Tag: fellowship

Why You Should Embrace AA Groupthink and Shed Your Terminal Uniqueness

AA encouraged me, a sauced snowflake loaded on liquor and individualistic narcissism, to put aside enough of myself to embrace two traits required to curb my alcoholism: discipline and structure.

Addiction has a grand irony: For a disease whose treatment thrives on identification with fellow sufferers, its symptoms are extraordinarily individual. Precisely how addiction manifests in each of us — drug of choice, length of active substance abuse, depth of debauchery — varies more widely than nearly any major affliction.

This is because addiction, like no other ailment, turns us insane and then turns us loose on the world. Ours is not a disease subject to controlled clinical settings; we find ourselves in circumstances that, though certainly following a pattern, have variables as unique as life is complicated. I have a recovering friend who, unlike me, has never sideswiped a taxi in the Holland Tunnel, blind drunk, and kept going. But alas, I’ve never been so creative as to hide vodka in a vase, as he has (#HappyHourFlowers).

As an alcoholic, then, my addiction-fueled adventures differ from the experiences of other problem drinkers. These exploits also are so abnormal in terms of their setting — namely, civilized society — that they feed another peculiarity of addiction: the “terminally unique” mindset that I am, somehow, alone in my inability to stop drinking at any cost.

For me, the result was a hopeless alienation that, in turn, only further fed my alcoholism. Afraid and isolated, I gave up trying to give up.

Amid this lonesome landscape lies the tailored times in which we live. A solid case can be made that we are in the single most individualistic era in human history.

Take me, for example. Like most people Gen X or younger, from early childhood I’ve been called unique, singular, special. I’ve been told I can do anything, be anyone, and was perfect exactly as I was. I am, it appears, a gentle snowflake.

Fast forward to today’s iWorld. We have made-to-order music playlists, binge TV watchlists, e-newsletter subscriptions. Our Facebook and Twitter feeds serve up personally-algorithmed news items between posts from our personally-constructed list of cyber-friends. From our social media silos, we see, hear, and click on hyper-customized content — our own little gated communities in the World Wide Web. For God’s sake, even our sleep is customized.

We do exactly what we want, when we want, how we want. We ultra-individualize, then wonder why modern society is so uber-fractured.

And then, those of us with addiction get too high or too drunk for too long, and need help. Suddenly, we uber-individuals need help from… well… ourselves.

And when we walk into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, that’s exactly what we get.

AA Pluribus Unum

Despite its imperfections — including those noted by yours truly — nothing has ever made me feel so simultaneously special and ordinary as my early experiences in Alcoholics Anonymous. As a newcomer, I was told I was the most important person in the room; but as a person in the room I was told that, though our experiences may be vastly dissimilar, we were all here for the same reprieve to the same disease.

First and foremost — before I ever considered that I may have found a solution to my compulsive, destructive drinking — AA provided a cure for my self-diagnosed tragic uniqueness. I wasn’t sure I could quit drinking but, after just a few meetings of identifying with the similar compulsions of fellow alcoholics, I was damn sure that I wasn’t the only one who had this affliction. A lot of acronyms get thrown around in AA; perhaps one should be Alienation Antidote.

For me, this prerequisite to recovery — this normalization of my abnormality — was an immediate and amazing upside to AA, one that fortunately superseded or masked some of my preconceived concerns.

Like most people, I skidded along the bottom before finding recovery. Months before my eventual sobriety date, I’d been warned by peers during an unsuccessful rehab stint that AA was a cult or, at least, cultish in its groupthink. I was told that there would be a lot of people spouting a lot of nonsense and, worse, telling me what to believe while they did it.

And you know what? They were partially right. AA did indeed ask me to set aside some of my individualism — my preconceived notions, my longstanding perceptions, the personal penchants that made me me — in favor of a program that, I was told, had a well-established track record of helping alcoholics achieve sobriety.

AA encouraged me, a sauced snowflake loaded on liquor and individualistic narcissism, to put aside enough of myself to embrace two traits required to curb my alcoholism: discipline and structure.

Structured Settlement

I came into AA a stone-cold atheist and remain a skeptical agnostic, and for a long time I thought AA’s first requirement for newcomers was that they develop faith in a higher power.

I now realize that this isn’t true. Before AA asks for anything enshrined in the 12 steps (the higher power concept is introduced in Step 2), AA asks us to stop having complete faith in ourselves — or, at least, the drunk and desperate versions of ourselves that, alone, simply cannot stop drinking.

The salve for this outsized self-reliance comprises some of the very same group-centric activities many AA-haters find cultish: chants like the Serenity Prayer offering a simplified perspective; readings like “How It Works” providing experience-driven direction; ubiquitous signage with familiar phrases and, of course, the ever-present Twelve Steps.

As someone who entered AA as the Smartest Person on Earth (an unofficial title, it turned out), I fully understand how threatening this can seem. Even as a scared newcomer in desperate search of a solution, I didn’t want to trade my hellish life for a post-apocalyptic Zombieland. Despite the attraction of folks who’d clearly found a way to stay sober, I’ll admit to checking the coffee machine for Kool-Aid during my first few meetings.

But what I soon realized was that there was a simplistic beauty to AA’s anti-individualism that, for me, was extraordinarily effective in early recovery. My rehab roomies, I found, were just so full of themselves that, when confronted with a different approach, they reflexively labeled it full of shit.

Are there cultish aspects to AA? Absolutely. Even Catholic masses don’t end with everyone standing in a circle holding hands. Anyone wondering why some people duck out of meetings five minutes early should re-examine that ritual.

But by and large, AA’s so-called groupthink offers newcomers a keep-it-simple structure that — as fledgling sobriety becomes longstanding recovery — can be selectively shed. It asks spiritually disarmed newcomers to buy the whole standardized toolset… then allows us to return some piecemeal as we acquire new, more customized tools.

I for one needed some discipline to replace the chaos my life had become. I also needed certain concepts — powerlessness over alcohol, the hurt I was causing others, the incredibly alien concept that there was, in fact, hope — beaten into my brain. In hindsight, I realize AA is repetitive for a reason.

I see a lot of newcomers enter the rooms as customized as they are clueless. For them as for myself, rigidity en route to freedom is an entirely worthwhile tradeoff. There is value in a traditions-based organization with agreed upon rules that, when adhered to successfully, work well for many people.

How has AA’s emphasis on the group helped you? Let us know in the comments.

View the original article at thefix.com

6 February 2019
4 Important Reasons to "Keep Coming Back" to AA, Even When We Don't Need To

Don’t underestimate just how powerful your presence at a 12-step meeting can be for another person’s recovery.

More than I care to admit, my usual 12-step meeting times will pop up on my calendar and I’ll think to myself, “Can I get away with skipping this one?”

A lot of folks in the rooms will tell you that you shouldn’t skip meetings because relapse happens when we get lax in recovery. You get out of recovery what you invest into it, and the practice of consistently showing up makes your program stronger.

I don’t disagree with that. But even so, when I’m having a good day, going to a meeting sounds like a drag — and one meeting, I figure, is not going to make or break my sobriety.

Besides, I’ve earned a break, haven’t I?

There are four simple words that snap me back into reality, though: It’s not about you.

Put another way, we show up to these meetings because we’re building a community of support. But when we feel the temptation to not show up, it’s easy to forget the bigger picture.

So why go to that meeting, even when your recovery doesn’t depend on it? It’s pretty simple: recovery is about so much more than not picking up a drink. The next time you’re thinking about missing out on a meeting, consider these four reasons why showing up still matters.

1. Someone might need your presence or your story.

You might be the one familiar face in the room that reminds someone that they’re in the right place. Something that you share might be exactly what someone else needs to hear. You never know what your presence is bringing to the table — and how valuable it might be to someone else.

When I finally went back to AA after two years of relapses and denial, I can’t express just how comforting it was to see people I could remember. They were still there (and amazingly, still sober) and genuinely happy to see me again.

Their presence was a reminder that AA wasn’t just a gathering place for sad drunks — it was a community. It was a place where warmth, compassion, and laughter could always be found. At times, it was really the only place where I could laugh.

Many of us arrive at our first meetings unsure of what we’ll find and afraid to speak up. And often times it was hearing “our story” — seeing ourselves and our struggles in someone else’s share — that gave us the strength to keep coming back and truly commit to our recovery.

Despite numerous therapists, social workers, and loved ones urging me to get help, the only thing that pulled me from my deep state of denial was listening to other alcoholics. As one old-timer explained to me, “This fellowship is the only mirror in which I can see myself clearly.”

To this day, I can remember those people’s stories, even if they never noticed me hiding in the back of the room. They may have spoken casually without any thought of reaching anyone, but their words had an unforgettable impact on me.

Tonight, someone might show up to the rooms, not sure if they belong or if they want to stay. Your smile, your energy, or your words could be the anchor that grounds them. Don’t underestimate just how powerful your presence can be for another person’s recovery.

2. 12-step meetings can only thrive if everyone commits to showing up.

Think about it: if we only showed up when we were feeling terrible, what would meetings look like, exactly? They’d be pretty dismal places. There’d be experiences to share — but where would the strength and hope come from?

On chip nights, when I saw members getting their chips for five, ten, even twenty years, I used to wonder why they bothered to show up. “Do they really think they’re going to slip up at this point?” It’s true, they might, but when I listened to the responsibility statement, I realized that it wasn’t just for them. They showed up for the fellowship, and for the alcoholic who still suffers. Their presence was an act of gratitude.

Members who show up consistently, even and especially when they don’t “need” to, are the heart and soul of 12-step meetings. The program only truly works when people are willing to build a lasting community together.

AA isn’t just the couch you crash on when you’re down on your luck; these rooms represent a safe haven that should always be there, and will be — as long as we keep coming back.

3. Sobriety is an ongoing practice — not a destination.

I’ve often joked that alcoholism is a form of amnesia, but there’s some truth to that, too. Without a consistent practice — in which we repeatedly confront, accept, and reflect on our condition, while building up the coping skills needed to manage our lives — it’s all too easy to return to our old ways.

I don’t know about you, but my old ways weren’t exactly charming.

I could be resentful, self-centered, and impulsive. Like many alcoholics, I’ve fooled myself into thinking I had more power over situations than I actually did. I’ve been the bull in the china shop, barreling my way through life. I much prefer the acceptance, grace, and warmth that I work hard to embody today.

Left to my own devices, though? I fall out of the routine that helps me sustain my recovery and keeps me accountable. The resentments start to pile up. My stubbornness comes to the surface. My sense of gratitude diminishes.

Sobriety is not a point at which you arrive. Personal growth is a direction we move in — not a finish line we cross. Think of a fellowship, then, as your compass, helping to direct that growth.

Sobriety is a practice, and when we regularly attend meetings, we flex the muscles needed to strengthen and maintain our coping skills. The more we flex those muscles, the more intuitive those skills become. And as the Ninth Step Promises state, we “intuitively know how to deal with situations that used to baffle us.”

Developing that intuition means reinforcing it, and meetings are a consistent and reliable way of doing this, with a community that supports you unconditionally through that process.

4. Joy is an incredible contribution.

I’m an optimist and an extrovert by nature. When I first started attending meetings, I very seriously wondered if my personality would be “too much” for a space like AA. Was I too happy? Would my upbeat nature be grating in such an emotionally-vulnerable space?

But each time I shared my experiences, there was a chorus of gratitude that followed — the energy that I brought to the rooms was appreciated and seen. That’s when I finally understood something: authentic joy is an amazing gift to bring to my community.

So when I’m especially happy on any given day? I make an extra effort to show up to meetings. I let my smile signal to others that there is joy in sobriety. I let my laugh remind newcomers that there are better days ahead.

And I let my excitement and enthusiasm lift up those around me, especially those who might be wondering if there is a place for them in AA. When I show up authentically, it allows others to do the same. It makes those rooms a more welcoming place.

I may not feel motivated on a given day to show up to a meeting. But when I can’t show up for myself, I do it for my community.

And inevitably, when I do, my joy only seems to multiply. It seems that — at least in 12-step programs — what you give to others always comes back to you in spades.

View the original article at thefix.com

9 November 2018
AA's "How It Works" for Everyone

Women have had to endure a generic “He” for God all these years. I am not rewriting the Big Book. I am simply asking for a moment to honor my God as a She; for a moment of freedom to express my God as I understand God.

After attending AA meetings for 12 years, I picked up a coin this month celebrating ten years of continuous sobriety. Throughout my sober years, when asked at meetings to read “How it Works” from the AA Big Book, I sometimes replace “He” with “She” for the word “God.” Recently, an old-timer in my AA home group became highly offended when he heard me read my “She” version of “How it Works.” My improvisation became such an issue that it was put on the agenda at our home group’s monthly business meeting. A motion was presented to place wording at the top of “How it Works” stating, “Please read as written, do not make changes.” After much discussion, members of my home group decided not to make this change to our meeting format. Whew! How interesting!

As with any issue in recovery, I learned from this experience. I learned that people get offended at meetings! Ha. We can’t please everyone. I mean, I get offended at meetings, but I just accept things and go on. If I do not like the way a meeting is held I move on to another one. “Attraction, not promotion.”

Thanks to my messing with pronouns, I find that I am no longer asked to read at AA meetings very often. Yes, the whole Big Book is written in He/Him-antiquated-patriarchal-Bible-form and I accept this. I mean, I got sober underlining everything in red that pertained to me as I worked my first step not caring about the gender terms! I simply did what my sponsor asked me to do. The pronouns were not important at that point. What mattered was that I did and do identify with the men who shared their message. Yet still, today, when asked to read at a meeting, I feel it causes no harm to insert She/Her instead of He/Him for my God. Women have had to endure a generic “He” for God all these years. I am not rewriting the Big Book. I am simply asking for a moment to honor my God as a She; for a moment of freedom to express my God as I understand God. That is all.

Lately I have begun using a gender-neutral term for “God.” Instead of saying “He” or “She,” I simply say “God as we understand God.” For truly, I have experienced God as a spiritual man, as a spiritual woman, and most recently as pure divine spirit, with no gender identity at all. How could GOD be reduced to a He or a She, to a mere sexual form? Hence, my favorite definition of God is “Group Of Drunks.” Namaste: “The Drunk in me greets the Drunk in you” (the sober drunk, of course). I see GOD in all of you at meetings! It is my favorite vision! I love you all so much!

I have to remember that “love and tolerance is our code.” If an old-timer is offended because I say that I have made a decision to turn “our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand Her,” umm, hey, imagine what it took for me, a Hindu, and a lesbian, and a woman to read through the patriarchal (with Christian overtones) Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous! I am so, so grateful that my homies love and tolerate me enough to let me be me and accept me for who I am! As the Third Tradition of AA says, “The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.” And Tradition One calls for UNITY. That means members are given the freedom to think, talk and act. No AA can compel another to do anything. Nobody can be punished or expelled. Our traditions repeatedly say, “we ought,” never “you must.”

I have to remember that we are evolving. I believe the AA founders, Bill and Bob, left room for change when they wrote on page 164 of the Big Book: “Our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us.”

Today, there is a new updated version of “How it Works” created by Hillary J and the Sober Agnostics Group. That alternative to the Big Book text is used at their meeting in Vancouver, BC, Canada. There are also two gender-neutral versions of the Big Book available on Amazon: The EZ Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous Same Message -Simple Language and A Simple Program: A Contemporary Translation of the Book, Alcoholics Anonymous. Neither book was created by AA so neither is designated as “Conference Approved Literature” by the AA General Service Office (GSO). It is important to remember that the term “Conference Approved” has no relation to material not published by GSO. AA does not tell any individual member what they may or may not read. Each group is autonomous and is free to decide what material is read at the group level.

Offending someone at a meeting drove home the point that I’m a drunk, plain and simple. I just want to get and stay sober, that’s all. I learned that I am not the only one who replaces “He” with “She” when reading AA material. Many other people are doing this and changes are being made to the literature. Someday, we may see changes to the first 164 pages of our Big Book.

I have learned that God is beyond gender – and it is comfortable to refer to GOD as simply “God” instead of a He or a She. For me, God is pure divine spirit. Close the eyes. Feel GOD now. Pure Divine Love! God is Love! I love loving God, plain and simple. I love feeling Shiva embracing his beloved Devi in divine union. Sigh, bliss. This breath, here, now.

I also learned that AA has evolved enough to publish a new pamphlet already approved in British AA called, “The God Word: Agnostics and Atheists in AA.” There is a quote in this pamphlet that Bill W. wrote in 1965 that says: “We have people of nearly every race, culture, and religion. In AA we are supposed to be bound together in the kinship of a common suffering. Consequently, the full individual liberty to practice any creed or principle or therapy whatever should be a first consideration for us all. Let us NOT, therefore, pressure anyone with our individual or even our collective views. Let us instead accord each other the RESPECT and LOVE that is due to every human being as he tries to make his way TOWARD THE LIGHT. Let us always try to be INCLUSIVE rather than EXCLUSIVE; let us remember that each alcoholic among us is a member of AA, so long as he or she declares.”

I love the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I love that we keep evolving and changing. I love that we get to ask questions. Here’s one more (ha ha): Why do we close some meetings with the Lord’s Prayer? I’ll have more to say about that topic later. That’s enough for today. Peace and love to one and all.

View the original article at thefix.com

25 October 2018
7 Reasons Why I Thought AA Wasn't for "Someone Like Me"

By the end, as we stood in a circle holding hands, I thought: “This is a cult, right? This has to be a cult.”

I remember the first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous that I ever attended, about three years ago. I’ll be honest — I wasn’t the friendliest face at that meeting. I had a ready criticism for just about everything that anyone said.

By the end, as we stood in a circle holding hands, I thought: “This is a cult, right? This has to be a cult.”

I asked the newcomer liaison — who I was convinced was just a recruiter for this undercover religious operation — how I could know whether or not I was an alcoholic, and if I really needed AA.

One thing she said in particular stood out: “Sometimes you aren’t ready, you know? Some folks go and do more ‘research’ and then a couple years later we see them in the rooms again.”

In hindsight, I have to chuckle. Of all of the advice she gave me, the only part I seem to have listened to was the part that justified drinking more. (I’d later learn that this is the exact kind of “selective hearing” that alcoholics are known for.)

I didn’t know it at the time, but her comment would foreshadow my journey to the letter. A few years later, after another catastrophic relapse, I remembered her words: If it was meant to be, I would be back.

“Sam, you could’ve died,” my therapist told me when I described my latest binge. That’s when I knew my “research” was over. It was time to go back.

I sat in the back row (another typical newbie move, I’d later learn), and just as the Serenity Prayer was being read, I saw the same woman from before — the one who predicted, whether intentionally or not, that I would be in those rooms again.

“I know you, right?” she said to me after the meeting.

“Yeah,” I replied, smiling. “And you’re a big reason why I came back. Because I knew I could.”

I didn’t know what to expect, but that didn’t matter; I was just grateful to have a place to go where I didn’t feel so crazy.

As time went on, I quickly realized that the reasons I believed that AA wasn’t for me weren’t just misguided, they were completely wrong. While I wish I’d had these realizations sooner, I’m grateful now for the fellowship I found when I was finally able to open my heart and mind.

So what, exactly, held me back the first time around? These are seven of the big reasons why I thought AA wasn’t for me — and what ultimately changed my mind.

1. I’m not Christian (or even religious).

Despite being told that your higher power in AA could be virtually anything, the “God” language was so off-putting that I couldn’t get past it at first. What I didn’t know was that AA is home to people with all sorts of beliefs, including atheists and agnostics (for whom a whole chapter in the Big Book is actually written).

But why would someone who wasn’t religious opt for a program that talks about a higher power?

The short answer? To get outside of ourselves. Part of what makes addiction so tricky is that we often get stuck in our own heads, leading us to miss the forest for the trees. A focus on some compassionate, loving force outside of ourselves allows us to take a step back from the addictive obsessing and see the big picture at work.

That “God” can be your own inner wisdom or spirit (you know, the tiny voice or gut feeling that says: “I shouldn’t be doing this”). It can refer to your fellowship (e.g. Group Of Drunks) and community, or it can even be the stars or your ancestors.

Whatever your higher power is, it exists to anchor you in the present moment, when your own thoughts are derailing you (part of what fuels cravings, I’ve found, is the mental obsession that goes along with them). Projecting your focus outside yourself can be a powerful tool in recovery.

2. Alcohol wasn’t my biggest problem.

I always thought of my alcohol abuse as a symptom of a problem rather than an issue in its own right. As someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and a trauma history (C-PTSD), I figured that if I got my mental illness under control, my drinking would somehow become normal again; that it would, in essence, “work itself out.”

As irrational as it sounds, I really believed that if I just “stayed mentally healthy” for the rest of my life, alcohol wouldn’t be a problem.

It should be a lot easier to sober up than to be perfectly happy and healthy 100% of the time, but the alcoholic mind doesn’t care about what’s actually possible — it just cares about drinking again.

I’ve learned with time that my alcoholism is very much a compulsive behavior. And once compulsions are activated, they’re only made worse when you engage with them. As a person with OCD, and therefore lots of compulsions, I know this better than anyone.

A lot of alcoholics look at every other issue in their lives as The Real Problem, while their drinking isn’t much more than an inconvenient and temporary side effect. But more often than not, the only “phase” we’re really talking about here is denial.

3. I figured I could manage on my own.

Here’s the thing: Whether or not you can manage sobriety on your own, why should you? If there’s an entire community of people, ready and able to support you, why deprive yourself of that resource?

These days, I ignore the voice in my head that says, “You don’t need this.” It’s irrelevant either way; I don’t need to muscle through this and there’s no good reason to.

This fellowship is a gift I can give to myself — the gift of unconditional acceptance, and an opportunity for continued personal growth in a supportive community.

4. I thought I was too young and “inexperienced.”

My drinking didn’t really take off until I was 21 years old. Yet by the time I was 24, I was at my first AA meeting. Was it possible to become an alcoholic in three years? I didn’t think so. I hadn’t racked up any DUIs and I wasn’t drinking vodka every morning, so what did I need AA for?

But my definition of alcoholism has evolved a lot since then. Alcoholism, to me, is a spectrum of experiences defined by two things: (1) psychological dependence on alcohol and (2) strong urges to drink (which we call “cravings”).

Drinking had become a coping strategy (one that often failed me) to deal with issues in my life. And rather than choosing to drink and choosing to stop — which is usually, on some level, premeditated and deliberate — I had the urge to drink, and that urge often had me behaving in ways that ran counter to what I planned or wanted, assuming I had a plan at all.

Sometimes I drank only to resolve the urge itself — an urge which could involve unbearable levels of anxiety, agitation, obsessing, and impulsiveness.

It took just a few years for my drinking to reach this level of unmanageability. And when it led me to be hospitalized twice in my early twenties, I realized that if I continued I would die before I ever considered myself “experienced” or “old enough.”

You are never too young or inexperienced to get sober. If there are signs that your drinking has become dangerous, you don’t need to wait to get support — and you shouldn’t.

5. I’m queer and transgender.

One of the biggest reasons why I rejected AA was because I felt, as someone who was both transgender and gay, that I would feel like an outsider. And while I can’t speak for every meeting in existence, I’ve been fortunate to find meetings where I could show up as my authentic self.

Living in the Bay Area, I’m privileged to now have access to meetings that are specifically for the LGBTQ+ community, though I regularly attend all kinds of meetings and have found them to be fulfilling in their own way. My sponsor is queer, too, which is incredibly empowering.

Many people I’ve known in other parts of the country have been able to connect with their local LGBTQ+ community center (either city or statewide) to get recommendations on which recovery spaces would be best for them.

Some LGBTQ+ centers even have AA meetings specifically on-site for the community.

The best way to find out is to call around. You don’t know what’s out there, and recovery is always worth the effort.

6. I take psychiatric medications.

As someone who takes medication for my mental health conditions, I was scared that people in AA would look down on me or believe I wasn’t really sober.

In particular, I rely on Adderall to manage my ADHD. I take it exactly as prescribed without any trouble. If I don’t take it, it’s difficult for me to keep up at my job because my concentration issues make my life incredibly unmanageable.

But Adderall is a stimulant and has a reputation as a drug of abuse. I worried that I would be pressured to stop taking it.

Instead, I’ve been given the exact opposite advice in AA. I’ve been told repeatedly that if my psychiatric medications contribute to my mental wellness, they are an essential and indispensable part of my recovery.

With mental health conditions frequently co-occurring with substance abuse, you’re likely to find a lot of people in AA who rely on these medications to maintain balance in their lives. So don’t be discouraged: you aren’t alone.

7. My history didn’t seem “bad enough.”

Sometimes I’d listen to a speaker talk about getting drunk at age 12, growing up in the foster system, or getting their second DUI, and I’d think to myself, “Why am I even here? My story is nothing like theirs.”

But as I attended more and more meetings, I began to see the similarities, rather than focusing so much on the differences. I realized that even the most extraordinary stories had some kind of wisdom to offer me, as long as I gave myself permission to be fully present.

As I heard a speaker say last month, “Bottom is when you stop digging.” Recovery begins when you’re open to it, not when you’ve passed some magical threshold of having “suffered enough.”

Your story is enough, exactly as it is in this moment. You don’t need to have the most tragic backstory, the biggest relapse, or the most catastrophic “bottom” moment.

You don’t have to earn a seat at the table. As I learned this last year, that seat will be there for you when you’re ready, no matter how many times you fall down or slip up.

View the original article at thefix.com

10 October 2018
The Most Important Person in the Room

There’s no need to worry about my career, or lack of intimate relationships, or future, or even quitting nicotine. I’m taking it easy, I’m in my first year of sobriety.

Every time I relapse I forget I am not God.

I am no longer able to allow the darkness to bloom into the grand external circumstances I once did; when it does, while the bigger picture slowly darkens, there’s a life constantly poised to begin.

I think that continuous sobriety is boring; I must, based on the evidence of my own life, of my own lies.

Imagine this: You are playing soccer. You’re on defense, almost as far away from the goal as you can get but you take the ball from the other team, all the way through their offensive and then defensive line with intense speed. You’re in front of the goal now, with a wide open shot. You flub the kick. The ball rolls just a foot. The goalie grabs it. It was all for nothing. This is how I played soccer.

Imagine the beginning of the semester: You love beginnings and showing what you are capable of, so you get A’s and read everything for the first month or two. Then you lose interest, get bored maybe, stop paying attention. You let your grades dip until it gets scary, until a note gets sent home. And then you have to work your ass off to get back to maybe a B+ final grade. If you really pull it off you might get an A-. That is what kind of student I was.

It seems like I need others and myself to know that I am capable, but also that I can’t be counted on. I want you to know that I can win, but I won’t. I don’t want to be expected to. It’s been almost ten years since my first attempt at recovery. I’ve never been sober long enough to date, to move, to make any major life changes within the constraints of the program’s suggestions.

I’m addicted to each part of the cycle – the descent into not giving a fuck, the bloody climb from the pyre of my own making. As I get too close or move too fast towards what I want, the part of me that knows I am not worthy of it, the part that’s sure I don’t want the responsibility of a better life screws me. There’s a lot of fragmentation.

When we—and by “we” I mean my perception of you and the culture-at-large—when we look at a chronic relapser, our tendency is to look at the drug as the thing they can’t let go of – and it is, mostly. For those of us who know what the other side can hold and yet continue to throw the ships of ourselves against the rocks, chasing siren songs, the guilt and shame only add fuel to the orgiastic pull of destruction.

Shame is our primary emotion and perhaps our greatest addiction.

I recall every slide toward rock bottom I created, every flail out, the night spent hurling my body into the door of the drunk tank with piss-soaked pants, finally settling down to bite off each fingernail and howl. And I remember what comes after; being so broken I would allow help, would allow others to love me; how my father would prove he cared by letting me use a lawyer from his firm for my DUI case, how a nice lady from a meeting paid my October rent, how friends brought me to look for a job.

I get a new boyfriend, a new job, everything working out until I find myself moving down the mountain too fast, and, turning the tips of my skis inward to slow down, I fall.

And when I come back to recovery, it’s the same. Just a few people to believe that this time’s different. The climb feels like springtime, that’s why I make sure to do one at least every spring. In fact, looking back over the data, a bottom out in winter followed by a good 4-6 month sober stretch is my usual.

I won’t take AA seriously until I have nothing else left and nobody left to talk to. Or at least, that’s how it used to be. Now it’s more of an internal emptiness, as the fear mounts that I may not get another shot to take the ball all the way up the field. Until I start to feel better, until my life starts to get bigger, until I’m in front of the goal again. I choke, over and over and over, and I climb back out, over and over and over. I raise my hand: “I have two days back,” and I get the applause, again and again. I’m the most important person in the room.

There’s a sense that I will always be on the verge, never quite crossing the line into success. I want more, or do I? The cycle is a familiar distraction.

There’s no need to worry about my career, or lack of intimate relationships, or future, or even quitting nicotine. I’m taking it easy, I’m in my first year of sobriety. And there’s always new people.

I almost believe it.

This is the place where I used to blame my abusive mother, and believe me, I would really like to. She loved nothing more than to break me so that she could comfort my brokenness. But I’m an adult now. Once I was a victim, now I am a volunteer; now I have internalized my abuser. I have some of her weapons, and some I have added. I do it when I talk to myself, when I won’t get out of bed, when I couldn’t finish this article for a month.

And at the same time I have a picture of three-year-old me, my inner child, and ten-year-old me, my outer child, on my refrigerator. I talk to them, too. I tell them they are good enough, worthy of love and happiness and all the things the rest of the world seems able to allow themselves to have. I hope that one day we’ll all believe it.

What if life on the other side of a year of continuous sobriety isn’t beyond my wildest dreams? No need to worry about that, I’ll probably never get there. My promise is an unopened present, though I have shaken the box more than a few times. Now, it’s possibly rotting.

How do I change? When does my sobriety and not my ego, not my love of a pattern repeating, become the most important person in the room? Will this time be different? Every time is. Will it be different in the way that I need it to be? I don’t know.

If the first step is honesty, these words are my only hope. These are the thoughts I keep in the shadows, the patterns with which I choose to keep myself trapped, the self-victimization through which I am still waiting to awaken, still waiting to let down my golden hair for some knucklehead prince to save me.

What if I could climb past the first plateau of growth in recovery and keep climbing? What if I could continue to work on sobriety on the days I don’t feel like I need it? What if I could stop wanting to be something and start working on becoming it?

Every time I come back, I remember that I am not God. That I don’t have to do it on my own, that nobody really cares if I’m happy besides me.

I would say wish me luck, but I’ve had so much of that. Wish me consistency over time. Wish me willingness. I am tossed by the waves yet I do not sink; I have proven that. Wish me, to stay.

View the original article at thefix.com

8 October 2018
When the Obsession Isn’t Lifted

Before, when someone with 20 years would say “it’s still a day at a time,” I couldn’t really hear them. I do now.

I was a typical low-bottom case. I was drunk most days, and a car wreck, an arrest, and a liver enzyme problem couldn’t pry me from my favorite thing to do. What would be the point of a life without alcohol? Now over five years sober, though, one thing astounds me even more than my abstinence. I don’t miss drinking. I hardly think about it. How can this be? Drinking was at the center of my existence. Surely sobriety would be a lifetime of longing for what I couldn’t have anymore, of feeling terribly excluded from the magical things I associated with its effects: wildness, fun, escape, adventure. Now it’s like, drinking? Oh right, that…

In AA-speak, I had an “obsession” with alcohol, and that obsession has been “lifted.” The totality of this transformation was enough to make me, an atheist before this, feel a bit mystical indeed.

Over the years I have come to realize that unfortunately this freedom from obsession does not characterize everyone’s recovery experience. I first noticed this when I was out to dinner with a friend from the program. Both of us had over a year sober. Our server began listing drink specials, as servers do, and my friend cut him off and demanded that he remove the cocktail menu from our table immediately. I felt embarrassed and confused. These were not the vibes of someone “placed in a position of neutrality.” Instead she was coming across as anxious and aggressive and she seemed to be feeling unsafe. We talked, and she said, “Yeah, for me, the obsession has not been lifted.” I was stunned. I thought, really?

Keeping her anonymous, I brought this interaction up to other friends who had been sober for decades. They knew. They reminded me that Dr. Bob’s obsession lasted well into his third year. Bob wrote in the Big Book, “Unlike most of our crowd, I did not get over my craving for liquor much during the first two and one-half years of abstinence. It was almost always with me.” He notes in this passage that it used to make him “terribly upset” to see his friends drink when he “could not.”

I have become attuned to this. While there are as many experiences of recovery as there are people in recovery–it’s a deeply personal path after all–perhaps two broad types emerge, one in which the obsession all but disappears, and another in which it remains even while abstinence is achieved and maintained. How can these not be vastly different?

This seems like a big deal, yet the issue gets scant air time in shares. I suspect we don’t hear about this more in meetings owing to our strong unity, per the triangle of recovery, unity, and service. We are at our best when we are united, identifying with each other rather than comparing. On this matter of the obsession, perhaps we are divided. (Of course there may be many people in the middle, whose obsession has weakened but has not “been lifted” or “removed,” or whose obsession comes and goes. I don’t know.) Out of the thousands of meetings I’ve attended, this issue has emerged just a few times as a share theme. In those shares, people whose obsessions have remained have expressed gratitude for others’ honesty who shared this ahead of them, and relief at the permission they felt it granted them to share similarly. They shared not wanting to drag anyone down, not wanting to be an unattractive example to newcomers, and not wanting to be seen as a “bad AA.” They wondered if they were doing the program wrong.

I imagine that, on the contrary, it must take an especially strong program to maintain sobriety in the circumstance of an obsession that endures. When I share about its being lifted, including writing this now, I feel a sense of survivor’s guilt. I worked the same 12 steps as everyone else, and my active disease was plenty strong. Just for me, abstinence was a prerequisite for the freedom from obsession that followed, but after that, the freedom from obsession made ongoing abstinence feel easy. Life can be hard. Last spring, my sibling got a life-threatening illness, and that was very hard. But I don’t find not drinking to be hard anymore. When I use the slogan “getting sober is a lot harder than staying sober,” that is what I mean.

Olivia Pennelle’s recent article in The Fix, “Is there Life after AA?” caught my attention. She wrote about wanting to leave AA and being tired of the “fear-based conditioning” that if she left, she wouldn’t stay sober. I identified with her experience, not because I wanted to leave AA (I didn’t), but because I too faced dire predictions when I wanted to reduce my time commitment to the fellowship. In my first four years sober I had been attending meetings almost every other day; making daily calls to sponsors (something like 1,500 total to my two consecutive sponsors); hundreds more calls to friends, acquaintances, and newcomers; taking around half a dozen sponsees through some stepwork (not all at the same time!); and fulfilling service commitments ranging from greeter to meeting chair to speaking in prisons and psych wards and what seemed like half the groups in my large metro area. My recovery felt solid, and I’d learned the difference between the program, which I could apply in my daily life, and the fellowship.

I’d returned to grad school to become a psychotherapist. (Incidentally, while there I discovered that mental health professionals have studies and theories about why the obsession leaves some people more easily than others, having to do with particular co-occurring mental health issues. In the future, I hope to write about this too.) With more focus and energy, I felt ready to pursue the new career and other life goals including getting non-alcoholic friends and dating outside the fellowship. I found myself needing more time. Trust me, I did ask myself and a higher power within: Am I “drifting?” Am I “resting on my laurels?” Then as now, I relied heavily on meditation. In my depths, I knew this was not the case.

Pennelle quoted someone who wrote to her, “I know lots of people who have left 12-step recovery. They are all drunk or dead.” When I reduced my involvement, some people made it clear how extremely dangerous they thought this was, and how worried they were. When I told a friend I was down to 1 to 2 meetings per week, she looked at me like I was out of my mind. My sponsor was distraught to be working with me in my new approach, and she couldn’t seem to talk about anything other than how my disease must be “tricking” me. I had affectionate feelings and a lot of gratitude towards her, but we couldn’t seem to see eye to eye on this. Eventually I referenced my obsession’s being lifted as part of my rationale for feeling safe cutting down on the time commitment. She then used almost the same words my friend used years before and said that for her “the obsession has not been lifted.” She added, “for some people, it never does.”

Many considerations likely play into people’s decisions regarding how much or how little time they spend in the fellowship, but it stands to reason that the persistence or disappearance of the obsession factors into it. I have no wish to take chances. Sobriety is the most precious, important thing in my life. It is my life. This disease has killed at least five members of my extended family, and it’s got one immediate family member in prison. I have never once questioned that if I take so much as a sip, I take my life into my own hands, and I don’t want to die. I try never to take my recovery for granted. AA is still a part of my life, but it is “a bridge back to life,” and life was pulling me in another direction. I couldn’t be true to myself and continue at the same level of time commitment I had in my first few years. I didn’t want to let anything get between me and my recovery, including my program.

“A day at a time” has become a spiritual way of life for me, a reminder to live in the present. In early sobriety it was “a day-at-a-time” quite literally. I struggled hard not to drink through the first 90 days and then some, thinking about drinking almost nonstop. As I remember it, the obsession only began to falter for brief spans in months four and five, when I would have these amazing moments of realizing, hey wait! It’s been a whole afternoon and I haven’t been missing it. What freedom! Though I was desperate, exhausted from sleeplessness, grieving the loss of the only coping mechanism I’d ever known and coming to see the wreckage and trauma for the devastation that it was, these gaps in the obsession spurred me on. Even beyond my first anniversary I was still a little shaky (figuratively that is, my actual shakes were long gone). Now there are just moments when a liquor ad will catch my eye, or I’ll have a twinge of nostalgia for my old life. I’m still an alcoholic, but these come very rarely and never amount to a craving. Not even close.

Before, when someone with 20 years would say “it’s still a day at a time,” I couldn’t really hear them. I do now. Taking sobriety “a day at a time” can remain literal, for life. For some cutting back on involvement in the AA fellowship may indeed be a death wish. We share a common problem and a common solution, but we are different people with different lives and recoveries. However well-intentioned, using fear or guilt to coerce people into a level of time commitment that for them is no longer authentic or wanted may only alienate them and take them away from a level of commitment that is working well, or inhibit them from re-engaging should a need arise in the future. Accepting this doesn’t require being dismissive or doubtful of other people’s need for continuous, intensive involvement. Compassion, as always, is best. We must do what is right for our own selves, and, unto our own selves, be true.

View the original article at thefix.com

25 September 2018
I’m Open and Willing, Dear Sponsor, but Wait a Minute!

We know “our best thinking got us here,” but that doesn’t mean we need to be open and willing to take abuse or be manipulated.

When you first came into the program, you might have heard your “best thinking got you here.”

You’re told since your way hasn’t been working, maybe it’s time to try something else.

You’re told you need to surrender.

You’re told you need to start listening and follow directions.

Well, if you were like me (gung ho!), and made the decision to be “open and willing,” I’ll bet you gave the program your best shot: you took the suggestions readily; you went to 90 meetings in 90 days; you read the Big Book daily; you got a sponsor; you did the steps. And hopefully, you started to see some progress. Your life began to improve. You cleaned up the wreckage of your past, mended relationships, got involved in service work, and really started to feel better about yourself.

If the “your best thinking got you here” aphorism played like an endless loop in your brain, you might have felt that you’d lost the ability to think rationally for yourself and that you needed guidance. Should I break up with my addict boyfriend who just happens to be violent? Well, um, yea . . . but you might have been so enmeshed in codependence while simultaneously combatting your addiction that you honestly didn’t know what to do.

If you were like me—with some crazy, delusional thinking going on—and you were put on a six-month waiting list by your insurance to see a therapist, you’d need some help, and fast, and that help might have come by way of a sponsor. And if she was a good one, she’d listen, be empathetic, and gently suggest healthier ways of coping with your problems.

Some people will say that a sponsor’s job is solely to lead a newcomer through the steps—not be a counselor, therapist or life coach. And while some sponsors may stick to this definition, most of the ones I’ve met take a much more involved role. My peers in recovery say they call their sponsors when they want to drink, when their ass is falling off, when they need help! The many times I discussed a problem with a fellow member after the meeting, I invariably heard, “Have you run this by your sponsor?” Or “Call your sponsor, that what she’s there for.”

Sponsors can be unquestionable lifesavers. Through the years, I’ve had sponsors who have really saved my ass. One time, I was dealing with a relative who had a meth addiction and bipolar disorder. She was delusional but also cruel and selfish. But because she was “blood,” I enabled her. After one particularly trying event with her, I remember calling my sponsor and telling her I didn’t know what to do. She told me to do nothing—walk away. And not feel guilty. It ended up being the smartest thing: my relative got much better learning how to cope and take care of her problems herself instead of manipulating me into doing her bidding.

But be careful. Not all sponsors should be sponsors. They may only recruit potential sponsees because their sponsor told them it was their turn to get one, not because they are qualified. And if you get with one who isn’t right for you, she could cause you some damage. As a newcomer, you’re incredibly, nakedly vulnerable—and impressionable. So can you see the conundrum here? You want to be open and willing, you want to start following suggestions and take direction—but you still have to listen to your gut and not confuse vulnerability with gullibility.

When I first met this particular sponsor, I was blown away by her enthusiasm for the program. She was very bright, seemed very together, articulate, funny, educated, empathetic, kind, the whole enchilada. She told me she had tried myriad ways to recover because she’d always been searching for that thing that would fill her up that wasn’t drink drugs food men money or status, and after searching far and wide, she finally surrendered to AA. She claimed it was the best decision she’d ever made. Since she seemed to have what I wanted, I asked her to be my sponsor. I was sure she’d say she was way too busy, because at the time she had six sponsees and was working. But to my delighted surprise, she said “Oh, my of course I can.”

I was wildly excited and hopeful. I was not working at the time and was willing to do just about anything asked of me. She could see I was clearly broken, my life practically in ruins, and assured me she would help me get through these very trying times of early sobriety.

We dived right into the steps. She also instructed me to do 90 meetings in 90 days and get a coffee commitment. But gradually—almost imperceptibly—I discovered something else: She wanted to mold me. At first there were mild corrections of my speech or attitude, but it got to the point that I felt oppressively censored. If I ever said “should” or “have to” she’d immediately correct me and say, “not ‘should,’ not ‘have to’” it’s “I ‘get to’” do blah blah blah. In hindsight, I would have told her “Look, ‘should’ is an intrinsic word of the English language, it means something needs to be done. I think I know the difference of when I ‘get to’ do something and when I ‘should’ do something.”

Another thing she’d do when I told her of a problem I was having with someone, was immediately cut me offbefore I could even finish. She’d interrupt and say, “I want you to think of three good things about this person. Remember, they are doing the best they know how. Find your compassion.” Which is good spiritual advice, but when the shoe was on the other foot and she was pissed at someone, she’d get downright eviscerating, nary mentioning three good qualities of the victim of her rant.

But her all time fave platitude was: “If you spot it you got it!” said immediately to moi every time I complained to her about a person I felt was being unfair, selfish or mean. And she did have a point: sometimes, when we see something we don’t like in a person it’s because we recognize it in ourselves. But not always! For example, do we renounce the bully because we are bullies ourselves? Maybe, but usually not. Then she’d get into mystical stuff and go on about karma and say, “Everybody gets what they deserve because it’s all karma.” When I asked, “So the old lady that gets raped by a stranger, how did her karma cause that?” Her reply, “Well maybe she did something to deserve it. Now, personally, I’ve never been raped.” Whaaatt?

But what put me over the edge was something she said that I knew, even with my broken brain, was incontestably wrong. I didn’t have to chide myself this time for thinking that I wasn’t being open and willing enough to learn, or was being controlled by my ego.

While we were taking a walk, I confided in her about a doctor who had sexually assaulted me when I went in for a pelvic exam.

She responded: “Well, you aren’t going to like this, but can I say something to you?”

“Well, sure, I guess.”

She took a dramatic big breath, squared her shoulders and said, “Okay here goes. I think, that maybe you asked for it.”

I was dumbfounded. At the time, I explained to her, I was 19 and alone in New York City. I’d gotten my first bladder infection, couldn’t pee and could barely walk straight I was in so much pain. All I wanted was some antibiotics.

“What do you mean I was asking for it?” I asked, frightfully confused.

“Well, I didn’t want to bring this up, but now is as good of time as any. I see the way you talk to the men in the meetings. You’re very sexual, you know.”

“What?” I boomed. “Are you fucking kidding me? I try to treat everyone, men and women alike, with respect, and hopefully, kindness.”

“Well that is not how it is being perceived. People talk you know. I’m hearing all kinds of things, like ‘God, I can’t believe Margaret is married! The way she talks to the guys.’”

Now I was pissed. I am an incredibly happily married woman. I adore my husband dearly. I would never, ever, go out on him. I am not even remotely attracted to other men.

I realized then that her thinking was irrevocably off and I had to cut bait. I finally got the courage to fire her but it took time; she wielded a lot of power at the meetings and she intimidated me. It was an incredibly painful experience. I was already so vulnerable and sensitive, and totally confused. To have my sponsor, the one I’d done my steps with, the one who knew my deepest darkest secrets, become something slightly resembling, well, delusional, was demoralizing to say the least!

It took me a while to get back to my homegroup. I was so shattered. I really thought of everyone as family there: they were so nice and kind, it was easy to be friendly back. But . . . but, what if my sponsor was right? Could I have been so wrong, so delusional? Was I flirting and were dudes coming on to me and I just didn’t see it? Eventually I went back and shared what she told me to a couple of trusted AA pals. They told me they’d never heard or seen any of the behavior she was reporting about me.

The reason I’m sharing this story is not to criticize AA, or gossip about members, or diss sponsors. I’m sharing my story because I don’t want the same thing to happen to another vulnerable newcomer, a newcomer who knows her thinking is off and is willing and open to change, but may be confused about the accuracy and validity of some of her sponsor’s suggestions, opinions, or directions.

Listen to your intuitions, and your higher power. If you’re having problems with your sponsor, share your experiences—without using names—with other trusted members in order to get some perspective. Because we are scared and alone when we come into the rooms. We know “our best thinking got us here,” but that doesn’t mean we need to be open and willing to take abuse or be manipulated.

Most of the time, sponsorship is a wonderful example of people helping other people. Sponsors can help talk you out of a drink, and because they’re drunks like you, they usually get where you’re coming from. But just because someone is a sponsor or old-timer doesn’t mean they are perfect.

Face it, we are all deeply flawed in some way. But sponsors have a very serious job to do, and they should be doing it out of altruism, not as way to assuage their own ego by lording over vulnerable newcomers who they can control, manipulate or abuse. So be careful. Be open and willing but keep your boundaries firmly in place. And if things get creepy, don’t spend too much time being resentful (like I did!). Instead, break it off with him/her before you develop another codependent, dysfunctional relationship, and chalk it up as an invaluable learning experience.

View the original article at thefix.com

8 August 2018
True North and the Geographical Cure

What it was like then: misery that had me researching the methods and means of suicide in the middle of the night on my cell phone, back turned to my husband, who was fast asleep, and to my children, asleep between us.

The geographical cure: false hope that a change in circumstance might transform us. Always seductive, isn’t it? But as I have learned from Alcoholics Anonymous, a change in external position on the map doesn’t reset the compass and point us to true north because we always meet up with the self we are, no matter where we are, by chance, by collision, by invitation. Bill Wilson writes in AA’s Big Book, “We meet these conditions every day. An alcoholic who cannot meet them, still has an alcoholic mind: there is something the matter with his spiritual status. His only chance for sobriety would be some place like the Greenland Ice Cap, and even there an Eskimo might turn up with a bottle of scotch and ruin everything! Ask any woman who has sent her husband to distant places on the theory he would escape the alcohol problem.”

Each time I believed a vacation, a temporary reprieve from present conditions, would be the cure, the fix I needed: Jamaica, Mexico, Greece, Romania, Italy, France, Wisconsin, California, etc., etc.? Each time I was sent off to “recover” from my eating disorder, self-injury, alcoholism, and bipolar depression, to distant, inpatient programs: Arizona, Maryland, Texas, and Pittsburgh? I’d get on a plane, 30 pounds underweight, spend a month or two bullshitting my way to well, not starving, eating thousands of calories (but only because I was forced), not drinking (but only because no access to booze), not cutting (but only because no access to sharps), and claiming to feel mostly content (Ha!) with my restored (Too BIG!) body, but not too content because such rapid reversal of position would seem disingenuous to doctors and therapists (I know I still have so much work to do but gosh, I am optimistic this time!).

Each time, I returned home and within weeks was back to restricting, purging, over-exercising, drinking, cutting, and lying. Nothing had changed at home (that is, within myself), so I kept traveling an insane circular route though a dark, abandoned, haunted house.

Samuel Johnson, in his 1750 essay, “The Rambler,” might as well have been giving the lead for a 12-step meeting when he wrote, “The general remedy of those, who are uneasy without knowing the cause, is change of place; they are willing to imagine that their pain is the consequence of some local inconvenience, and endeavor to fly from it, as children from their shadows; always hoping for more satisfactory delight from every new scene, and always returning home with disappointments and complaints.”

Eventually, with honesty and a commitment to working my program, I found my way home. I did not disappear nor die, though for many years I tried to do just that. Difficult to remember that life from here: my now eight years stable life, my now divorced and independent life with a teaching job in Georgia; my own home with HoneyBea, my rescue dog; and purpose restored.

But also from exactly here: on an artist’s residency in Ireland, where I have just had morning tea with writers and painters and composers around a kitchen table — warm scones with butter and blackcurrant jam; where the night before, we gathered around a long, candle-lit dining table for fish, roasted potatoes, carrots, broccoli, and coconut custard topped with a purple-black pansy, and afterwards, in the drawing room where we shared our paintings, writing, and music; where Bernadette, at 93, stood before us in her long red dress, her cane left by her chair, and recited, from memory, poems from her latest, and sixth book—“think of when/ the end will come/and then”; where I believe that I, too, might live to 93, still creating more and forward; where, prefacing my reading, draft pages from a book-in-progress, I told my new friends, “I am not supposed to be here. I was given up for dead. And yet.”

At dinner, on the very first night of my stay, I noticed a fellow artist who had declined the kind offers of wine, and then the raspberry trifle spiked with sherry. So I said to him, as we were cleaning up dishes in the kitchen, “I don’t drink either,” because I am always searching for my tribe when I am not at home.

“Are you a friend of Bill W.?” he asked.

The next night he took me to the local 12-step meeting in the town of Cootehill and I was asked, for the next meeting, to give the “Lead,” which, in 12-step terms, means recounting in ten minutes’ time the story of what my life was like when I was drinking, what happened—the transformation to sobriety—and what my life was like now that I was free.

“It’s easy to get lost,” I said. “Easier to stay lost so far from home. This meeting is an anchor—while you might be strangers, you know me and I know you.” As I was talking about my desperate drinking days, giving the drunkalog, it was as if I was telling the story of another Kerry—that is, the story of a fear-full woman, intent on wrecking herself in despair’s ditch, and who would be dead by 40 by active or passive suicide.

What was my life like then? Locked in a room under 24/7 video surveillance with a thin mattress on the floor, eating bland spaghetti with a plastic spoon, though not really eating since I’d stopped that, too (a spoon and in isolation because I kept sawing my wrists with the tines of a fork in the hospital cafeteria). I kept trying to disappear and doctors kept locking me away. “We need to stop you from killing yourself,” they said. What it was like then: misery that had me researching the methods and means of suicide in the middle of the night on my cell phone, back turned to my husband, who was fast asleep, and to my children, who were curled up and asleep between us both. Plans, plans, plans. Misery that dogged me. What it was like then: impossible to ever be inside joy, to be part of the living, the loving, the longing for now and tomorrow and more of this life, and so I ruminated over the plans, plans, plans.

And so, my recounting of that Kerry at the meeting in Cootehill? She seemed a remote wraith, no longer dogging me, with her doomsday threats: “Just wait. You’ll fall again.” What she now says? “Thank you for saving me.” I honor her and have compassion for her: she didn’t know how to love herself, how to use her voice, how to take risks in this world.

But, too, what it is like now: years after my last dive into bipolar’s dark well and seven years sober, my thoughts can still wander off path and I can get momentarily lost, particularly when traveling away from home, alone, in distant places where I might not know anyone, might wonder if the geographical cure could work: maybe I can have a Guinness in Ireland? So I look for my tribe and go to meetings when far from home. In recovery, you seek fellowship no matter where you are. Because you are always HERE, NOW: one day at a time, even in the Irish countryside.

But, too, what it is like now: I am in right alignment to myself, which means often at an odd angle to the universe, which means sometimes wobbly on that off-kilter axis, but mostly truly good. Such a simple word: good. An alleged root of “good” is the Indo-Eurpoean “ghedh”—to unite, to fit. I am united with myself and fit into my own part of this world. That is, with my ragtag tribe of survivors who know what it was like, what happened, and what it is like now—but a “Now” that only is possible if I remained committed to honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness to find fellowship at home and abroad.

View the original article at thefix.com

19 June 2018
Owning My Space as a Woman in 12-Step Programs

I am totally within my rights if I say no, you may not sit there, and no, I don’t want a hug and I don’t want a cup of coffee and just back the fuck off because I have mace in my purse.

Several days after I took my last drink, I was detoxing at home (note: this is not a good idea) when my mother came over to check on me.

“You should go to AA,” she said, not judgmentally but kindly, from her perch on the sofa in our playroom. I was sweating, sprawled on the other couch, ignoring the toys strewn around me, and her suggestion hit me like a crack of lightning. I sat upright.

“Absolutely NOT,” I replied. “I’m not going to sit in a room full of people who have problems.”

I laugh about it now, looking back. Alcoholics Anonymous is exactly where I belonged then, and it’s where I belong today, but finding the courage to take that first step is not easy by any stretch of the imagination. I was terrified, physically and emotionally sick, and as vulnerable as a baby animal left in the woods. Truthfully, I belonged in rehab, but our insurance would require us to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket if we chose that route, and we simply could not afford it.

People fresh out of the mire of addiction or alcoholism, are, in a word, weak. I waffled between wanting to die and experiencing bursts of euphoria. I had moments where I would have done any drug offered to me, just to make the unfamiliar experience of feeling raw emotions stop. I was fortunate enough to have a fortress of strong friends and family around me to hold me accountable and keep me on track long enough for sobriety to really take hold, but I can honestly say that I’ve never been as vulnerable as I was in early recovery.

And that is why I am so pissed off at the men who tried, unsuccessfully, to take advantage of my weakened state.

I don’t hate men; I think they’re pretty great. Men have, in general, always treated me well. I have two sons, an amazing husband, a wonderful dad, and multiple examples of loving, emotionally healthy male figures in my life. My life experiences have shown me that men are not only perfectly capable of treating women like human beings, but also that they should be expected to do so. Maybe I’m naïve, or sheltered, or simply have out of whack expectations, but when I began attending 12-step programs, I was quickly reminded that not all men are decent, and it PISSED ME OFF.

I’m not going to bore you with descriptions of how some of the dirty old-timers treat me before they realize I don’t play the 13^th stepper game. Some of these people are very slow learners, and others may never get it. If I had not been pushed, encouraged, and sometimes accompanied by my badass girlfriends, the energy it took to ward off the creeps would have been enough to allow me to talk myself into just staying home. It was the perfect excuse, really – telling myself that it wasn’t worth the trouble, or that a women’s only meeting wasn’t until tomorrow, so I could just skip out for today.

Fuck that.

“There will always be assholes,” my sponsor said at the time. “You can’t let that stop you from staying sober.” That was the day I decided not to allow someone else’s sickness interfere with my own recovery.

Fuck that.

I had no idea that I am terrible with boundaries until I started practicing saying “no” when a creeper tried to hold my hand or sit next to me. I learned that nothing terrible happens when I stand up in the middle of a meeting and switch seats, or if I say “this seat is taken,” even when it’s not. I learned that I can simply say no without offering an explanation. I am totally within my rights if I say no, you may not sit there, and no, I don’t want a hug and I don’t want a cup of coffee and just back the fuck off because I have mace in my purse.

Fuck that.

When a known predator walked right up to me and tried to give me a kiss, I stepped away and said “NOPE” as loudly as I could. As time went on and the fogginess of early sobriety began to clear, I forced myself to speak up in meetings, even with multiple pairs of eyes boring into me, mouthing words to me, and generally making me uncomfortable.

Fuck that.

My husband suggested that I start looking rough on purpose; at the beginning, I didn’t have to try. I looked like shit 24/7. But honestly, I don’t think it matters. Creepers gonna creep, no matter what a newcomer looks like.

I refuse to be crowded out of the only place I can go to for safety. I am in a happy marriage, I’m not looking for a sugar daddy or a fuck buddy or even a friend. I can get my own coffee and throw away my own garbage and get my own chair, and don’t you dare follow me to my car. I am in the rooms because I’m sick and I want to get better, and when I watch the newer newcomer get preyed upon like they tried to do to me, it fills me with a quiet rage. All I can do is give her my phone number and encourage her to find her boundaries and more importantly, her voice.

So now, nearly 18 months in, I force myself to look the men loitering around outside of the meeting in the eye; I don’t scurry by, allowing them to stare without any acknowledgement from me. I’m here, I’m taking up space, and I don’t owe you anything – not even a smile, not unless I fucking feel like it.

View the original article at thefix.com

1 June 2018