Back when he drank, his buddies called him “Sergeant Skid Row”. After his first taste of beer at age 12, alcohol became his one great love, leaving no room for anything else. He dropped out of school, dropped out of job after job, and nearly dropped out of life. He abandoned his social circle, surrounding himself only with people who drank like he did. After a particularly galling DUI arrest, he chose to sell his car, preferring to be drunk on foot. When he was so broke from buying booze that he couldn’t afford to feed his pet fish anymore, he filled his aquarium with plastic fish instead and kept drinking. Even the other alcoholics in his life could see he had a problem.They say that “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” … The road to sobriety is paved with change. But change doesn’t come quickly; it comes in steps (pun intended).
-- I Trudged, page 11
Now he has been sober for more than 40 years and has built a stable and beautiful life. As an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) sponsor, he has used the AA steps, his personal story, and his loving and grateful heart to help dozens of people follow the path to sobriety. In this book, he shares his wisdom with humor and grace in the hope that his story might help others as his predecessors’ stories have helped him.
I Trudged: The Road of Happy Destiny, written by Sergeant Skid Row, is a series of anecdotes from the author’s battle with alcoholism and long-term membership of AA. The author is open and frank about his struggles, both past and present. Although not an alcoholic myself, I was still inspired by his humility and patience in spite of the hardships he has faced. I also admired him for his honesty, particularly about a subject that is deeply personal and not easy to discuss.
Each chapter is brief, usually only a few pages long, and each tells a short story or relays one particular bite-sized message. Over time, however, some of the wording began to feel a little repetitive to me. On a few occasions, I got a sense of déjà vu as I read, and when I looked back, I found that the passage I had just read was repeated almost verbatim from an earlier chapter. The book is best read one small piece at a time with breaks between chapters, which will allow the repetition to feel like the reinforcement of a lesson instead of a broken record.
Although God is discussed frequently, it is only within the context of His being one example of the kind of higher spiritual power to which AA members are required to surrender; knowledge of (or adherence to) any particular religion is not necessary. There is some profanity, although not as much as you might expect. Violence and sex are nonexistent. Sadly, there were more than ten grammatical errors in the book, and so another round of editing is warranted.
I Trudged earns a score of 3 out of 4 for its candid inside look at lessons learned from a life of recovery from alcoholism. It loses a star for its grammatical errors and for the repetitiveness of some of the passages. It would most appeal to alcoholics (whether practicing or sober) and their families.
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I Trudged
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