28 GUIDEPOSTS.ORG
SCOTT^ JONESI was an active alcoholic for
more than a decade. I drank through
high school, college, law school and
the start of my legal career.
I burned through two marriages
and could barely function at work.
Why not just quit and slink back to
the small town where I’d grown up?
There would be no legal work, noth-
ing to get in the way of my drinking.
Mulling over my plans to leave ev-
LY[OPUNILOPUK0ÄUHSSOP[YVJRIV[-
tom. I hated what alcohol had done
to my life. Something had to change.
I thought I could stop on my own.
Yet as much as I wanted to get sober,
I could not resist the urge to drink.
Begrudgingly I tried Alcoholics
Anonymous.
0NV[HZMHYHZ[OLÄYZ[Z[LWVM((»Z
12-step program. I admitted (sort of)
that I was, in fact, an alcoholic.
The second step stopped me in
my tracks. It required placing trust in
a higher power. In God.
I didn’t believe in all that. The law-By Bob L., BROOKLYN, NEW YORKThe Second Step