30 Bob shares more of his recovery journey at Guideposts.org/BobL
boxes of legal documents upstairs—
something I never do. Ordinarily I
carry my own luggage.
In my room, my eyes went straight
to the minibar. Locked it would stay.
But the fridge next to it was full of
beer. “Can you take that beer out of
here?” I asked the bellhop.
“They might charge you for it.”
“I don’t care. Just get it out of
here. I don’t drink, and I don’t want
to be around it.”
The bellhop studied me. Then he
reached into his pocket and pulled
out a bronze coin with the AA logo
on it and the Roman numeral XIII.
“I haven’t had a drink in 13 years,”
he said. He wrote his phone number
on a piece of paper. “You run into
any trouble while you’re here, just
give me a call.”
The rest of my stay, the bellhop
kept a friendly eye on me. Having him
there gave me the boost of strength
I needed to resist my clients’ invita-
tions to drink. Had someone or
something sent him as extra sup-
port? I wasn’t sure.
A Message
A few weeks later, I was in a rough
spot again. Sobriety felt overwhelm-
ing. AA seemed pointless if I couldn’t
get behind one of the main tenets of
the program: surrender.
I headed to a meeting, searching
for something that might help. The
meeting I went to that day was dedi-
cated to this very topic—turning over
one’s life and will to God.
Speakers stood up one by one
to say how much their higher power
meant to them, how they couldn’t
stay sober without it. But not one of
them explained where their faith
came from. I’ll nev er get what they
have, I thought.
Then a grizzled World War II
Marine stood up. He told of battling
his way through the hell of Pacific
island warfare. Afterward, he’d
turned to drinking to block out those
OVYYPÄJTLTVYPLZ0ÄN\YLKOL^HZ
about to echo previous speakers at
the meeting, going on and on about
his unwavering faith as he walked
the path of sobriety. How he just
knew through it all that God was al-
ways with him.
“For me, turning my life and will
over to God was like walking to the
end of a diving board,” the Marine
said. “I could get to the end of the
board by logic. To get into the pool,
I had to jump and trust that it would
be all right.”
His words were a revelation. Not
everyone walked into A A with a fully
formed faith. Trusting God, taking
that step into the unknown, was a
challenge for many people at these
meetings.
It was exactly what I needed to
hear. At exactly the moment I need-
ed to hear it.
Coincidence? No more than
my encounter with the bellhop. Or
Chuck’s lifesaving advice.
I had no further reason to delay. I
jumped. Into the white light that
OHKÄSSLKT`HWHY[TLU[0U[V[OLSV]L
and kindness of the bellhop. Into the
arms of the power that spoke through
that Marine. And with hard work
and the help of my higher power, I’ve
stayed sober ever since.