When I was very first baby sober (rather, trying to get sober), I attended sobriety meetings through a group called The Luckiest Club (based on the book written by Laura McKowen by the same name). The majority of people in the meetings were wine moms, people who were likely of a higher socioeconomic class than I was, and generally speaking seemed to drink slightly less than I did, although we were all filled with the same regret and a desire to stop drinking.
The vast majority of people had less than 30 days sober, were just beginning to explore their sober community and sobriety goals. A lot of people attempting to moderate. The meeting opened with the host asking if anyone had less than 30 days and a flood of people saying they did. They asked if anyone was celebrating a milestone (a few months or annual — there were very few of these).
But, at these meetings, there was an older gentleman who attended regularly and had 30 something years of sobriety.
I remember texting my friends within this group and saying, dear God, is that what we’re striving for? To be barely hanging on by a thread 30 years in? To feel compelled to come to a meeting every fucking day for the rest of our lives? Is this what I have been sentenced to?
I looked out at the vast expanse of my life. I saw what I had seen in movies about AA: church basements. People crying. Cigarettes. Bad coffee. (I know cigarettes have been banned inside for a long time, even though I am young enough to remember smoking cigarettes inside a bar in Idaho, but in any event, this is what I visualized when I thought of AA meetings).
I should clarify, too, that the vast majority of people in these meetings are not, as I had thought, hanging on by a thread. They are, in fact, doing a thing to take care of themselves.
I should reiterate that I was having these thoughts that this man with 30+ years sobriety was the pinnacle of despair while actively trying not to throw up, enduring a blind hangover, that metal taste in my mouth, dying of thirst, attempting to round up clothes for my three little boys, desperately looking for socks (I still don’t match socks, I never have and I never will, life is too short), buckling my precious boys into their carseats in my van and flinging waffles at them while we drove to the daycare and I headed off to my workday, where I would vow I wouldn’t do it again tonight and inevitably sometime around noon think, well, maybe I’ll just start again tomorrow.
So perhaps this man was, in fact, doing something right.
In the rooms, there is a phrase: “I came to quit drinking, and I stayed for the thinking.”
Attending sobriety-focused meetings (AA or otherwise), as it turns out, is not a miserable life sentence. Nor is it a requirement.
What has happened to me in my sobriety is I have come to enjoy these meetings. I have friends in these meetings. I have a community.
I have also learned that an ongoing effort to strive for what is promised, that serenity, it is helpful for me to listen to how other people solve their problems and to try to help other people solve their problems.
Not taking a drink is just the beginning, living a life of rigorous honesty and acceptance another thing entirely.
I have come to recognize these meetings as something is akin to fitness or eating well - it is a daily effort. You don’t just get fit and never have to go to a gym again. You are fit and you feel good and you keep going to the gym. It isn’t enough to just know what greens you ought to eat, you actually have to eat right if you want to feel good.
In short, it’s just not the prison sentence I thought it would be.
I actually look forward to these meetings. I feel tremendous support from this community of people who seek to live a life largely based around acting and living honesty.
It is astonishing, in general, how much I have in common with these strangers in terms of personality or attitude toward the world when I might share essentially nothing else (education level, socioeconomic status, family, geography, etc).
By and large, though, the intensity with which we move(d) through the world is what strikes me the most.
In this post-Covid world, there are a million and one meetings to pop on with Zoom, and if you don’t like what you’re hearing, you can just leave. Google “AA” and your city if you want a free meeting. Or “sobriety meetings,” if you’d prefer a paid membership. You’ll find resources.
Another benefit of Zoom: I have not generally experienced the quintessential echo of “Hello, Kristen!” in the Zoom rooms, which frankly, made it easier for me to stomach the meetings in the beginning (a little less like you might think it is in the movies).
Another joke in the rooms is the idea that we have a “built-in forgetter” -- today I don’t think much about my hangovers. I don’t think much about waking up and looking at my phone in horror, wondering what I had done. I don’t think much about walking into the kitchen and looking at a pile of cans or bottles and thinking, Fuck, man. Not again. How did this happen to me, again?
And I can forget what it was like just like that. In the blink of an eye. Hearing stories of people walking into the rooms helps me remember.
Now, I know why you’re an English major! 🫡❤️