This post was originally published on October 6, 2014.
There’s a great response to people who try to disqualify themselves from getting sober based on their chronological age: “You’re never too old to get sober and you’re never too young to die.” In the 11 years that I’ve been coming around (and been clean), I’ve seen a number of late stage retirees get sober (the first guy I sponsored was 74), but unfortunately I’ve also seen a lot of young people die, mostly through overdoses and suicide. Frank got sober at the age of 88 and recently celebrated his fifth anniversary. He also runs counter to those who think that alcoholism begins at birth, or that one must hit a wretched bottom in order to want to get sober. This is his story:
I’m the son of Italian immigrants, so I was raised in a household where we had a tradition of having wine with meals, and always welcomed guests into our home with a small glass of vermouth. At a very young age, I developed a taste for alcohol, but I can honestly say it did not interfere very much with my life early on. I’m an artist (painter) and teacher, and for most of my career, it just wasn’t a problem. As a matter of fact, I spent a few years in Paris in my mid 30s and I don’t even think I had a glass of wine the entire time I was there, which, in hindsight, is pretty strange. One thing I do remember, though, is that there came a point in my father’s life where he had to stop drinking, so the family history may not have been as innocent as I recall.
Well after my retirement, around the age of 70, I began to develop an interest in wine: I would read about where it was from and where the best geographical areas and vineyards were and I would go to wine tastings and start to buy more sophisticated bottles. But I also began to notice that I’d started drinking a lot more than I had before. In retrospect, I realize that my “interest” in wine was fueled primarily by my alcoholism, and that my reasons for my new hobby were not particularly honest.
One day I realized that what I had was a habit. I would tell myself that I wasn’t going to drink during the day, but then around 4:30 or 5 pm, a very strong compulsion would come over me, and I would tell my wife that I was going to go out for a ride. But every day it was the same thing: I’d take a ride to the liquor store and buy a bottle of wine plus some vodka for nightcaps, and the cycle would repeat: I’d tell myself I wasn’t going to drink, and I would find myself in the car headed to the liquor store every afternoon. That progressed into me always having booze with me. My wife and I would go somewhere, and I’d always have to have a half pint of booze in my bag where I kept my drawing supplies that I kept with me. What I remember most vividly about that period was that I wanted to stop, but found that I just could not.
Around the age of 78, I started going to AA meetings. Once or twice a week, I would go to the largest open speaker meetings—which would be one big cloud of smoke after a half hour or so. I would go to those large meetings, because they usually had so many great speakers, but also so that I could get lost in the crowd. I would go in, sit down, and I’d listen as if I were at an academic lecture and discussion. I enjoyed the stories, but I didn’t think it had anything to do with me. So when it was over, I’d just walk out without speaking to anyone. There was no communication and no human contact. And I was wondering why it didn’t work, because I just kept drinking.
My life went on like that for years until I found a noon meeting in the city, just over the border from the suburb that I live in. It wasn’t what I now hear people refer to as a “looney noonie”—instead it was full of retired old timers, a lot of newcomers and a nice mix of people from Harvard to housewives and tradespeople. When I came into the meeting, people said hello and put their hands out to me, and made me feel really welcome, and I thought, “Wow! What’s happening?” It was an absolute turning point in my life. But I still kept drinking in spite of what I was hearing.
After about six months, I got to know one of the old timers who was especially vocal and visible. For some time I had been hearing that it was a good idea to get a sponsor. He had too many guys, but he turned me over to one of his pigeons (sponsees), a nice quiet guy that had been sober for about 10 years. I would talk to him, but I never mentioned that I hadn’t stopped drinking.
One day, my sponsor and I were at a meeting, and a guy who knew me from the nooner asked me if I would chair the meeting, and I told him that was something I had never done before. He said, “The only qualification is that you haven’t had a drink for 90 days, you’ll be fine.” Then I had to tell him that I drank the night before, and he was dumbfounded because he had known me for a while and assumed I had been sober all this time. When he asked me why I was still drinking, I told him with a totally straight face, “Well, we keep wine and liquor in the house for when guests come over, and I keep drinking it.”
He looked at me as if I had two heads and said, “Why don’t you just get rid of the booze?” Now it was my turn to look at him as if he were crazy, because having booze in the house was the tradition I came from as a child, and to not have it to offer to a guest seemed inconceivable to me—an affront to simple human decency. So I adamantly asked, “What kind of person would I be if I couldn’t offer guests who came to my home a drink?”
“A sober one,” he said. And he laughed incredulously.
So I talked to my sponsor about it, and he talked to me about not going to places where they had booze, and especially to not have it in my house where I could just pick up a drink without thinking. So he helped me get rid of all. It was a revelation to me, and I haven’t had a drink since. I still go to a lot of meetings in addition to my Monday through Friday noon meeting, and I’ve found that I feel so much better about myself: I’m honest, I can talk openly to other people and feel comfortable doing it.
I also realized I can be helpful to others, especially when I’m talking with newcomers. And I can’t describe how that makes me feel, because it’s a two-way relationship. I’ve made such significant advancements in my life since I’ve been sober. But the thing that excites me the most is the spirituality of the program and dealing with a Higher Being. My wife has cancer and when I take her to the treatment center I can get very depressed, but I communicate with my Higher Being and it helps me get through it.
I grew up Catholic and had always considered myself a good and honest person, but since being in the program, the spirituality has become a greater part of my life that extends to all facets, where with religion that spirit had just lie dormant for a while. At the age of 88, the program truly saved my life.
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