Just Because You go to AA Doesn’t Mean You Are Sober
When I first got into AA, I was one of the most naïve folks you’ll ever know. I thought once you came to AA, you stayed and no one relapsed. I didn’t know drinking was an option.
I remember being almost 30 days sober when someone said, “Oh she went out” and I was like “Out where — where did she go?” Where was everyone going? Yes, completely clueless. I came to AA and haven’t left. I’m still going to meetings, working with a sponsor, being of service and trying to stay on my spiritual path. I’m doing the same things I did when I got sober. When I walked into my first AA meeting I was completely broken and had so much self-loathing for myself and how I was living my life. I felt that there was nothing out there for me except despair and pain. However, at my first meeting, I heard hope and that’s what brought me to my second meeting. And so on and so on, almost 15 years ago.
These Were the Nicest People I’d Ever Met
Men were so nice—hugging me and asking me out for coffee. The women were bright-eyed, smiling and glowing and happy to call me “honey” or “sweetie” and offer me their phone numbers. I compared it to a Grateful Dead show; minus the pot, acid, and music. It was this utopia of love with welcoming arms and hugs, saying, “Come join us!” I bought that Dead show ticket and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Thankfully my sponsor and other women that I was getting sober with shared some of the harsh realities that were found in the rooms. “Don’t go to coffee with those men; tell them if they want coffee with you, they can meet you at a meeting.” Oh, I can say that to them? I thought. I’m allowed to take care of myself? I didn’t know what that looked like unless I was drinking or using.
The idea of someone not liking me was almost as bad as being an alcoholic.
To be truthful and set a boundary seemed to go against all my beliefs on how I was living my life. I said yes to everyone because I was scared to hurt anyone’s feelings. I wanted you to like me — no matter what. Then when I heard about 13 stepping, I was even more aghast! This isn’t just when anyone in the AA fellowship goes after a newcomer for sex and whatever else they can gain. I’ve seen it with sober AA’s going after the financially fit person to swindle and hoax what they can for their own selfish monetary needs.
Then There Are the People Who Come to Meetings Drunk
Coming to an AA meeting drunk didn’t cross my mind in my early sobriety. I didn’t think that was allowed. I was still learning my way and reading the AA handbook of etiquette, which there isn’t one, but it’d be helpful if someone put one together, right? When I see someone walking into the room, obviously intoxicated, my heart just feels for them. I think it takes a lot of courage for anyone to walk into a meeting to get sober, let alone someone that is drinking. I think most are coherent enough to know they are in an AA meeting and are looking for help.
According to AA’s Traditions, “The only requirement is a desire to stop drinking.”
Who are we to pass any judgment? That’s what it took for me to get to that place. I had to stop judging and start accepting. What if that was me? We all want to feel a part of and welcomed, so that’s why we say after someone has relapsed, “We don’t shoot our wounded.” I want to hear your struggle, so I remember what mine was like before I got this colossal gift. It took me a few months into early sobriety to really start seeing people for who and what they were. Some talked a good game at a meeting but they were living their lives contrary to AA’s spiritual principles and not a life of integrity and honesty.
This isn’t “Well People’s Anonymous”—it’s Alcoholics Anonymous
Most folks that walk into an AA meeting to get clean and sober have baggage and issues from childhood to current day. Whether it’s an abusive upbringing, being raised in a toxic environment, sexual trauma, mental abuse, broken families, unhealthy marriages, death or grief…there’s always a story and that story has brought them to this place, an AA meeting, where they are looking for hope.
Because isn’t that what we are all wanting—to find our Hope Dealer and not our Drug Dealer?
