IF I step into the street in front of my house I can see in the distance a mountain that is dressed in rich green by the spring rains and transformed into a mound of brown velvet by the hot summer sun.
That mountain is a thing of great beauty, at least to me. It has strength and endurance and dignity. It has been there for thousands of years and will remain for all time.
Now the thing about that mountain, in my thinking, is this; it was a beautiful thing before I took my first drink or went on my first bender. But I couldn't enjoy it when I was drinking anymore than I could enjoy Christmas or a good cigar or a walk by the sea or the soft warm air that comes with spring.
That mountain was put there, I choose to believe, for the enjoyment and inspiration of all who are near it, yet liquor had robbed me for 15 years of the right to reap that God-given benefit.
Sobriety through AA restores a wonderful sense of beauty. The rich colors of nature, the flat plains and the rolling hills cost not a single cent to enjoy. And in the appreciation of these, the best things of life lies one of the greatest experiences in an AA existence.
I am not yet President of the United States. I haven't written even the first page of a best seller or a Broadway show. But, thanks to those who have taught me the AA Program, I can get a tremendous boot out of the things in life that are all about us but which we could neither see nor sense while we were drinking.
Life was always fine. I wasn't. And that's why I say, "Thank God for AA" when I get out of bed each morning and when I step into the street and see my mountain.
That mountain is a thing of great beauty, at least to me. It has strength and endurance and dignity. It has been there for thousands of years and will remain for all time.
Now the thing about that mountain, in my thinking, is this; it was a beautiful thing before I took my first drink or went on my first bender. But I couldn't enjoy it when I was drinking anymore than I could enjoy Christmas or a good cigar or a walk by the sea or the soft warm air that comes with spring.
That mountain was put there, I choose to believe, for the enjoyment and inspiration of all who are near it, yet liquor had robbed me for 15 years of the right to reap that God-given benefit.
Sobriety through AA restores a wonderful sense of beauty. The rich colors of nature, the flat plains and the rolling hills cost not a single cent to enjoy. And in the appreciation of these, the best things of life lies one of the greatest experiences in an AA existence.
I am not yet President of the United States. I haven't written even the first page of a best seller or a Broadway show. But, thanks to those who have taught me the AA Program, I can get a tremendous boot out of the things in life that are all about us but which we could neither see nor sense while we were drinking.
Life was always fine. I wasn't. And that's why I say, "Thank God for AA" when I get out of bed each morning and when I step into the street and see my mountain.