In early 1992, the world was my oyster. I didn’t yet realize that “Life is what happens when you’re busy making plans,” as one of my ex-sisters-in law used to say. I understood what she meant, but I didn’t believe it, not really. Or if it was true, it certainly didn’t apply to me. I had only to look at my life to know that nothing interrupted my plans once I’d made them. I had graduated with honors from law school the previous May. Scholarships had paid most of my tuition, so I wasn’t up to my eyeballs in debt like so many of my friends and classmates. The ink was barely dry on a divorce decree that ended a ten-year-old bad marriage and I was the single mother of two wonderful little boys, Hunter age eight and Sam, age six.
i had been recruited by a corporate law firm that paid me more money as a junior associate than I ever imagined I would earn. Best of all, perhaps, I had been sober for fourteen months. It was hard work, juggling my career, family and my sobriety, but it was worth it. Life was sweet and I saw no reason for it not to stay that way with vigilant planning and discipline. I had yet to understand the first step in AA. While I was willing to admit my life was unmanageable, I believed that applied only when I was drinking. It certainly didn’t apply as long as I didn’t drink and I worked my program.
I had no idea that I stood on the lip of a precipice or that my descent into the abyss below would teach me just how unmanageable life was even in sobriety.
Atop the Rubble 