Down From the Mountaintop

I woke up with my last hangover on July 5, 1988, and found my way into a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in San Francisco a few days later. After a few months, it became clear that there were people in AA who laughed, and had a life, and they were usually talking about the Steps and sponsorship and service. So I bought a Twelve-Step workbook. The workbook was okay as far as it went, but I skipped through the God stuff. I had been raised an atheist and hadn't yet realized that it took as much faith to be an atheist as to be a believer. I also skipped getting a sponsor. I had spent fifty years building walls around myself and pushing people away; I wasn't about to get chummy with anyone. Consequently, when I got to Step Five, I had a bit of a dilemma, so I thought I might do a sort-of Fifth Step with my wife in hopes of saving our marriage. But there were a couple of things I wasn't sure I wanted to tell her, so at eight months sober, I actually asked someone at a meeting for advice, and by the end of that conversation, asked him to be my sponsor. He agreed, and I said, "I'm ready for Step Five." He said, "C'mon over Saturday and let's look at Step One."