The Twelve-Step Warrior I spent most of my young life searching; searching for a meaning to my existence. The problem was, I was searching in the wrong place. My search was conducted on the very edge of society among fellow outcasts, all of them looking for answers, all making the same mistakes, all looking in the wrong places. I wasn't going to find a life worth living among the thieves, fighters, gamblers and one-time somebodies that propped up the bars of the worst drinking holes I attended back then on a nightly basis. The people I was mixing with then had already given up on their search and I too had fallen into their fold. My existence had become a beggar's search for the next hit of alcohol. I didn't really care who bought it for me, but I needed it, I craved it and it consumed me. All my thoughts, even when I had achieved my goal and was standing looking longingly into a full glass, were on where the next drink would come from. I was at the jumping off point and had to find a way out of this dark existence. This is the story of how I found my way out of that darkness and into the light.