The girl (or lady) who came up to me during that first AA meeting was truly divinely sent. A real-life guardian angel. I honestly believe that. I won’t use her name, since, ya know, the second A in AA stands for anonymous and all. But I’ll call her E. E was so friendly, so helpful, and so happy. She got me a Big Book and told me exactly what to read. She gave me a list of meetings in the area and told me which ones were good. She gave me her number and told me to call her anytime. I waited a few days because I didn’t want to seem too eager, but I asked her to be my sponsor. We met every week to go through the Big Book together, and she showed me how to work through the steps.
I was a terrible spons-ee (is that how you say it?). I was supposed to call her every Tuesday and Thursday at 8am, and I forgot 9 times out of 10. It got so bad that she ended up calling me most times. Luckily, she didn’t seem to mind. Some sponsors drop you if you don’t follow through, but she could tell that I was being honest and truly doing the work on my own, so I think that’s why she didn’t give up on me. Aside from the Bible, I think the Big Book is perhaps one of the best books ever written. It is so well written. Every sentence is filled with such insight. If you are an alcoholic or know someone who is and have not read the Big Book, I can’t recommend it enough. And the stories at the end are amazing. Some are easier to relate to than others, depending on who you are. But if you can get past socioeconomic status, gender, race, etc., they all speak to the heart of alcoholism, which are things we can all relate to. It amazed me that the things I was doing were also things other alcoholics did. They had tried drinking in moderation. They had hidden bottles all over their house. They would rotate stores and cashiers so people wouldn’t notice how much they were buying. They would switch from one type of alcohol to another, only to find out that alcohol was still alcohol no matter what type of alcohol it was. They lost their families. But they all also got sober.
I loved going to meetings. I loved the routine. I loved how they all started the same way and ended the same way. I loved seeing the same people over and over, and also seeing newcomers. I didn’t usually participate, but man I sat there and drank it all in. These were all people who understood me. I could say anything and they would nod in agreement and say, “I know. Me too.” They would never judge me.
The first couple of steps were easy. I quickly understood that I was, in fact, an alcoholic. Now that everyone I cared about knew, there was no use in hiding it. To this day, I still have a hard time actually saying it out loud, but I can confirm that I am absolutely, 100% an alcoholic through and through. In fact, I’m probably one of the worst ones there is. The fact that I didn’t kill myself or someone else, as I said before, is only by the grace of God. I was literally drinking from sun up to sun down, and usually in the middle of the night as well. If I was awake, I was drinking. Before this and my brief stint of cold-turkey sobriety a few months prior, I hadn’t gone more than 12 hours without a drink in probably 2+ years. And 12 hours is being generous.
So I knew I had a problem. I knew I was an alcoholic, whether I liked it or not. And I knew there was a “higher power” who could help me. AA uses the term “higher power” instead of God, because some alcoholics can’t get past the idea of there being a God. I have mixed feelings about this, and that is ultimately why I no longer attend meetings, but I honestly think this is the correct approach for AA as a whole. So that’s step two – believing that there is a higher power and that your higher power can set you free of your addiction. Check.
Step three was harder for me, which I found to be surprising. Step three says that you have to basically turn your will over to God (or your higher power). I had believed in God my whole life. I quickly came to the realization that my way of doing things had lead me to become a 30 something divorced alcoholic, so I decided that it was probably a good idea to let God take control of my life. He could probably do a better job than I was doing. The only thing I couldn’t quite do was turn my marriage over to Him. I just couldn’t do it. I was terrified that if I did, that would be it. The divorce would eventually go through and I’d end up being a single mom (or a single woman with visitation rights) and would be lonely and miserable. I couldn’t let that happen. I clenched my fists around my marriage with every fiber of my being. I prayed and prayed and prayed that God would help me WANT to turn my marriage over to Him. I didn’t even WANT to. I don’t think I even WANTED to want to. I knew in my heart that TJ would always be my son, and I would always be his mom. I knew that I’d survive on my own and could be somewhat happy. I even began to think I could stay sober. But the thought of losing Thomas, forever, was unbearable. I couldn’t even entertain that thought.
So instead, I continued blaming him. When I was first served the divorce papers, and for several days or even weeks after, I honestly thought this was ALL Thomas’s fault. I didn’t think I had ANY part in it. It was HIS fault that I drank so much, and it was his DUTY as my husband to love me through better or worse, in sickness and in health. Wasn’t this a sickness after all? How dare he leave me when I needed him the most! But slowly, I started thinking that maybe…just maybe…I was a little to blame. It was still mostly his fault, of course, but I started thinking that maybe I shouldn’t have been drinking so much. And lying about it.
I know it sounds crazy because I’m in a completely different head space now, but the thought that ANY of this was my fault was completely insane to me at the time. I remember telling my therapist (I started going to therapy, by the way), that I was starting to wonder if maybe I caused part of this, and almost laughing because the thought sounded THAT crazy to me. But my therapist, who was thinking better than I was, agreed with me rather quickly, and I could tell that maybe there was some credence to the thought.
Let me talk about my therapist while I’m thinking about it. She was an older lady who was also a recovering alcoholic. I didn’t like her because I thought she was kind of judgmental and kind of being hard on me. But she was one of the only people in the area who accepted my insurance, so that’s who I felt like I was stuck with. I had never thought much about choosing a therapist before. I had seen therapists in the past, but only for short periods of time, and they probably didn’t really do much because I was also secretly an alcoholic. It’s probably pretty difficult to make any real progress with a patient who isn’t completely honest with you about a VERY significant aspect of their life. But this lady, even though she was kind of hard on me, I felt like maybe she was just giving me the “tough love” I needed at the time. Looking back, I think she really kind of did me a disservice. She agreed that my parents weren’t the best when I was younger, but I think she took it a step further and actually drove a wedge between me and them. Our relationship at the time (mine and my parents) was broken at best. Despite all they had done for me when everything first happened, they took a lot of it personally, and that made things difficult. Then my therapist was making it seem like they were terrible people, and it was all so confusing. My parents did not deserve that, and honestly, neither did I. I wish I had listened to my gut, but I kind of felt like I didn’t have a choice and just kept seeing her. I don’t want to dwell on it, but I do think it’s an important note for anyone going through therapy. Trust your gut, and don’t settle for someone you’re unsure about.
Another side note – I did a whole assessment for my alcohol use disorder (the clinical term for it), and I was technically the worst stage you can be. I should have gone to inpatient rehab, or at the very least outpatient intensive therapy. But unfortunately, my work and custody situation wouldn’t allow for that. Granted, if I really wanted to, I would have made it work. But I opted for weekly therapy along with daily AA meetings. I’m not here to give advice, but if you are in a position where inpatient treatment is an option – take it. It really isn’t a long time when you think about it. And if someone would tell me right now that I needed to take a 2-3 month break from my life to focus on my mental health and my sobriety, I would literally drop what I was doing and get in the car and go no questions asked. How amazing of a gift is that? Even sober people don’t usually get that opportunity. Don’t get me wrong, I love my life, but who doesn’t need to take some time for themselves? Add in an alcohol or drug problem, and that’s more than enough reason to go.
And that leads me to my next point – the mind of an alcoholic/addict and why so many people choose not to get help. But I’ll save that for my next post.
To God be ALL the Glory!
Love, Grace
