- McNally
- Sep 13, 2007
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Ask me about Proposition 305
Do you like muskets?
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Here's Two Finger's wall of text without the "copy/pasted from phone" filter run over it.
Slavic Crime Yacht posted:I've written in the past on my experience with addiction, and on my experience with recovery.
Now I want to write about my experience with that most famous organisation, Alcoholics Anonymous, and on the experiences I have had with the people within.
I will not name names, but anyone who has been a part of my recovery will no doubt recognise certain people.
I was absolutely desperate when I first rolled into a meeting. I had gone to a 'Young Persons in Sobriety' meeting, since that's what I thought best - the support of my peers.
The AA program itself is a simple one. If you want to really, really boil it down, it more or less comes to 'don't rely on self-will, sort out the poo poo you caused, and try to help every other poor bastard, and finally, just live a better life.'
It's a simple program, but not an easy one. I want to be very clear on this point. I have never had an issue with the 12 step program. I think it's a fantastic tool.
Anyone who has been in or out of AA will be familiar with the 13th step. For anyone who isn't, "13th step" refers to when you have a very emotionally vulnerable person trying to get sober, and someone who has been sober for a longer period (usually a couple years) gets involved in a sexual relationship with them.
I have heard it compared to dragging someone out of a car wreck and loving them.
I don't really see it differently to that, as crude a metaphor as it is. Looking at my own emotional state when I came in, I was in no way, shape, or form ready for a sexual relationship with anyone.
The potential for abuse in such a situation is enormous. While it is commonly a man preying on a woman, I have also seen the reverse of this situation.
And that's one of the examples I want to discuss.
Very early on in my sobriety, I made a couple of friends and began to spend time with them outside of AA.
Then one night I saw a woman angrily saying to one of them 'well you might as well just be drinking again.' I was genuinely shocked. My impression was that it looked like a fight between exes, and I was correct.
It turned out that she was about 4 years clean, and he was just months clean when they got involved. To his credit, he called it off because he did not feel that he was ready for a relationship.
I then saw her wage what I can only describe as a calculated, and frankly disturbing one woman war on him. All kinds of rumours were spread, and she would try to drag anyone and everyone into it.
This was one of the first things I saw in AA which deeply disturbed me.
Another key point of AA is the sponsorship model. A sponsor is someone who is sober as a result of working the AA program, and who will help to guide the newcomer through the program.
This is a real double-edged sword.
I think a buddy system like this is great. Having someone to guide you is incredibly helpful, and for me at least gave me some direction and was instrumental in me remaining sober, particularly in the first year.
What I do not think is great, is the potential for codependence.
Somewhere along the way, and I don't know where, a lot of dogma began to spring up surrounding the AA program.
My first sponsor insisted on several occasions that I needed to discuss any major decisions I made with him before taking them.
And not to single him out, but I have heard this from several people, particularly in the Young Persons in Sobriety group I mentioned earlier.
There is no mention of anything like this in AA's Big Book.
I cannot see this as anything but an unhealthy dependence.
Something else that happened, that drove me away from the Young Persons in Sobriety group permanently, was a sexual assault.
A woman I knew was groped by an old man (I always found it strange the number of old men that were in a supposedly young people's group).
The response from the group was to hide behind one of the AA traditions.
Three—The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.
They interpreted this to mean that they could not stop anyone from attending a meeting, ignoring the fact that the first AA tradition is:
One—Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity.
At the point where a sexual assault happens, in my opinion, it needs to be immediately and strongly condemned, and in a situation such as this, that member immediately needs to be banned.
A failure to do so, is effectively a tacit endorsement of the actions.
But it did not stop there. It was variously suggested to me that because I had not personally seen the action, I had no way of knowing that the woman was telling the truth. Victim-blaming, in other words.
It was also suggested to me that if I did not like the group's response, I was welcome to approach the police myself. I responded that it was her call what she wanted to do about getting the police involved, but that if the group allowed him to continue coming, they would drive away any women who don't want to be sexually assaulted.
I was appalled by the lack of response to the situation. I was even more disgusted that the underlying message seemed to be 'we can't stop anyone from coming, even if they are harming other members.'
So I voted with my feet, and refused to go to that meeting anymore.
An epilogue to this anecdote, is that I asked another member what had happened to the man responsible, since I hadn't seen him in a long time. I was told that he had died of cancer. I replied 'good.'
I still feel the same way. This was only one incident, and if there was one, there were more. I do not feel the slightest bit of remorse for that man being in the ground.
I had begun seeing a therapist because I was realising more and more that, despite being sober, the underlying emotional and mental issues that had driven me to drink in the first place were still there.
At that time, the prevailing message I heard in AA was 'you are broken and will never get better, the only way to live is through this program.'
I took serious issue with that philosophy.
I didn't come to AA to be indoctrinated, I came to AA to get well. I told my therapist this, and she mentioned various other methods of recovery.
I mentioned to a few within AA the misgivings I was beginning to have, and the answers I received disturbed me on a lot of levels.
When I had first come into the program, what I heard most of all was 'do whatever works for you, this is what works for us.' I think that's a great message.
What I heard when I began to express misgivings was that I would simply go out and drink again. That if I were to leave AA, I would lose my sobriety and be right back where I started.
And that completely missed the point.
My resolve to die sober has never changed. I don't believe it ever WILL change. I simply disagreed with what I was seeing within groups of AA. And with that in mind, I eventually made the decision to withdraw from the fellowship.
I stopped going to meetings, but continued to work my program the best I could. I discontinued the sponsorship arrangement I had, because of a particular event.
My flatmates were smoking pot one night, and I went and stood outside with them while they smoked so I could smoke a cigarette. I kept my distance, probably two to three meters. When we went back inside, my throat was dry and I was giggling. I realised I must have caught some second-hand smoke and was mildly stoned and I freaked out. I phoned my sponsor immediately and told him what had happened. I calmed down fairly quickly and realised that inadvertantly catching some second-hand smoke is not at all the same thing as downing a box of beer.
When next I saw my sponsor, he told me he'd discussed it with his sponsor and they could not see how I could have done this by accident.
I made the point that if it had been intentional, I would not have freaked out and immediately picked up the phone the way that I did, and that I never liked smoking pot anyway. But I felt like the trust that had existed between us was broken, and I chose to discontinue that relationship.
And so it was that I left AA.
There was no farewell speech, no dramatic ending, I simply left.
I held onto the tools I had learnt there and fully intended to use them in my life to maintain my sobriety, and as mentioned, I clung so tightly to the thought that I would never drink again.
And I have not.
What did happen, were two things I had heard discussed by long-term AAs.
First, I discovered what it is to be 'dry drunk.' Dry drunk refers to when an individual is in a lot of emotional pain but is not drinking. They exhibit a lot of the same erratic, reactive behaviours a practicing alcoholic does.
For my part, I was in an extremely toxic work environment with favouritism, nepotism, emotional abuse, and surrounded by practicing alcoholics. Put simply, everyone in that job was an alcoholic, it's just that I was the only one that knew it.
When I came home, I caught up with a friend of mine. I treated her terribly. At some point she looked at me and said 'this boat's really traumatised you, hasn't it?'
I didn't really know what else to do with my days, so I returned to AA meetings. I burst into tears in one of them.
What came next, was what's known as a rock bottom in sobriety.
Every addict or alcoholic knows exactly what their rock bottom was. That's the experience with drugs or alcohol that forces them to take recovery seriously. I know what mine was. I will never forget it.
What happened for me, is that I had suffered a romantic rejection, and then had a string of interactions with women that usually ended after two or three dates. I had gotten the boot from a job after a week for not being up to scratch.
I couldn't explain how I had done so poorly at that job. It was nothing complicated, nor anything I hadn't done before. But somehow, I just could not make myself put in a real effort to do work of a high standard.
Money began to grow tighter and tighter, and I still couldn't make an effort to find another job.
I began to feel I was toxic, that no woman wanted me anywhere near her. I was useless, no employer would keep me. I was a drain on everyone around me, emotionally and financially. And I didn't want to ask for financial assistance, because I'd already done so when I first went into recovery, and I have too much pride to allow myself to ask for help over and over.
Then I got sick. I got hit hard by a flu bug of some sort, and was more or less confined to my bed for 6 weeks. My physical health wasn't great, but that kind of isolation is dangerous for anyone, particularly someone with my disease.
I went downhill, fast.
My mother suggested that I come visit for a weekend so she could look after me. I don't think I smiled once the whole time I was there.
I lay in bed at her house staring at the ceiling. I realised I was feeling like there was no future for me.
That I would somehow hurt every woman I encountered. That I would drive away friends again. That I would push my family away. That I would never be good at any job.
These were EXACTLY the same feelings I had had when I 'broke' and went into recovery.
I got scared. I reached out to an online support group I had used and said how I was feeling, then turned my phone off and lay staring at the ceiling until I eventually fell asleep.
Mum ordered me to see a doctor since the bug had stuck around so long.
I made the appointment, with no intention of discussing a flu bug.
I instead read the doctor the messages I had written that Saturday night as I lay in bed restlessly.
I told her how scared I was of feeling this way.
She pointed me toward some online resources and asked me if I was open to the possibility of taking a drug which might help me. I replied that I was open to trying anything within reason.
So I was put on antidepressants for the first time in my life.
I have heard from some members of AA that they consider any kind of mood altering substance off limits, but I've always thought that's bullshit.
These pills help me function, and allow me to feel joy in everyday life.
I have gone a little off topic, but gently caress you, this is my story. You want a different one, go find something else to read.
To come back to the topic of AA, I feel it's important to discuss the rejection I had.
The stated reason why she could not continue seeing me was that it hit too close to home for her, as a family member of hers was an active alcoholic.
I was very disappointed and more than a little resentful, but I accepted her decision. The only thing was, I had no idea how to process it.
So I went back to my homegroup. And almost unplanned, I asked someone new to be my sponsor.
I knew of him before I asked him, but I didn't really know him.
I didn't dislike him, but neither did I particularly like him either.
What I did know about him is that he had been sober for 22 years, so whatever he was doing, it was working. I also knew that he worked in an entirely different field to me, so his life experiences would be very different to mine, and I might learn something from him.
When we first sat down to discuss the arrangement, he asked me what I wanted out of it. I told him I wanted to continue with my sobriety, but that I wanted to grow as a person.
He suggested to me that growing as a person is a little outside of a sponsorship arrangement, as in his view all a sponsor is for, is to help someone stay sober.
This was an attitude that I liked.
He also mentioned that he strongly disagrees with the idea that AA should become one's life, but that AA is simply a tool to help one live. This mirrored the views that I had developed.
I do not know whether I consider him a friend, a mentor, or a teacher, or some mix of all three.
But I respect him.
My relationship with AA has changed over my time in and out of it. I feel that it has matured.
AA is and always will be an important part of my life. But it is not my life.
I have made a conscious effort to practice the program in my life. I don't do it perfectly, but anyone who says they do is lying.
What I do know, is that through working the AA program, I was able to stay sober through some very difficult times.
What I also know, is that I have personally been of great help to some people who were suffering very badly.
There was an event recently, which bothered me a great deal. I met an alcoholic who, bluntly, was the worst I've ever seen. Great efforts were being made to get him into a medical detox unit because the amount he was drinking, he was likely to die if he immediately stopped.
Quick consultation was made and a friend and I babysat him overnight. We were giving rationed amounts of alcohol under medical advice, and supervising him to make sure he didn't do anything stupid. It was an extremely draining experience.
I was again disgusted to see just how few people were willing to put their hands up to help. One in particular said that he was not a babysitter, which really stuck in my craw given that he had previously told me I needed to get more involved with service work.
But helping to get him well also proved to be a very rewarding experience.
The 12th step of the AA program is perhaps the most important.
"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."
Whenever I am helping someone else with their problem, my own simply ceases to exist. There is no better cure for my own alcoholism than helping someone else overcome theirs.
And more than that, I have discovered a great deal of satisfaction in being of service in other ways.
What my experiences with AA have taught me can be summed up pretty simply.
"It works if you work at it."
It's completely true. Where in the past I have been at AA because I felt I had to be there, now I go there because I want to be there, and because I want to help others.
I doubt I will ever forget how the lows felt, particularly not now that I have felt them sober, and if I can do anything to help someone through that, I will.
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Sep 2, 2018 20:08
