I would love to drive over today to the community recreation center for the Tuesday 10:00 AM bingo game for people in recovery from alcohol and drug addiction.
I would go early and get there by 9:30 AM. I’d park my car beside the cars of others at the rec enter – people working out, playing bridge, doing t’ai chi – and greet the desk attendant I’m convinced is a former professional women’s basketball player, but she still says no. I’d enter a room set aside and scheduled for recovery bingo. I’d see coffee urns for regular and decaf and maybe a plate of zucchini bread baked by one of the players. I would have a cup of half decaf and half regular with powdered creamer and a slice of zucchini bread on a paper towel and talk congenially with the people there.
About a half hour talking with people in a group is about all I can do for now before I start to feel a sheen of panicky sweat on my skin. That’s why I timed my arrival for 9:30, thirty minutes before the game would begin. Others would choose to arrive at 9:00 to set up because they’re feeling okay today being in groups of people. Others would arrive at 9:59 and slip into a seat because that’s what they need, for now, to feel grounded and calm.
And then the game, blissfully, would begin. I would sit side-by-side with people like I am, who struggle not to drink alcohol or use drugs. Ahhh… A low-key, structured activity that gives me a chance to rest my heart and mind, if only for an hour or two, in the company of others. I would not have to be alone with what threatens my sanity and serenity and makes me want a glass of wine to un-threaten me.
The absolutely most excruciatingly difficult part of recovering from addiction is handling the feelings and thoughts that line up like soldiers during abstinence. Craving? Ha, that’s only the skinny drummer boy in my list of challengers.
When I was drinking wine, what bothers me was in a state of détente. Wine commanded a cease-fire. No wine? There’s war. And most of the 24 hours a day of each day that I am attempting to recover from addiction, I am alone. I’m trying everything I can – whispering in the soldiers’ ears, shouting at them, waving a sword, trying every weapon the T2 used. What will make them stop and talk?!
It’s exhausting.
If I could just go to a friendly game of bingo with other people with battles in their hearts and minds and souls or wherever this bitter encounter is happening, what a respite that would be.
I want to walk in, or stumble in if that’s all I can do, and sit companionably with others who aren’t telling me to get over it, that it’s in my mind, that all I need to do is change my thinking, to use my will power, to envision the consequences, who aren’t trying this or that controversial addiction treatment on me (which aren’t defensively debated?!). I just want to sit quietly with people who have earnestly tried all that to no avail and just rest a minute.
But there is no recovery bingo game at the rec center.
I’m too tired to organize it. Contacting the rec center, finding a time and a room, paying for the rental, getting the bingo game, getting the coffee, setting up, taking down, oh, I feel like crying just thinking about it.
And even if I could muster the wherewithal to organize it, if the townspeople knew recovering alcoholics and addicts were playing bingo every Tuesday at 10:00 at the rec center, they’d probably stage a protest. Who we are and what we’re trying to do won’t count. Because of how contemptuously and fearfully addiction is perceived, the only chips we’re allowed in the present are our acts from the past.
Acknowledging in public that I’ve been in recovery from addiction to alcohol, now 19 months, was a difficult decision to make, still questionable. I have already experienced some mild consequences of the stigma attached to alcoholism and addiction and wonder what others await me. But I am only one of an estimated over 15,000 people in my locale with an alcohol or drug problem. Maybe someday we won’t have to battle addiction alone, or gather like guerrillas in secret support groups, but will need to rent a conference center to hold a peaceful, local recovery bingo game.
But, today, I’m all alone and writing this.
Anne:
You’ll have to get used to this: “I have already experienced some mild consequences of the stigma attached to alcoholism and addiction and wonder what others await me.” It is a sad truth, but I still have consequences, even though they are minor in a the overall picture.
Recently, a nice woman I met and asked out responded that she had visited my blog and discovered that I am a recovering alcoholic. She said she had become involved with a recovering alcoholic (20 years, same as me) a few years ago and that he relapsed and hurt her. She said she could not trust that the same thing would not happen with me, so no, she would not go out with me.
That was a surprise for me, not so much because of my infatuation with her–which passed quickly–but because I’m still paying for being a drunk. I always will to some degree. The fact is, though, that I am willing to pay whatever the toll is in order to stay sober because this is the life I want.
I could have made the easy argument that I don’t want to be involved with somebody who is carrying such baggage that it becomes mine simply by implication, but I did not and will not. Her influences are her own to deal with–I certainly sympathize that this problem is significant for her–and I must concentrate on mine. What she thinks of me is none of my business.
Dan Smith
Ironically, Dan, I could have been that woman. In 2006, I moved back to my small hometown and signed up with an online dating site. A nice guy asked me out and told me during dinner that he was in recovery.
A counselor I saw in the years before I left Tampa urged his clients to attend support group meetings and I had done so. The more I think about what “spiritual” means, the fewer definitions I have, but I found myself sobbing at these meetings, uplifted and moved beyond words. Of the few experiences in my life I term “spiritual,” attending a support group meeting is one of them.
I had finished my master’s in counseling in 2006, focusing my studies on addictions, and knew well what recovery was. My intention was to help people in recovery but no way would I get involved with one. I was taught “Relapse is part of the process” after all! So I knew I wouldn’t see the guy again.
The guy asked me to go with him to a support group meeting after the dinner. I went. I cried.
Ironically, because the guy took me to that meeting, in 2012 when I got in a car to drive myself to get help because I couldn’t stop drinking, my automaton self knew where to go. It drove me to that meeting.
> I’m still paying for being a drunk. I always will to some degree.
Okay. Good to know, Dan. Thanks very, very much.