His Life Changed While He Ate His Oatmeal

My first real gift toward recovery from my addiction was a serendipitous awareness of a Higher Power. After a superlative academic performance in college and graduate school, I had gone through two or three teaching jobs that fell victim to “vodka-breath.” I quickly learned that my learning just didn’t “cut it” in the real world. The cops had no interest in my GPA or my resume, and the hospital emergency rooms made matters tolerable by dispensing a small glass of what I was certain was condensed dead fish (paraldehyde). Upon QUICK discharge from a couple of ER’s, I discovered that the Salvation Army or the cops would offer me a warm place to sleep it off. Unfortunately, I felt and expressed some superiority over the folks in the Sally.(Back to the street!) The cops waited until they could understand what I was belly-aching about, then they, too, turned me back out on the street.