Okay, this is one of those entries that gets started with a disclaimer: Not everyone agrees with me on what I’m about to say. I write about what I have learned, what my experience in Recovery has taught me, and what I have learned from those who’ve gone before me.
Take what you like and leave the rest.
I attend multiple fellowships. I came into the rooms through one particular fellowship, but have found it helpful to attend several different ones on a regular basis. I hear different things in different rooms. Even in different rooms for the same fellowship, you can hear wildly different stories of experience, strength, and hope. To me, one of the biggest crimes against Recovery is to tell someone they “don’t belong” in a particular meeting.
Regardless of which room I’m in, I identify as what that meeting is for. I announce myself as an alcoholic in AA meetings, an addict in NA meetings, etc. I don’t have a problem doing so and it doesn’t feel dishonest to me. Some experts in the field of addiction medicine describe all addictions as the disease of alcoholism. Most NA meetings are very clear that alcohol is a drug, and needs to be avoided by those who are addicts every bit as much as their drug of choice. I, myself, believe that sober means sober and my program of Recovery is that I don’t drink or use no matter what.
The NA rooms have a bit of a leg up on the AA rooms, in the sense that they seem to understand better the need for being clean and sober from all mind- and mood-altering substances. On the other hand, those in AA seem to better understand the concept of a ‘dry-drunk’, someone who has merely given up using/drinking but has done nothing to address the behavior and thinking that is part & parcel of our disease.
I know of number of people who are in Recovery only for one particular substance and feel that it is perfectly okay to drink alcohol. I know those who are in Recovery who don’t see anything wrong with using other substances, as long as they don't drink (the so-called ‘marijuana maintenance’ program, for example). The suggestion I give to those who want me to sponsor them is to give it all up, because only with a completely clear head can we begin to address the issues we address in Recovery. I don’t ever have to come down on anyone about it, either. If they want to continue to use or drink, they usually drift away all of their own accord.
I’ve heard people list off the lengths of time they’ve been sober from various things. X number of days from alcohol, Y number of days from pot, Z number of days from crank, and on and on for however long their list is. My comment on that? Sounds just a little bit unmanageable to my ears. For myself, I have only one sobriety date, and it is the date I was first clean and sober from everything.
After I had been doing this Recovery thing awhile, I had several conversations with various people who were trying to understand why I wasn’t drinking, even though in their eyes I never had a problem with alcohol. My response to them was that they’re right, I didn’t have a problem with alcohol—I had a problem with me. When it comes right down to it, my problem wasn’t with my drug of choice, either. My problem was with me, with life. I didn’t know how to live and I didn’t know how to deal with reality, especially the real me.
Every once in a great while, I will identify like this: “My name is Zach, and I still suffer from the disease of addiction.” Because this, to me, is the rigorously honest truth. I still have an obsession of the mind. I know that I can fix (or attempt to fix) on just about anything. Food. Sex. Coffee. Donuts. It doesn’t matter! If I’m not working the program, then I’m not spiritually fit, and the old patterns of behavior and thinking come out and start to take over my life again. People I love get hurt. If I let things go too far, I could undoubtedly end up back in the psych ward or even dead from a successful suicide attempt. That’s not what I want, so I maintain a close vigil on myself, doing the best I can to watch for the signs that things inside Zach aren’t going so well. And if they aren’t, I try to take action as quickly as possible.
A “real” alcoholic might not consider me one. That’s fine. I know that when I drank, I drank alcoholically. I drank to get drunk. The idea of just having a couple of drinks still doesn’t make any sense to me whatsoever. To an addict who was strung out on heroin and homeless, they might not consider me a “real” addict because I had a low bottom and my drug of choice wasn’t as “bad” as theirs. I never lost a job, so how could I possibly be a real addict? My two failed marriages and three suicide attempts don’t mean anything to them, I guess.
Pardon my sarcasm, but my intent here really is to help those who are new. A lot of people have made the mistake of thinking that they only had a problem with one thing. Focusing on that has led a great number of people in the rooms right back out the door. If we want our lives to improve, we have to treat our disease. A recovering addict or alcoholic is not someone who merely refrains from getting loaded, it is someone who actively works the program. They work the steps with a sponsor. They go to meetings and share about themselves and their lives. They work with others to try and pass on the message that there is a better way.
This disease has many shapes and takes many forms. It has been my experience, the experience of many addicts & alcoholics who have come before me, and the experience of doctors in the field, that our use and our drinking is a symptom of the disease and NOT the disease itself. Recovery doesn’t treat our use, it treats our disease. Every single twelve-step fellowship out there follows almost EXACTLY the same twelve steps. There is a reason for that.
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