I do not recall the exact reason why I first went to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). When I was at the bottom of the bottle, I did not believe that I would ever live a day without drinking. Perhaps, it was a morbid sense of curiosity that brought me to the doors of AA.
I remember then wanting to answer the question: what is an alcoholic? I wanted that question answered in a scientific, anthropological, and even spiritual sense. A curious investigation to embark on for someone who was drinking themselves half to death.
I asked that question so many times in my first year, drifting in and out of the room. It is fortunate that older sober members are much more well rehearsed in answering this question, and have far more patience than I did. Each time I asked, they told me that I was asking the wrong question. The question they asked me was instead: do you wish to be sober? A particularly cheeky older member told me that they would answer my question the next week, so I had better return.
I continued to drink, though I attempted to stop. While I remained a skeptic, I returned to the rooms that smelled of cheap instant coffee because I was so desperate to be part of something greater than myself. In the rooms, disparate strangers from all walks of life were united by a common desire.
Alcoholics Anonymous, and the more generalised 12-step program, is a non-hierarchical peer support group for addiction recovery. AA was founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith in Akron, Ohio. Since then, it has spread across the world and retained its grassroots nature with individual groups eschewing hierarchy and centralised leadership. Groups are self-governed and defer to committees and the General Service Office only when necessary, usually for the purposes of purchasing AA literature, materials, and the coins given to members to mark milestones of recovery.
AA encourages newer members to stick with sober members, ‘sponsors’, who can guide them through their path to sobriety and participation in service, aiding groups in non-financial ways to give back to the community. It does not simply seek to be a program of peer therapy, instead it asks that you begin life anew.
There are a multitude of criticisms of AA, from its pseudoscientific nature, a lack of robust research into its effectiveness, and, depending on the group, a tendency to engage in cultish behaviours. I see these flaws clearly and would suggest anyone joining AA to exercise a sensible amount of caution.
I often hear in AA the term ‘program’ thrown around. The ‘program’ refers to the 12 steps and traditions of AA. This ‘program’ co-exists with aphorisms such as “there is no one way to get sober” and “what gets me sober might get you drunk”.
The problem I find with AA is that I see all too often people replacing one addiction (alcohol) with another (AA). AA becomes what subsumes their life. We are told we have addictive personalities. Of course, an addiction to AA is preferable to actively drinking, to engaging in a slow form of suicide. We are told that there is life after addiction, but life is not just the confines of a church basement or a hospital function room.
For me, it is not a ‘program’ but the people who have gotten me sober. I am not a god-fearing person, I do not believe some entity has lifted the curse of addiction from me. I do, however, believe that something greater than myself emerges when I am with another person who shares the same goal that I do — to be sober. It is camaraderie that keeps me sober.
I put down my last drink in 2019.
AA is not the only way to get sober, but it is one that I am grateful for, because it has saved me.
