After living a life built on false beliefs, fantasies, and blocked from true emotions, I ended up with a broken spirit, in debt, with a 24-hour chip. You handed me a book, a meeting list with a phone number. When I called with questions, you guided me to We Agnostics, and we read the passage “there was nothing left to do but pick up the simple kit of tools laid at my feet.”
I did, and almost 43 years later, am living in a new freedom each day.
Meeting a group at Pizza Hut on the mountain, surrounded by guys laughing about old ideas, sharing the solution to false pride and loneliness, we drank soda, not pitchers of beer.
Later at Charlie Clarks, my buddies Brian, Eduardo and I met up for a quick bite before the Men’s mtg. I went over to the bar to congratulate Bill Gibson as he celebrated 45 years of ownership. With glazed eyes and a warm smile, surrounded by his drinking buddies, he thanked me for my business and friendship over the years. With tears of gratitude in my eyes, I told him how much his restaurant meant to me and my family, the wonderful memories, and how much it played a role in my business over the years. It was real.
An hour later at the meeting, the topic was how our natural desires had warped us. From chasing an illusion with a bottle, a baggie and a hangover it hit me: what you really handed me were the Keys to the Kingdom! The answer to my despair, false pride and loneliness.
Maybe my SOS came from a deeper message in the bottle.
