AA

AA drives the addict. The challenge and visiblity of the steps, taking it one day at a time, is the only way to achieve acceptance (and then achieve serenity)of this new life without their best friend. Admitting powerlessness and saying that life is now unmanageable, that first step, is a surrender. My client right now is conflicted with the idea of surrender; she sees it as defeat, and she will not be defeated. However, I believe that surrender is part of acceptance. It's strong. It's action. It's saying, "My addiction HAS defeated me." She's not defeated, she says. I could absolutely challenge her on this. What to her is true defeat? Is it death? Because she isn't dead yet. However, she's been in prison, she's lived in a meth-fueled hell, she's lost her loved ones, and her only child. A judge doesn't want her in that county anymore! I'd say that her addiction has defeated her. Yet, she still won't surrender. This could become a problem. The truest way to a final and lasting recovery is accepting this surrender, accepting your powerlessness. Her life is UNMANAGEABLE and everyone sees the drugs at war with her body and mind, yet she keeps fighting and losing, time and again. Four rehabs in one year, each time she's planning her relapse. That addiction is winning. When will she finally say, "I give in," and come to God, not rolling over on her side in bed at night, while saying her prayers-- come to God, down on her knees, begging and finally making amends with Him. The Steps have an order. First, you find God. Next, you find yourself, and then you go to others, in Him. Many addicts have not had the chance to ever know who they are. So many, appear in front of you, asking, "Who am I?" They've either been the Care-Takers or the perpetually Taken-Care-Of. Either way, what escapes, flies right out the window and into the night, is their idenity, a sense of themselves,...even the simplest question: What do you like to do? It's baffling. "What do you like to do for fun?" They answer: Get high. They know no other way to be. One gentlemen at the AA meeting talked about the idea of "wanting what you have" instead of "always wanting what you can't have." He has reached a point in his life where he has everything he could really want. His family, his job, his life is good. There may not be alcohol, but he wants everything he has. Every item, every person, every interaction--he's content in this. He wants his life. He values everything in it.

I don't know if this post will actually "post." But here goes. Firsts are hard. And they are terrifying, but they are also absolutely wonderful. I'm extremely lucky that my life has become a progression of starling events. I get to become something of myself, to myself, for myself. Every day offers brightness to me. I see hope. I experience concern, passion, confusion every day. I meet a new client tomorrow. I feel nervousness, fear, compassion, and excitement. This is me living. The idea of a new day that offers me more than a television show, more than a glass of wine, or a hit, or a trick. Yes, more than what a relationship can (sometimes) offer me. I get all of these emotions to feel me up each day, fully and truthfully. I feel undeserving sometimes, to even sit and listen, to be amoungst the sagacious storytellers of A.A., to be just a rock along the path of their journey. In a month, I've learned more about PEOPLE, than I have in a long, long time. Maybe since my freshmen year of college, when I was bombarded with girls, girls, girls, girls, and girls. On Wednesday, I sat in an A.A. meeting, looking at these people. I wondered if I gather the life experience that floats around in this room, around every person, taking it and compressing it in my arms. Would it look like a dark, gloomy cloud, that's heavy as a boulder? They are so marvelously insightful and honest, so in rhythem with themselves and their urges and their disease. They know. They understand. They've achieved therapy's main aims: change and self-understanding (though the two are almost entirely interconnected). They heed the 12 steps like the 10 commandments, reciting and living right up alongside them. The steps are ingrained their thoughts, and in turn, their emotions and then actions and actual life changes(I quite believe in that beautiful CBT triangle). During the meeting (and during most groups), I'm dazzled by the honesty. I'm enraptured by the story-telling, and yet, at the same time, I feel a little left out of the community. I'm not an alcoholic, so I don't get to fully experience this culture; I'll never be embraced by AA or have a sponsor of my very own. I don't even have time to enjoy a quiet glass of wine. During happy-hour, I'm usually taking a nap. It was beautiful day. A day to take a walk with a friend. To an alcoholic, it's a day to drink. It's a little precious (and yet entirely dangerous) how the alcoholic romances the drink. They paint a slendid picture of a warm, sunny day, with a cool alcoholic drink in their hand, and that light, airy feeling of drunkenness that covers them up like a soft blanket. The question must be asked: why is that drink in this picture? Boredom? Escape? Ritual? Enhances the fun? Liquid courage? Socializing? Boosts confidence? When this "want" appears, the want for a beer, hit, pill, etc,...what need is being unmet? What character defect (in AA language) is making its appearance?