AA

My more than fabulous girlfriend not only invited me to her upcoming one-year medallion at a local AA but asked me to read a poem out loud…. To other adults. Yikes!

For those who don’t know me well, I have difficulty reading aloud to my nine-year-old at bedtime, let alone to grown-ass adults, but I was honoured and said I would love to. I can say yes to stuff like this because I’m now over two years sober and have what I like to call dry courage.

I’m sure you’ve heard the term liquid courage, something I believed helped me at one point. Liquid courage made me not so easily intimidated. It seemed the perfect solution to my social anxiety. That is, at first, but gradually, it turned on me, ending up the opposite of encouraging. That same liquid that made me feel invincible was the very same one that would eventually steal every last drop of confidence I had, rendering me scared of everything.

In the absence of alcohol, my dry courage was able to flourish. I now dive into whatever is in front of me, not thinking much of whether I’m scared or not. That and my ever-growing curiosity when it comes to AA made this an easy yes. I was so distracted rehearsing my poem I forgot how terrified I was of the actual reading in public, that is, until I pulled into the parking lot.

The parking lot is jammed, and as I follow the mass up to the building, I feel a lump forming in my throat. I have a fleeting thought to return to my car and go straight back home. I should have known her charisma would draw a crowd.

At the front door, there’s a group of people talking and smoking. It’s as if a blockade of intimidators has been put there as some initiation to get in. I feel people's eyes on me as I walk through them, but I’m so purposely not looking at anyone that it may be just in my head.

I walk down the stairs into the room and hone in on my friend's familiar face for comfort. To my surprise, once in the safety of the four basement walls, I find a room buzzing with good energy. The unwelcoming mood outside is somehow immediately turned to warm and inviting once in. It makes me wonder if I was coming in hot on my sober day one, would I have made it past the front door? Maybe the leap of faith going from one side of the door to the other should be known as step one.

What I find in this room isn’t the circle of chairs in a dingy basement I naively expected. Instead, there’s a podium with a microphone at the front of the room and chairs in rows going all the way to the back. The formality of it all has caused my level of freak-out to elevate. I no longer know what to do with my hands, so I wrap my arms around myself, gripping my coat that seems to have transformed into a security blanket.

I hug my friend, find my seat and do breathing exercises to calm myself down. You see, dry courage is more of a still freak out, but do it anyway because you know it will be an ok kind of courage.

I plan to take in the whole experience with all the open-mindedness I can muster. Not a religious person myself, I’m unsure of whether I belong here, and as they start the ceremony with their rules and rituals, I feel sure I don’t.

I watch people go up to say they’re welcome to AA spiel. They start with Hello, my name is —— and I’m an alcoholic, and it hits me. I have an option here: I can introduce myself as such. I can tell these lovely people with one word that I, too, drank too much and needed to quit. Maybe it would be liberating, but I still can’t fully get on board with the word alcoholic.

The main reason I can't get up and say that I’m an alcoholic is that I don’t drink. I think that makes me less of an alcoholic than old Aunt Ruth, who only has one drink of brandy a year on Christmas Day. I also feel strongly about AUD (alcohol use disorder) being a spectrum with no line to cross from one side to the other. I see labels as metaphorical cages and will not trap myself in a social construct that sentences me to identify a certain way for the rest of my life.

I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with people using that term for themselves or that there should be any shame in using it. I’m saying it’s not for me.

So I get up and tell them the truth that I’m Holly, and I really hope I don’t mess this poem up. I read my poem and spoke some words about my friends and my sobriety that spilled out clumsily, along with some very unplanned tears. I’m so damn full of emotion when it comes to people quitting drinking. Because I know firsthand how it feels to abandon the life you knew for this new one full of harsh realities. I’m so incredibly proud of her. I should have known tears were inevitable.

People get up after me to tell their own stories, and I finally really get it. I get why people come and come back. The vulnerable way they express themselves in front of this room of familiar and unfamiliar faces is nothing short of beautiful. This place is not for me now, but maybe it would have been had I come there when I was most lost. The sense of community fills the room with hope, and there is something very comforting about being here.

At the end of the night, I’m glad I came. Where liquid courage has always left me feeling regretful, tonight is another instance of dry courage that left me feeling accomplished.

I have so much respect and appreciation for these people who opened up their club to me this night.

If you’re on the fence looking for more support than you’re getting right now, I think it’s worth checking out.