How Free Do You Want To Be?

Estimated read time: 7 min

In my early days, hanging out around fellow addicts and alcoholics, I was told that long-term sobriety really boils down to three simple things:  Honesty. Open-Minded. And Willing. In other words, that’s H.O.W. it works.

Focusing on willingness, there are some pretty amazing stories on this principle as well.  I hope you’ll humor me for a moment as I just really would like to share some of the things I have heard regarding an alcoholic’s willingness to go any length to get sober.  (Perhaps you have heard a few as well and would like to share them in the comment section ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

Some of the claims I’ve heard go as follows: (with photos for your viewing pleasure…)

“I would have eaten a pinecone and played chicken with a train if that’s what it took to get sober.”

“If he had told me to run around downtown naked, I would have done it if my sponsor told me to.”

“I would have never watched college football again if that’s what it took.”

“I would have eaten a dog turd covered in peanut butter if that’s what it took to get me sober.”

“I would have done ANYTHING anyone told me to.”

ANYTHING… Really?

Look, I’m not here to judge (which doesn’t mean I don’t, it’s just not what I’m here for.)

By no means am I suggesting that these people weren’t serious about their commitment to being willing to do these things. I’m not necessarily even questioning their devout belief that they would have done literally anything mentioned above, in order to get sober. All I’m saying is that it’s a bold claim. 

I’ll never know how serious they really are, and honestly, that’s something only they could tell you. What I can tell you though, is when it came to dog turds, pine cones, public nudity, or trains…. I was not willing. Period. Point Blank. End of story.

I was not willing to do ANY of those things. I was not willing to eat a pine cone OR a dog turd. I was not willing to abstain from watching college football, streak naked through town, or any other wild proposition that I’ve heard in and around the rooms. I just wasn’t at all willing to do anything of the sort in order to get sober.

To be frank with you, I don’t really know what that says about me…

Was I not desperate enough? Was I too stubborn? Was I not in bad enough shape yet, to be willing to do those things if that’s what it took? Did I even really want to get sober?

I’m not sure if I’ll ever know the answer to those questions, either. What I do know; however, is that it really doesn’t matter. And, if you’re not willing to do those things either, I have some good news for you.

You don’t have to be willing to eat a pine cone, risk catching a public indecency charge, or give up college football. I wasn’t. Here’s some more good news: no one was asking me to. No one was asking me to because it wasn’t necessary, nor was it conducive to reaching the goal of staying sober one day at a time.

What they did ask of me was by most measures… reasonable. At the most basic form, they asked me to a) don’t drink and b) go to meetings. 

Eventually, after 7 days in detox, 40 some odd days in in-patient rehab, and a few months of regular attendance at meetings under my belt, I was ready to follow a few suggestions that would better aid me in ensuring a chance at long term sobriety.

These friends were honest with me when they shared that these things were by no means a requirement, but rather a suggestion. Similar to the suggestion that if you jump out of a plane, you pull the ripcord on the parachute BEFORE you hit the ground, but still a suggestion nonetheless. 

I was told that the suggestions were simple, but never was it promised that the suggestions would be easy, painless, or comfortable at all stages of the process. 

The people in the rooms told me repeatedly that I didn’t have to follow any of their suggestions. I didn’t have to learn from their experience or follow in their footsteps. 

They did; however, hint that IF I did follow their suggestions, I might just find the freedom, peace, and serenity that was so blatantly missing from my life. 

They laid out the steps clearly for me. The steps were posted on the wall, in the literature, and read at the beginning of each and every meeting (just in case I missed the rest of the reminders). Maybe you’re familiar with the steps I’m referring to….

The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous:

1. We admitted that we were powerless over alcohol that are lives had become unmanageable. 
2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. 
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves 
5. Admitted to our higher power, ourselves, and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. We’re entirely ready to have our higher power remove all these defects of character 
7. Humbly asked our higher power to remove our shortcomings 
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all
9. Made direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when wrong promptly admitted it 
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with our high power, praying only for knowledge of our higher power’s will for us, and the power to carry that out 
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps we tried to carry this message to other alcoholics and practice these principles in all our affairs. 

These steps didn’t necessarily save my life, but they did change my life. The steps, the people in the rooms, and a bunch of moderately reformed drunks showed me how to exponentially improve my quality of life, and showed me the difference between having mere chemical freedom and full life in sobriety. 

So while the question we often hear being asked of the newcomer is: “Are you willing to go any length to get sober?” What I think is a more accurate question is: How free do you want to be? 

The beautiful, yet terrifying, answer to that question is entirely up to each individual because, really, the choice is yours. 

Do you want peace? Serenity? Hope? Contentment? A new perspective? Freedom from the bondage of self? A better way of life? 

Do you want to simply just not drink anymore, or do you want more? Are you willing to work for it? 

How free do YOU want to be? 

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