AA

I remember once I tried to “join” an alcoholics group.

I actually was assigned to go through an aggressive therapy program and attend AA meetings as a part of my consequences for my DUI which I got from driving after anesthesia and on various medications to get to a court date to get my order of protection hearing to protect myself. That was a long sentence! Like going over a bunch of speed bumps. Which I don’t think are necessary on any road.

In the end, I found I wasn’t even supposed to do these classes. Just pay a giant fine, do some community service and make better decisions. So I attended 8 weeks of aggressive out patient addiction recovery therapy classes for no reason and all the reasons.

I remember sitting there in my classes, sharpening my colored pencils with my desktop sharpener to color while they talked. Like a studious little student eager to be included. I asked her if this was ok, she seemed unsure what to say. She laughed daily when she heard my sharpener. I sat and practiced listening intensely and took notes, wrote stories, colored, looked for rocks with holes in the landscaping on breaks. I missed hours of work to sit and listen to how to change my thoughts. I opened up once. It was a little like opening a flood gate. I told my story in a few pieces, just a few. Once I did this, eager ears and minds to share started nodding, and agreeing, amens said and even some tears, they got it. I thought, these are my people. Except they weren’t. Except they were.

I attended an AA meeting. I didn’t like all of the rules and the feeling of having to follow them. But they all loved each other so much, relied on each other, they called one another in times of need, a phone list was passed around. I knew I would never use it. I was relieved so many had this for themselves. I wanted to keep coming just to be certain so many I had met kept coming. I worried that they would all actually start drinking again. That the best people to understand what someone is going through is to be going through it or have gone through it. You relate. Yet you also relate so sitting in a room with people who relate almost seems like a bad idea. Or the best one. But. I wanted to belong to something. So I kept going and even once announced I was one and cried and told a story about it but then I really couldn’t seem to make myself believe I was sitting here relating to anyone.

I was so starved of belonging to something that I wanted to be an alcoholic just to belong with this open caring but maybe dangerous group. I wanted to drown my sorrows in a bottle, waste my money that was needed to support my kids, struggle with healthy ways of coping, just to belong to something. To be that selfish. I know that is not what alcoholism is, it is a serious disease. But it is an achievable recovery. I know some people have or for now have. I also don’t really know if it is a disease. Some people say it is some say it isn’t.

The only problem with this idea to belong, actually there are lots of problems with this, but the main one is I didn’t get any of it. I didn’t relate at all. I could see how they all related to each other and felt happy that all these hurt souls and minds had a group to empower them or enable them. It depends. I was happy they all had each other, but, I didn’t belong. Not in a way that I am not accepting a problem either, just literally that I know my personality so well that the thought of tip toeing into addiction would be a nightmare, I only know how to obsess to concentrate sometimes. I would be, not just a terrible addict but a good one all at the same time.

I know what I can and can’t handle. I know that avoidance is not saying I have a problem or don’t, it’s saying I have control of creating one. I have self control. Lots of discipline. Too much sometimes. I crave control of myself. I feel like I’m in control of myself but stuck in a world felt out of control. Which can make you feel like you are not. In fact I may have been someone who would sit there and think somehow I could fix them all. That none of them could do it so I could for them. I may have been the most dangerous one in there. It wouldn’t have worked. I would have done everything for them and they would be just back to drinking. I would have driven and gotten it. I would have hidden it for them. I would have done anything for them so I still belonged to something. This is the rest of the problems with me being in an AA room. It is full of people out of control of themselves. Guess what I want? Everyone to just take care of themselves or let me do it for you.

I am not an alcoholic, I sat in a room once and tried to say so just because I was so alone, so afraid and so lost. I was just lonely.