My name is Barry and I am an alcoholic.

Earlier today, a friend asked, "How do you stay sober when you are thinking of drinking?" I said we need to use the tools. When we first come to AA, we are given a huge bag of tools. It is up to us to use them. The first tool I found is meetings. Meetings saved my butt many times. I was told to go to 90 meetings in 90 days. I went to over 200 meetings my first 90 days, and at least 10 meetings a week for my first year. That helped me to build a foundation of what to do when I thought about drinking. And for me, that was often. During my first four years in sobriety, I thought about drinking every day. What I did not do was drink one day at a time. All those slogans are great tools. My favorite is "Don't Drink and go to meetings." That is what Bill W told my sponsor Tommy when he was new, and it still works today. Then we have all of these great books and pamphlets put out by AA World Services. The Big Book is great, and there are many other books, which I personally love. Sponsors are a wonderful tool! I was told to get a sponsor in my first week, and went through many of them over the years. And I still have one for over 29 years who is still working with me. What a great program! There are tapes and magazines published by the Grapevine. We have so many tools that AA has given us, that there are no reasons for us to pick up. Oh, there are many excuses but not one good reason. If we want it bad enough we will stay sober no matter what. We have this huge toolbox to use. I have only mentioned a few. Thank you for letting me share.

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