The other thing that got me through it was Alcoholics Anonymous.  The addiction counselor had told me that because I was addicted to a drug, I would normally be referred to Narcotics Anonymous.  But he realized that my life was still intact, and the lives of people in NA typically were not at all that way.  He felt I’d relate better to the people in AA, so that’s where I went.
 
I didn’t go often, because I wasn’t in much danger of relapsing.  Among other things, I had no idea you could get Ativan somewhere “on the street” (whatever street that was), and anyway, I wasn’t about to put some unknown substance into my body that I’d obtained from a shady stranger whose primary interest didn’t have anything to do with promoting my health and wellbeing. But I went once a week to an evening AA meeting in a town adjacent to mine, because in some way that I didn’t fully understand, it had a calming effect on me.

I also understood that the program wouldn’t help you if you were just a spectator.  You had to actually do the steps.  I didn’t formally have a sponsor, but there was a guy who had a lot of years of sobriety and knew what he was doing (and was also funny and charming) who took me under his wing, and I dutifully set forth on the steps in their proper order.

I was impressed by how many valuable things AA had to teach me, and I would later come away from the experience believing that just about anybody could benefit from going through at least some of the process—for example, taking a fearless and searching personality inventory of themselves—whether they were alcoholics or not.

What made me a bit squirmy in the beginning, though, was all the talk and actions relating to God.