Attending an A-A meeting as a non-addict hoping to learn from the experiences of those who have gone through an addiction problem was humbling to me. Throughout my life, I have always thought drinking and smoking are similar to choosing between eating ice-cream and buying a school book; a choice of relevance. Attending my first-two meetings and looking around at the people who attended, I was astonished at the caliber of individuals who walked in. In my mind, I have always thought addiction is for homeless, poor, and diseased people. Instead, all the meetings I attended were of outstanding individuals in the society who were privately struggling with addiction. Drug and substance abuse became a reality to me and from that point on, I tried to relate it to my family and friends who seem “stuck” on alcohol.
Listening to experiences being shared, I realized just how deeply engraved it is in our society. Addiction, as many of the recovering addicts said, is like a disease whose cure is self-realization. Most of the people there shared stories of how they started abusing alcohol as an innocent past-time activity, realizing too late that they were addicted. Addiction forced them to crimes, others to prostitution, just to support their habits. A common theme in these meetings was the financial depredating nature of addiction. They either lost their jobs or drunk their businesses and those of their families to ground, with some resorting to selling household items just to have their next joint.
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As I became part of the group and individuals shared with me their experiences, I realized that the difficulty of addiction was not actually in stopping, rather in staying true to the cause of A-A. It was easy for them to come to an A-A meeting and share their experiences, but it got difficult trying to be a different person within the same environment they became addicts. I also realized that most of them sought love and acceptance from those people who meant a lot to them; which most of the time was not forthcoming. The older folks were trying to prove to their children, wives or husbands, while the younger folks intended to change their lives for the better. As much as they had the willingness to kick away the addiction demon, I realized that acceptance and support were their fundamental pillar is achieving full recovery.
The moderator of these A-A meetings always insisted on sharing and “release” as the first and most important step of the healing process. I once asked why it is so. She (the moderator) challenged me to listen more and talk less when interacting with recovering addicts, and then observe how that affects them. After a month, I realized that I had made more friends and that most of them preferred talking to me after meetings. The moderator explained to me, after reporting to her my findings, that addiction is always not about drinking, rather, it is about masking a bigger problem. Most of the addicts, she explained, are using alcohol or whatever they are taking, to hide family problems, their own failures, rejection, and other forms of social miscues. It is, therefore, important that they “release” their emotional and psychological burdens without being judged or reprimanded, for them to be able to heal first. This, she explained, then paves way for self-realization, which confers onto them the strength and self-determination to resist the temptation that comes with addiction. Healing was not about stopping to drink; rather, I understood, it was about dealing with underlying issues, accepting oneself, making intentional decision to stop, and then actually stopping. Any other way was prone to relapse.
Every addict greatest fear upon recovery or when recovering is relapsing. It is not so much about going back to drinking again; it is about failing oneself and those who believe in them. One incident I remember was regarding a doctor who had relapsed after four years of not touching a bottle. The moderator called me asking me to accompany her to see the doctor. The doctor had refused to eat or go to work, and it is the husband who called the moderator asking her to come and help. When she (the doctor) finally opened the door to the bedroom, (after much coaxing from us) you could see the shame and disappointment written on her face. She kept begging her husband for forgiveness, ashamed she had let him down. I learnt relapsing is more like failure, where one sees as if the world around them has collapsed or nobody truly understands their pain.
Every recovering addict I talked and shared with was grateful to the role sobriety programs were playing in their lives. I learnt that addiction is not a group of individuals’ problem, rather, it is a social problem that affects all of us either directly or indirectly. Sobriety programs are about helping people be honest with themselves in realizing that they lack that control they thought they had. More importantly, these programs are largely faith-based, which allows the recovering addicts know of a higher power and the value of letting go. Nevertheless, the recovery from addiction must come from inside them; the willingness to work hard and the determination and tolerance to face the challenges that come with attaining sobriety.
