My name is Bobby and I am an alcoholic.

Early on, I read from the descriptive profile of an alcoholic in the AA literature that an alcoholic like me is a person in a hopeless condition of mind and body. During my drinking days I heard the town surgeon saying to others about me, "He is a hopeless drunk!" My alcoholic pride wouldn't accept that reality, and I kept on drinking in the hope I could master alcohol and prove that the doctor was wrong. I was not only hopeless. I was sickly and falsely hoping. I remember cutting out a printed verse which says, "There is hope" and sticking it up in my room to remind me that someday I can get out of my destructive and fatal situation. I suffered more states of hopelessness. But true hope finally dawned on me when I joined AA. I saw hope in the bright and lighted faces of recovering AA members in my first AA meeting. For me, to arrive at real hope, I had to go through the painful process of despair and hopelessness. I believe this is the way the God of Hope revealed Himself in my seemingly hopeless state as an alcoholic. Today, I am a person beaming with new hope!

Thanks for letting me share.