A.A., N.A., and Recovery

I've been attending A.A. and N.A. "meetings", on and off, since early 1994. My recovery record is admirable: Sober from March 18, 1994 to CIRCA Summer of 1999, and then from December 20, 2002 until the present day. I was "out there" as recovery groups collectively describe it, for approximately three years during my only relapse. At one meeting, after I returned to the "program", as it's called, I was referred to as a "scout", because I had returned to alcohol and drugs in an ostensible act of curiosity about the legitimacy of my own addiction. I wanted to be sure that I was really an alcoholic, so I ventured out again into the depths of the "disease" and learned very, very quickly that my little problem, as my mother discounts it so well with good intentions, was yearning to be relased all over again in order to inflict new damage. The result: I fell back into the misery of addiction and alcoholism headfirst, landing on a concrete pad that disbursed my hard and soft tissue all over the figurative walk of what little seemed to remain of my life. Fast forward to December 20, 2002 -- Bean Station, Tennessee -- A.A. Meeting in a smokey little front room in a tiny rented white house on Broadway -- Bobby K and his wife, Barbara, running the show -- I wandered in, already in the throes of an emotional collaspse, and spilled the contents of my relapse onto the long table around which others sat in stunned silence, until "Donna" sympathetically utttered the term, "poor guy" and I broke down and undertook my second beginner's white chip, reycycling all my rightfully-earned momentos, that marked over five years of sobriety, into a little brown basket, and started over. This time around, I don't rely upon any kind of etherial "higher power" to keep me sober. That backfired during phase one of my efforts. Instead, I take 100% responsibility for my recovery. I don't look skyward for help, I only look in the mirror, and most importantly, at what lies directly in front of me. I allow no opporutnity to the abstract messengers that live within our minds to have me believe that a god is directing my movement. It was god, you see, whom I entrusted with my recovery the first round, and I distinctly remember thinking that "he" answered a prayer for me (delusional thinking in hindsight) by giving me the green light to end my day with a harmless glass of wine. Today, I know better, even though I concede that "he" didn't hold me down and pour the mauve liquid down my throat. Today, I'm sober, meaning I'm not even high on the lies espoused by the architects of religion and dogma. A.A. and N.A. are not critical to my sobriety, but they have their pro rata utility, because I find that I tend to fall back into healthy rhythms if I appear at a meeting from time to time, introduce myself as "Paul, a recovering alcoholic [or] addict", and affirm my account of alcoholism, addiction, and the recovery that I maintain in increments, colloquially referred to as "one day at a time."
Recovery requires a deep cleaning of the vessel. A "searching a fearless moral inventory" to be precise. It, too, compels the occupant of the vessel to make amends to those he has harmed. These important requisites allow the vessel to better weather the impending storm that awaits new entrants into sober life.