AA completely changed me. Before AA, I wasn’t a criminal but I did break the law by buying and smoking crack with plenty of powder and alcohol almost every day including getting high and driving. I also might have picked up a hooker or two. I can only recall stealing twice. Once, me and two friends made a beer run. I was out the door fast but they caught my friend. And anyways, the 12-pack I was carrying ripped and all the beer just went rolling down the sidewalk and I didn’t get any of it. And I stole a car.
But other than all that, I was a stellar citizen.
Starting when I was about 16 I hated cops. All they wanted to do was wreck my fun. Never mind that my “fun” was mostly illegal, I still resented them. My whole addiction was about avoiding cops.
But in 1990 I joined AA. I was 29 and I was at the point where I needed to stop wrecking my life with drugs and booze. I was in a temporary group home and unbeknownst to me, a small AA group took place once a week in the dining room. One night I wandered downstairs and discovered the meeting. I had been to meetings sporadically previously but I really never abstained from drugs. I was getting high in between. But It was the right place at the right time and I was invited to join and so I sat in. It was run by an older alcoholic who had quite a wild history of guns and alcohol and drugs and making drug runs from Mexico. Another guy I learned soon, said in every meeting, “I haven’t killed anyone—yet.” Don’t ask me why but it was actually kind of funny. And there were like 3 or 4 other people in the meeting and they were all very friendly and welcomed me. I think that if in these first meetings they had all been as*holes, it would have turned me off and I wouldn’t have stayed and I might have partied for another year or so. But they were cool, I still remember them.
Anyways once I got clean I never touched drugs or alcohol again and I tried to live by the principles of AA. I tried to be honest, fair, responsible, positive etc. I worked the 12 steps and tried to incorporate those into my life too.
And the funny thing was, that I stopped doing illegal things. And speaking for myself, I discovered the trick to getting along with cops. The big secret was drum roll: I stopped doing illegal things!!
And with the help of AA for the following 30 years I didn’t have to looking over my shoulders all the time and fear cops. And they stopped hassling me. It’s all due to AA, CA and NA. Except for getting pulled over for maybe speeding occasionally or accidentally running a stop sign, with AA’s help I virtually stopped doing illegal things. So yeah, AA taught me a new way of life.
And to sum up my life before getting clean and after getting clean, “When I was drinking and doing drugs I was part of the problem, now that I’m clean and sober I am part of the solution.”
And it’s paid off in countless ways.