Excerpt
he wanted to do before he headed over to the auction yard to hook
up with Cindy for lunch at one o’clock. Walking up to the pay
phone at the corner of the parking lot outside of the doctor’s
office, Joel turned to the A’s in the telephone directory, found
what he was looking for, and dialed the number.
The voice at the other end was a recorded message, and after
hearing what he wanted to hear, Joel hung up the phone, slid into
his truck, and drove off. He knew exactly where he was going and
what he had to do. The easy thing would be to avoid what he was
about to do, but Joel knew that if he was starting to live a new life,
as he sensed he was, he needed to change his behavior. Rather
than doing the easy thing he chose to do the courageous thing.
And that, in itself, was a significant behavior change.
Joel pulled up to the church hall just down the road from the
auction yard. There were already two-dozen trucks in the parking
lot; he wasn’t the only person headed for the side door of the
church annex.
Once inside the little meeting room, Joel poured himself a coffee
from the large coffee urn and sat down in a folding metal chair
at the back of the room. The young man sitting beside him
offered him his hand and introduced himself as Norman just as a
very attractive woman sitting behind a small table at the front of
the room announced, “My name is Donna, and I ama recovering
alcoholic.” The thirty or so attendees responded with “Hello,
Donna” and she continued, “Welcome to the Great Falls Noon
Meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.”
Now, this wasn’t Joel’s first AA meeting. He had been to a few
over the years, but mostly because one caring soul or another had
dragged him to it. This time it was different. Joel wanted to be
there. Joel was there for himself.
Joel already had a few days of sobriety going for him and he was
starting to like it. His hope was that he could continue to rack up
the days but he knew that he couldn’t do it on his own. He
treated his loneliness in life with isolation. And on the other side
of isolation lay not just one drink, but a full-blown drunk.
Libros Libertad 