Aloha! My name is Dalis, and I'm an alcoholic.

Last Thursday, I was nineteen years sober. Another year of sobriety and without a doubt, God's greatest gift to me. I could never have remained sober this amount of time without all the gifts of the program ... the Steps, the Big Book, the meetings, the Fellowship, and the sponsors. Our book says nothing so much ensures sobriety as working with another alcoholic, and through the years God has blessed me with several of those. You tend to run into them at meetings. How blessed I am that all of those women chose me to work the Steps with them, and that their journey toward a Higher Power included me. The sponsors who helped me on that journey are an even bigger blessing. I never knew when I was young in our program, that every single thing they ever said to me would be utilized in some way at some time with some result that I couldn't anticipate and surely need. They say when the student is ready the teacher appears, but what they don't say is ... and when you need the lesson, the teacher will be still available! How blessed I am to have had Step-working, book-reading sponsors! And how blessed I am to have found a world full of alkies just like me, to carry me one day at a time toward the next day. I have known shame and humiliation and I humbly share that with any that may need to know it, so that the grace of God can be available to both of us. Others shared theirs so that I may live free today. Mahalo to all of you for my life. I did not have one before.