MYSTERIOUS WAYS | AUG/SEPT 2019 29
MIRACLES & HEALINGQ
yer in me wouldn’t have it. As some-
one ruled by logic, I thought all that
spiritual stuff was a bunch of
starched, hypocritical baloney.
I might’ve persisted in that belief
and kept right on drinking to an early
death. Except, right when I needed
it, a series of inexplicable events
changed my mind—and saved me.
A Presence
Only a week into sobriety, I faced my
first existential challenge. I came
home from an AA meeting consumed
by the desire to drink. I paced my
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the deli for a six-pack. Who would
ever know?
I called Chuck, an AA veteran who’d
taken me under his wing.
“I think I’m going to drink,” I blurt-
ed out to him.
Chuck gave me three suggestions:
“Eat some chocolate. Take a hot
bath. And then get down on your
knees and ask God to keep you
from drinking.”
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but soon the craving was back, as
strong as ever.
That left option three. I had no
desire to pray. I resented Chuck’s
suggestion—as if that would actually
help! But I was desperate.
Ducking beneath the apartment
window, where people might see
me, I knelt and lowered my head to
the rug. I felt like a fool. “Please help
me,” I mumbled.
A wave of peace washed over
me. All the fears and insecurities I’d
spent years dousing with alcohol
vanished. Deep in my soul, I knew
that somehow everything in my
chaotic life would turn out okay. My
body went limp with relief.
I opened my eyes to crawl toward
my futon. The room was permeat-
ed by a warm, white light, which
seemed to come from everywhere
and nowhere.
I pulled myself onto the futon and
lay down. A gentle hand stroked
my back. Under any other circum-
stance, that experience would have
freaked me out. I just lay there, feel-
ing loved and held. Thirty years
later, I still tear up thinking about it.
The desire to drink was gone.
I closed my eyes and fell into the
deepest, most refreshing sleep I
have ever had.
When I awoke, I wondered about
what I’d experienced. Had it been
real? A hallucination brought on by
alcohol withdrawal? I tried to brush
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shake the sense that I’d experi-
enced something profound.An Intervention
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perience, I was on the road for work,
meeting clients I’d always liked be-
cause some of them were big drink-
ers like me.
Determined to stay sober, I didn’t
miss an A A meeting before the trip
and had long talks with my sponsor.
“Remember,” a speaker said at
one of the meetings, “you can always
ask a hotel clerk not to give you
the minibar key for your room.”
A random piece of advice, but I
followed it. After checking in, I asked
a bellhop for help carrying several