From Tamar Bridge to 12 step work in RtR

It is no exaggeration to say that if it wasn’t for Step 12, there is no chance I would be sober today, and I am not sure I would even be alive.

Having first discovered alcohol during high school, I initially kept my drinking to parties at the weekend and half-terms, transforming
from a timid and reserved introvert into an obnoxious, inconsiderate raver. However, my drinking didn’t fully take off until I went off to university and experienced real independence for the first time. What started as the regular excess and indulgence of Freshers Week quickly morphed into depressive solo drinking sessions and the complete neglect of my studies. Dropping out halfway through my degree, I returned to my hometown, working dead-end jobs and repeating the cycles of self-pity and isolation that came to define my alcoholism.

I came into my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting on 15th September 2023 as a terrified, mortified and impossibly lost twenty-three-year-old little boy. I had quit my job, cut contact with everyone who cared about me and spent my final night of drinking trying and thankfully failing to pluck up the courage to jump off a bridge. Utterly broken and clueless as to how to stop, finding my nearest AA meeting felt like my final chance to escape the oncoming abyss of my disease.
As I turned the street corner to face the venue I would soon call home, I froze for a long moment and contemplated whether to join the buzzing crowd gathered in the smoking area. Before I had time to turn around and walk away, I was called over by a fellow alcoholic and officially welcomed into the fellowship that would soon save my life. That first night, at least a dozen group members approached me and shared part of their story with me. These people from disparate places, backgrounds and ages had all drank like me, thought like me and behaved like me in the grips of their alcoholism, but were now entirely unrecognisable from the despairing, hopeless wrecks they had described. This was my first experience of what I came to understand as Step 12, and was the first moment in years where I felt a sense of hope for my life.

Following the lead of those I spoke to and heard share, I got myself a Big Book, a sponsor and submitted myself to the program as fearlessly and thoroughly as I could. Each of the 12 Steps slowly but surely gave me a reprieve from the disease of alcoholism, radically altering my perception of the world around me and removing the desire to drink. The program has improved every single aspect of my life, from returning to university to rebuilding my relationships with my family and friends, and most staggeringly providing me with joyful desire to live and make the most of every single day.

Having completed the first nine steps, I now continue to work the final three each and every day. My daily inventory through Step 10 and conscious contact with God through Step 11 are utterly vital to maintaining and improving my recovery, but it is in working Step 12 where I find an extraordinary inspiration and fulfilment. To me, sharing our experience with those still suffering, be it greeting newcomers at my three weekly meetings, or speaking from the podium, or engaging in Public Information service, is the lifeblood of AA and what keeps the program alive. Without it, I would not have made it into my first meeting and discovered the hope to attempt the Steps, and it is now my great responsibility to carry the message to as many alcoholics as I can, so that they may experience the same second chance we have all been blessed with.

Greg T
Road to Recovery Plymouth