It’s strange how a simple sentence can spark something deep inside. Today, someone shared in a meeting, “I didn’t come to AA to change me—I only came to stop drinking.” And just like that, I was taken right back to the beginning of my recovery, and even further back into the mindset I carried during my drinking. For the longest time, I believed there was nothing wrong with me. It was everyone else who had the problem. The world was too noisy, too demanding, too cruel. I drank to escape them, not to deal with myself. I didn’t need fixing—they did.
When I first picked up a drink, it felt like I’d discovered the perfect tool to survive the world. Alcohol became my armour. It dulled the sharp edges of life and allowed me to tolerate the chaos outside and the storm inside. Without it, I was always on edge—hyper-sensitive, irritable, full of anxiety that started the moment I opened my eyes. And if I managed to white-knuckle through a few hours without drinking, it usually took just one small trigger to send me right back to the bottle. In my head, it was always someone else’s fault. They pushed me there. They made me drink.
But then, I reached a point of surrender—total, desperate surrender. I came to AA broken, and I was finally willing to try something different. I got a sponsor, and I started working the steps. Steps 1 through 3 helped me start building a foundation. I admitted my powerlessness, began to accept that a power greater than myself might be able to restore me to sanity, and then made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of that power—my God, as I came to understand Him.
Then came Step 4: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. I won’t lie—this one scared the life out of me. Writing it felt like dragging every skeleton out of the closet and laying them out, one by one, under bright lights. Resentments, fears, harms I’d caused, shame I’d buried. It was all there. For the first time, I started to see the patterns—how much of my pain was rooted in self-centred fear, pride, and dishonesty. And how often I had blamed others to avoid looking at myself.
Then came Step 5: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. That step broke something open in me. Sitting with my sponsor, speaking those words aloud—some of which I’d sworn I’d take to the grave—was terrifying at first, but ultimately liberating. He didn’t judge me. He listened. He reflected things back to me I hadn’t even seen. He told me hard truths I needed to hear. And in doing so, he helped me see that I wasn’t evil or broken beyond repair—I was sick, and I was human.
I remember sitting at home the day after, completely emptied out. Not in a bad way—but like I’d finally put down a weight I’d been dragging around for years. I felt a deep remorse for the ways I’d lived, thought, and acted. But it wasn’t a self-pitying kind of shame—it was the kind of remorse that can spark transformation. For the first time, I saw how my thinking, my character defects, and my inability to live honestly had caused most of my suffering. I realised the real escape I needed wasn’t from the world—it was from the prison of my own ego and fear.
That was the turning point. From then on, my goal wasn’t just to stop drinking. It was to change from the inside out. And as I continued the rest of the steps, and sought deeper connection with my Higher Power, something amazing started to happen: the world began to change. Not because it had actually changed, but because I had.
The people who used to wind me up and make my skin crawl are now the people I often learn the most from. I find myself enjoying simple, everyday interactions—especially with strangers, which used to terrify me. My anxiety has eased massively. Sure, it still shows up sometimes, but now I recognise it for what it is: a chemical wobble, not a spiritual crisis. And I don’t need to drown it in alcohol anymore.
That obsessive need to escape? That constant compulsion to blur the edges of my reality? It’s gone. When the tough days come—and they still do—I’ve got other tools now: prayer, meditation, the steps, sharing with others, service, friendship, and a growing relationship with a Higher Power – My God, who’s never let me down.
So yeah, I came to AA for my drinking. But what I got was a completely new way of living. A new way of thinking. A new way of being in the world. That little one-liner we hear so often in meetings hits me differently now: “I came for my drinking, but I stayed for my thinking.” And I’m staying—for good.
I Stayed For My Thinking
A gentle falling of words,
a leaf landing on tranquil water,
ripples inward, vast and deep.
"Not to change me," the words hung,
"only to stop drinking."
A doorway opens.
The self, a fortress built of blame,
walls against a noisy world.
The fault, always elsewhere.
The drink, a shield,
dulling the barbs of existence,
silencing inner chaos.
Without it, rawness,
a thin skin stretched taut,
giving at the slightest touch.
Triggers, small hammers,
shattering fragile abstinence,
returning the numbing tide.
Surrender, a quiet fall,
broken at the gate,
willingness, a shower in the desert.
Steps, a path unwinding,
powerlessness acknowledged,
a greater current sensed.
The mirror of inventory,
skeletons revealed in stark light,
resentment's bitter root.
Fear, pride, dishonesty,
the architects of suffering,
blame, a convenient shadow.
Confession, a spoken truth,
to self, to other, to the unseen,
a breaking, a release.
Emptiness follows,
not hollow, but spacious,
a weight lifted, unseen.
Remorse, not for pity,
but a turning of the heart,
a dawning awareness.
The prison, not the world,
but the self's tight cage,
ego and fear the jailers.
The goal shifts,
beyond the stopping,
inward transformation begins.
The world, unchanged,
yet seen anew,
through clearer eyes.
Annoyances soften,
strangers become kin,
anxiety, a passing cloud.
The obsession fades,
the need to blur, dissolves,
new tools emerge.
Prayer, silence, the steps walked,
shared burdens, helping hands,
a connection deepens.
The drinking, the entry point,
but the staying, the becoming,
a life reborn from simple words.
