Raised By Wolves
An Unconventional Journey Through 12 Step Recovery
Twists in the Journey
When it comes to 12 Step Recovery, sometimes it feels like I was raised by wolves. Generous wolves, wolves who would give you the hair off their backs — but it certainly wasn’t a conventional recovery journey I followed. Yet, despite all the weird twists and turns my journey took, I stayed sober, and more importantly, I thrived in recovery.
White Knuckling It
When I first stopped drinking, I was barely fit for human companionship. I was so burnt-out, I couldn’t stand being around people, at all. A couple of attempts at rehabs didn’t take for this reason. I tried meetings, but felt so much further gone than those people. I thought I’d turned a corner I could never return from. So I just hunkered down in a room in my parents’ house and white-knuckled it — they’d generously offered me a place to stay as long as I didn’t drink or do drugs. I didn’t want to do either, and desperately didn’t want to return to the streets, so I complied.
This lasted four months, a time in which I was daily suicidal. I was supposed to be looking for a job. I would take a bus and a train into the city, wander the streets aimlessly, think of ways to kill myself, then return home, frustrated that I was still alive. But I didn’t drink or do drugs. I feared insanity worse than death, and I’d stared into an insane abyss that I never wanted to see again.
Finding a Desire to Live
I finally checked into the V.A.’s Depression Clinic, and found a desire to live again. Diagnosed manic-depressive and put on lithium to treat that, I discovered a nice combination of lithium and marijuana that worked beautifully for the next couple years.
I got a job, an apartment, a car, and was on my feet again. After where I’d been, I was most grateful for all that I had. But, the marijuana use got out of hand, and did eventually lead to other substances. I just didn’t drink. This lasted for two years, in which I went to AA meetings but never talked about the other substances. AA didn’t want to hear about them, anyway. I didn’t drink, and that was all that mattered.
When I finally talked to someone about the other substances in an AA club, he sent me to N.A. There I learned the truth of my inability to use any mind- or mood-altering substances and, after one more relapse with marijuana, I got “clean” for good.
N.A. was just on the verge of coming into its own, after 27 years of dependence upon AA literature. I showed up there just in time to be able to help write and edit their “Big Book”, the N.A. Basic Text. I could write and edit words about recovery and the 12 Steps — but without a sponsor to guide me through them, I found recovery to be elusive. We were what we called “clean and crazy”. That worked for four years, in which time I went through 17 jobs, countless relationships (the more appropriate term would be “drive-bys”), and spent my weekends during my 4th summer of recovery in jail. Something was clearly missing.
Relating to Bill W.
I read “Bill W.” in jail, and envied Bill his Father Ed Dowling, the priest from St. Louis who showed up one day, unannounced, and sponsored him to sanity, when he was sober about five years but clearly not experiencing the joys of sobriety. I left the jail determined to find some sanity. But first, things got worse — they had to. I blew up my job and my living arrangement, along with my reputation in the program, when I ran off to Pennsylvania with a newcomer girl I was supposed to be sponsoring — yes, there’s a reason men don’t sponsor women, and vice versa. We both stayed clean, but what a mess!
I took a train to north Jersey to console a friend whose girl friend was dying of AIDS. He wound up consoling me! On the train back down to DC, I had a moment I would come to know as my surrender. In a moment of devastating honesty, I admitted that despite being nearly 4 years clean, and all the service work I’d done, I was still the same sick person inside as I’d always been — nothing had changed. I got off that train in Philadelphia for a cup of decent coffee, and never made it all the way back to DC. Instead, I finally found recovery.
Being Restored to Sanity
It began when a kid I had sponsored down in Maryland called out to me in the 30th Street Station. He was there with his girl friend from South Philly. They took me to her mom’s for dinner, then to a meeting in South Philly. At the door to the church basement there, I met my Father Ed Dowling. He certainly was no priest, but he did eventually become my sponsor.
That didn’t happen for a couple months, though, because I thought I was too messed up to recover. I believed in God, but didn’t believe I could be restored to sanity. Then I heard a girl tell her story, and she described my insanity like I’d never heard it described before. She’d been where I was. She clearly was no longer in that insane place. Sitting there listening to her speak, the thought occurred to me that whatever fixed her could fix me. That was my second step.
Only then did I ask that guy to sponsor me, and the rest just fell into place. I followed his guidance, and I recovered. Everything fell into place in my life. I got a job that I still have, progressing from entry level to executive level over 35 years. I met and married a girl I’d been trying to avoid, we had a son, and built a good life.
A New 12 Step Fellowship is Born
That meeting was the last NA meeting still using the AA Big Book. We didn’t bring it into the meetings, complying with NA’s edict that the use of AA literature was now considered a tradition violation. However, we did use it to take newcomers through the 12 Steps, not to be rebellious, but simply because it worked.
We eventually got thrown out of N.A. because members would share that they found recovery in the Big Book of AA. NA didn’t want to hear that, just like AA didn’t want to hear about drugs in shares.
So, we found ourselves beginning a new fellowship, Addicts Anonymous. We continued on as such, but the group had lost its unity. Half of the members stayed with NA and complied with their edict, while the rest of us began a new fellowship. We didn’t abide by the 12 Traditions — they were what got us tossed out of NA, why would we (we reasoned)? We suffered as a result. Within a few years, Addicts Anonymous devolved into a cult-like group, complete with a cult-leader (my sponsor). I couldn’t abide the insanity that ensued, so I left.
“Put Your Faith and Trust in a Higher Power”
My sponsor had always said, “Put your faith and trust in a Higher Power, not in any person or organization”. I followed that guidance, and simply lived my life, doing my best to practice these principles in all my affairs. At that point:
I knew I didn’t belong in AA, because drugs were a part of my story and they didn’t want to hear that.
I didn’t belong in N.A., because I found my recovery through the AA Big Book, and they didn’t want to hear that.
I didn’t belong in Addicts Anonymous, because they were, in my opinion, a dysfunctional cult, but they didn’t want to hear that.
I didn’t have a sponsor, for the very same reason. I just lived my life by these principles, as best I could, and life continued to get better, without meetings or a fellowship to support me in my efforts. I knew, fully, the progressive nature my disease. I never forgot the horror of staring into the abyss of insanity. I was never tempted to drink or use — those thoughts had been lifted.
My recovery continued, unabated, for the next 22 years. I missed being a part of a fellowship, but I never looked back. I figured it wasn’t for everybody. I lived life on life’s terms, and life was good to me.
Invitation from a Brother
When I was caring for my dying mother, 88 years old and 44 years sober herself, my oldest brother, who was 26 years sober, invited me to his home group’s retreat in Connecticut. There, I heard my story, repeatedly over that weekend. AA had changed, and I now felt like I belonged. I was so used to living without going to meetings, I continued living my life without meetings, and twice a year, I went to those retreats in Connecticut. They were my connection to the fellowship of AA. I felt whole when I went there.
A New Sponsor
When my mother-in-law died, four and a half years ago, my wife’s sister needed a trusted jeweler to appraise her jewelry. Ted was a jeweler in Philly, from our old South Philly home group. I hadn’t seen him in 25 years, but he was the same solid citizen now that he was then. He helped my wife’s family with the jewelry appraisal, then he helped me by becoming my first sponsor in 25 years. He guided me back through the 12 Steps, and suggested I check out the AA in my area. What a novel idea!
Home — Finding Where I Belong
I walked into TNT, a Thursday night AA 12 Step meeting, and immediately knew I was home. I’ve been going to meetings ever since. For the past 4 years, I’ve averaged a meeting a day, after not having been to a meeting in 30 years. I picked up my first AA chip for my 36th year of sobriety. I sponsored another guy through the 12 Steps. I sponsor about six other guys now. I got involved in service, becoming my home group’s GSR, then the District ADCM, and now I edit the Vienna District’s newsletter.
I may have been raised by wolves, but today I am one happy recovering alcoholic, surrounded by a robust fellowship, glad to be sober, and glad to be alive.
My wife and I will be moving down to Fredericksburg in a couple months. I know one person in the fellowship there, someone who happened to become a very good friend when he was still here in Vienna. I know I will make many more friends in the program down there.
The AA there may be a little different than here in northern Virginia — but, when you’ve been raised by wolves, anything is better than nothing. I know I will enjoy it down there, as I have enjoyed it wherever I’ve traveled, over the past 4 years. AA is where I belong.
