Spotlight On Sobriety 10/05/2025
- Steve N.
- Sep 30
- 9 min read
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Spotlight On Sobriety 10/05/2025
Janet's Story - Grapevine - November 2014
Author Name: Janet W.
Author City: Los Angeles
Author State: California
Being alcoholic and gay were never on my agenda for my life. Far from it, my goal was to become a missionary or at least a minister’s wife or parish worker, which was more probable for a young girl at that time. I grew up in a small suburb of Los Angeles during the 1940s. Life centered around the family and church activities and was orderly and peaceful. I played the piano, sang in the junior choir, and had a comforting, childlike faith in God.
I had heard about alcoholism from my grandmother, whose father had been a judge in South Dakota for 50 years, and apparently, a practicing alcoholic. I adopted my family’s feelings about drinking and drinkers and knew I would never be like that. Being homosexual, I learned, was also unacceptable. This idea came from many sources—friends, church, movies, and family—and I believed it, happily going my way feeling critical and superior. Once in a while, however, I feared that I had those kinds of feelings, which scared me because I desperately wanted to be a “good girl,” and acceptable.
My life changed abruptly and dramatically when I was 12 years old and my father died. My mother remarried soon after, and there was a lot of stress and tension in our family. My stepfather’s attempts to take my father’s place filled me with resentment, and throughout my childhood I never accepted him or felt he accepted or liked me.
I left home at 18 to pursue my goal of a church career by attending a Lutheran bible school in Los Angeles. Although I felt close to God there, I continued to feel what I’d felt all through high school: that I was inferior and didn’t belong anywhere. Although I tried to fit in, I mostly felt like an outsider. And while I still had very conservative values, I grew increasingly afraid I had homosexual feelings that weren’t going away.
At age 20 I went to a small church college in Nebraska where I fell deeply in love—not with that future minister I had always planned to marry, but with a woman. Even though I had feared this, it was now impossible to deny this reality in my life. I was scared, and before the end of the school year I got engaged to an old high school boyfriend to make myself feel as if I was really OK. When I consulted my favorite minister at the bible school, I was told to “pray about it.” I did pray a lot, and broke my engagement (fortunately for him). Then I tried dating several other men to see if I could change. Nothing changed, and everything changed. I no longer felt close to God, no longer felt God loved me as I was, and I turned my back on the church and God.
I went back to college, began studying psychology, and grew extremely depressed and often suicidal. It was then that I discovered alcohol. Alcohol, amazingly, made my feelings of inferiority, unacceptability and shyness disappear. I felt as if I had found the answer to my problems. Alcohol, in conjunction with my many different relationships with women, became my new interest in life and replaced my relationship with God.
After college, I went to Seattle to study for a degree at a school of social work. I had no interest in that profession, but I had a scholarship and wanted to get away from Los Angeles for a while. I did so much drinking there that my family got worried, and a fellow student told me that I was drinking alcoholically. I thought this was ludicrous and continued to drink, enjoying the sense of belonging that alcohol gave me. When I returned to Los Angeles, I continued my pursuit of happiness and security through alcohol and relationships. I had no interest in my profession; in fact, I was scared of the people I was supposed to be helping. I often hid out in my office after a night of drinking, hoping I wouldn’t be called on to meet with a family in crisis.
I had my own crisis going on. I had been in what I thought was a monogamous relationship for four years when it suddenly became clear that there was someone else in her life. I didn’t have the self-esteem to leave the relationship, so I agreed to share, even going so far as to agree to an every-other-day-together schedule. It was demoralizing and demeaning, and I drank more and more. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise because after a year, the pain of that period in my life turned out to be the impetus that got me to Alcoholics Anonymous.
At the time, I was taking an alcoholic friend to AA to help her. I loved the meetings but considered myself only a visitor. I enjoyed the fellowship, loved the birthdays, and admired newcomers receiving chips for their sobriety. I even wished that I were an alcoholic so I could belong. Then I would go home and read the Big Book while I sipped my wine, never acknowledging that I had a problem. It was Tradition Three that brought me in. Things got so bad in my life I thought that maybe if I stopped drinking for a while I could get it together. Since Tradition Three states that the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking, I didn’t have to be an alcoholic. I did want to stop drinking—for a while anyway. I couldn’t imagine how I would ever have any fun or enjoy my life again without drinking. And although I identified myself as an alcoholic at meetings because it was the acceptable thing to do, it took me years of sobriety before I really believed I was an alcoholic.
What I found in Alcoholics Anonymous was, ironically, what I had been looking for all of my life. I found acceptance, love, and support beyond measure, a new definition of my Higher Power, and Twelve Steps to work and follow, which have never let me down in over 20 years of sobriety. I came in feeling that any admission of weakness would make me look bad. What I found out instead was that it is OK to be human!
My definition of God has changed also. I now have a relationship with a God who loves me unconditionally and accepts every part of me just as I am—including my sexuality. Acceptance of myself in this area has brought an end to the struggle and pain of trying to change into something I was not. I now have good friends who have been with me through good and bad times, an unusually supportive family and work that I find both satisfying and enjoyable. Professionally, I coordinate an HIV testing program for children and adolescents, which gives me a feeling of being of service. I am also employed as an organist in a Lutheran church that chooses to be inclusive of all people and is especially welcoming to gays. And for 13 years, I have been in a relationship with a woman who is a member of Al-Anon. I have found that relationships don’t just happen, they require work, commitment, love, the help of good friends, and, most important, an attempt to accept each other as is. We each work our respective programs, and have built a life together around the process of recovery that keeps getting better all the time.
Copyright © The AA Grapevine, Inc. November 2014 Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. To subscribe to AA Grapevine, please visit https://www.aagrapevine.org
Convention Member Stories
The Vancouver Convention was the fourth international convention I have attended. Starting with Toronto, Canada has been filled with Pride in recovery. GaL-AA has always had the greatest speakers that I can relate to. I have always loved the wonderful welcoming center that GaL-AA provides, and the badge pin I receive there always feels like it shines the brightest. The armbands, pins, and coins are my prize possessions. Instead of clapping I always wave my pride flag with a yo-hoo! of course. Having always been a member of a Gay AA group for more than 24 years, going to Roundups like FRU in South Florida, Living Sober in San Francisco, etc. GaL-AA is icing on the cake. A dream I lived to see in my lifetime. Not only every five years but now throughout the internet. I consider GaL-AA my sober family. Thanks to everyone who makes this possible. God bless you all, I love you!
Dennis J.
I went to my first meeting in 1981 in New Orleans, where I’m originally from, and started actually getting sober in 1986-87, where I met Garth, who’d been sober, I think, for one month. He became a lifelong friend. He stayed sober; I did not. We lost contact for about 15 years. He had been told I had died, and he had mourned my passing. I was happy to quote Mark Twain when we regained contact when I got sober, this time in 2009, that, “Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
I moved to NYC in 1994 and started drinking again. I was in and out from 1994 to 2009. I call the “aughts” my out-out period, as I was intractable and committed to the idea that I’d NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER go back to Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). I’d drink myself to death and be done with it.
When I did get sober again on June 8, 2009, I was overwhelmed with guilt, shame, and remorse, acknowledging the horrible things I had said and believed about AA as I witnessed, once again, people like me being carried by the selfless, unconditional love found in the Program. Something happened this time around for me. Miraculously, magically, I found surrender, and even though I never believed it was possible, I found a life beyond my wildest dreams. It was clear as glass to me that every promise in the list had come true for me, except one: that I would not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. I had come to accept that I could never embrace my wayward path through sobriety, having gotten sober so many times for various periods—a couple of years here, multiple months there—and yet having thrown it away so cavalierly and with such contempt and arrogance. Someone once said to me, hearing me bemoan the truth about my story in AA, that, “God writes straight with crooked lines.” That was really helpful, but I still never thought I’d be able to accept the reality of my journey.
On Sunday night, after the convention had ended, I got to go to dinner with my sponsor Robin, his wife Carmen, my sponsor’s sponsor Randy, Dan, and another dear friend, Garth, who had gotten sober at 17 and stayed sober (he’s now 58). Garth, who is actually Canadian and had moved back to Vancouver many years ago, was there too. Dan was someone who had taken me under his wing very early on when I returned to NYC meetings. Robin had opened up entire worlds to me that I just KNEW I’d lost, but that’s another story. Sitting there at the table, showered with so much love, security, respect, and contentment, I suddenly realized that my past was a continuum with the present; that the past and the present were merged, and that none of my relapses mattered now; that I was sober NOW; that I was joyous NOW; I was contented, comfortable in my own skin NOW, and was surrounded by my “peeps” who make up part of the bedrock of my “daily reprieve”—NOW! I, of course, got weepy (in the restaurant, they all know I’m a crier in my joy), knowing that I no longer needed to “regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it.”
Sixteen and a half years into it again (I’m now 71), and I still can’t believe I’m alive, that I made it this far and have survived my own life, and, goddamn it, I’M SOBER!
AA is a helluva trip!
Pierre L.
Member AA Anniversaries
To add or edit your sobriety date, click on the link in the email you received from us. It is in the footer of the email where it says “update your preferences”. If you are not an email registered member yet, please click here to sign up.
Name Date Years
Adam | D | October 12, 2024 | 1 |
Ashley and | G | October 29, 2017 | 8 |
Brielle | C | October 7, 2019 | 6 |
Calvin | N | October 3, 2021 | 4 |
Christopher | B | October 10, 1988 | 37 |
Claire | B | October 20, 2020 | 5 |
Clifford | Q | October 27, 1985 | 40 |
D | C | October 31, 1986 | 39 |
Daniel | S | October 23, 1994 | 31 |
Daryl | G | October 9, 1986 | 39 |
Debbie | C | October 1, 2007 | 18 |
Dustan | B | October 4, 2024 | 1 |
Eric | F | October 1, 2010 | 15 |
Eric | P | October 11, 2011 | 14 |
Florante | S | October 5, 1999 | 26 |
Frank | R | October 9, 2014 | 11 |
James | A | October 22, 2010 | 15 |
Jhe | T | October 11, 2003 | 22 |
Joan | R | October 3, 2002 | 23 |
JoDee | H | October 23, 2018 | 7 |
John | R | October 2, 2014 | 11 |
John | H | October 22, 2023 | 2 |
Leo | R | October 8, 1995 | 30 |
Leo | R | October 8, 1995 | 30 |
Linda | V | October 13, 1989 | 36 |
Liz | S | October 8, 2015 | 10 |
Loretta | M | October 4, 1992 | 33 |
Marie | S | October 19, 1978 | 47 |
Michael | M | October 29, 2021 | 4 |
Peter | S | October 31, 1994 | 31 |
Richard | W | October 16, 1991 | 34 |
Rick | D | October 6, 2024 | 1 |
Shaun | G | October 21, 2016 | 9 |
Steve | P | October 12, 1995 | 30 |
Theodore | T | October 11, 1998 | 27 |
Valerie | A | October 31, 1987 | 38 |
Vivian | B | October 18, 1987 | 38 |
Wilson | T | October 1, 2016 | 9 |
GaL-AA's Spotlight On Sobriety 10/05/2025
The Spotlight On Sobriety features personal stories, articles and reflections submitted by members and friends of the fellowship. The views expressed are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent those of Alcoholics Anonymous or GaL-AA.
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