Hi, I'm Bill and I'm Old: Reinventing Sobriety for the Long Haul

Description

One July evening, William Alexander, an author and highly regarded lecturer on spirituality and recovery, had an all-too-real fantasy about getting drunk again. He had been sober for 23 years, so why was he suddenly craving the feeling of freedom that only a quart of Jack Daniel's used to bring? Alexander's psyche was facing something it hadn't faced before: he was growing old. Thus, he was returning to old ways of coping with something uncomfortable that he didn't want to deal with.Out of the author's personal reflections and hard-won insights emerges an unconventional approach to the challenges of recovery that come with aging. Beginning with the admission that we are as powerless over growing old as we are over our addictions, Alexander takes readers on a journey of discovery and, in doing so, overturns the cliches of age, revealing how to: let go of old ideas; experience meditation in a new light; re-vision personal mythologies; discover the virtues of idleness; and, challenge the assumption that older is necessarily wiser.With one foot firmly planted in the principles of AA, and the other in the rich life experience of a child of the sixties, "Hi, I'm Bill and I'm Old" helps people in recovery reinvent how they can take on the unique challenges that come with age.

William Alexander is a writer, storyteller, and teacher who leads sobriety workshops at such venues as Union Theological Seminary, the Esalen Institute, and Hazelden Foundation.