AA Meeting

Ugh. I just wasted an hour gathering hard evidence to debunk a fear-mongering video about the dangers of cell phone use (you know, increasing lightning strikes, "cooking" brain cells, killing off bees) that my mom sent me. Now I’m trying to get through a few psych lectures, but my idiot neighbor is blasting his music (and worse, singing along) making that difficult. Doesn’t look like I’ll be getting much work done tonight, so why not blast my own music and write an OD entry?

Last night I attended an AA meeting to fulfill a requirement for our psych block. It took place at a small run-down, but fully functional Lutheran church that caters mostly to the nearby community college. A couple of things surprised me. First, and I know this will sound ignorant, I was amazed at how well put together everyone was. The room was full of well-dressed, well-groomed, rather attractive people (the meeting was specifically for a youth group). I think I was expecting at least a few bummy-looking guys you’d see on the side of the road, holding cardboard feed-the-homeless signs. Sorry if that sounds callous. I was also surprised at how similar the whole process was to what I’ve seen on TV.  People do actually say the Serenity prayer. Anyone addressing the group starts with "Hi, I’m so-and-so and I’m an alcoholic." The rest of the group replies "hello so-and-so" in chorus. It felt a bit fake at the beginning. It annoyed me how light-hearted and chatty everyone was before the meeting began. It seemed more like a social club than a gathering of people seeking help for substance-abuse. Even after the meeting was under way, people were fairly loud during the reading of "how AA works," and the description of the 12-Step Program. I supposed they’d all heard it dozens of times by now, so it was understandable. I realize that it’s undoubtedly for the best that the mood of the meeting was positive instead of overly-serious to downright depressing – I just wasn’t expecting it. Mostly I felt incredibly out of place and self-conscious. I sat in the back row and didn’t raise my hand when they asked if there were any newcomers in the group. Then a man named Mike talked for 20 minutes about his experiences with AA. He described that at first he was mindlessly doing what he was told by the AA guide and his sponsor, even when he didn’t see a point to it. Anything to avoid drinking and relapsing. As he stayed sober, bit by bit he began taking stock of other aspects of his life – like the fact that he hadn’t balanced his checkbook in years – and set to remedying them. He mentioned that even though he was never spectacularly successful in his musical career and had not acquired a great deal of material wealth, he had found inner peace. He also commented on how the program helped him find God, and the power of prayer, but those bits didn’t really appeal to me at all. He concluded with a remark on how seriously he takes AA, and how he never could have turned his life around without this group. There was a short break followed by a discussion in which people simply took turns saying what’s on their mind. Most spoke about what an inspiration Mike has been (it sounded like many had known him for a long time), and how well they could relate to him. One man said that AA was the only place in his life he had ever witnessed people truly change. He recalled that when they first met, Mike had been "a real asshole," who had done terrible things to people (something that most in the room can admit to). But today Mike was a different man. This made me curious about the success rate of AA, because behavioral modification of any kind, never mind battling substance dependence, is DAMN hard. Another man voiced how much he was struggling with staying sober in the past few days, and was instantly showered with supportive statements and anecdotes from those who had been in his place, as well as with invitations to talk more one-on-one after the meeting.            

So I don’t know. I have what I consider an addiction (or two), but nothing nearly as disruptive as alcohol. Ultimately it was hard for me to relate, especially since no one got into any truly personal stories. I do have a better idea of what I’ll be sending patients off to when I suggest AA as an option. But I can’t really speak to the program’s effectiveness having attended this one meeting. Certainly many of the speakers seemed to benefit from it, but when asked if anyone was celebrating a birthday today (i.e. it’s been 30 days since they last drank) only 2 out of the 30 or so people in the room raised their hands. And the data out there on how many members actually stay sober for 12 months, etc. is pretty iffy. So I don’t know if I got what I was supposed to get out of attending this. Guess time will tell. At the very least, it was an interesting experience.