AA Part 1

Alcoholics Anonymous is an interesting organization.  I can see how it can help some people, especially people who need a regular group to meet with to keep sober, but, for a few different reasons, it didn't work at all for me.  As a matter of fact, my bad experiences with AA lead me to drink heavier for a few months before finally sobering up.  If someone was to ask me if AA works, I'd  tell them "to a point, and for some," but I would encourage them to try other options first.

In late August of 2013, I realized I was starting to crawl into a bottle and not wanting to come back out.  The good news was I still was tethered enough to reality to know I needed to stop.  I didn't want to have to go to one of those treatment facilities you see advertised, the ones which look like a spa facility and has people who look like they were in bad shape but are now cleaned up, talking about how "it saved my life."  It looked like a lovely vacation, but I really didn't think that was the level of treatment I needed.  I decided baby steps.

I went online and looked up AA.  I pulled up a shocking amount of meetings in my area, near 50 a week, within a 5 mile radius of my house.  AA meets in churches and coffee shops, in strip malls and business centers, and even at people's houses.  All the meetings were listed with a where and when, that's it.  In hindsight, this was the first problem.

I chose a group which met every day at noon at a coffee shop near my house.  I, wrongly, thought it was a nice option this group would have a daily meeting, ensuring if someone could only make it Thursdays or Sundays they had a choice.  The real intent of this group having daily meetings was due to the members of this group being heavy, hardcore addicts.  Many of these people had such serious problems with drinking and/or drugs they needed the security of a daily meeting to have a focus point to latch onto, quite literally living the 'one day at a time' mantra pressed by the AA leaders.  The rest of the meeting's attendees were likely being ordered by the courts to meet everyday, but clearly had no intent of slowing down.  There was nothing on the website to warn a potential member about this fact.

I entered the meeting and sat down quietly in a corner.  There were about 25 people in the group, men and women, young and old, some dressed professionally and some less.  No one introduced themselves, they all just looked at a fixed spot in front of them.  A select few members got a warm salutation, but the group had a dark feel.  We went through the meeting introductions and I got to say, "Hi I'm ____, and I'm an alcoholic."  They all responded, "Hi _____!"  Off we go.

They were going through the early motions of the meeting, when someone reminded the meeting leader they needed to ask if this was anyone's first meeting.  The guy asked, and I raised my hand, saying it was my first.  There was a stunned silence as 25 people looked at me wide eyed, like I was a child who dropped an F-bomb.  For a few moments, the meeting attitude changed from a durge to an uncomfortable community picnic, where some neighbor you've never met tries awkwardly to welcome you.  They gave me a plastic AA coin, something I still have, and went through a few formal welcoming comments.  I can't really remember what they said.  I was scared and buzzed.

We then got into what I called the meat of the meeting.  This was the open floor segment where people talked about their failures and successes.  The first person to talk had their 30 day anniversary. The group gave him a round of applause, and there were a lot of congratulations, too many congratulations.  I hadn't tried to give up alcohol at that point, but I knew from earlier in the year I could go a few days without drinking easy.  Thirty days seemed like a real short stretch of time to celebrate, but I told myself I didn't know where he was coming from.

Person after person spoke.  The room got darker and darker as horror story after horror story unfolded for me.  Lost jobs, lost kids, lost wives, lost husbands, and lost houses.  Jail time, court dates, car wrecks, two drunken rants, one of which came from a guy so drunk he was losing a sitting fight with his chair.  There were kids, KIDS(!), talking about hard days and nights with serious drugs, copious booze and sinful service preforming.  I'm in my 40's and this fight to rid my life of alcohol has been hard.  I can't imagine how hard it must be to look at life from 18 and realize the odds are against you.

I kept quiet.  I studied the group.  I kept saying to myself, "I'm not anywhere close to these guys." It's not fair to compare your addiction to others, but this group gave me a really screwed up starting position.  Next to most of these people I was a guy who had a few too many after work one night.  My problems seemed quaint.  I went to a few more noon meetings, three to be exact, and I finally said enough.  It was in the fourth meeting where a drunk man went on a 20 minute, slurred, angry rant about how the world was so unfair, and no one batted an eye.  They just kept looking at the fixed spot in front of them the entire time.  That speech, and the reek of liquor off the guy from 30 feet away, bugged me, but not nearly as much as the woman who I had met at two other meetings insisting she never saw me a day in her life.  I knew I had a problem, but this group, due to the depth of their disease, was not relatable, and planted a seed in my mind that my problem wasn't that bad.

I went back online and realized you could not differentiate what each group was like.  They let you know if it was a men's only or women' only meeting, but never the level of addiction each group was predominantly populated with.  I know there were probably other, less weathered drinkers at these noon meetings, but they got drowned out in a sea of sorrow and misery.

I decided to try a different AA group.