Guest Contributor – Christopher Moraitis
Not such an anomaly, heck the “Big Book” of AA has an entire chapter devoted to people just like me. That said, my journey occurred in the opposite direction. I had “faith” and then realized I didn’t believe in the God (or higher power) I found in recovery.
Let me qualify (first), as the people in AA like to say.
Early Life and the Slide into Addiction
I was a happy child, but then there were parents who fought all the time and I was bullied by neighborhood children and that turned that happy child into an angry teenager. On many fronts the Summer I turned 16 was monumental for me. I discovered sex, alcohol and drugs all in a short span of time. For a time, I enjoyed all of the above, and even had a crew of friends that drank and occasionally smoked weed too. Most of my friends were either experimenting or just tasting the waters without the addictive behavior I displayed. Fast forward a few years from 16 years old, 8 to be exact, I had hit my first (of 2) bottoms, and finally found the help I so desperately needed.
First Recovery Journey
My first dive into recovery went very well. I did indeed recover, that is to say I felt I had recovered from a state of hopelessness and isolation. Rebuilding my life brick by brick was a long road. After 13 years of sobriety, I had a loving relationship with my son. Re-established good credit and was moderately successful in a career that came along very unexpectedly. Matter of fact the company that hired me didn’t know they were looking and or interviewing me until I showed up at their offices in Great Neck Long Island. That’s another story. All the while, I felt I was cared for and looked after by a loving God.
Relapse and Return to Addiction
Let us fast forward a bit further. I found myself in a difficult marriage, another child and mounting debt. The difficulty in my marriage was largerly my doing. Having moved from New Jersey to Long Island with out setting down any roots in the fellowship of AA, left me vulnerable to a return to the old me. That person is selfish, self centered in the extreme, a drinker and a drug addict.
At dinner with my wife, I decided to sip her alcoholic mixed drink, for a taste experiment. Hardly giving that insane thought very much thought at all. Shortly after at a family gathering there was much drinking and quite a bit of pot smoking. I found myself in a circle of family members passing weed to one another and getting very high. That was the beginning of a dark period in my life which would not see the sunlight of sobriety until many years later. With in 1 week I was drinking again and had purchased my own supply of weed. I had a good paying job and that helped maintain some appearance of normalcy. Suffice to say I did hit a new bottom. I was renting a room out of a house of a very nice guy in Hempstead. It was a decent neighborhood in a town not known for decent neighborhoods. All the people I hung around with drank and or did drugs the way I did. “Alcoholicly”.
A Second Chance at Sobriety
I woke up on a Monday after the usual tawdry activities on Sunday and finally came to the realization “I can’t live like this anymore”. The good news is I knew the answer and even knew where to find it. I would return to the fellowship of AA and “get sober (again)”. Fortunate for me that is what happened. It took time and a lot of effort. My first sponsor was a “don’t drink and go to meetings” kind of guy. That wouldn’t work for me. I am a “true alcoholic” and needed to reapply the “steps” of AA and change my thinking.
I did find someone who believed in “working the steps” and we set out to read the Big Book together and I wrote out my steps as needed and repaired my past upto when I stopped working on myself thus finding myself off the path.
Spiritual Struggles and Atheism in AA
That brings us up to my revelation (forgive the Biblical term). After 2 or so years of struggling to find a higher power that worked for me, I became open to hearing atheist give “talks” about the lack of evidence of a God, any God. I watched debates and listened to podcasts from others who once believed and found themselves atheist. Navigating through the AA waters a “non believer” hasn’t been easy either. What works for me has been keeping a close network of Sober male friends and maintaining a certain amount of fellowship meetings to continue to identify both with other alcoholics and as an alcoholic. There is the occasional attempt of conversion by friends, mostly due to the wonderment they feel as things seem to just work out in their lives. There is a certain amount of “I don’t know how that worked out at all” statement, which for some people leads to a “must be God” conclusion. Admittedly I will occasionally also make the case for the lack of God, but most of the time I leave it to “posts” on Facebook. The bottomline is, as an alcoholic I have a medical condition that occurs in other alcoholics, in so much, that alcohol isn’t processed in the same way alcohol is processed in the non-alcoholic persons. For me, that’s enough and has kept me sober for the last 8 years. It’s both comforting and distressing to imagine the proposition that there is no afterlife and that I will never see family or friends after my death. My greatest hope is to make the most of this life and be a decent person, enjoying life and all it’s wonder as I endeavor to be a sober man.
Closing Thoughts
Finally, I hope that this offering gives the reader the feeling that, if nothing more, there is a wide variety of recovered alcoholics having varying experiences in sobriety. Yours is yours and is valid.
As my grandfather would say, “Best regards”.
Christopher Moraitis
Sober 1 day at a time
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