steps

Mickey was hunched over in his recliner, oxygen pumping into his nose.  His heavy New Yorker accent contrasted with the woodsy setting of his trailer.  He muttered responses to my questions, not sure what to do with a chaplain in the house.  And then I asked him how he had moved Asheville...

He started drinking when he was eight.  There were plenty of ways a young, fatherless boy in Brooklyn could get in trouble, and Mickey found all of them.  He dropped out of high school and was in and out of jail.  He fathered three children, but couldn't keep jobs long enough to support them.  He lived on the street.  Desperate for money to get his next drink, he accepted a bet to flash a group of tourists.  His friends thought this was a hoot.  But he got arrested for indecent exposure.  The judge was debating a 5 day jail sentence, but Mickey realized he would still be hung over when he got out.  This downward spiral couldn't last much longer.  "Help me", he said to the judge. His lawyer told him to shut up.  "Do you really want help?" asked the judge.  "Yes." said Mickey.  

"I didn't even realize it but I was making the first step in that courtroom.  I was admitting that I was powerless over alcohol - that my life had become unmanageable.  That kind judge sentenced me to a 40 day treatment facility.  It was there that I learned the next step.  I came to believe that a power greater then me could restore me to sanity.  And halfway through that detox process I made a decision to turn my will and my life over to God as I understood him."

Mickey left the home he had known for 25 years, to reconnect with his children and find steady work. It was incredibly hard to stay sober, to make amends, and to change his life.  His AA meetings twice a week became his church, his community and his life line.

"I've been sober now for 37 years. I am in contact with all my kids.  I'm at peace.  Not a day goes by where I don't think of that judge.  Guess he saw that I was desperate and willing, and he gave me another chance."

And Mickey took that chance, one step at a time, out of the ugliness and pain. One step at a time into the beauty of fresh starts and daily grace.