In the November GRAPEVINE of 1961, Bill W. wrote: “We did not always come closer to our wisdom by reason of our virtues; our better understanding is often rooted in the pains of our former follies. Because this has been the essence of our individual experience, it is also the essence of our experience as a fellowship.”

“I wish I had never…” “If only I could go back and do it again I would.” “I don’t know if I can trust myself because I…” I can’t believe that I used to…” “I have no idea why I did what I was told I did. I have no memory of it but the knowledge of it just pains me.”

Our past can be a weight that will one day be the death of us, or we can use our past experiences to help ourselves and others because we have learned from our past mistakes, our past failures, our past guilt and shame.

My first moral inventory of myself was as shallow as a pancake. I wrote what I thought the Unit Chaplain would expect and I could get away with. He accepted it and I got away with it—for a short time.

As time passed, I knew I had not done a “fearless and moral inventory of myself” and, to be honest, I didn’t want to do one. First of all, much of my drinking was blackout drinking and so I had only a few—but serious—memories of my drinking life. What I did remember were the so called “good times.”

Once I began to make amends and to ask classmates and some friends about my drinking in their presence I got a shock. I didn’t want to hear what I was being told. Me? Me, a priest? I did that? I said that? Yes. That was me under the influence of alcohol.

There was no way I was going to share with anyone what I was hearing about myself. If I felt guilty and ashamed while I was drinking, I was doubly guilty and ashamed now that I was not drinking and not yet sober.

For almost the first five years in the fellowship I did everything right for all the wrong reasons. I read the Big Book so I could quote it at meetings; I went to meetings, quoted the Big Book, and talked, and talked. Then, one day, someone loved me enough to tell me publicly: “Séamus, shut your mouth, take the cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth. God gave you two ears to listen twice as much as you talk.”

I listened. I listened and realized that being a priest had nothing to do with my addiction. I was as human as every other person in the rooms of A.A. I made similar mistakes, lost my values, wasted my money, went “looking for love in all the wrong places.” “Oh, Lord it’s hard to be humble, when you [think} you’re perfect in every way.”

This humpy dumpy fell off the wall and cracked. I began to see myself through the eyes of others, which was different from the manner in which I saw myself. I was not “that bad.” Then “I’m not bad.’ ‘I am a good person who made some terrible mistakes.” What I am guilty of I did under the influence of alcohol or other drugs. I used, misused, and abused and became addicted to alcohol to hide from myself and thought I was also hiding from others.

“We did not always come closer to our wisdom by reason of our virtues; our better understanding is often rooted in the pains of our former follies.” Today, my wisdom comes from “Let me share this with you…” “I remember when…” “I was told that I…” “If it were not for my past, I could not make sense out of what you are sharing with me.”

My past has become a foundation stone. I started on shaky ground and almost every step I took was a minor earthquake. As the aftershocks stop, flowers, grass, trees, grow through the asphalt and Nature takes back her life. As I listened to the rumbles of my life, I learned to embrace the shaking of my foundation and appreciate that these rumblings would help to keep me in check and grow as long as I shared them with others.

I listened, learned, reviewed, learned to work the Steps and Live the program and, in so doing, I gained the knowledge to ask God to grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the Wisdom to know the difference.   

Séamus D.

Séamus is a retired Episcopal priest in the Diocese of New Orleans.