I’m grateful for a gray, rainy morning. I’m grateful for the the chance to get organized and get going. I’m grateful for my really excellent desk chair. I’m grateful for chances to see how much things have changed. I’m grateful for my apartment and having things just the way I want them. I’m grateful for walks at night. I’m grateful to be sober today.
It is jarring to me that not only did summer end this weekend, but we’re already about 25% through September? I guess Ferris Bueller was right1:
I guess it’s that nose-to-the grindstone time of year.2 It feels like there is a lot going on and that’s because there is. Here at Sober HQ, there will be soon be another installment of Growing Pains: Sober Girls Edition. I don’t if you all knew this, but Jane notched eight (that’s 8, count ‘em) months of sobriety last week. Around here, that’s a pretty big, f****** deal.
Like any good alcoholic, I love the feeling of self-righteous anger. But when I think about how few of us make it even to eight months of sobriety, I get angry the bad way. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, only about 7% of those who are probably alcoholics ever seek any kind of treatment. Only about 4% of those ever receive a prescription from a doctor to help treat their alcoholism or addiction, even though drugs like Antabuse and Naltrexone have been shown to be a safe and effective way to help people stop people from drinking and using and have been approved for use by the FDA for years. The problem: I’ve never had a doctor who had ever heard of a drug that could help treat alcoholism or addiction, much less a doctor who had actually done the research and prescribed it. By contrast, every GP/Internal Medicine doctor I’ve seen in the last 20 years has been more than willing to prescribe psychiatric drugs/anti-depressants for me, even though they probably don’t work.3
We alcoholics bear some of the burden, too. Everyone is very welcoming to folks, once they make their way down those dark stairs and into a church basement somewhere. The problem is not nearly enough people make that trip. And we all know, that even of those who make that trip once or twice, the number of people who stick around long enough to see that it’s possible to change and find the way out is much, much smaller. We have a Program that we know can work, that does work, and yet we seem very comfortable with the idea that only the tiniest fraction of people who desperately need the Program will find it.
Bill W’s vision for AA was much broader and included paid ambassadors and the development of specialty hospitals for alcoholics. That might have been a very good thing. Somehow, I think that I would rather be dealing with the Bill Wilson Hospitals than some of the “recovery programs” you see in places like Florida or addiction psychiatrists who spend their time questioning whether the thing they went to medical school to treat is actually a disease. The Akron wing pushed back hard on Bill W’s extravagant ideas and suggested instead that the Program should be so humble that we would never really talk about it publicly or identify ourselves as members of AA. They justified turning it into a secret society because Jesus had managed to become pretty popular without much press or publicity and out of fear that the existing members of AA would be overwhelmed by requests for help if the word really got out.4
I respect the Traditions— it’s why you don’t know my name. But I think this is mostly bullshit. I understand the need for humility, but if the price of humility is that more than 90% of the people who need help don’t get it, then it’s way too expensive. If we think our Program is not capable of helping all of the people who need it, we should be figuring out ways to change that, not sitting in church basements complaining that “Zoom meetings were not for me.” The Fifth Tradition says that we in AA are supposed to have but one primary purpose: Bringing our Program to the still sick and suffering.
Alcoholism and addiction are the third leading cause of preventable death in the United States—lagging behind only tobacco and preventable heart disease. More than 90% of us who suffer from this fatal disease will never even seek treatment. Bill W. tried hard to court the medical establishment, he explicitly welcomed them to the party in the Foreword to the First Edition, but there hasn’t been much of a pay-off. After 80 years, the medical establishment doesn’t really have much to offer us except for that same book written in 1939 by one of us, a non-doctor.
I’m starting to think it’s up to us. I’m sorry, I think the 5th Tradition requires more than going to meetings with friends and being nice to the broken people who wash up. We know there is a treatment for alcoholism and addiction that works, but as long as we run this like a secret book club and cling to the idea that we are somehow offending the spirit of the Program by taking a more public stance, most of the people who need help aren’t going to find it. My personal opinion: I’d trade anonymity for the chance to help more people.
Sorry for ranting, it wasn’t what I set out to do today. When I think about how hard it was for me to find the way out, the absurd number of coincidences that had to occur, it’s not surprising that we’re able to help so few. It’s why Jane getting eight months is such a big deal: Because that doesn’t happen nearly enough. I think finding new ways to bring the Program to those who need it is not just a nice thing to do, it’s the obligation of every addict and alcoholic who found their way out. Plus, for this alcoholic, it’s not just my duty, it’s the only way for me to stay sober. Time to get going.
Thanks for Letting Me Share
For the record, I started excusing myself from school (and sometimes my girlfriend) in 1978, years before Ferris pulled the same stunt in the movie. One night, after fielding the 400th call where one of my Dad’s students thought they were talking to him, the light bulb went off and I realized the attendance secretary at my high school might not be able to tell our voices apart either. I will tell you, while I never regretted missing any days of high school, bumming around Iowa City for the day is somewhat less scintillating than Chicago. Also, none of my friends’ parents owned a classic Ferrari, which is a good thing because we would have been spotted for sure at the Wendy’s Drive-Thru.
Seriously, that’s a very dark phrase. I wonder where it came from?
Do doctors still go on trips paid for by drug companies? The ones still pushing SSRI’s may have been on vacation when that study about Serotonin not actually being linked to depression came out a few months ago.
We’re kind of shitty at being a secret society, too as we don’t even have a handshake or anything.
First I want to congratulate Jane. Eight months sober IS a huge accomplishment. Well done! Keep going!
Second, I had never heard of Naltrexone (or any other medicine used to treat drug and alcohol use/dependence) until we went to the first family workshop at our son's recovery program. And to know there is an injection form! The counselor stressed to us the importance of becoming ambassadors--I think he meant of the available medications, but it's so much more now to me. I have become an ambassador for others with loved ones in active addiction or recovery.