Easter arrives in the Spring of every year. We celebrate Christ’s resurrection. He rose from the dead and returned to guide us as we live our lives. The devil had sought His death but failed.

I vividly recall Easter as a kid in Morgan Park, a neighborhood in a large city in the Midwest. Easter brought trips to nearby Roseland and the local Robert Hall and J C Penney stores for an Easter sport coat and tie, maybe a suit as I grew up. Mother made my sister Spring dresses and blouses. For some reason, Easter meant a special gift—a real “hardball” baseball glove for me and, in another year, Schwinn 26” bikes for both of us. In our family’s Baptist Church, Easter meant a Baptist baptism followed by a pageant featuring a standing 8 by 12-foot (or thereabout) wooden Bible my father had made. The Sunday School teacher would introduce stories of Isaiah, Peter, Mary, and others, and then suitably costumed Sunday School kids would open the door of this giant wooden Bible and walk through into the 9:30 service usually filled with proud anticipating parents.

Later, there was another Easter which arrived, and which brought a deep personal understanding of the meaning of a “resurrection.”I write of the Easter I admitted I was trapped and tangled in the jungle of my alcoholism and all its terrible ramifications.

That Easter I admitted my alcoholic romp had to end and at last concluded I couldn’t do it by myself and find the serenity I deeply sought.

That Easter Week, I surrendered to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I felt born again, resurrected, for I could see a new life, free of alcohol if I but reached and worked for it.

I felt relieved. I so wanted to learn and so I started following all I could learn about the AA Program—about “working the Program.” I studied and worked the Steps. I spent time reading the Big Book. Over time and after a lot of meetings I learned I could fight off demon rum and resist the “social” habits of an alcoholic. I found and tied up with a sponsor to help me and “keep me honest.” I went to a lot of “discussion and lead” meetings. It wasn’t always easy to change my life, but I kept at it. Working the Steps was difficult but necessary and continues today. I provided “leads” when asked to tell my story and I encountered friendly bands of brothers and sisters whose sole commitment was to that path trod by those seeking a life free of alcohol. Laughter and the support of others were part of my new life, and it continues so.

But as humans and former drunks we sometimes return to our sin of alcohol, seduced by that drunken ego of ours. But, just as a sinner, just as with Christ, always, always, I was welcomed back and have long “stayed back.”

Yes, my “Morgan Park Easters” were centered on finding and building a Christian life. But for me at least, and maybe others, today Easter is also about recalling my surrendering and accepting the Program of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I still look for and find Bill W and Dr. Bob, and Dick my sponsor, and the gangs at Oak Street, East One and Two, St X Noon, those meetings on Mohegan Island, in Southwest Harbor and Springboro, and working with newbies who were coming to grips with Step Three, carrying the message of hope to prisoners in the county DUI jail and to lawyers threatened by their tangles caused by their alcoholism.

Easter and Jesus Christ and Alcoholics Anonymous brought to me, and continues to bring to all of us, a way of freedom from the devils of life if we but reach for their assistance … for that I am blessed and eternally grateful.

Jim A, St X Noon, Cincinnati