CELEBRATING SOBRIETY: AA IS THERE TO HELP

In the Saturday, July 17th, edition of The Telegram, Lee-anne Richardson allows us to help her celebrate sobriety.

There are many of us who do so gladly while realizing the difficult battle Lee-anne fought to gain that sobriety. It is not an easy road and one, as Lee-anne pointed out, that is made all the more difficult by our East Coast “booze culture”.

And I would add it is not only on the East Coast of Canada that we are seeing a proliferation of new drinkers, new breweries, and new alcoholic concoctions. Worldwide, we see major traditional vodka, whisky, and rum makers flavour up their particular drinks, making them not only much tastier but because of that very tastiness, in my very personal view, that much more addictive and dangerous. There is even one traditional company offering up its whisky mixed with coffee. I would suggest that probably means one could be soused to the gills but totally wide awake.

All levity aside, Lee-anne endeavours to make us all aware that there is a life outside the wine box, and for most normal people, that is their way of life. However, in Newfoundland and Labrador, far too many of our population are falling for the taste and glamour of the new and deadly spruced-up drinks including the new artisan beers.

I have watched so many members of my own family/ extended family stay inside the wine box until they were laid to rest much too prematurely inside the other box. At the same time, I have watched other friends do as Lee-anne did and find sobriety both inside and outside Alcoholic Anonymous (AA).

That is the part of Lee-anne’s story I find a little puzzling. It is not clear to me how she became sober, nor is it my business, but she seems to talk of recovery in AA terms and that is fantastic. Yet she doesn’t say so! Still, she goes on to say that she has created a new group that, to me, sounds vey much like functioning AA groups. And she does this without mentioning that AA already exist and that it provides much the same — some say miracles — as her groups and has been doing so with such marvelous success for almost a hundred years.

I loved her fortitude in being so forth coming about her sobriety and I do wish her many sober years ahead. Again, I would just remind her that in Newfoundland and Labrador — as well as in her own home province — AA is very much alive and available to all who are ready to make the call.

Wayne Norman St. John’s