its good to remember...

Its good to remember where I've come from if I am going to figure out where I am headed... Part of my annual "housecleaning" or "self-improvement reflective" season is to remind myself of my earlier days. "Coincidentally" (yeah, right!) let's evening's home group meeting touched on the importance of never forgetting "where we've come from" as alcoholics/addicts. They say in meetings that "if you can't remember your last drink, you probably haven't had it yet..." So, while I don't want to dwell on (or in) the past, I certainly don't wish to forget mine entirely. And oddly enough (or not) everytime I take a walk down memory lane as it relates to my sobriety, I marvel at the distance God and I have come together in the 13 years I have been coming to AA.

It really blows my mind to look over the timeline of my recovery in AA from being an overgrown 18 yr old "party animal" at 27 living in a dingy little dump of a rented house in East Toledo, playing in a band and working at McDonald's "helping" my former fiance raise her 2 yr old little girl. We each had cars that barely ran, made barely any money. In fact I think she was on some sort of government assistance. My step brother had moved in with us and was living in our attic & my easy chair. It wasn't a pretty picture. At that time, my main ambition was to play keyboards and bass guitar in a band full of 18-20 yr olds and relive my relative "youth." Needless to say it was not a pretty picture at all. No wonder my parents seemed to be such "buzzkills."

In a quick cursory review of where God has brought me today, my life is fairly unrecognizeable when compared to how I was living back then. If a census taker had come to interview me back then, and again today they would swear I was two different people. It's not that I cannot imagine living that way, because I clearly did (and have some fond memories to prove it lol). But I cannot imagine living that way today. I know in my heart that I can be back there quite quickly and without too much effort. But I cannot imagine actually doing that again. I am so grateful that God has removed my obsession to drink and to use drugs. I must remember this, lest I live to repeat it.