"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”.