In addition to the TBI group I've attended for the past dozen years or so, I am now obliged to attend Intensive Outpatient (IOP) group therapy meetings, which are held 3 times a week, 3 hours per meeting, over 10 weeks. As if that weren't enough, in response to some not-so-subtle prompting from the IOP group "facilitator," Pat, I sucked it up a few days ago and went to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
I've been resisting this, not because I don't think it helps alcoholics (it certainly does), or that I'm not an alcoholic (I probably am), but because of the evangelical nature of the literature I've seen. I spent most of my childhood getting God shoved down my throat; I no desire for any further administrations of a deity I don't believe in. Nevertheless, I can't really knock something I haven't actually tried, so it's off to the Unity Club, a sort of multipurpose rehab facility in Falls Church, for the AA Beginners' Group.
I get there a few minutes before 7 pm. The small booklet Pat gave me doesn't say which room the Beginners' Group is to be held, so I consult a bulletin board at the top of the stairs. The group is in R1 ... wherever that is. So I walk into a large banquet hall and ask a lady if this is R1, and she nods her head. I take a seat near the back and wait for the meeting to begin, whatever that entails. At a large square table in the middle of the room a 60-ish man clears his throat. "Hi, I'm Mike and I'm an alcoholic." "Hi Mike," reply the 20 or so people seated in metal chairs on either side of the table, with one row against the back wall. Mike speaks in an Irish brogue that is instantly compelling and disarming -- he grew up in County Claire and took to drink there before coming to the United States as a young man -- but his story is pretty horrifying. Lost his job, lost his friends, lost his family, all to booze. Finally, after many years of trying to straighten out his act, Mike came across a former lush who recommended AA. That was over 20 years ago, he says, and he still can't say he won't go back to drinking, which is why he keeps coming to these meetings.
After Mike is finished, everyone in the room says something, but I don't catch what it is. Then it's time for Jim, a smaller man about the same age, begins to speak. His tale is, if anything, even more lurid than Mike's. Practically any mind-altering chemical known to mankind Jim has ingested, injected, snorted, inhaled or swallowed since he was a teenager. Numerous relapses, incarcerations and marriages later, Jim is another AA success story. Clean and sober for a decade, he, like Mike, keeps coming back to remind himself that no alcoholic or junkie is ever truly cured.
"Thank you for sharing." That's what the people are saying after Jim's tale of woe, just as they said after Mike's. One mystery solved. Now here's another: right after one alcoholic finishes his/her spiel, the next pipes up, as if the whole thing were choreographed. Did they decide on the speakers ahead of time? Do AA members share a Hive Mind? In any case, the stories are growing familiar (job, friends, family), with variations in drink of choice and number of relapses. I can see how these stories provide what psychologist term "validation" for the other members, but they don't really apply to me. I didn't lose my job over alcohol (I was already on disability). I was never drunk in front of my family; my wife didn't even know I drank. As for friends, they gradually fell away in the years following my auto accident, so I can't blame that on drugs or alcohol either.
Chips are a big deal with AA it seems. A 30-something woman whose name I failed to note rises from her seat at the center table with Mike and Jim and asks who in the room has completed a month of sobriety. A guy in the front row in front of me raises his hand, and the woman produces a chip from a large Tupperware container and presents it to him, with a hug thrown in. Applause. On to the two-month achievers, and so on. After this portion of the program, a basket is passed around, and I'm kicking myself because Pat (who leads my intensive outpatient group) told me that AA asks for a $1 donation. I, naturally, have left my wallet in the car.
Finally the Hive arises as one and joins hands (I was apprised of this too), and I manage to skirt the folding chair in front of me while taking the hand of a woman to my left and a man to my right. Mike says some words I can't remember, then leads the circle in the Lord's Prayer. It's been years since I've said it, and even longer since I've meant it; I just stand there, mute and awkward, holding hands with two perfect strangers, dying for it to be over. The prayer ends, then both my hands are jerked up and down while the Hive declares "Keep coming back! It works if you work it!"
It is 8 pm. I head for my car and fish out a buck for the till, but when I return for the room the woman keeping the money is gone. Jim tells me I just saved a buck. "Make it two next time," he says. We talk a little about the Fairfax Hospital rehab program, where I am at present. He has good things to say, even though it didn't quite work for him. Pretty much what I'd say about AA, although you can't really tell based on one meeting.
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