They always asked,
have you tried the 12 steps?
The jailers, the doctors, the ministers, the therapists.
I'd been to meetings, ordered, committed, sentenced,
and they didn’t feel like sermons or lightning.
One guy said,
it's like 12 pieces of wood,
planked out like a dock over dark water.
But docks always felt shaky to me.
I believed in riptide.
A big poster:
Twelve traditions,
suggestions to keep drunks from brawls
over who's in charge.
I fought over less.
They said take it one day at a time.
One day was an eternity.
More like one minute,
one second sometimes.
I had counted in loose change,
75 cents more for a bottle.
I counted in bottles, half-bottles,
empty bottles hiding under the bed
like glass badgers.
I counted in jail days
and minutes until the liquor store opened.
Now I count in mornings,
30 days, 90 days, three years.
Coins the size of tumors pressed into my hand
like I’m a hero
instead of a man
who had finally had enough
of the soulless life.
Four children,
two ex-wives,
six broken hearts that hoped like a junkyard sparrow.
Two dead brothers,
and zero pamphlets titled How to Bury Blood.
At those funerals,
I stood there and tried to reconcile the math
in my head,
why I was the one still breathing.
Three cats
who watched me sweat and shake on the couch,
wretch into trash cans.
Friends with tails, silent and unimpressed.
One sponsor who meant it
when he said, call me,
who knew when I said I was fine,
it meant I was fucked,
that every fiber of my being wanted a drink.
He knew,
cause he'd been there too.
Step One said I was powerless.
That didn’t appeal to my literary senses.
I had powered through jail sentences,
prison,
and life under bridges.
Powerless sounded like surrender,
but surrender was the answer to all those prayers
I thought went unanswered.
Surrender was the first thing
that didn’t make me vomit.
Step Three said something about God
as I understood Him.
My understanding of God was through religion,
and religion was nothing.
The Creator wanted a personal relationship,
and I didn’t understand relationships.
I understood ceiling fans
spinning at 3 a.m.
I understood rebellion and sweat,
soaking the sheets.
I understood fear
like a cancer that was eating away at my life.
But I kept showing up
in blizzards,
in pouring rain,
in humidity that hurt like walking in a fire.
Church basements,
old storefronts,
metal chairs that hurt my old ass,
coffee that tasted like flavored water,
old men with stories worse than mine,
young men with stories just like mine.
We counted days of joy and sorrow
like misers.
We spoke in numbers:
five years, ten years, twenty.
I had fourteen days,
then two years,
then a number big enough.
I still can't believe it.
The math never makes sense.
Twelve steps.
A hundred dead friends.
One mom dead, one dad dead.
Brothers dropping like flies.
Three cats dozing on the loveseat
in a square of sunlight.
Zero drinks today.
And that's the only number
that ever really mattered.
And for once,
it's all I need.
It's enough.
-
Author:
Thomas W Case (Pseudonym) (
Offline) - Published: March 3rd, 2026 08:19
- Comment from author about the poem: If you’d like to hear more of my work, I recently posted a long-form poetry reading on my YouTube channel — one or two poems from each of my four books, read in a relaxed, uninterrupted session. You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY2euFFCXLI Thank you for reading and supporting independent poetry. — Thomas W. Case
- Category: Unclassified
- Views: 48
- Users favorite of this poem: gray0328, Mutley Ravishes, Poetic Licence, Sami Mulaj
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Comments10
God grant me the serenity
Yes. Thank you.
A ferocious battle is portrayed here and it is still ongoing. Here there seems to be no truce and the enemy is relentless. Well written Thomas
Thank you.
Most welcome my friend
Incredible Thomas .. and with much respect I salute you .. Neville
Thanks, my friend.
Good write T.
ty
Well Done Brother. I'll be six years sober on the 28th of this month. Six years ago on the 28th I was in River Oaks treatment center with suboxone under my tongue trying to stop shaking from 2/5 of vodka a day and liquid morphine it's been a long hard journey but it's been worth it
Hell yes. Congrats
The likelihood of your survival and be left with the ability to document this terrible journey is, I feel mathematically somewhere between nought and zero. Yet you managed it. A vivid account of an existence, Thomas.
Thank you, my friend.
I was just reading a passage in a book (then your poem appears) where the writer was saying that the deeper the desire and grasping, the deeper the (possibility of) experiencing of the absolutely unconditional. Isn`t that a paradox?! It gives me a lot of inspiration.
Great write, Thomas
Thank you so much.
Remember the film 'The Lost Weekend' ? Some story you gave us.
yes...sure do. Thanks.
This delivers the message very clearly, openly and honestly, that the battle with addiction is a long harsh, painful and sometimes brutal one, counting the losses as they build up on that difficult journey. Long may you be winning this battle
Thank you.
Your very welcome
battles fought, and challenges faced - and finally at peace with self- the math equation has been solved
Thanks.
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