Happy Fourth!, WildColonial. Congrats on your sobriety. I may average one drink a week over a year's time and haven't been drunk since college. This average went up somewhat during the time I was processing Becky's request that we open up our marriage - but not dangerously. I do not have alcoholic tendencies so I do not feel a need to abstain.
However, I watched in sadness as a close friend sunk into alcoholism, eventually losing his first wife and an excellent job as a result. But then I also watched in amazement as he recovered in AA, turning his life completely around, going back to school and earning his MBA, landing an excellent job, getting remarried, and starting a family - sober now for 20+ years.
I was so impressed that I went to several meetings with him, read quite a bit of their literature and history, and even incorporated some of their 12 Step principles into my personal life philosophy.
Interestingly for us on this forum, it is almost a certainty that the AA founder, Bill Wilson, and his wife engaged in what we would now call a mono-poly relationship (or perhaps some other variant of consensual non-monogamy). It is a historical fact that Bill Wilson had lovers long after AA was founded - he even provided for one of them in his will. It is almost just as certain that Lois knew of these lovers - but apparently they had some type of arrangement worked out since they were together - and in love - till the very end. Perhaps this should not really be too surprising as they were quite open minded in a number of areas. Al