One sentence in this paragraph defeats all the arguments I brought with me into Alcoholics Anonymous this time around, 8 or so years ago: "Better men than we are using in constantly."

Perhaps some of my story will help highlight this.

My first exposure to the twelve steps was through Alateen shortly before my 17th birthday (29 years ago).  My mother had just started going to AA meetings having wound up in court on a drink-driving charge.  (She remains a member to this day - hence AA has always been in my life since then to some degree.)

Around this time I started smoking dope.  No-one can remember the exact sequence of events but I do know that I stopped going to Alateen because I felt like a fraud due to the fact that I was smoking dope.  (I did not start regular drinking until I was about 19 - once I’d left home.)

I was the kind of teenager (and adult) that has always been searching - not via self help books but via experience.  This, I believed, held me in good stead.  I had no idea (until recently) just how inexperienced I was a result of chronic alcohol and other drug use.  I had gained some basic living and coping skills but I had not experienced most of what was on offer in life.

I remained employed, avoided the police, had the occasional half-decent relationship, and only wound up in intensive care once (from a serious head injury which occurred in a blackout - which I rationalised as being as a result of the complete absence of lighting in the concrete fire stairs that I fell down).

As far as I was concerned I was, by and large, "manageable".

All of this engendered an arrogance against many things including (of course) God.

Eleven years after Alateen (I was almost 29) I wound up in a non-spiritual rehab on the other side of the world from where I grew up.  Here I was introduced to myself, albeit briefly.  Once the 28 days were up, and I was told that contact other than our weekly follow up meetings was discouraged, I knew I could not do this on my own so I ventured to AA as a fully fledged candidate.  I only stayed around for about two months - until I returned to my home country and my predominantly daily dope smoking, occasional binge drinking friends.  I went to a few meetings but, again, I was uncomfortable smoking dope and attending meetings.  In short, I did not want to give up, so AA was out.

I didn’t drink for almost four years and I even stopped the dope smoking after about 2 years without assistance (although I did spend a fair bit of time with a Jungian psychiatrist working on "issues").

The arrogance grew.

By the time I got to AA the second time around, this time around aged 39, after another five years of "research", so close to being unemployed and too fearful to look for another job (ie. unemployable), I had had it.

I was still full of my well-honed arrogance.  I had always seen reliance on a "higher power" as being a weakness.  I considered those in AA to be using a higher power as a sedative (and, to be honest, I still believe I see this is in some people - my arrogance is alive and kicking at times!).

But... I was at least ready to admit that the AAers I’d met previously seemed to be enjoying life more than I was - despite their apparent weaknesses and I had got to the point where all my alternatives were less attractive.

The sparkle in their eyes was not really what I wanted - they seemed naïve and close to playing tambourines to me, whistling in the dark - but what they had was at least a bit better than what I had, and perhaps I could learn something from them and then go on my merry way.

They were "better men" than me and they were using something that I did not have access to - and I wanted to find out a little bit more.

To this day I still use this as a measure of something’s worth to me.  If someone is doing something in recovery that I can see makes them happier and/or "real-er" than I feel, I have to take a closer look and give it a go.

Prayer is one of those things.

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