I walked out of a lot of AA meetings in my day. Miserable Myrtle carrying on about the leaf blower, Serenity Sam threatening to kill his neighbor... again. In and out Art, the chronic relapser, quoting Big Book scripture after yet another slip.
But nothing had me bolting for the door quicker than an alcoholic saying how lucky he felt for having alcoholism.
Lucky??!! How could anyone feel fortunate being cursed with this most horrible disease?
Personally, alcoholism felt like bad luck right from night one, drink one. A mere 14 years old, I caught a bad case, drinking alcoholically and abusively from my first pull. In my defense, I was a pretty miserable kid, finding something, anything, to make me feel different, let alone better, was going to be seductive. And find I did, chasing that feeling into the gates of insanity. My solution to my problems soon became my far greater problem. Alcoholism eventually took everything that ever mattered to me, athletic career, family, innocence, health, sanity, any chance of being a stable provider for either wife or child. And then it came for more. An allergy of the body, an obsession of the mind. In a world where some are sicker than others, I was among the sickest of the sicker.
What started as teen curiosity quickly became an F4, Cat 5, 9.3 on the Richter scale destructive life force, destroying everything meaningful in its path. A hopeless state of mind and body, selfish, self-absorbed, a liar, a cheat and a thief. If I met you, I owed you. I took something important from everybody I met in those dark days.
The once unimaginable, drinking and drugging around the clock, soon became my everyday routine. Without any guardrails, my descent was rapid, but not without some resistance. All the yets...I'm okay, I haven't tried that yet. And then you do, you move the goalposts. Well, I still haven't done that yet. Then you do. Resistance begins to wane, there is no bottom, you're free falling, without a net. The progression. Curiosity, Desire, Need, Dependence, Full throttle addiction. Before long, it takes more and more to feel the same. Until nothing works anymore, nothing will fill that void.
If only there were something less harmful to fill that void.
But seriously, anybody want to show me the luck in there?
If we crossed paths back in my using days, the last thing I looked like was a bunch of good luck walking around. But I trudged on. That's what we do. Tennis taught me that. No matter how far down you get, you haven't lost yet. There's still time. Dig in, hang around. Amazing what can happen in tennis as in life if you simply don't give up. Late in mid-life, things were getting away from me. I was down two sets and a break, my prospects of living a quality life looked grim. I needed a break, maybe even a little luck, to set forth my resurrection.
And for myself, that break came. It almost didn't. I resisted going out that night. But my friend persisted. He took me to a concert to see my favorite musician, Trey Anastasio, lead guitarist of the band Phish. And there he was, all clean, sober, and snappy, living his best life with courage and pride where I just so wasn't. And it hit me hard. What happened to me? How did I let my life get so far away from me? But in that moment, a crack in the window appeared. A very small one, but one that hadn't been there in some time. And in that moment, a little fight came in, followed by a little hope. And as I headed for home later that night, I gathered what little resolve I had left to fight this demonic illness one more time.
That was March 10th of 2012. Today is March 10th, 2025. It’s been 13 years since then fateful night, and I haven't had to have a drink since.
Thirteen years. Lucky 13.
Luck works in mysterious ways; for it may not appear as luck in the moment.
One of my favorite quotes from my favorite author Cormac McCarthy… You never know what worse luck your bad luck saved you from…
Man, that defines my life to a tee…
I think back on the role of luck in my own life. It kept me alive when I tired of going on. Several near-death experiences, the behaviors that were destroying my life ended up saving my life. My car-jackers saved me, getting arrested saved me, crashing my car saved me. I was too high to die on more than one occasion. The worse luck my bad luck saved me from… The fact that I can even type these words is a level of luck that transcends language. I could go on and on..
On a less dramatic level, way back, many summers ago. I got hurt teaching in the Hamptons right at peak season. I was crushed. So much lost income…seemed like the worst luck ever; Scrambling, I had to take a restaurant job just to get by. Yet at that job I met my first sober people, my Eskimo, a gentleman named Guy who guided me to my first-ever AA meeting, opening my eyes to the possibility there was another way to live.
So many times in my life, when what seemed to be the worst luck turned out to be just the opposite.
Why would it be any different with my alcoholism?
A life without strife or struggle doesn't exist. Our collective human experience is the story of overcoming, fragile bodies living in a hostile environment, where no one here gets out alive. Despite this, we push on with vigor, living our lives with passion and wisdom, knowing full well we fight a losing battle against mortality and time.
And among our collective experience, within our shared struggles, there's no more grateful among us than those who've healed.
You see it across all sectors of society: the comeback story. Is there anything more heartwarming than athletes coming back from injuries and slumps or artists rediscovering their muse?
On a more personal level, years of struggle, of being blind all the time I was learning to see. Now the Amazing Grace of alcoholism recovery... of being lost and now found.
And to be this lucky, for not everyone with alcoholism gets a chance to heal.
I was blessed with the gift of desperation—of having to change, yet having a program for living that provides an unshakeable foundation for life, one I’m only able to keep by giving it away. And we do that all through Service—of being an example of what a sober life can be. It's an enormous responsibility; I fail at it every day. We seek spiritual progress, not perfection
But as I awaken this morning, 13 years sober, my life is so different today. I appreciate it at levels I never thought imaginable.
And my life today, I work with children. I feel their angst. Trying to learn this God awful challenging game. But my priorities are different today. I want smiles more than winners. I feel like the Catcher In The Rye, trying to preserve their innocence for as long as possible, something I wish I could have given the 14 year old me before I went astray.
It such a shift from where I used to be. I used to try to get them to see me, look at me, listen to me. See my life as a cautionary tale. But they’re in their own space, immune to all my consultations.
So I approach them differently now. In order to lift somebody up, you have to reach down and most importantly, meet them where they are.
Life is going to get complicated for them; their youth need not be that way. So I teach joy, expression, curiosity, connectivity, passion—all the traits they're going to need to be successful, on or off a tennis court.
How lucky I am to make my living so..
To end up in a place where I can feel the beauty of all the world. I feel so much joy and love in my life today.
Not sure I could have reached this place of exultation without my alcoholism.
And if I can steal a line from the late great Lou Gehrig
I really do feel like the luckiest guy on the face of the Earth.
And with that, thank you for sharing in my recovery.
For the Grace of God go I one more day…
Excellent as always