An Alcoholic “in good standing”?

Despite the fact that I’m a professional engineer/scientist working in health care, and even hopefully, in mental health care, I do not speak about alcoholism as a scientific authority. I haven’t studied it beyond as an interested participant. I generally do not have knowledge about the latest scientific theory. I don’t know the latest treatment methodologies. I’m not sure what the cognoscenti are writing about it. If you are interested in such things, drugmonkey is something of an authority on such matters.

What I know about alcoholism comes from the fact that I’m an alcoholic, that I meet regularly with lots of other alcoholics, and that I’ve worked very hard to be an alcoholic in recovery. I do that through Alcoholics Anonymous. I do not speak for Alcoholics Anonymous. I am only a member. Everything I say about alcoholism should be treated as opinion. My opinion will vary significantly at times from the official opinion of AA.  If you are interested in such things, you can find that information on their website.

When we discuss alcoholism and recovery in AA, we generally talk about “what it was like, what happened, and what it is like now.” I’ll be doing a full post on each of those things in the coming week. Today, I mostly want to write about what I consider to be a somewhat unfortunate choice of words in my Introductions post, with which I described myself as a member “in good standing” of Alcoholics Anonymous.

There’s no such thing. And that’s important. AA, like any organization, has a bunch of essential concepts. They start with the twelve steps, but less well-known outside of AA are the twelve traditions. The twelve traditions are the organizing principles, such as they are, given that one of them is a tradition of disorganization. The third tradition outlays the only requirement for who is allowed to be a member of AA. There is only one rule: you must have a desire to stop drinking alcohol. Nothing else matters. AA has no schedule. No by-laws. No dues. No required oaths. You don’t have to do the 12 steps. You don’t even have to succeed in not drinking. All you have to have is a desire to stop drinking.

So what did I mean when I said I’m a member in “good standing”? Well, part of it was ego. I want you all out there in cyberspace to think well of me. When I decided to integrate two different online identities, which would involve a large group of people I admire coming to learn that I’m an alcoholic, I was terribly, terribly afraid. Alcoholism is something that nearly everyone on earth has some experience with, or opinion about. I remain afraid that people I have come to care about will now see me in a negative light because they’ve learned this about me. There is a strong stigma still associated with alcoholism. So I wrote that I’m “in good standing”, I think, in part to try to shed as positive a light as possible on the state of my recovery.

The moment we become too secure, too confident, too comfortable in our sobriety, is often the moment that our disease kills us. But that’s not to say that we are always teetering on the edge of relapse, or that every day is a struggle. I don’t think too much about alcohol. I entered recovery precisely so that alcohol would not control my life. I know one criticism of AA leveled by those who seem not to have any experience with it (I’m looking at you, South Park – but I still laughed my ass off at that episode.), is that we still have lives that are all about alcohol, just in absentia, not as drinkers. Well, to some extent, yes, alcohol remains a part of my life through its absence. But I am liberated from it, not chained too it as I once was.

I also meant, in describing myself as in “good standing”, that I have done the twelve steps (and I’ll have a great deal to write about those), that I have a sponsor, and that I speak to my sponsor regularly. That I go to meetings. That I work a program of introspection. That I seek peace and serenity through service. That when I am troubled, I try to look inward first, see where and how I am contributing to my difficulties, and how I can change my own behavior. I consider most of my problems to be of my own making. And I consider most of the solutions to my problems will come from my own efforts. I try as hard as I can not to indict others, because I know that if others seek to indict me, I can easily be found wanting.

So, it was a mistake to describe myself as in “good standing”, because there is no such thing. There is no list of attributes by which we distinguish a member of AA as better or worse. There is only this:

I suffer from a chronic, progressive, incurable, terminal mental illness. However, I am in remission. My remission from alcoholism was achieved through two actions: cessation of consumption, and adoption of a lifestyle inimical to emotional anaesthesia. As a consequence of taking those steps, I stand free.