What's your decision?

A friend shared something his sponsor told him years ago. "You have a choice to make. You can die with the disease or you can die from the disease."

There's a stark dichotomy that exists in that statement:

1. You can choose to accept the disease and treat it;
2. You can ignore the disease and not treat it.

Either way the time will come when you will die. Now, even if you refuse to accept that you have the disease and continue drinking, you have, by default, chosen option two. There are no other choices. The disease is not going to go away, there are no magic pills to cure it. If you have the disease of alcoholism you can never drink alcohol like the non-alcoholic.

If you choose option two you can look forward to a continuing downward spiral affecting your health, finances, relationships -- everything. You may end up with failure of major organs like the liver or the heart, maybe you develop a "wet brain" that requires institutionalization. Chances are good your family life will become non-existent, either because your family will no longer be able to tolerate you or because you isolate yourself from them to the point where it's the same thing. Either way your spouse, children, parents, everyone who loves you will be hurt deeply. Career? Forget it.

Homelessness, despair, jails, prisons, institutions are all facing you in the future. Maybe you've already started encountering them.

Sound pretty grim?

It doesn't have to be. Many of the men and women in the rooms of AA have encountered these things and more and yet have made it back to the make the decision to take option one.

Taking that option they have started repairing the wreckage they created. In many cases relationships with family and friends have been repaired or restored. New or restored jobs or careers are created. They live life fully without alcohol.

When illness hits option one helps us deal with it sanely and soberly. When family tragedy hits option one helps up deal with it sanely and soberly. When job crisis hits option one helps us deal with it sanely and soberly.

When good things happen option one helps us celebrate sanely, soberly and joyously.

Life is life. Good and bad things are going to happen whether you drink or not. It's your choice how to respond. If you are an alcoholic you have a disease and you can choose to treat it or not. No one can make you do anything.

And option one is right there in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. The program of AA is there as a gift. No hidden fees or membership requirements, other than a desire to stop drinking. It will require some work on your part. You will find yourself facing some uncomfortable truths. But, you don't even have to believe to come into the rooms and start getting better. You just have to show up.

AA has changed and continues to change my life on a daily basis. I'm slowly recovering some of my self-respect and the respect of others. I can be happy and I can face tragedy without opening that bottle of Beam. That would not have happened before. I think now, that when the time comes, I will be remembered well and it will be, in part, because of the choices I make.

The day will come when you will die. How do you choose to be remembered?