how badly I hurt, how badly I hurt others, there was no
amount of remorse, sorrow or conviction which could keep me from
once again taking that next first-drink and thereby setting off
another drunken debacle. The truth is I ALWAYS would choose not to
drink or drink like a gentleman. But that choice was never valid,
because I was strangely insane when it came to doing anything at all
about my drinking.

When I made those promises that I'd be home early, that I'd only
have a couple, that I'd never do it again, I meant it with every
shed of human conscience and love in my heart for my wife and the
life we were trying to make with each other. The fulfillment of
every dream, every hope, and every shred of happiness for me, my
wife, my family and our future depended upon me keeping those
promises.

When they were made, I would have passed a lie detector test with
flying colors because there was not a lying bone in my body when I
said those things. Yet soon after making those promises the
heartbreaking reality was that no matter how much I wanted to, no
matter how much I NEEDED to keep those promises, the choice was not
mine. It was as if I had no love in my heart, no conscience, no
soul, and certainly no worthwhile future.

Peace,

Danny S


--- In We_Have_Recovered@yahoogroups.com, "Jim K." <jknyc@h...>
wrote:
>
> One of the phrases often repeated in AA is that we somehow make a
> choice of whether or not we will drink that day. I am someone who
> does not have the power of choice in drink - at least our basic
text
> tells me so. So what choice is it that we make?
>
> I believe our simple program points us to the ultimate choice - a
> choice of maintaining our spiritual condition each day and being
> granted a daily reprieve from alcoholism. Striving to live a
> spiritual life really negates any passing notion that I may have
the
> power of choice in drink. Also, because living a spiritual life
> means keeping the channel between God and I clear, drinking or
> living in my defects only serves to get in between God and I -
that
> channel becomes choked off once more.
>
> Jim