Finding Fellowship

Beauterre Recovery Institute
Journal Entries
8:42 a.m. Friday, 11/17/23

"God is dead
and no one cares
If there is a hell
I’ll see you there"
-- Trent Reznor

I led my first Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting last night. I don’t necessarily love AA, but it’s the best option available. Prior to coming to treatment, I went to a few AA meetings around the Twin Cities. I attended for about six weeks. I found a couple meetings that I liked. It’s not the 12 steps that I find attractive about the program. The fellowship is the real boon. I’ve never been able to talk about my struggles with alcohol openly and honestly with anyone. At AA, I feel comfortable doing that with a complete group of strangers. They understand. They’ve been there. They know what a craving is. Our call to drink isn’t rational. Normal people don’t understand that.

There’s a noon meeting about three miles from my home in Richfield that isn’t too preachy. I met a fellow alcoholic there who kind of took me under his wing. He led me to a group in Edina that meets on Wednesday and Sunday nights. It’s a tight-knit group that has been super welcoming. I believe four people came up to me, embraced me and offered their numbers my first time attending.

The No. 1 complaint I’ve heard people lob at AA is that they have trouble with the God aspect. I get it. Most AA groups I’ve come to know go out of their way to inform you that a “higher power” can be anything you want it to be – the group, your sponsor, the flying spaghetti meatball monster. That makes sense to a degree. I don’t believe that is the original intent of AA or the people who really dive into it. God is that higher power. The father of Jesus Christ. It is what it is.

However, a huge key to sobriety is fellowship. I can attest to that. Alcoholism is an extremely isolating disease. The seasoned drinker can’t “stop drinking.” Science can now attest to that, but so can AA – and it has been doing just that since 1939. When my parents and Shyla first voiced concern about my drinking during a mini-intervention, they urged me to attend AA. It was a well-intentioned thought. The only problem is that I needed rehab first. I didn’t have all of the tools to get sober. Once I get out of the safe confines of rehab, I know I’ll need AA.

That’s the problem. AA isn’t the best option for sobriety by any stretch of the imagination. It’s outdated and does not include any of the scientific elements and developments since its inception. The powers that be have refused to change the core text of AA because it has “worked” for decades. They forget to mention – or don’t know – that it hasn’t worked for more people than it has. Or that others have gotten happily sober without it.

There are other options out there such as Setting Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART) objectives – a logical approach to avoid relapse and maintain sobriety. But these gatherings are often online, and SMART’s in-person groups pale in comparison to AA. I live in the heart of the Twin Cities metro area, and the closest regular SMART meeting is about 45 minutes away in traffic. It’s only once a week on the same night. I can’t realistically make that work. I know I can get to about 30 different AA meetings within 20 minutes of my house every single day, any time of day. I can go before work, during lunch or late at night after my kids go to bed.

AA is not perfect, but it’s all we have. I have no choice but to embrace it. I can overlook the aspects I don’t like. I’m not going to fight it. If I want the greatest chances of sobriety, AA must be a vital piece of my recovery.

Gotta do some stupid art shit now.

8:43 a.m. Sunday, 11/19/23

"Our little group, it’s always been
and always will until the end"
-- Kurt Cobain

One of the top skills taught at Beauterre is how to reframe a situation and change how you react to adversity. Someone flips you the bird on the freeway? Pause. Take a breath, realize they may be having a bad day and move on. Colleague an asshole at work? Put yourself in their shoes. Try to identify or relate to their circumstance. Maybe they were in a fight with their significant other. Or their director yelled at them. As much as you’d like to talk shit about them, don’t. Let go of your anger and channel it elsewhere.

We’re supposed to practice that strategy in treatment. People come to recovery from all walks of life, but we all have addiction in common. In many cases, though, we don’t have many other similar interests. Instead of focusing on our differences, we need to practice grace, resilience and healthy conflict resolution with fellow patients.

That said, here is laundry list of similar traits I’ve noticed about people in rehab – sorted by type/group:

1) The kids: Ninety percent of them don’t want to be here. Whether their stay is court ordered, their parents sent them or they are attempting to placate someone – they aren’t here to achieve sobriety. Their heart isn’t in it. It appears they can go one of two ways after they arrive:
o Stew in anger. They attend sessions with a scowl on their face, chain smoke and generally darken the mood of anyone within 10 feet of them.
o Create a sober party. They stay up late, flirt with each other, go on 10,000 smoke breaks each day, play games together late into the night, organize bean bag and volleyball tournaments, have movie marathons and talk and laugh really fucking loud all day long.
o Honestly, if I had gone to rehab in my late teens or early 20s, I would have failed. You haven’t been through enough shit. If you are going to be sober, you need to want it. They don’t.

2) The repeat offender: Quite a few people have been to rehab 5, 6 or 7 times. Even more for a few folks. Some can’t stay sober for one reason or another. For others, rehab is a form of health maintenance.
They stay sober for months at a time. In some cases, a year or more. Eventually, they relapse for a week or two and decide it’s time to go back to inpatient treatment. Almost like it’s a month-long spa treatment.
More than a few people I’ve met seem to embrace this pattern of addiction – returning to rehab for a tune-up. It’s like Red’s plight in the movie Shawshank Redemption, a Stephen King adapted novel about a jail escape. Inmates like Red have been in jail so long that they don’t know how to function in society.

3) The drug addict: You can see the look of hopelessness in their eyes. They usually look about 10 years older than their age. Their drugs of choice are opiates, fentanyl and methamphetamine. Their struggle is intense. I don’t envy them.

4) The first timer: They enter rehab paralyzed and look like a deer in headlights – at least the first few days (myself included). Once they settle in and sober up, most recognize plenty of others are in their shoes and adjust seemingly well.
The statistics don’t support it, but most of them are hell bent on getting out of treatment and beginning a new sober lifestyle. They mean it, too. Chances are more likely they will become a repeat offender.

5) The middle-aged woman: These mostly secretive drinkers come to rehab by way of intervention. They are beloved by nearly all. Chipper enthusiasm and motherly instinct radiate from their being. They are great for a chat, card games or a walk.

6) Trauma victims: These deeply wounded individuals come to their addiction by way of abuse – sexual, physical, mental – and have a seriously rough go of it. Many have attempted suicide multiple times. They often don’t have a solid support network. Their loved ones have betrayed them one too many times. They have a long road ahead of them.

7) Too late: For some, it’s been far too long. They’ve been abusing their drug of choice for so long there isn’t much left but a hollow shell. They walk around like zombies. Their minds aren’t firing on all cylinders anymore. Sadly, there isn’t much left to salvage.
I wish all these people nothing but the best. Grouping aside, the harsh reality is that most of these people won’t sustain sobriety. That’s the common ground — we’re all fighting.

The Hall of Shame
9:06 a.m. Saturday, 11/25/23

"What have I become
my sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end"
-- Trent Reznor

One of the themes in rehab is competition. It’s typical among those playing cards, board games and in cribbage or beanbag tournaments. Competition also stems from conversations among each other when conversing about our addictions. Who can speak first? Or draw the most empathy from their lot in life? People chat about trauma, addiction and their clusterfuck lives here like it’s Monday morning at a water cooler.

A conversation you might hear in passing:

Person 1: “My parents didn’t love me.”

Person 2: “Bummer, yeah, I’ve been through it. My uncle molested me.”

Person 1: “I feel for you. That sucks. I robbed a bank to fund my meth habit. I killed a man in the process.”

Person 2: “Damn. Did you go to prison for that? I went to prison after I pulled off a heist with my six-year-old daughter. We pulled a caper at a casino with a crackpot team of ex-convicts.”

Person 3: (a passerby shouting at the top of his lungs): “I practice bestiality!”

Our fuckups are common ground. We’ve made our fair share of them. It makes sense to bond over them. The truthfulness behind the tales we tell? That’s a different story. I suppose they are kind of like telling a story about the monster fish that you caught. Each time you tell the tale about catching that largemouth bass, it gets a little bigger. You’re not fibbing about catching the fish, but the details of its size and how you hooked it are a little sketchy.

Drinking prowess, tolerance and blood alcohol content are common topics of conversation. I’ve heard several people talk about blowing a .5 BAC or higher. I suppose it’s possible without going comatose. I’m dubious of most tales, though. How much you drank each day quickly becomes a dick measurement contest. A pint gets one-upped by someone who drank a quart of booze a day. A quart gets leveled by a liter. A liter is nothing compared to a handle. An alcoholic’s problems pale in comparison to those who are addicted to drugs. It’s poppycock. We’re lobbying to make it into the Hall of Shame.

I do believe 90 percent of us need to be here regardless of the severity of our problem or drug of choice.

Anyhow, If I’m being honest with myself, I could have used treatment when I was a kid in my late teens or twenties. I highly doubt it would have been successful, which is why I have sympathy for the young people here. I was talking to someone in their early 20s today. The prospect of them not drinking for the rest of their lives – potentially 70 years – is daunting. That’s a long time to go without the thing you love most in your life. I guess that’s why alcoholics say to take it one day at a time.

I’ve had enough alcohol at the age of 40 for several lifetimes over. My antics have been made. I’ve moved onto another phase of my life. I want to be clearheaded to raise my children and have a positive influence on the next generation. I’d love to have another 40 years sober and clearheaded. Twenty-five years of drinking in my rearview mirror makes sobriety seem more attainable. Much more so than five years behind me with 70 years on the horizon.