Wisdom Of The Rooms - 2025

[bluidkiti]

May 5

Quote of the Week

"Many of us get to heaven by backing away from hell."

At a meeting the other day, someone was going on and on about how he hated being an alcoholic. “What a curse,” he kept saying. “Why couldn’t I be like normal people?” Someone else then shared the extreme gratitude she felt for being an alcoholic, and she said that if having alcoholism was the only way of finding and establishing a relationship with God, then she would have gladly chosen to be an alcoholic.

This made me think about my own journey and attitude about my disease. In the beginning, I, too, was resentful that I had to work a Twelve Step program and attend meetings and get commitments. I was uncomfortable doing inventories and constantly looking at my side of the street. I could never understand when someone identified themselves as a grateful alcoholic. Grateful for what? I’d wonder.

Now that I’ve been sober awhile, I have come to understand and appreciate what the Big Book means when it says that our past becomes our greatest treasure. This has many implications, of course, but one is that if I hadn’t been dying, and if alcoholism hadn’t driven me to a bottom, I may never have reached out for life, for the program, and for God. It is indeed true that many of us get to heaven by backing away from hell. Today, I know what it means to be a grateful alcoholic.