Editor's note: The following is the last of a three-part series on a local man's journey with alcoholism.
When Perry T. was released from prison June 10, 2002, he did not realize the birthday of Alcoholics Anonymous was the same day in 1935. "I found that ironic," he said.
AA was the lifeline Perry T. needed, and he jumped into it with both feet.
"For seven or eight years I lived and breathed AA. It meant everything to me." The reason was that his sobriety meant everything.
"If I lose that it ain't gonna be long before I'm drunk or dead or in jail." To avoid all those outcomes, he began working the famous 12 steps of AA.
Perry T. explained all 12 steps and talked about what he had to do to move through them.
Step one: I have to admit I am powerless over alcohol and that my life has become unmanageable.
"By unmanageable I don't mean while I'm drinking but when I'm not drinking. When I'm drinking it's just fine because it takes everything away. I don't worry about nothin'."
He described this first step as the only perfect one. "The others I'll be working on as long as I'm on this planet."
Step two: I must come to believe that a power greater than me could restore me to sanity.
"My way didn't work. My way took me to prison, and I thought I was a pretty sharp guy. Maybe God can, and I think I'll let him try."
Step three: I turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand him.
"The key there is 'as I understand him,' because of religious ideas we were taught but didn't grasp. I thought not of a loving God but of a vengeful God who would make me pay for my sins. That's the only thing I could think of from early religion. I had to come to a God I could talk to. I got on my knees, and I asked God to relieve me of the bondage of self."
Step four: I made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself. "We have to write down what we're mad at. Resentments kept me drunk a long time," he said.
"I had to look at my fears, my resentments, and my sex conduct. With those things I used to hurt people. I found out the root of my problem was selfishness--it's all me, me, me. My alcoholism is all me, me, me. You don't matter. I had to find my part in it. A lot of it was of my own making."
This step is a difficult one. Many will not do it, but it is vital.
"As an alcoholic I would take these resentments and it was like layers, and the layers piled up so much I couldn't see the light of day, and I sure couldn't get the sunlight of the spirit," he said.
"Working through my fears, my resentments, and my sex conduct peeled away all those layers, and I was finally able to breathe the sunlight of the spirit.
Step five: I had to admit to God, to myself, and to another human being the exact nature of my wrongs. "I have to look at another individual and tell him exactly what I did. I did that and it was freeing. There's a lot of therapy in those two steps."
Step six: I have to be entirely ready to have God remove all those defects of character.
"Am I willing to move forward? If I'm not I have to ask God to help me be willing."
Step seven: I must humbly ask him to remove my shortcomings. "I ask God to remove my handicaps and my prejudice. I've learned over the years that
"God will answer every prayer. It may not be what I want to hear. Sometimes it might be no or not now. Maybe he won't take something because I'm not ready to give it up."
Step eight: I've made a list of all persons I harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. "I've got to make amends. What I've torn down I've got to mend. Am I willing to do that?"
Step nine: I've made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
"The key word there is 'wherever.' It's not 'whenever,' or we'd never do it. It needs to be face to face if at all possible. It may not be possible. Some people may have died."
Step ten: I continue to take personal inventory, and when I am wrong promptly admit it. "One thing I lost was my ability to pray. The book tells me how to do that again. I do that every day."
Step eleven: I've sought through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God as I understand him, praying only for the knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry it out.
"I have to improve this new inner resource that I have through working these steps. I've learned that my gratitude is the hinge on which my sobriety swings. If I don't have that, I won't keep it."
Step twelve: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, I try to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all my affairs.
Of this spiritual awakening, "This took a while. I had to learn. Some get this quickly, but for most it's a process. It comes slow."
It's not enough for the alcoholic to work through the steps. Families of alcoholics are in need of help too.
"My family knows I'll drag them through the mud. They can't save me; they can't fix me. They tried that, but it didn't work.
"What they need to do is push me away. That's the best thing they can do for themselves. Push me away because I'm going to ruin your life. An alcoholic makes everybody around them sick."
That is the reason for the founding of Al-Anon. Family members work the same 12 steps.
"They work on themselves because I made them just as sick as I made me," he said.
Perry T. still goes to AA meetings. It is not the only way to get sober, but it worked for him, and it has worked for millions more. AA is self-supporting, receiving no outside funds.
To get help 24 hours a day, call 573-712-0333. To find information about AA meetings in Southeast Missouri, go to www.district8aa.org. The national website is www.aa.org.
Remember this: "You can't look at someone and say he's an alcoholic," he explained.
"It may be your sister, your brother, your mother, your father, an aunt, uncle, or person sitting next to you at church. You don't know them."
Because of alcohol, Perry T. experienced the darkness of ruin. Through the 12 steps of AA, he discovered the light of redemption. He found something else that many never do.
He found purpose.
"I've come to find out I'm here for two reasons and two reasons only: to serve God and to serve my fellow man. It took me going to prison to figure that out, and it took AA to help me figure that out."