The Power of 12. In Years.

The number 12. It’s a couple of simple digits, right? One, two buckle your shoe. Just a number.

Wrong.

Please bear with me for a few minutes while I go a little deeper into this.

1. Twelve is associated with the heavens (12 zodiac signs, 12 stations of the moon and the sun).
2. It's widely used in the Bible (the 12 apostles, the 12 Tribes of Israel).
3. In Greek religion and mythology, the Twelve Olympians are the principal gods of the pantheon. They were preceded by 12 Titans. Hercules carries out 12 labors.
4. There are 12 hours for both the ante meridiem (a.m.) and the post meridiem (p.m.). Thus, 12 a.m. and 12 p.m.
5. Twelve jurors sit on jury trials.
6. The lunar year is 12 months.
7. The 12 Days of Christmas.
8. Twelve minutes in an NBA quarter.
9. In music theory, 12 is the number of pitch classes in an octave.
10. In art theory, there are 12 basic hues in the color wheel.
11. Twelve is a sublime number, a number that has a perfect number of divisors, and the sum of its divisors is also a perfect number.
12. Alcoholics Anonymous has 12 steps, 12 traditions and 12 concepts for world service.

See how I listed exactly 12 interesting tidbits related to the number 12? That’s some serious linguistic originality, huh? Perhaps not, but it does offer a quick peek at a number that has so many varied meanings to so many different people. It’s a number that is quite significant to me at this moment, so without further delay here is the meat of this expressive meal I’m offering up.

Today, I celebrate 12 years of sobriety. That’s 144 months since I had a drink. It equates to 4,380 days since I quit seeking escape from reality. It has been 105,120 hours since I stopped running away from my soul.

Earlier this afternoon I made my way downtown to a dank church basement, a place where I attended my very first AA meeting 12 years ago. Hope was still there. Its vibration filled the air and was seated in various human forms in the black plastic chairs. Elbows and Big Books were propped up on the worn and creaky folding tables in the center of the room. The nostalgia of the space was tangible, and it welcomed today’s soul-seekers just as it did me back in 2007. My God, I love that dank basement.

Twelve years ago, I had reached a breaking point of emotional distress and had no answers about how to find my way out of the painful funk that was pounding the life out of me. I ached physically. I suffered even worse mentally and spiritually. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t smell. I couldn’t taste food. I heard someone once say that irrelevance is a fate worse than death. I had become irrelevant in so many ways. The pain was such that I didn’t care if I died.

So, I found my way into that church basement. To see those people. To search for the hope they spoke of. To try to escape death and attempt to become relevant again. To start a journey. I had no idea of the pilgrimage that was set before me, but I welcomed it. I had no other options. The kind souls there repeatedly told me to lean into the discomfort. I often sat crying in meetings, and the angels around me would whisper and reassure me that it would get better. They embraced me tightly afterward and told me to keep coming back.

I did. For 12 straight years.

That pilgrimage hasn’t always been easy. Not at all. There’s a stigma that is as real as ever and we must battle it every day. The word “alcoholic” creates tension when spoken, or even written, especially among those with whom alcohol was once regularly consumed. What many don’t understand, however, is the underlying depth in all of this. It’s difficult for people to comprehend how the substance being abused is just a symptom of something so much greater, so much worse. They simply don’t see that the core of it all actually is a big bad ball of pain that suffocates the soul.

My ball of pain had been firmly planted around my soul in early childhood by the abuse and neglect received at the hands of an alcoholic stepfather. That pain hijacked my entire life, even into and during sobriety. The post-traumatic stress weaved its way into all facets of my life. It had conditioned me to be fearful, to be anxious, and to feel shameful and unworthy. As such, it controlled my actions and my reactions. That, my friends, is no way to live.

This past year I lost my job of 15 years in a corporate restructuring. My marriage of 26 years ended. My life was turned upside down and that familiar ball of pain began rolling around again. But I fought. I fought hard! I grabbed the hands of others around me. I sought help. I cried on shoulders. I welcomed warm embraces and comforting words. Mostly, I talked to myself. I sought salve for my soul through extensive psychotherapy, and through self-care and profound reflection. It’s necessary work, but not easy work. It really is an inside job, and I was finally discovering that. Process the trauma, release the soul. Heal.

And therein is what my journey, my pilgrimage, has become. I continue on this perilous journey that includes many deaths, but also many subsequent rebirths. The journey of facing myself. My pain. Healing it and growing stronger from the experience. Reconditioning my body, mind and soul. Living as the energy of my soul. The soul that my God gave me for all of eternity.

I strongly urge you to pick up a copy of James Hollis’ What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life. Hollis provides life-changing insight about what he labels the perilous journeys we all must take if we are to experience life at its most intimate and fulfilling levels.

As he notes, “We do not serve our children, our friends and partners, our society by living partial lives, and being secretly depressed and resentful. We serve the world by finding what feeds us, and, having been fed, then share our gift with others.”

I’m learning every moment what feeds me. I’m learning every moment that what aches me helps make me. I’m learning every moment to evolve and live in expectancy, as a verb in action. Today, I share the gift of my story with you. I offer you my trials, my pain, and mostly my joy and my life. My gift to you today, on this celebration of 12 years of sobriety, is a living and intimate testament that we do overcome. We do recover. From so many things.

My heart is open. I hope you’ll join me in making our way together in expectancy. In peace. And love.