Dry January Highlights One Man’s Decades Long Journey to Sobriety

Next, this month is called Dry January, based on a tradition of abstaining from alcohol for the whole month after the holidays. NDD's Daniel Monahan spoke with a member of Alcoholics Anonymous about the damage alcohol caused in his life and how he found his way out. Have a look. Yeah, my name is Eddie B. I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Eddie B. was surrounded by alcohol growing up. All my family drank, and as a child, that's what I aspired to. I aspired to being able to hang out with my brothers and my family in the bar. He liked the effects in the beginning. It just gave me that extra push to be somebody who I was not. It gave me a lot more confidence to boast and to be able to brag about myself. I never had that before. I was always a quiet young man. But what seemed like fun soon became a habit. I was starting to get into fights in bars. I was starting to become the tough guy. I was starting to hang out with people that I shouldn't have been with. I started to get arrested. Eddie joined the Navy to try to escape the mounting problems, but the drinking continued there for another ten years. One day an epiphany came as the suffering mounted. To this day, I still don't know what it was, but all I know is I dropped to my knees in the middle of the street, in Brooklyn Street, with traffic whizzing by me. And I was just done. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. The Navy put him into a detox, and he soon started attending AA meetings. When you're able to listen and to share the same problems with another human being, it works somehow. His friends from the bar disappeared. I had to find new friends and a new lifestyle within the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Yeah, it's not all fun and games all the time. It's about living life. And this thing called life is not for weaklings. You gotta be pretty strong. Step four of the AA program encourages one to make a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself. I had to be open and honest and really tell all my deep, dark secrets to another human being. And that was my sponsor. And I told him everything. And then we wrote down, who did I harm? You know, I mean, besides, you know, I would steal off my mother as a child, and I would steal from the jobs, but who else did I hurt? And how did I hurt them? Eddie's two brothers were also alcoholics. He managed to help one get sober, who stayed dry for 17 years before passing away. The other one wasn't as lucky. I found him underneath the bridge, and I had him in my arms. And he looked at me in my eyes, and he said, I'm tired, I'm tired. I knew what he meant. I threw everything at him, I got him to rehabs, detoxes, I got him to meetings, and he just couldn't hold on. And he died in my arms that night. Eddie has reaped the benefits of clean living, he has been sober for 40 years, had a career in financial planning, and raised his children, who have all graduated from college. I have a good life today. I just bought a property, and I'm building a new house. I've gone from foreclosing on a house to building a new house. And that's just, that's materialistic. That's one of the rewards. I call it a reward. That's a reward for me doing the right next thing. Eddie's message to alcoholics who are still suffering is that sobriety works, and it's a better life than the one you're leading now. Daniel Monahan, NTD News.