Not sure how to start this essay. Is this an essay? NO! I am just sharing my experience, strength, and hope. I am doing this because I was asked to be of service and my sponsor always told me (well, he always suggested) that I never turn down a service request. So I guess I will start with the usual introduction. I am an alcoholic and my name is Levey. This wasn’t always easy for me to say, let alone write it out in black and white. The reason I start my introduction with the statement that I am an alcoholic, and then state my name, is because if I ever forget what I am then it will not matter who I am.
I will share a little bit about what it was like. I was born in Oradea, Romania and living in a Romanian country as a Hungarian during the communist era wasn’t easy. I started sipping wine in my grandfather’s wine cellar at a very early age. At the age of 11, we moved to the United States. Talk about culture shock and feelings of insecurities. I had my first black-out drunk at the age of 12. The following week, I stole two bottles of whiskey from the local grocery store and proceeded to drink one of them on the way home. Black-out number two. Looking back and knowing what I know now, I started drinking alcoholically at that age. I drank beyond rational consumption. I drank for affect and not taste. I had my first driving under the influence arrest at the age of 16 and while going to court for that arrest, I received my second arrest for the same violation. BUT, it wasn’t my fault. I was a victim of my circumstances. I was a teenager that liked to party. So what? I drank a little too much and too often. At the age of 16, I also started using other mind- and mood-altering substances to enhance the effects of alcohol. I served 6 months in a juvenile detention facility, and was released shortly after my 18th birthday. For the next 10-plus years I spent the majority of my time in various State Prisons throughout the state of California. All of these arrests, in one way or another, were directly related to my addiction. My oldest daughter was born during one of my incarcerations and I celebrated by getting drunk in jail.
I was also introduced to AA while incarcerated. Now let’s get something clear: I didn’t go to those meetings because I wanted to stay sober. I went because they had coffee and doughnuts, and sometimes, they even had female speakers. This is a program of attraction and at that time in my miserable life, that’s what attracted me. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending how you want to look at it, I did hear the message. It wasn’t quite clear, but I did hear something along the lines that if I wanted to quit drinking, they could help. Upon my release, I attended a few meetings just to check it out. Plus, I was told that there were good looking sober girls there. I never gave the program a chance. I looked at all the differences and not the similarities, from the parking lot. I did meet a beautiful girl there and against the advice of all our friends, we got married and started to build a family. I became her husband and instant father to her two year old daughter. Shortly after that, we were blessed with twins: a boy and a girl. Life got good for us both and we both quit going to meetings.
I had a decent job and in 2001, we moved from Southern California to Northern California. I continued to progress at work and at one point I even taught at the local apprenticeship. This is when my drinking started again with the guys after a hard week’s work. We started to get our kids involved in various extracurricular after school activities. My daughters were involved in cheerleading, while my son played football and baseball. I was a football and baseball coach. My wife coached the girl’s cheer team. It was only natural for me to drink with the other kid’s parents at fundraisers and various back yard parties. Why not? They were responsible adults who enjoyed a few drinks. I was also a responsible adult, only with one small difference: I could not just have a few drinks. Before I knew it, I was once again drinking beyond rational consumption, but now I could justify and rationalize my behavior. We had all the things that made us look good on the outside. I had a good job, beautiful wife and kids, a nice home, nice cars. I was living the American dream, so I thought. With all these things, I still felt an emptiness inside. I tried to fill this emptiness with alcohol and it worked for a short while. My disease progressed rapidly from weekend binge drinking to daily drinking. I ignored all the signs that my drinking was getting out of control because, in my mind, it really wasn’t. I never missed time from work and never missed any activities that the kids were involved in. In my mind I was still fulfilling my responsibilities as an employee, a husband, and a father. Maybe not to the best of my ability but I was fulfilling them.
October 14, 2011 was a Friday night and not any different from many other Friday nights. I got off work and on the way home I picked up some beer. I needed a few drinks before my wife and I went out to our local microbrewery. At the brewery, I drank in my usual manner: beyond reasonable consumption. At closing time, my wife informed me that on the way home we would stop at another bar to meet some friends. I was in no condition to go anywhere, but I agreed. The drinking continued at the bar. This is where things get a little blurry in my mind. At some point that night, I assaulted my wife while in a complete blackout. The following morning, I once again woke up on the cold concrete floor of a jail cell that was all too familiar from my younger days. What did I do? How did I end up in jail again after nearly twenty years? When the police told me all the things that I was charged with, I was sure that they must be talking about someone else. There was no way that I could or would have done all those things. I was not a violent drunk. Sure, there were those isolated instances where my behavior had gotten out of control but how could I have assaulted my wife, the mother of my children, my best friend? My behavior had also put my kids in danger.
The following day my wife and kids came to visit me in jail. Sitting behind a thick, glass partition I saw the pain and disbelief in my wife’s and kid’s eyes. Remorse, guilt, shame, embarrassment rolled over me. You know, that moment the Big Book calls “incomprehensible demoralization”. To hear these words from my kids: “Dad! You really scared us last night. We have never seen you act like that.” Then came the statement from my son that I believe changed my life forever. “Dad, I think you have a drinking problem and you should do something about it. I think you should stop drinking.” I didn’t want to and I didn’t think that I could. However, I also knew that in order to make sure that the events of the previous night never happened again, I had to stop drinking. I was out of options. I was powerless over alcohol – the first part of Step 1. At that point, I made a decision to try and quit.
The following week, my wife and friends posted my bail. Upon release, I contacted my union representative who gave me the phone number to the substance abuse department. I picked up that “five-ton phone” and made the phone call. I told the counselor that I might have a drinking problem, and that I needed help. She referred me to an outpatient rehab for those with a substance abuse problem. I immediately enrolled and started attending counseling sessions every night of the week after work. I soon learned that one of the requirements to graduate was that I had to start going to AA and I had to get a sponsor. I received a meeting schedule and picked out the two meetings that I would attend that weekend. I picked a Saturday and Sunday morning meeting so that I would have the rest of the days off. I just wanted to get it out of the way. That Saturday morning, the punctual person that I am, I got to the meeting early. It was a men’s stag meeting. I didn’t want anyone to know just how scared, embarrassed, and ashamed I was, so I sat in the back. Fortunately, it was a small room which shortly filled to standing room only. I was surrounded by a group of men who were clearly having fun and enjoying life. That meeting changed my life forever. That was the first time that I honestly admitted that I was an alcoholic by standing up and introducing myself as one. It wasn’t of my own doing. It was the God of my understanding doing for me what I could not do for myself. That was the meeting where I found just a glimmer of hope. That was the meeting where I heard that they could not teach me how not to drink but they could show me a way to live sober. WOW!! What a concept. I made some lifelong friendships at that meeting. I got a sponsor at that meeting. That sponsor started taking me through the Steps. The Steps started to give me more hope. Hope that I too could live sober. Two months later, my wife also got sober because she saw the positive changes in me. What a blessing!!
As all this was happening, I was still facing criminal charges. I was looking at the possibility of spending nineteen years in prison. I was scared. Not so much for myself, but for my wife and kids. I had taken the first two Steps and we were working on the Third Step. I had done some writing to find a God of my understanding and to whom I would be willing to turn my will and my life over to. I found a loving, caring, understanding, and forgiving God. I remember that night, as clearly as if it was yesterday, as I sat and repeated the Third Step Prayer. Not “word for word” out of the book but something very similar. Once I did that, a great weight was lifted off my shoulders. I made that decision – it wasn’t made for me. It was the best decision of my life. Now, I wish I could tell you that the God of my understanding took care of everything. I wish I could tell you that we’ve had a great relationship ever since. It hasn’t been so. Just like any other relationship, it takes work. Since that day, I have taken my will and my life back from Him on numerous occasions because He “wasn’t acting right”. His plans were different then my plans. What was He thinking?? I finished taking all the Steps with that sponsor. I will forever be grateful to him. Through the Steps, service and the example of all the men that God has put in my life, I am a better man today than I was yesterday.
I ended up getting a 40 month sentence. It wasn’t what I wanted but this is one of those times when God had other plans for me. There was no AA when I got to prison. It was discontinued due to lack of funds. While there, I was visited by an immigration officer. He told me that because I never got my citizenship during the 37 years that I lived in the good ol’ U.S.A., along with my extensive record going back thirty years (despite a 20 year break between the last two incarcerations) coupled with my conviction for a violent crime, the U.S. Government was starting a deportation procedure against me. I turned it over to God because it was just too much for me to handle. I rounded up a few of the guys in the prison that were recovery-oriented. We started an AA meeting with about 8 guys attending the first meeting. When I left a little less than two years later, the weekly average attendance was 70. God gave me the opportunity to be of service. I don’t know if any of those men are sober today. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that I had the opportunity to help plant the seed and, more importantly, it kept me sober.
After I was released from prison, the federal government took me into custody and started deportation procedures against me. My wife and I hired an attorney who promised us that he could take care of everything. After all, I had been in the U.S. for 37 years, had an American citizen wife, and three kids, all citizens. Every plan that my wife and I made fell apart…every one of them. Every motion the attorney turned in was denied. I started to really question God. My wife continued to remind me of the decision I had made: to let Him be in control. She kept telling me to have faith. She was my rock during some hard times. She held the family together. The attorney finally convinced us that it would be easier for me to leave and return to the U.S. as the spouse of a U.S. citizen than to fight deportation. This was after 10 months in the custody of the federal government. We just wanted our family together again. Was that too much to ask for? God had other plans!
I ended up getting deported to Romania – a country that I had not been to in 37 years. I didn’t even speak the language. My wife met me there the following day. We enjoyed a two week vacation which by far was the best “alone time” that my wife and I spent together in almost 20 years. We also learned that it was going to take some time to get my identification and passport. She continued to tell me to have faith. Acceptance was a word we both used often. She said that if for some reason I could not get back to the U.S., the following summer she would pack up and move to Europe. We just wanted our family together. On the advice of our attorney, we made plans to meet in Mexico where we could go to the U.S. Embassy and get my visa to return. I got my passport and we had a day set when we would meet in Mexico at our friend’s house. She would drive down with the kids. I was flying in from Budapest, Hungary where I was staying with relatives. She and the kids arrived and were waiting for me at the airport. God had other plans!
As I got off the plane and had my passport inspected, I was taken to a questioning area. I was denied entry to Mexico because of my criminal convictions in America. They put me on the next plane back to Budapest – frustrated and angry. Yet I could hear my wife’s voice: “faith, acceptance…”
After I arrived back in Budapest, my wife and I spoke and she told me that maybe God wanted us to live in Europe for a reason, and that she was OK with that. We once again made plans for her to get everything handled in the U.S. and she would move here the following summer. I would find work and a place for us to live in Budapest. God had other plans!
On her way home from Mexico, my wife was in a fatal car accident. I got the news around 3 a.m. in the morning. My world came crashing down. I felt angry and betrayed by God. How could this possibly be part of His plan? I yelled at Him. I cussed at Him. I questioned His decision. I refused to talk with Him for days, or maybe even weeks. I lost my wife, my best friend, the mother of my children. I felt alone. At one point, although I know she had no control over the accident, I was even angry with my wife. The phone calls and messages started to pour in from friends in the program. The people in the fellowship, my AA family, surrounded my children. The genuine concern and care is indescribable. Through all the feelings and emotions, the one thing that never crossed my mind was to get drunk. My obsession and desire to drink had been removed and deep down I knew that a drink would not fix anything. A drink would not bring my wife back. I contacted the U.S. Embassy and attempted to get an emergency visa so that I could return to the U.S. God had other plans! Denied!!! I wasn’t able to return to make funeral arrangements and to say good bye. The pain was almost unbearable. I felt loneliness like I had never felt before.
Even though I had once again abandoned God, He never abandoned me. He carried me. He, the fellowship, and my program kept me sober. As time passed, I started talking with God again. I asked for the knowledge of His will for me and, most importantly, for the power to carry it out. I asked for His guidance. I talked to my wife and forgave her. I asked for her forgiveness. I stayed in close contact with my support group of men. I cried, I grieved and, most importantly, I stayed sober. I tried to say good bye to my wife, but as of right now, I still haven’t been able to. Deep down I am still hoping that I will wake up and realize that this is all just a bad dream – more like a nightmare. This might be a lifelong process.
In the days and weeks following, I got really involved in the program. I accepted a service position at my home group: the English Speaking Group of Budapest. After a few weeks, I was able to talk about this openly with my new support group in Hungary. I knew that only through action was I going to get through this because this is a program of action. I cannot change the past but I can find spiritual healing through the Steps.
It hasn’t been easy by any means. I still find myself on the emotional rollercoaster ride. I have good days and I have bad days. There are days when I am alone at home and I just break down and cry. I was told that it was ok to cry – that it cleanses the soul. I no longer look at crying as a sign of weakness. Today, I am able to feel pain and emotions and I don’t have to – or want to – numb these feelings with alcohol. Nobody ever told me or promised me that living sober was going to be easy. The only thing that I was promised was freedom from the grips of the deadly disease of alcoholism – a freedom that I got through taking the Twelve Steps of this program. Service and action is my motto.
I was elected as the group representative and I had the privilege to represent Budapest at the CER Regional Assembly in Zagreb in December 2015. Once again, I was surrounded by men and women who take this program of action very seriously. I believe, and this is just my opinion, that those who attend meetings regularly, practice the principals of this program, and live a life of recovery through service and unity have a better chance at staying sober.
So what is God’s plan for me? I don’t know. What I do know is that as long as I trust in Him and believe in Him, I can get through anything. There is my will, your will, and His will. His will for me is my reality. He brought me to this point and He will see me through this. My life is not what I would like it to be but it sure beats the alternative.
I am very grateful and honored to share this with you in writing. This has helped me tremendously with my healing process. Hopefully, someone somewhere will get something out of this – one more day of sobriety, if nothing else. Thank you all for being a part of my journey.
Levey P.
Budapest, Hungary
Editor’s note: this article has been published in accordance with our ArenA Editorial Policy.