I dedicate this book to my husband Miguel,
who made me choose between death and life
and to my children
Kristen, Ryan, Jessica, and Jonathan
who welcomed me back from addiction
The Holy Number 12
Alcoholics Anonymous was started in 1935 by two men who desperately needed to be sober. They believed that a set of principles saved their lives. These became the world-famous Twelve Steps. One of these steps is that, to overcome any addiction, we must seek a power higher than ourselves. I embrace the Judaic-Christian way, and my Higher Power is Jesus the Messiah.
God loves the number 12. There are 12 donuts in a dozen, 12 months of the year, 12 tribes of Israel, and 12 apostles. The Heavenly City of New Jerusalem will have 12 gates made of 12 different precious stones.
I divided this book into 12 sections, following AA’s outline. I hope My Twelve Steps inspires you for your own journey. Please share your story with me at www.lonnawilliams.com. And may the Higher Power in your life bless you with 12 blessings every moment of your day.
Prologue
Footprints in the Stone
“For He shall give His angels
charge over you,
to keep you in all your ways.
In their hands they shall bear you up,
lest you dash your foot against a stone.”
--Psalm 91:11-12
The mountain road veers left, right, or up. Which way to go? Does meaning linger in the path I choose, randomly, on a spring day bordered by daffodils? Does God’s Hand guide my car, the flick of my wrist on the steering wheel, the scrape of tires over fallen pine branches?
Does my life matter?
This long journey of losing and finding, clinging and letting go, addiction and recovery . . . does it count for something? Can my blood, like the blood Jesus shed, turn to a balm and heal others? Pain sharper than any pills ever eased, the loss of my children, loneliness that makes me invisible as wind blowing through my car windows--can these hold resurrection in them?
I follow the up-road. Scent of cedar mingles with the pithy stench of earth laid bare. Pavement turns to gravel, gravel to dirt. Left, right, left again. Through shaded fir trees, the road winds past cabins I’ve never seen, their weathered brown wood turned gray and pointing toward the sky. The road breaks free to a cleared ridge. I stop the car and get out. Unfiltered sunlight strikes my eyes. I block the sun with one raised hand and see the panorama laid before me.
Layer upon layer of blue-green ranges, spotted by rocks and evergreens, reach toward the eastern horizon. Up there, a fire lookout towers near the fingers of an abandoned ski slope. Down there, a lake glistens in the sunlight, its waves dancing white patterns like SOS signals to God. I pause, breathe in the air like an old friend’s comfort, and scream to the heights,
“Give me words to write this journey! You have branded each of My Twelve Steps on the flesh of my heart. Help me tap them on my computer’s silver keys. Chisel them in the bedrock of this mountain!”
The wind brushes against my face and lifts it upward. I see, atop a brace of boulders, an empty stone house. Roofless, it raises chimney and open windows high, its golden silhouette a stark reality against a vague blue sky. I walk toward it. Steps arc downward, their centers curved with use and age. I imagine footprints etched forever in such stone.
I will not walk this path alone.
I climb those steps, counting twelve. Triumphant, I stand on the center of the rising floor, fallen walls open to all the mountains ‘round me. I lift my arms above my head and sing, “Thank you; thank you!” I am a free, wild woman in silhouette against the sky and stone, my scarf blowing behind me like wings.
I hold that pose as long as I can bear, then turn and walk back down.
At the car, I look back. Lilacs, planted long ago, prance wildly up the steps like people eager to ascend.
Somehow, I will tell my story. Words, like footsteps, will come to me--one by one.
