I was never one to make New Year’s Resolutions, nor did I celebrate New Year’s Eve. I derided New Year’s Eve as “Amateur Night”; a time when non-serious drinkers drank too much and were sick the next day. This year seems different, because I am old, and my wife, Priscilla is older. I am 76 years old and she is 87. The passage of time makes time itself seem more important. On January 24, 2026 Priscilla and I will celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. I am amazed that fifty years have passed since we were married. Without Alcoholics Anonymous, this could never have happened. Why?

We could not have a 50th wedding anniversary in 2026 because without Alcoholics Anonymous, I am convinced that I would have died of acute alcoholism in 1989.

Back then, we chose to spend a year apart because we were studying in different states. Priscilla was in Chicago for a graduate theology course and I was in Minnesota for a year studying alcohol counseling. Because she wasn’t there to see how much I drank and how many pills I took, my drinking and drug use grew rapidly. I was so drunk and so drugged that my breathing would stop in my sleep and I would wake up, gasping for air. I knew that one of these nights, I wouldn’t wake up and would simply die.

I knew what to do, and what would work for me. I slowly carefully cut back on alcohol and drugs each day to manage the withdrawal. On July 4,1989 I went to my first AA meeting as an admitted alcoholic. My first sponsor and my AA friends taught me to take the steps, learn the Big Book, and do what it says.

Each one of the thirty-six years since then has been better than the one before. I’m no more “clean and dry” than before, but the benefits of AA and the Twelve Steps keep on growing through the years. It helps that Priscilla has been in Al-Anon for the last thirty years, so we speak a common language of recovery.

We have two married daughters and three young adult grandchildren. None of them have alcoholism or addiction problems at this time in their lives. Perhaps they have benefited from our experience.

My alcoholic drinking and drug use ruined my first marriage. The overdoses of alcohol, Valium, Librium, oxycodone, and phenobarbital brought the breath of life all the way to extinction. Then AA did so much more than just keep me alive.

My first sponsor said I just had to quit drinking, quit drugging, and change every single thing about my life and I would be fine. I thought he was exaggerating. All that came true while I was taking the steps of AA. Early in my reading of the Big Book, I found this passage, which has been the most important part of the book for me, on page 25. It is the Great Fact:

“The great fact is just this, and nothing less: That we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God’s universe. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which in indeed miraculous. He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves.”

We don’t need New Year’s Day for a fresh start. The Great Fact of AA gives us all a fresh start each day. We will have a fresh start so as long as we live the AA program.