Everybody thinking about going into recovery from alcohol, drugs, other substances, or unhealthy behaviors finds something that makes the whole idea difficult for them.
Young people come into meetings and say everybody looks too old.
Old people go to meetings and say the opposite.
Black people go in and say everybody’s white.
White people look around and say, “Everybody in here is a loser.”
Or words to that effect.
In other words, everybody finds something that makes the very thought of recovery alarming if not seemingly impossible.
All of these surface concerns melt away, however, when the real issue rises to the fore.
The idea of living without your drug of choice, whether its drugs, alcohol, sex, ice cream, or compulsive spending, is an alarming and frightening concept.
Alcohol and its substitutes are more than just drugs of choice for people like us.
In point of fact, they are our best friends.
Alcohol (layer in your drug of choice here) never says no.
It never dumps you.
It never fires. It never fails to return your texts or calls.
When addicts give up their substances of choice, they are actually losing their best, most trusted friends.
Who would want to live without their best friends?
Nobody.
So then the addict in search of recovery goes to his or her first meeting.
And what does he see?
Strangers. Losers. People who couldn’t hack it in life.
Or as the old joke puts it, quitters.
What they’re really seeing is their own negative self-image reflected outward.
Or as Pogo said in the cartoon long ago, “We have met the enemy, and it is us.”
So what’s an addict to do?
Accept the possibility that those losers in the room who are too old, too white, too young, too tattooed or not tatted up enough might know something that he doesn’t.
Namely, how to live, and live comfortably, without their drug of choice.
If all of your problems cease the day you stop taking drugs or drinking alcohol, then you probably aren’t an addict.
If, on the other hand, now that you’re clean, all of your problems, from romance to finance, from job to living situation, come crashing down on you, then you are absolutely an alcoholic or addict.
The good news is this: By making the decision to stop, and then buttressing that decision by committing to 12 Step Recovery, you now have a chance to have all of your problems solved.
Do you automatically get cash and prizes and find the lover of your dreams the moment you sign on the imaginary 12 Step dotted line?
(There is no such dotted line.)
Of course not.
But what you do get is a shot at sobriety.
A shot at life.
The alternative is to keep on “dying on the installment plan,” as the AA cliché so aptly and painfully puts it.
And if you should decide to commit suicide during your first year sober, or prior to it, bad news—you killed the wrong person.
So if you’re contemplating recovery (and/or suicide) and you’re not quite sure whether the 12 Steps are going to work out for you, take heart.
Although the people you see looking back at you as you enter your first meeting don’t seem, at first glance, to have anything in common with you, you will make an amazing discovery.
Underneath the skin, we are interchangeable.
That’s why it works.
You will discover that everyone in the room is simply speaking from a different corner of your heart.
So pull up a chair.
It’s time for the real first day of the rest of your life.
Everybody thinking about going into recovery from alcohol, drugs, other substances, or unhealthy behaviors finds something that makes the whole idea difficult for them.
Young people come into meetings and say everybody looks too old.
Old people go to meetings and say the opposite.
Black people go in and say everybody’s white.
White people look around and say, “Everybody in here is a loser.”
Or words to that effect.
In other words, everybody finds something that makes the very thought of recovery alarming if not seemingly impossible.
All of these surface concerns melt away, however, when the real issue rises to the fore.
The idea of living without your drug of choice, whether its drugs, alcohol, sex, ice cream, or compulsive spending, is an alarming and frightening concept.
Alcohol and its substitutes are more than just drugs of choice for people like us.
In point of fact, they are our best friends.
Alcohol (layer in your drug of choice here) never says no.
It never dumps you.
It never fires. It never fails to return your texts or calls.
When addicts give up their substances of choice, they are actually losing their best, most trusted friends.
Who would want to live without their best friends?
Nobody.
So then the addict in search of recovery goes to his or her first meeting.
And what does he see?
Strangers. Losers. People who couldn’t hack it in life.
Or as the old joke puts it, quitters.
What they’re really seeing is their own negative self-image reflected outward.
Or as Pogo said in the cartoon long ago, “We have met the enemy, and it is us.”
So what’s an addict to do?
Accept the possibility that those losers in the room who are too old, too white, too young, too tattooed or not tatted up enough might know something that he doesn’t.
Namely, how to live, and live comfortably, without their drug of choice.
If all of your problems cease the day you stop taking drugs or drinking alcohol, then you probably aren’t an addict.
If, on the other hand, now that you’re clean, all of your problems, from romance to finance, from job to living situation, come crashing down on you, then you are absolutely an alcoholic or addict.
The good news is this: By making the decision to stop, and then buttressing that decision by committing to 12 Step Recovery, you now have a chance to have all of your problems solved.
Do you automatically get cash and prizes and find the lover of your dreams the moment you sign on the imaginary 12 Step dotted line?
(There is no such dotted line.)
Of course not.
But what you do get is a shot at sobriety.
A shot at life.
The alternative is to keep on “dying on the installment plan,” as the AA cliché so aptly and painfully puts it.
And if you should decide to commit suicide during your first year sober, or prior to it, bad news—you killed the wrong person.
So if you’re contemplating recovery (and/or suicide) and you’re not quite sure whether the 12 Steps are going to work out for you, take heart.
Although the people you see looking back at you as you enter your first meeting don’t seem, at first glance, to have anything in common with you, you will make an amazing discovery.
Underneath the skin, we are interchangeable.
That’s why it works.
You will discover that everyone in the room is simply speaking from a different corner of your heart.
So pull up a chair.
It’s time for the real first day of the rest of your life.
—
Photo: Getty Images