So It Goes

I was 21 when I realized that alcohol was not serving me. And so I stopped drinking. Cold turkey. All on my own. 9 months later, I joined NA because I had also begun smoking a large amount of pot and had snorted my first oxy, which I loved immediately.

And I was scared. That’s how my own relationship with a 12 step program started. Out of fear. Because I was afraid to end up an addict, like other people in my family. Because I didn’t know anyone else who didn’t drink or do drugs when they felt like it. I felt afraid and alone. So I went to the only place I knew existed to help people like me.

And it helped for a little while. In certain ways. I met people that wanted to help me stay clean and sober. I met a few people that I now refer to as my closest friends. I remember people telling me that I didn’t need to compare myself to other addicts in the room - that even if I hadn’t ever been homeless or put a needle in my arm, I was welcome and I qualified. But I also met people who didn’t respect my right to make my own decisions and mistakes. Or who had very judgmental opinions about how I was “working my program”. I was met with furrowed brows when I spoke my opinion about anonymity and how it perpetuates stigma and shame around addiction. Who was I to have an opinion with less that a year clean? Who was I to have an opinion about anything at all.

“Get humble. Lose the ego. Check your defects. Work the steps. Talk to God. HIS will, not yours.”

So the fear should have left me. I should have felt safe and comfortable in this fellowship that was there with all the answers. But I didn’t. Because at every meeting I went to, I was made to stay afraid of the addiction that waited for me right outside the room if I didn’t stay vigilant in my program. I was told that addicts who stop attending meeting will ALWAYS relapse and slip back into old patterns. So I stayed. Because I was afraid to relapse. Because despite the fact that I had zero desire to drink or use drugs and no longer felt like the person who did those things, I was told that I would be that girl all over again if I dared to leave. I couldn’t trust the voice that told me I was okay, they said, because that was my addiction trying to trick me.

The moment I walked into the room of a 12 step meeting, I was welcomed, then told not to trust myself, to trust my sponsor’s judgement over my own, to find God, to not relapse, to only hang out with women, to lose my ego, to spend my first year listening rather than forming opinions. I tried desperately to be what I thought I was supposed to be. This included following the program exactly as it was written because “it works if you work it”, which is to say that you, the ADDICT, are imperfect but the program itself, is flawless. And I failed miserably. I dated. I befriended men. I was opinionated and didn’t want to work the steps. I was cocky, arrogant and laughed too loudly in meetings. I didn’t have service positions and I moved in with a boyfriend and made his life my life rather than focusing on myself. And I didn’t drink. I didn’t relapse. I wasn’t working the perfect program the way it ought to be worked and it turned out fine. I stayed clean. And there is nothing more honorable in a 12 step program than staying clean. So the program was working it seemed. But I stopped growing. The program that once felt like the thing keeping me sober had started to feel oppressive and the bullshit stunk more than I could tolerate.

When I found @holly on instagram I struggled hard with what she was saying about sobriety. I recall arguing with her position on women being told to drop their ego because I had been trying to drop mine for years. And if she was right, I was a fool for listening to the people in NA and AA. It was cognitive dissonance at its finest.

I wanted a 12 step program to be the thing that fixed me. That made me feel like I could be my best self. And it didn’t fucking work. So I left.

As a woman, I’ve spent my whole life trying to make myself smaller. As someone who has been the victim of sexual abuse, I’ve carried around shame and feelings of unworthiness. As a woman, I’ve been catcalled and slut shamed and told to shut up more times than I can tell you. So when a woman attends her first NA or AA meeting and is told to shut up and listen, to lose the ego and make herself humble, it feels familiar and safe even because it’s what we’ve been doing our whole damn lives anyway. I didn’t need anyone to tell me that my opinion was worthless when I came to NA because I had already been telling myself that for years. I had already felt not good enough and not smart enough and not pretty enough and generally not enough because our patriarchal society wants women to feel this way. I felt both not enough and too much all at once. I know this is a feeling I’m not alone in. I also know that this story is my own experience. I have friends who will continue to attend meetings because they feel it’s the answer for them. And so they should. But it doesn’t work for me anymore.