to Lisa number two, who says she drinks to get herself to sleep. That, I think, is a terrible waste of being wasted.
I keep my mouth shut and look at the clock.
The last to introduce himself is one of the Robs. He looks like a middle-aged woman with short hair. He’s got a soft chin and big green eyes, a strangely lumpy body and a big ass. He’s the happiest-seeming out of the bunch. For sport, I try to figure him out quickly, before he gets to his story. I guess beers, mean ex-wife, divorced, a dad.
He says his name and where he’s from. He’s got a French accent. Quebec. Beers, divorced, a dad indeed. Nothing about the mean ex-wife but instead there’s this bombshell: I’m an alcoholic, he says.
We don’t label here, the counsellor says. She looks like she would like to pat him on the back; she reassures him that he’s no such thing. There are no alcoholics, schizophrenics or manic-depressives; there are just tendencies and behaviours, but no one is ever just his or her condition or addiction. There are so many different aspects to a person, so many different parts that make up an identity.
The counsellor goes on about this for a little bit and then Rob cuts her off and says, But I identify as an alcoholic. That’s my identity.
Fine, she says, but there’s a frown on her forehead and I wonder if she’s worried about the rest of us finding out that we too are alcoholics.
Indeed, as if on cue, Lisa announces that she’s no alcoholic, she doesn’t even drink, you know. Not since the baby. Not—
Rob sighs and says, But I am. I have to identify. I mean I don’t have to—no one is forcing me—but I choose to. So I’m an alcoholic. I’d be drunk or dead without the meetings.
Yes, because the biggest joke is that he doesn’t even drink. Hasn’t had a drink for nine months, which is nothing, he assures us; there are people who have been sober for thirty years who still identify as alcoholics. But the real reason he’s here, he says, is because of the outstanding court order.
I can’t help but wonder if the real reason he’s here, even subconsciously, is that he wants to feel a little superior. I imagine his nine-month-old sobriety is a speck of dirt compared to those thirty-year champions in Alcoholics Anonymous. Here, it must feel priceless to be able to say that he’s an alcoholic who has been sober for longer than all of us added together.
In a way this place is a toy version of Alcoholics Anonymous. A Mickey Mouse club. A training ground for real group confessionals and serious recovery.
You clowns think this is difficult, Rob is possibly thinking. You should try doing this sort of thing ninety times in ninety days.
“Ninety in ninety” is what many new alcoholics do when they first get sober. It is not mandatory but it makes sense to do it. The mornings, afternoons or evenings of drinking get replaced with mornings, afternoons or evenings of church basements and bad coffee and immersion in the bizarre, outdated language of the Big Book, AA’s official credo, first published in 1939.
And after the first ninety days it doesn’t get that much easier. There are meetings every day, dozens of them throughout the day. Many people in AA will suggest the following math:
How many times in a week should I go to an AA meeting?
Well, how many times in a week do you drink?
Not that many people adhere to this formula, and it doesn’t necessarily guarantee successful sobriety—nothing does, in fact—but it increases the chances of sobriety lasting.
If you think that AA is for the faint-hearted, for the broken losers of shaky hands, weak spines, think again. AA is rooms full of people who are living completely against their nature—the nature that requires them to drink and die. These are the proverbial fish out of water. And they are walking the earth, many of them walking it for years.
Unlike this harm reduction group, AA is a continuous program of recovery—there are no deadlines on your
I keep my mouth shut and look at the clock.
The last to introduce himself is one of the Robs. He looks like a middle-aged woman with short hair. He’s got a soft chin and big green eyes, a strangely lumpy body and a big ass. He’s the happiest-seeming out of the bunch. For sport, I try to figure him out quickly, before he gets to his story. I guess beers, mean ex-wife, divorced, a dad.
He says his name and where he’s from. He’s got a French accent. Quebec. Beers, divorced, a dad indeed. Nothing about the mean ex-wife but instead there’s this bombshell: I’m an alcoholic, he says.
We don’t label here, the counsellor says. She looks like she would like to pat him on the back; she reassures him that he’s no such thing. There are no alcoholics, schizophrenics or manic-depressives; there are just tendencies and behaviours, but no one is ever just his or her condition or addiction. There are so many different aspects to a person, so many different parts that make up an identity.
The counsellor goes on about this for a little bit and then Rob cuts her off and says, But I identify as an alcoholic. That’s my identity.
Fine, she says, but there’s a frown on her forehead and I wonder if she’s worried about the rest of us finding out that we too are alcoholics.
Indeed, as if on cue, Lisa announces that she’s no alcoholic, she doesn’t even drink, you know. Not since the baby. Not—
Rob sighs and says, But I am. I have to identify. I mean I don’t have to—no one is forcing me—but I choose to. So I’m an alcoholic. I’d be drunk or dead without the meetings.
Yes, because the biggest joke is that he doesn’t even drink. Hasn’t had a drink for nine months, which is nothing, he assures us; there are people who have been sober for thirty years who still identify as alcoholics. But the real reason he’s here, he says, is because of the outstanding court order.
I can’t help but wonder if the real reason he’s here, even subconsciously, is that he wants to feel a little superior. I imagine his nine-month-old sobriety is a speck of dirt compared to those thirty-year champions in Alcoholics Anonymous. Here, it must feel priceless to be able to say that he’s an alcoholic who has been sober for longer than all of us added together.
In a way this place is a toy version of Alcoholics Anonymous. A Mickey Mouse club. A training ground for real group confessionals and serious recovery.
You clowns think this is difficult, Rob is possibly thinking. You should try doing this sort of thing ninety times in ninety days.
“Ninety in ninety” is what many new alcoholics do when they first get sober. It is not mandatory but it makes sense to do it. The mornings, afternoons or evenings of drinking get replaced with mornings, afternoons or evenings of church basements and bad coffee and immersion in the bizarre, outdated language of the Big Book, AA’s official credo, first published in 1939.
And after the first ninety days it doesn’t get that much easier. There are meetings every day, dozens of them throughout the day. Many people in AA will suggest the following math:
How many times in a week should I go to an AA meeting?
Well, how many times in a week do you drink?
Not that many people adhere to this formula, and it doesn’t necessarily guarantee successful sobriety—nothing does, in fact—but it increases the chances of sobriety lasting.
If you think that AA is for the faint-hearted, for the broken losers of shaky hands, weak spines, think again. AA is rooms full of people who are living completely against their nature—the nature that requires them to drink and die. These are the proverbial fish out of water. And they are walking the earth, many of them walking it for years.
Unlike this harm reduction group, AA is a continuous program of recovery—there are no deadlines on your
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