This month I celebrated 29 years of continuous sobriety. The years have produced some times of both deep joy and sorrow, success and failure. Life has been lifey, but the one thing I can share with you that kept me sober was I never lost my trust or love of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

I lost my oldest son to this disease, I went bankrupt, I lost a business that was thriving because someone else made a bad decision. All the time I still remember the one small voice that would speak to me “trust Me Bob.”

I also have had some wonderful happenings in my life. People pay me when I need money. I have 5 other healthy, clean children, 16 grandchildren and 8 great grandchildren. I have a wife that has been at my side for 61 years, and will celebrate 27 years in Alanon this June. When I retired from my business, I went to seminary and became a Deacon in the Episcopal Church. I have worked as a chaplain for an Episcopal Hospital, and I handle the Bereavement for a major Hospice.

If I had settled for what I would have listed as my hopes during the first retreat I attended, when sober, I would have cheated myself. I remember my prayer “Father I don’t care if I ever have another dime, if I ever own anything again, I just want to be sober. I want to know how to love You with my whole heart, my whole mind, and my whole soul, and my neighbor as myself.”  

If you’re new, make no plans for your future, trust God, love God, love your neighbor, and hang on. Get ready for a “yellow brick road” that isn’t leading to Kansas.

-Bob L.