How ironic that I got sober on one of the biggest drinking days of the years. As my friends cut class to drink pints of green beer and get drunk with college boys in bars near the campus of the University of Dayton (we were seniors in high school), I made a pact with God that if he made my life easier, I would give up booze.

I kept my promise. God? We’re still hashing it out.

Because St. Patrick is a saint known more for his determination and humility than his work as a scholar, it makes perfect sense that I would choose St. Patrick’s Day to begin the long and arduous road to recovery–imploring his help to stay away from the allure of vodka, tequila, Coors Light, and expensive bottles of Merlot.

At the age of sixteen, Patrick was kidnapped by Irish raiders and taken to an Irish village, where he was enslaved. In those six years, he became quite holy (as opposed to bitter). During his menial tasks, like herding livestock, he recited the prayers he had learned in his childhood. Finally he escaped and reunited with his family.

Transformed into a man of profound faith, this Scotland native set out for Gaul to study for the priesthood. There, in a series of dreams, he was called to go back to Ireland as a missionary. As a bishop, Patrick wandered Ireland for thirty years, where he baptized tens of thousands of people and ordained hundreds of priests. He established his see at Armagh as well as a network of churches and monasteries throughout the country.

The other day, in trying to explain to David and Katherine who, exactly, St. Patrick was, and why he’s always holding a shamrock (not a leprechaun, like David thought), I pulled out one of my saint books, “Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives.” Right next to Patrick’s name was written “Overcoming Obstacles.”

As I read the details of his six-year captivity–the time when he turned to God–I couldn’t help but think about my the four years at Saint Mary’s College, when everyone but me (and my two best friends, who I met after TONS of looking around for sober companions, which was as challenging as finding cheap, reliable babysitters in Annapolis) was going over to Notre Dame and to the Linebacker bar to get drunk.

Maybe I’m inflating the plight of sipping Diet Coke at every “Screw Your Roommate” dance in college while all my classmates were plastered, having a merry old time. But to me it felt like enslavement. And it had me doing the same exact thing Patrick did while reluctantly feeding his stupid sheep: reciting the favorite prayers of my childhood, usually in front of a candle on the floor of my dorm hall chapel.

Patrick didn’t have to return to Ireland after he escaped. I’m sure the place triggered a few bad dreams and lots of anxiety. Had he lived in our age, his psychiatrist would have given him a prescription of Xanax or Valium to pack in his luggage. But in an act of courage and generosity, he wanted to share the gifts of his faith to Ireland’s pagans (politically incorrect term for persons holding religious beliefs other than those of the main world religions).

That’s what is also required of us drunks who give up the bottle. Our twelve-step program is based on helping other alcoholics who are ensnared by liquor: to offer them a glimpse of hope, that life really can go on once you climb aboard the wagon–that, in fact, life is much better on the wagon even if its wheels are popping off and it appears really unstable. Because, after awhile, you meet enough people on that crazy vehicle that you can hold your own dances, and sing stupid songs, and tell jokes, and laugh like your inebriated roommates are. The only difference is that you don’t regret any of it in the morning.

So on St. Patrick’s Day this year, as I celebrate 18 years of sobriety, I toast a glass of Diet Coke to an amazing and inspiring saint who learned a thing or two during his enslavement, and therefore teaches me how my turn painful memories into a ministry of love.