My name is James. I live in Tacoma Washington and I live my recovery out loud. I’ve been in and around the program for several decades. I was first introduced to AA by my father. Seems alcoholism runs in the family. After decades of In-N-Out, I managed to pull together about 7 1/2 years of holding on by the skin of my teeth recovery. My lady that I met in recovery got sick a few years ago. I slowed down my meetings eventually stopped going altogether cut off all contact with my recovery family and spent the last 13 months of her life just taking care of her and doom cycling. She finally passed away, and I not only fell off the wagon I burnt that mf to the ground. There were five months of trying to drink myself to death because I couldn’t imagine living without her and then I finally tried to unalive myself.
Came home detoxed alone, should’ve been in the hospital. I’m lucky I made it through that. After detoxing for eight days, I made my my way back to my Home Group. I walked in the door and was met with love, caring, kindness, and compassion. The relapse was the best thing that ever happened in my recovery. It showed me where the half measures were. It showed me where I had fallen short. It showed me where I took my control back from my higher power.
I was in the tail end of my career, I’m 57 years old, I had to walk away from a very comfortable salary… I’ve been a very functional alcoholic my whole life… Took a low paying job from some amazing people that are in recovery. Everything I need has been given freely to me from God and from alcoholics anonymous. I live my recovery out loud because there’s just no other way. I found Loosid just to reach out to make more connections with more people in recovery and I’ve already made some amazing friends that I speak with daily. This old drunk has more than he needs and today is living a life that is utterly amazing.
