Doing what Works

A man who recently relapsed after attaining six months' sobriety spoke at a 12-step meeting this week.

He said when he would hear someone talk about relapsing after 10 or more years sober he would follow them outside after the meeting to ask how that happened . Invariably the answer was that they'd stopped talking to their sponsor. And stopped going to meetings. In other words, they quit doing the things that kept them sober for so long.

And, he said, the same thing happen to him. He quit going to meetings, lost touch with his sponsor, and within a matter of weeks chugged down a pint of whiskey. He doesn't remember much of what happened after he opened the bottle. He knows he had some kind of accident, because when he came to he had blood on his head and was in the emergency room.

He talked as if the experience had humbled him, made him more amenable to working the program as it was laid out to him.

And he plans to continue going to meetings and talking to his sponsor.