"AA People"

Someone close to me and to my Mom said the other day “You have to be careful about those people you meet at AA meetings – you just can’t trust them.”  My knee-jerk reaction was to be pissed off  - I have a hell of a temper.  But I took a breath and rather than responding with 4 letter word or explicit gesture I said “Well, I think you could walk into any room full of people and find those who are morally degenerate as well as those who are wonderful people.  It depends on what you’re looking for and who you chose to associate with.”  

Later on I was thinking more about it and I realized that if Mom was the only alcoholic someone knew, of COURSE they would think that AA meetings are full of creepy, untrustworthy people.  It seems like Mom had a knack for getting involved with the wrong people.  Maybe it fulfilled her desire to be needed.  Maybe these people presented a “project” for her – she wanted to fix them.  Who knows.  Those statements aren’t meant to be judgmental of Mom or mean-spirited – just trying to understand.  Honestly I had the same preconceived notion about AA meetings as the person I was talking to.  

My actual experience has been the opposite.  My “home group” meets on Tuesday nights (your home group is like your core family – it’s the meeting you go to every week above all others, your sponsor is often a member of your home group, it’s where you “belong”).  It’s a women-only group of about 40 members.  We’re all ages, all races, all kinds of women.  We have parties, do service work in the community (for instance, lead AA meetings for patients at inpatient treatment facilities), go on retreats, etc.  We share our experiences, support each other, have fun together, and study together.  It’s a very strong, tightly-knit group.  We welcome newcomers – even still, those women who are not committed to recovery and to leading a happy, meaningful life tend not to stick around.  I think that’s what happens when a group has established a strong, positive culture and sense of community.  

The ladies in my home group are the furthest thing from moral degenerates – they are business women, health care professionals, attorneys, stay-at home mothers.  Their focus is not on our shared illness, but on sharing the joy and purpose they’ve found in life.  It’s not a room full of old, smelly, pot-bellied men with soup and melted cheese stuck in their beards who tell their “war stories” about hitting rock bottom (although I’ve certainly been to THOSE meetings).  It’s a room full of warm, bubbly, welcoming women.  The crazy thing is that despite our diversity we are all so similar – we’re intelligent, we’re perfectionists, we’re control freaks, we’re ambitious, we’re too smart for our own good.  We have super high expectations of ourselves and while we push ourselves, we encourage each other to remember: “be kind to yourself”.

Those Steps

The first times I read the steps I said to myself “yeah, yeah, blah blah” but when you actually read and consider each one, it’s a pretty powerful list.

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

I feel like people who aren’t involved with AA are typically familiar with steps 1 and 9: admitting powerlessness and making amends.  That makes sense because those are the parts of the process that non-alcoholics see and are directly impacted by.  Before we get to step 9, though, we have to really discover who we are (the good, bad and ugly) and ask God to help us fix our defects of character.  This is where steps 4 and 5, which I’ve been working, come in.  For me, the most powerful part of these steps is making a list of people, institutions and groups we resent.  What I like about it is that it’s not just about saying “I’m so made because Jane ruined my life, poor me”.  Instead we look at:

• specifically what Jane Doe did (not just broad, sweeping statements but specific details)
•  what part of me was hurt or threatened by what Jane did (my self-esteem, pride, emotional security, pocketbook, ambitions, personal relations, etc.)
• where I was to blame in the scenario (was I dishonest, selfish, self-seeking, frightened, inconsiderate?)
•  the exact nature of our wrong (I wasn’t open and honest in my communication with Jane, I didn’t support her when she needed a friend, etc.)

Rather than being a laundry list of anger and self-pity it shows us where we have ownership in relationships that have gone wrong so we can learn from them and change our behavior and our understanding.  I can see why so many people get hung up and “quit” when they’re working on these steps.  It’s much easier to blame all the things other people have done for making our lives terrible and just feel sorry for ourselves.  The hard thing to do is to accept personal responsibility and move forward and grow.  We do the same thing with a list of our fears and a list of people we’ve hurt in our intimate relationships.  But the Big Book says “Resentment is the number one offender.  It destroys more alcoholics than anything else.  From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick.  When the spiritual malady is overcome we straighten out mentally and physically”.

My grandmother said to me “I have concerns about you going though these emotional Steps alone, which I realize your mom did.”  That’s a really valid concern.  The thing is, the steps are not meant to be worked alone.  They’re to be worked with your sponsor and with the support of your sober support network.  These are the people who share their experience, strength and hope as you go through the process.  I, too, feel that Mom tried to “go it alone”.  Maybe that’s part of the reason she struggled.  For me, there was a lot of conversation over MANY cups of coffee with my sponsor, as I put together my inventory and when I shared the final product with her we were nice and comfortable in her home with her dog, and she gave me her input (experience, strength and hope) as I read each item on my inventory.  It was actually the furthest thing from a lonely experience – through it I became closer with myself, closer with my sponsor, and closer with God.  I don’t want my grandma to worry – I’m not alone.  I actually have more emotional support now than I ever have.

Drunk Mail Carrier

Yesterday as I was watching the news, a headline grabbed my attention: “Local Mail Carrier Arrested for Drunk Driving”. Splashed across the screen was a mugshot of Mary, a woman who I knew from my outpatient rehab program. My heart dropped as I listened to the story of her driving her mail truck erratically, nearly hitting other vehicles, smashing into a stop sign, and ultimately being arrested with a blood alcohol level 3 times the legal limit.

I jumped immediately into protective “mama bear” mode. I looked up the story on the news station’s website, scrolled through it and clicked on “comments”, praying that the inevitable firestorm of mean-spirited, ridiculing commentary had not yet started. I became intensely irritated that the news station had posted Mary’s full name and her mugshot for all the world to see. She must be humiliated. Didn’t she have a right to privacy? I guess not.

Seeing that there was no feedback yet, my next line of thinking was “Dammit, Mary!”. I wished she hadn’t dropped out of the program early, that she’d just hung on a little bit longer. Perhaps this wouldn’t have happened. If only she had attended a few more group sessions, made it more of a priority, spent a little more time on her homework assignments, been more open to individual therapy… but this line of thinking was also flawed. I realized that even if she had finished the program – graduated “with honors” – the outcome could have been exactly the same.

Finally I was sad. I thought about Mary’s son. I didn’t know him, but I knew how proud of him Mary was. She told us nearly every week. I imagined the 20-something young man feeling frustrated, let down, embarrassed, confused, angry and scared. In reality, he might not have felt any of those things. The truth is that the story was bringing me back to all the feelings I had about my own mother.

I thought about Mary’s pride and self-worth. She was so proud of her job. She lit up when she told us tales of how hard she worked, the challenges she endured from difficult customers to long hours to rain, sleet, snow and hail. Part of me hoped she wouldn’t lose her job because of this incident – that her employer would give her some sort of probation, make her go through treatment, and allow her to keep her job once she had completed a program. Part of me hoped she would lose her job and that the loss would be a consequence serious enough to motivate her to get well – to save her own life. Either way, I hoped this situation didn’t send her into a tailspin of despair – into a dark and terrifying place.

As an alcoholic, I too have driven my mail route drunk. No, I’m not a mail carrier, I don’t have a mail truck, etc. But I’m reasonably certain that if I had Mary’s job the same thing would have happened to me. When I was using, drinking was the only thing that allowed me to get through the day. The painful conference calls, the tedious spreadsheets, the deluge of emails were all a little bit easier to handle after a cocktail (or ten). If I decided I wasn’t going to drink, then I was sick and a swig of booze was the only thing that could curb the nausea, sweats, shakes and paranoia. I imagined that when Mary got in her mail truck the day she was arrested she’d probably had the same battle with herself. She was choosing between being drunk enough to be able to handle the day, or being so sick that her mail route was nearly impossible. She knew what she was doing was wrong – her disease was too powerful for her to make a rational decision.

Mary’s story is so powerful for me because it hits dangerously close to home. The story elicits a physiological response – nausea.  It’s a story of the shame, guilt, sickness, and terror of active addiction. It reminds me of how close I am – just one drink – to spiraling right back into alcoholic madness. 

A Letter to Mom

Dear Mom,

The craziest thing happened right before Thanksgiving.  You died.  I was down in Dallas because Dad was having surgery – he broke his wrist tripping over dog.  I was wanted to be there for his surgery and to help out afterward. You know how Dad is when he’s stressed and in pain.  

ANYWAY, on Tuesday, November 24^th Dad came and knocked on my door, opened it, and said “Wake up.  Your mother died”.  I thought to myself “oh my god, it happened”, I grabbed my blanket and followed Dad into his room.  He had (my sister) on the phone and she was crying hysterically.  I’ve never heard her cry like that – as a matter of fact I can’t remember the last time I saw or heard her cry prior to that morning.  I guess the police had banged on her door between 4am and 5am to notify her.  

I sat cross-legged on the bed trying to find reality and halfway wondering if I was still dreaming.  I wasn’t surprised.  I’d been mentally preparing myself for your death for about a year.  It was right about this time last year when it became quite clear you would end up dying suddenly – most likely in your apartment as the result of alcohol or pills.  And it seems like that was exactly what happened – although we don’t know yet.  The West Fargo PD seems to be taking their sweet time with the toxicology results.

I have so much more to tell you about the day and the week you died, but that's not really the point of this letter.  I should probably get back on track.

I have no idea what I’m doing, Mom.  I’m so afraid that I’m going to end up alone.  I still feel completely unlovable.  It’s shaping up to be a long, lonely life.  I’m completely terrified.  It scares me so bad that you struggled forever with addiction and depression and that my life might turn out exactly the same.

I’ve been looking for you all over.  I went and sat in the recital hall at Concordia College hoping you’d find me there.  I’ve been playing Christmas songs on the piano hoping you’ll sit and listen.  I’ve been staring at your elephant… we need to have a conversation about elephants, Mom.  But that’s for later.  (my half sister and brother) have both had really powerful dreams about you in the last couple of nights.  (my half sister) texted me in the middle of the night last night telling me you’d just told her that you can’t see us, but that you CAN hear us.  Maybe you’re listening now.

In inpatient treatment I was assigned to write a letter to you that was not to be delivered.  The next day, we were assigned to write the letter we wished we would receive from our mothers. I considered talking with you about the letters at some point.  The right time never came.  

A lot of it sounds petty now.  It just doesn’t matter.  And I’m glad the “right time” to talk to you about the letters never came.  I’ve been reading a lot of the things you wrote in journals and as assignments for your treatment program.  To me, it seems like you got stuck really early in life.  As far as I can tell it was when you were about 12.  You never stopped being angry at your folks for things they said and did and those stories and feelings show up over and over in your writing.  I can’t help but wonder if you’d still be alive right now if you’d been able to process and work through some of that.  I don’t want to be stuck.  I don’t want any of the things I wrote about to hold me down or hold me back in life or in my recovery.  Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

I’ve been asked a couple of times what I would say to you now if I could say one last thing.  My answer has been the same: “I’d tell her I wished she’d tried harder.”  It’s so true.  Reading through all of your stuff – every unfinished assignment, unfinished letter, unfinished thought makes my stomach turn.  What would have happened if you had finished those?

I have a ton of unanswered questions and I’m really searching.  I’m looking at what you wrote, trying to put myself in your shoes, waiting for results from the police, looking through your mail, reading your books… I know many of my questions will never be answered.  I can spend life wondering, being angry, being hurt but I don’t want to.  One thing I know for sure is that you’re at peace now and I’m glad for that.

Talk to you soon.

Love,

Me

I'm an Alcoholic

Few words in the English language can elicit as strong an emotional response from me as “alcoholic”. The word still gives me a little bit of a sick feeling inside. “Alcoholic” triggers images of homeless, dirty panhandlers; of drunk people passed out in filth; of hopelessness. After these automatic thoughts, I remind myself of all the alcoholics I know – medical professionals, musicians, students, business people, mothers, fathers. The vast majority of these people aren’t homeless, filthy or living in despair.

Labeling myself as an alcoholic has been one of my greatest fears. When I was drinking I knew it was out of control and that I couldn’t stop on my own. I also knew that if I EVER admitted I was an alcoholic my life would change forever. People would project their own stereotypes of alcoholics onto me. They would judge my morals and ethics. They would assume I was a bad and disgusting person. My family would be ashamed of me. I’d be a failure. If I admitted to being an alcoholic I would never be able to drink again – people would hold me accountable. People would be uncomfortable in my presence. My friends would feel guilty about going to happy hour (“should we invite her or not?”) or about ordering a glass of wine with their dinner if we were dining together. My alcoholism would constantly be the elephant in the room. I hated that elephant and wanted nothing to do with it.

My fears about admitting my alcoholism were so strong that I NEVER uttered the words “I am an alcoholic” until after I had checked into the hospital. I didn’t even try out the phrase in my head. It was so taboo I couldn’t even touch it. I would rather die. As a matter of fact, there were several times I thought it might just be better to end it all than to admit my alcoholism.

You can probably imagine that things got pretty bad in order for me to even consider identifying myself as an alcoholic. I really backed myself into a corner – the only way out was to push aside all my paralyzing fears and admit it: “I’m an alcoholic”.

Now I have lots of experience admitting my alcoholism. I had to tell my family and my friends. It comes up in conversation. I introduce myself in AA meetings as an alcoholic. It may sound like a simple thing to say, but each time I think about all the implications that come with the label. Sometimes it’s really hard to say, but most of the time it’s empowering – and I am relieved that I’ll NEVER have to admit it for the first time again.