Guest Contributor – Scott Fleisig
Wait, I have to be sober… forever??? I’ll never forget walking into my first AA meeting in October 2007, in Birmingham, Alabama. Heading to a church meeting room to try a program that kept mentioning God didn’t seem like a great first step for a New York Jew (mostly culinary… I love bagels).
What really scared me was the realization that these people wanted me to stay sober for THE REST OF MY LIFE! As they say in the Deep South… do what???
I quickly came up with my own plan. I’d stay sober, get out of a bad marriage, restore my credit, get my three girls to adulthood, and resume drinking and getting high when I retired. The only potential roadblock to fulfilling this flawless plan would be if something really bad happened to me, but I’d cross that bridge if it came.
I was 37. I’ll turn 55 this coming March, and thankfully, nothing really bad has happened. I’ve survived cancer twice (which wasn’t a big deal, though people apparently don’t appreciate cancer jokes). There was that pesky bankruptcy, but that fell off after ten years, and I was the one to call for hospice when my terminally ill best friend (Dad) could no longer live with his pain (also cancer).
I’ve had Muscular Dystrophy since birth, but as my doctor said in 2008 when I lost my left bicep muscle and the muscles along both shins a year or so later, “not so bad” (there was a waiting room filled with kids in wheelchairs, lest you think him unfeeling).
I’ve spent 14 years now with the woman of my dreams, whom I met in recovery (this is not an endorsement for finding love in AA meetings; the odds are good, but the goods can be odd), and we share a 7-year-old son along with our three amazing older daughters.
Sobriety has been the gift I didn’t know I needed. Maybe when my son heads off to college, I’ll pick my plan back up, or if, you know, something really bad happens. 🙂
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