Tonight’s reading was from the Twelve and Twelve, page 35, on the third step. Someone else was reading it out loud, and one phrase stopped me. It said the alcoholic has already shown his willingness to give his life over to the program, because of what it called the foundering vessel he has become. I had to look up foundering afterward. It’s what happens to a ship taking on water, starting to go under. That’s exactly the word for who I was when I walked into these rooms.
The point of the step is simple to say and hard to do. Turn your will and your life over to the care of God as you understand him. I remember the exact moment I became willing to do that. I was in a hospital bed and had just been told I didn’t have much time left. My mother was there, and she didn’t want to lose me. I said something close to, God, if you see me through this, you can have the rest.
Looking back, I can see how selfish that was. I only got willing once I felt like there was almost nothing left of me to offer. But I meant it, and he saw me through it.
Everything started changing fast after that. I got healthier than I’d been in most of my adult life. No more waking up sick, no more poisoning myself just to get through the day. I ended up living somewhere different. I ended up around different people. I even ended up in a different AA group than the one I started in. All of it moved at once, faster than I could have arranged on my own.
It felt like watching a puzzle come together. In the middle of it you can’t see the picture yet, just a bunch of pieces scattered around that don’t look like they belong to anything. Then they start locking into place, and slowly the picture shows itself. That’s what those first months felt like, watching my life come together piece by piece, the same way a puzzle does, right up until you can finally see what you’re building.
That’s what stuck with me tonight. Foundering vessel is exactly what I was when I got here, taking on water, going under, out of options everywhere else I’d looked. And it was true. AA turned out to be the one place that had what I actually needed.
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