Andrew W. resumes Church Basements, his tales from the world of Alcoholics Anonymous:
Mail weighed heavily on the minds of several alcoholics in church basements Tuesday.
Out of the blue Judy shared, “I hate mail lots of time, and just let it pile up.”
Surprisingly several other alcoholics told similar stories. When they were drinking, they concurred, it was simple neglect. But it continued long after they became sober, and they wanted to know the meaning of this strange, irrational experience.
Bill spoke up, “I’ve often let the mail pile up, not because I’m particularly afraid of what unpleasant message it may contain. It’s more like I’m hiding from everything, and I just don’t want to know. Not now, not anything. Somehow that might lead to trouble.”
Sally, on the other hand, said she worried that the mail would release some frightful memory of destructive events that occurred when she was drinking:“I feel ashamed, and I don’t need to be reminded of it all. “
Alcoholics bear all sorts of strange fears and phobias, usually associated with using drugs and alcohol. Memories are often splintered. Instead of seeing the whole continent only islands emerge from the fog.
Most say they only share these tidbits at Alcoholic Anonymous meetings. They don’t want to be thought crazy — not a problem at AA meetings. They are not a hot bed of sanity.
“I’m terrified of song birds, their singing, “Larry said. “Every time I hear them, I get shivers and try to get out of earshot. I told my kids this one time. They laughed and thought I was crazy. Not far wrong.”
He knows where his fear of bird songs comes from.
“When I was drinking, I passed out at a friend’s house. I woke up. It was light out. The birds were singing that special way they do in the morning and as evening approaches. I was not sure whether if it was morning or evening. I was terrified. Still am.”
For most of us getting and staying off alcohol and drugs is a struggle. These quirks take on outsized concerns that they may be harbingers of relapse. Even folks with 20 or 30 years, tell of quirky fears that have stuck with them.
We’re not at the AA meetings church basements because we’re whole, just trying hard to put ourselves back together. For most it’s the hardest thing they will ever do.
With some folks though, this same kind of behavior appears to be inherited. Being able to point to a whole string of relatives going back two generations who exhibited such symptoms or just odd behavior according to social norms is just a fact of life that some of us have to deal with. Many, actually most of those relatives never drank or took drugs at all, they just exhibited the "odd" behavior.
Many alcoholics may have these symptoms, but it's often or at least sometimes a chicken or egg scenario I suspect. Nurture or nature is often difficult or impossible to know.
There are also a whole host of groups and individuals who criticize AA and some even point out that the statistics don't back up the claim that AA is the only successful cure. I delved into this a few years ago and found it fascinating, a look at the downsides of AA would be helpful. Not that AA doesn't help many, but there are huge numbers of critics. Many say that most of the people in AA are there because courts force them to go.
I suspect my Uncle could have been saved (he committed suicide we suspect but can't be sure of) had he adopted the course. He wasn't on the same side of the gene pool that some of the rest of us in the family are. He drank and drugged all his life starting at perhaps 14 or 15 I think. But some in the family believe he was murdered and there is good reason to be suspicious. I saw him fighting the neighbor who kept coming over to screw his wife, and saw him hollering at the neighbor to stay off his property. But the neighbor was there at about the time he "committed suicide". The police say they are willing to open the investigation up at anytime. The wife is dead and the lover may be too. And it's an unprovable situation.
But you always suspect, but it could have been either. We just don't know. But I saw the fight with the neighbor when I was over there trying to help him. Anothr theory I have is that my mother may very well be the one who pushed him over the edge if he killed himself. My father accused my mother of verbally brutalizing my Uncle (her brother) a couple of months before the suicide (or murder) and it was at a time that he was so vulnerable and he worshipped her, at least until then.
He was just a few years older than me and like my brother. I still have a great deal of anger at my mother over what my father told me she said to him. But she did that to me and others in the family too. Family dynamics often play a role in dysfunctional behavior, even those families which don't have but a few druggies or drinkers.
Posted by: Buck on February 12, 2010 8:28 AMI have had trouble with my mail for large periods of my life, including most of the last ten years. For the last three years, I have had trouble even opening the mail box. Obviously I'm not alone. Navigating the complexities of "modern life" is too much for an increasing number of people.
I would be an alcoholic probably except that I get alcohol poisoning easily and so am unable to use liquor to soften the pain of being alive in this "brave new world."
IMO, much of what is considered "mental illness" is not disease itself but merely symptoms of the horrific disconnect between what we're boxed into perceiving as "normal" and what actually is.
But it's easier for society to blame individuals than to recognize and address the failures of the false construct we live in.
Posted by: karen marie on February 12, 2010 9:36 AM