My name is Pete, and I am an alcoholic.

I've heard "From the Heart" at many meetings, and sometimes I've been accused of not sharing from the heart. I've since learned that no one is telling a lie if they are sharing the Truth. No one can take the Truth away from you. But if you are lying, then I have news for you ... you are in a room full of experts and we will know it. I often got in trouble when I was new, by trying to imitate those whom I had heard speak at meetings. If someone asked me about what I had just said, I didn't have a reply. It's what the truth was for me at that time ... I was trying to learn to fly like the eagles and not the chickens. The truth is that I am an alcoholic, and no different from any other alcoholic. When I was drinking, alcohol ruled everything I did. Even when I was not drinking, I was thinking about drinking. The DUI I got in 1986, and the legal trouble it brought, forced me to look at my alcoholism. I entered outpatient treatment and started going to AA meetings. The truth then was I hated all of you, and all the AA meetings I attended. Then, something wondrous happened. I went to an AA convention, and it has been one of my favorites ever since. It's been seventeen continuous years since then, when I fell in love with Alcoholics Anonymous. I learned there was a lot more to Alcoholics Anonymous than I had been able to see at those first few meetings I attended. During the next three years, I learned I was still suffering from alcoholism even though I was not drinking and was in the middle of AA. I was suffering because I thought I knew the Steps. After all, I could read them on the wall. Today, I know I didn't have a clue as to what they were all about. There have been many times when I have thought I dearly needed a drink, but the Fellowship has seen me through. I continue the search we hear at every meeting, "That God could and would if he were sought." This is what I believe I must do to stay and grow ... search. Ask questions, be curious about recovery. Be grateful for recovery and be thankful for sobriety. I've had the great privilege to be sponsored by a man who had principle in his heart and who promised me one thing: that he would tell the truth. Today, I do the same with the men I sponsor. He showed me how to use the Steps, and today God helps me to go through life's troubles. I feel I have been rocketed into a Fourth Dimension. I know it truly exists. I feel it most when I speak to a new man and help him to learn to use these Steps. It works, it really does!