Finding Home

I ended my first blog stating that I took my sister's suggestion and attended a different group. A group for men and women. I found a home. Though it didn't feel like home for several weeks.

A lot of people in alcoholics anonymous share that they felt welcomed and loved when they first stepped into the rooms of AA. That was not my experience. Out of maybe fifty attendees at my first meeting, two approached me at the end of the meeting and gave me their phone number in case I wanted to call. I knew I wouldn't call because 1) I wasn't absolutely convinced I was an alcoholic. I really would not have minded to discover I was because then I could make sense of my drinking habits. Maybe I slanted my answers on those twenty-question quizzes to prove I was an alcoholic. Maybe my drinking was like my eating: I would tell myself I wasn't going to have more than two cookies or a handful of chips and then the cookies just disappeared, or I found the chip bag lying crumpled on the couch next to me. Empty. How did that happen? Probably lack of will-power. And 2) those people who gave me their phone numbs didn't really want me to bother them. I knew nothing then about how the AA program works.

I also noticed after a few more meetings that a lot of the members gathered in groups at the end of the meeting to talk and laugh together. I wasn't invited. I was not a part of what I assumed were the popular members. As in middle school and high school, I had to be a part of the in-crowd and therefore participated in activities that really weren't of much interest to me so I could belong. But at this early morning meeting, no one asked me to join the conversation. I left the meeting feeling self-conscious and unimportant. But I kept going back and I got sober. Because I heard how the members did it: they got a sponsor, went to meetings and listened

About two months later, a man named Peter shared about the committee that lived in his head. These voices told him he wasn't good enough, he hadn't done enough with his life, he just wasn't enough. That's when I knew I belonged. That's when I felt at home. I had that same committee living in my head. Probably Peter had mentioned his committee several times before because he referred to those misery-making voices many times over the next few years. In fact, most of the members had the same committee. But until that particular day, I hadn't really taken it in. Maybe I wasn't listening as well as I thought. But now I didn't feel alone. In fact, I approached Peter. Yes, I went up to him to talk about those same voices in my head. I think it was Augusten Burroughs (some give Anne Lamott credit) who said, "your mind is like an unsafe neighborhood; don't go there alone." I get it.

A few other members joined us, and we all laughed about that darn committee. I realized then I had expected people to approach me. It never dawned on me to approach them. Perhaps I was afraid I would be ignored. That has never happened. I am always welcomed when I join the two or three or more in conversation. AA, indeed, is not a popularity contest. There is no competition to be better than anyone else. That's a relief.

I was ready for a sponsor to take me through the steps. I asked Jeff, a handsome man whose sharing at the meetings convinced me that he had a lot of wisdom. Plus he had about twenty five years of sobriety. He was my age. I asked him after a meeting if he would sponsor me. This was years and years ago, and I can still see where we were standing. He said no, he could not. He gave the reason that men don't sponsor women and women don't sponsor men because an inappropriate relationship might develop which would impede concentrating on working through the steps.

I was furious. I took it personally. How dare he. Was he suggesting I would be disloyal to my husband and get involved with him? Who did he think he was? (Maybe I did indulge in a brief fantasy. Very brief.) Well, I was going to show him. I would not smile or say hello to him. I would make him suffer. Wrong. I don't' think he even noticed my coldness towards him , and if he did, he certainly didn't take it personally. He had been in the program long enough to have achieved what at that time I had not even heard of: emotional sobriety. Emotional sobriety. The key to the new design for living that the twelve steps offers. A living that affords us serenity and peace. And, boy, did I need some of that serenity.

To be continued.