Back to the Meetings
An Amazing Journey Begins
Looking for Something More
After my moment with the Big Book, where I was inspired by what was written in it about alcoholism and recovery, I put down my pot and opium sticks, and started back to the AA meetings. I hadn’t been to a meeting in about 6 months. When I went before, I was that guy who just went to the meetings, mostly just listened and occasionally shared if I thought of anything to say, but never really had any idea about the program itself.
I’d thought it was all about going to the meetings, because that was all I’d heard people talk about, that and telling their drinking stories. They went to meetings, they talked about their drinking, and they stayed sober. It had made sense to me, because I’d gone to the meetings for a year and a half, and I hadn’t felt the need to drink, either. It seemed to be working for me. People there kept telling me I was doing great.
An Unusual Friendship
There was one guy I’d gotten to be pretty good friends with, who I met at the meetings in the city (Philadelphia). I had enjoyed those meetings more than the ones out in the suburbs where I lived, because there were a lot more younger people and better energy in those meetings.
It hadn’t bothered me that many of the meetings there were predominately gay. My brother was in the program and was gay. In fact, his coming out to me had been instrumental in my decision to get sober in the first place. That’s a long story, but it had forced me to get over my own homophobia, and see that gay people were just like me — they just happened to be attracted to members of their own sex. That’s all I knew, and all I needed to know, then.
Dana and I had hit it off, as AA meeting buddies, and would go to meetings together, then go out for coffee after the meetings. I met a lot of other gay members that way, and got more familiar with the gay culture. I thought it was pretty cool, and especially enjoyed being a straight guy allowed to be there with those gays. Dana himself was a flaming gay guy. He made me laugh and not take myself so damned seriously. That’s what friends do.
Being Harassed
Then, something started to happen after I came back from my friend’s funeral in Connecticut. I had really needed a friend down in Pennsylvania then, and Dana was the closest thing I had to a friend. Only, he had started to like me more than just as a friend. This was very confusing to me, because he lived with another guy, who he appeared to be in a relationship with. I certainly didn’t like him that way, and told him so, repeatedly.
He kept harping on wanting to come out to my place to spend a weekend with me, just to see what happened. I was having none of that, because I knew what he had in mind, and I simply wasn’t into that, in any way. It finally reached a point where I had to cut him out — I couldn’t take his harassment any more.
That’s when I stopped going to meetings altogether, and just started to work longer hours, and go home and get high when I was done working. Dana had ruined AA for me. The only meetings I really liked were those meetings in the city, but I knew I might run into him if I went there. I was so done with his advances. All I’d really needed then was a friend, and I felt like he ruined what had been a good friendship. I never forgave him for that.
The Arrangement
It was a lot easier to just go home and get high. My friend Janet was my connection for the drugs. I was never any good at scoring drugs myself, but usually had a friend who would do that for me. I guess that helped support my thinking that I wasn’t an addict. I didn’t get into all that scoring business — I let someone else do my dirty work.
I was putting her cats up in my apartment, so she didn’t mind being my connection for drugs. We both wanted so much more out of our relationship, but I was too shy to make a move, and she was never sure how I really felt. So, we remained friends.
A Disconnect
Whatever I’d read about in that book, where it had talked about alcoholism as a “spiritual malady”, and had talked about a program of recovery, involving 12 spiritual steps, I rarely heard people in the meetings talk about. They talked about their drinking, and going to meetings, and staying sober. There was a disconnect that, having read the book, I found annoying. I didn’t want to make waves, so I kept my concerns to myself.
I did occasionally continue to get high, only on nights where I didn’t go out to a meeting, and on the weekends that I went up to Connecticut, about once a month. When I went to meetings, I usually went to an AA Clubhouse called the 12 Keys over in Bristol, near where I worked.
Condescending Comments Did Not Help
I was usually one of the younger people there — almost everyone was older than me. I would hear comments like “I spilled more beer than you ever drank. It’s great that you got out before it got that bad.” I hated those condescending comments from these old alkies. They didn’t know how bad it got for me. They also didn’t know how much I drank during the 7 years of my drinking career. They sure as hell didn’t know the effects all those other drugs had had on my psyche, either. They also made it clear that they didn’t want to know about all of that.
This went on for a month or so, then one night this younger guy was telling his story at the 12 Keys Club. He did something I’d never heard in an AA meeting before — he made a few references to drugs in his story, though he slipped them in there in a way that was not objectionable to the old alkies who didn’t want to hear about drugs. He was good.
Learning About N.A.
After he finished, I spoke to him about it. I told him I’d caught his drug references, and said that I had been wondering about where drugs came in to the picture with all of this. I was sober a couple of years, but still smoked pot. Should I be concerned? He just laughed and said, “You should check out NA.” I’d never heard of NA. “It’s Narcotics Anonymous.”
I informed him that I wasn’t into heavy drugs, just pot — well, and some opium, and maybe cocaine on occasion. He laughed again and said, “It’s for any and all drugs, including alcohol and pot”. He also said there were a lot more younger people there. That really intrigued me, so I decided to go that Saturday.
