#41: Sponsored

So I may have tiptoed obliquely around this before but here's something about me:

I'm Like A Chocoholic, But For Booze

Did you ever know a "chocoholic"? One of those folks who just can't get enough chocolate? I bet there's at least one in your home or workplace.

...

To be honest, I'm a bit of a chocoholic myself. Except for one small detail. You see, instead of being addicted to chocolate, I'm addicted to booze. 

And this is something I (and my family) have been struggling with for years, in fits and starts, with periods of great success and titanic failure.

(It may come as no surprise if I tell you this blog was conceived as part of my plan for recovery.)

Anyway, a couple years ago I started going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, which have been wonderful, but I have been holding back from throwing myself fully into "the program," that is, into working them 12 steps I'm sure you've heard about.

I'm shy and I'm a procrastinator, and I have a lot of fear around pushing into, specifically, Step 4 - making a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself - which is really where the steps get serious. I've also, for the same reasons, held back from getting a sponsor.

I believe that my setbacks, my relapses, have a lot to do with my failure so far to take these plunges.

Well, I am happy to say that finally, on Thursday, I approached and asked somebody to be my sponsor. As far as new things go, this was a biggie for me.

I can't help but liken it to asking somebody out on a date, which I am also not good at.  (I never brought myself to go to a dance in high school, and my wife and I got together more or less without any formal dating, in the sense of taking her out to dinner or what have you.)

So it seems only appropriate that we are getting coffee on Sunday. Or as I told my wife when I got home from Thursday's meeting: "I have a date for Valentine's Day! His name is Ted!"