The Value of Memory

Remembering the joys and sorrows of the past

“The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called will power becomes practically non-existent. We are unable, at times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink.”

-Alcoholics Anonymous p. 24 (“There is a Solution”)

I teach a book titled Beloved by Toni Morrison. Many of you will have heard of this Pulitzer Prize winning novel. In the book, Sethe is a refugee slave who has barely escaped to the north (Ohio, a free state) from Kentucky, a slave state. In Ohio she lives in Cincinnati. She lives at peace with her mother-in-law and four children for nearly a month before slave catchers show up at her door. In her desperation to save her children from slavery, she attempts to murder all of them, and is only successful in killing one child, her toddler daughter, Beloved.

What strikes me about this book is the terrible and self-justified guilt and remorse of Sethe. In her thoughts, she uses the word “rememory” instead of remember when she speaks about her time of slavery in Kentucky. She rememories all of her children, only one of whom is still living with her after the tragedy. She even begins to rememory the trauma of that terrible day—and her terrible choice.

That word really stuck with me five months later as I drove to Cincinnati for the first time and entered that city, which is just across the river from Covington, Kentucky. I began to have rememories of my own of experiencing Beloved and the terrible decision that Sethe made in her complete humanness. And the terrible mental consequences which ensued. So close to freedom and yet just across the river from slavery. Just like my own recovery.

Memory is both a wonderful and tragic part of the human condition. While I have real and wonderful memories of getting sober, I also remember the pain of that last month of heavy drinking. I could not get drunk that last month no matter how hard I tried. I could not get rid of the horrible guilt and shame of my past, some of it my very recent past. AA was truly my last resort. I dragged myself into my first meeting completely hopeless of ever regaining peace with the past. But drinking to oblivion was no longer stifling the memories. Like Sethe, I could not stop rememoring.

And yet with some time in the program, maintaining real memories of these years in sobriety is one of the realest and most special parts of my continuing recovery. I have this real and authentic life today that I would trade for nothing. I live in the real presence of a higher power who always takes care of me, even when I make real human mistakes. The AA program gave me a way out of terrible shame and regret. I was able to work Steps Four through Nine and put the past in its rightful place. It is a part of my history which no longer dominates me. I am even with my memories of the past thanks to the inventory and amends steps.

Today it is the past of last summer that I rememory. That is the past I am healing from. Each opportunity to heal from the past makes me less afraid. I am working Al-Anon Steps, which are the same Twelve Steps but from a slightly different angle. I am learning to grow up and accept responsibility for the choices I made last year. I am not doing this on my own power. I have a sponsor who requires it of me—and for my own good. And a God who holds me while I cry somedays and laughs with me when I experience joy on others.

I will leave you this week with the Ninth Step Promises from the Big Book. I love how these promises address my memory of the past.

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.

-Alcoholics Anonymous pp. 83-84 (Step Nine; “Into Action”)

June 28, 2024, I celebrate 19 years of continued sobriety in the AA program.