I'm not going to lie, making my own decisions is terrifying to me. I've based my life on what I thought would please those around me; I could hardly fart without validation, let alone determine what was best for me. I joined AA at 22 after I moved back to my 12 step home with my mom and step dad and found myself overwhelmed with depression and fearful it was the alcohol that was the base cause of it all. I hid the fact that I drank out of fear of what my mother would think and say about me. I knew, having a fragile system, that drinking every weekend was not good for me. The fact that when the weekends rolled around, I continued in spite of how I felt later only made me more weary of the dreaded "disease." After years of psychotic behavior that I lived in constant shame over combined with a fear that my parents might never see me as a healthy human being, capable of making good decisions, I decided that I must belong in AA and that that would bring me the approval and explanation I had searched for my whole life. I was an alcoholic. It made such wonderfully perfect sense. I kept getting drunk knowing it was adding to my depression and strongly affecting my medication. I had the black and white thinking, the anger, the self-centeredness. This was a place where I could go and be accepted, I could be crazy and no one would judge me. So I embarked on my journey through alcoholism.
My father hated me for it, he viewed 12 step programs as cults and believed that anyone who was a part of it had been systematically brainwashed. Out of fear of disappointing him, I hid it, rejected his drink offers and avoided him completely. My mother, on the other hand, had never been more happy and more proud of me. She, too, felt I had found my calling. I stayed in AA for 8 years in spite of the many people in my life who felt I didn't belong there. I did everything I was told without question. I wouldn't so much as get a haircut without my sponsors approval. I spoke their language and enjoyed the bond I developed with my stepfather as a result of it. I shared the alcohol-related experiences that I did have that made me feel like I belonged there, clinging on to them for dear life, as they were my ticket through those doors. I was diligent, miserable, desperate and relieved all at the same time.
But, every day, for years on end, like an eyelash hanging in my periphery, the doubt was there, meager and almost completely ignorable. I was told that was the disease talking, that it wants me to believe I'm not an alcoholic. I was told that our alcoholism works against us, preventing us from staying sober and being happy, I was told that my best thinking was what brought me to AA in the first place. I was told, that, left to my own devices, I would only cause pain to myself and others. I did not question these counsels, my thinking could not be relied on, my ability to make decisions for myself were useless. Not that I blame AA for the limits that surrounded me, I had placed them there long before the 12 steps became a presence in my life. But where most of these strong-minded individuals in the doors of my home group enjoyed thoughts and belief systems of their own, I only faded amid the confines of these opinions; my inability to possess any form of resolution within myself were like shackles that kept me bound beneath the shadows of other people's theories, deterring me from getting any closer to who I am and what I want. Tell me what to think, I'll think it. Tell me what to do, I'll do it. Just, whatever you do, please, don't leave it up to me.
After being sober for 8 years, I realized I had been using the same 5 stories to confirm my eligibility, although I left each meeting feeling like an outsider, wondering what I was doing wrong. The idea of leaving terrified me. What would that make me to the other members of AA? To my mother? I saw my mom talking in her meetings about her bipolar daughter who's an active alcoholic, sighing as she spoke of courage and acceptance. I imagined the people I got sober with shaking their heads in disapproval, talking about how the disease is cunning, baffling, and powerful and how alcoholics always want to believe they are an exception.
In the end I found other resources to maintain my health. I left AA and eventually made the decision to allow myself to have a drink when I wanted one without clinging to the idea of what it meant in regards to my "path." Looking back I see a scared 22 year old girl, desperate for approval, who was refusing to face a dual diagnoses. Some could say I threw up my food to stay thin, I drank to get drunk and I planned my suicide because I wanted to die. But, at the root of it all, I believe, was a longing to evade the symptoms of a mental illness. I wish I could say those tools were behind me, but reckless decisions and poor coping mechanisms still find their way through the cracks. But I am still alive today and, in spite of having a fragile system, my health is, for the most part, strong. My best thinking led me to leave AA to discover who I am and what I want on my own. My best thinking brought me back to my writing, to a city I love, to two support groups in the past 10 years, each of which has helped me to grow as a person immensely, and to a home that accepts and adores me, just as I am. I know AA is there if I need it and I am not too proud for anything if I believe it will further my development as a person on this earth. But it will be because I believe it's the right thing to do. For now, this is where I'm at, these are my decisions, my very own. Like my beautiful basset hounds that lay sleeping next to me, they are wild, sometimes unpredictable, but, above all, absolutely wonderful; they are mine. I wake up to them in the morning and go to sleep with them at night. They are not always easy to deal with and I can't say there aren't moments where I wish I had chosen differently, moments where I wish the responsibility didn't belong to me. But it does, and I accept it, completely and with the utmost gratitude. Both my hounds and decisions are sunlight and shadows to my existence and I would not have it any other way.
