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I was at a very good meeting discussing anonymity the other day, and it got me thinking about how much I have bounced all over the place with that concept since I got sober in 2008.
Going back to my first few weeks of recovery, I remember being over the moon about how much better my life had gotten in such a short amount of time. It’s funny how NOT eating 50 painkillers and a six pack of Natty Ice can make you feel better pretty much overnight!
I wondered, Why didn’t the 12-step programs advertise? Why should I withhold this information from everybody I know? We should be screaming this from the rooftops and there should be billboards along every major highway! I’ll make the fliers!
I started to tell anybody who’d listen how I had gotten sober and how fantastic it was. That was all well and good for a little while. But then one day I was late for work and I said I’d hit traffic, and I caught some raised eyebrows looking back at me. Turns out, five years of coming up with increasingly preposterous reasons for my behavior had laid the groundwork for skepticism when I threw excuses at people. Looking back, I would have been a little dubious of me, too.
I also remember haggling with some trusted sober friends about how outdated the whole anonymity thing was. “Come on,” I’d say, “the stigma of addiction ain’t what it was 60 years ago. We should be talking about this publicly.”
I’m so glad my recovery mentors counseled me to calm down on breaking anonymity. I haven’t really had any experiences where I feel like people knowing about my sobriety hurt me… but I can’t think of many situations when it helped or was necessary, either. I caught myself occasionally throwing it out there in a clout-chasing way, and that’s not good—my recovery just cannot have any strings attached to public adoration.
So I stopped broadcasting it to people in my life about sobriety, and I’m glad I did. People just don’t need to know. And I have found that by protecting my anonymity, I may also be protecting yours, too. Because when I hug you at the grocery store or the mall, it doesn’t automatically broadcast, “Oh, that guy must be an alcoholic, too.”
That brings me to some nuances around anonymity that I have learned over the years. In my opinion—and this is just my take on things—I also owe people the courtesy of what is said in meetings stays in meetings, even if we are friends. By that, I mean that if you share at a meeting that your marriage isn’t great and you’re considering a divorce, that doesn’t mean next time I see you at the mall, I automatically say, “Hey, what’s new with the marriage?” Maybe you brought it up at one meeting and worked through it and didn’t want me to carry it with me as a conversation starter.
I also try to avoid at all costs talking about sober people with other sober people, even if we all know each other. For me—again, this is just my personal opinion—if Mickey asks me how Timmy is doing, it’s not really my place to say, “He’s doing okay but he said last night at the meeting he’s still struggling with his work situation.” In fact, I think I would try to avoid passing along that kind of thing even if it had been said outside of a meeting. If Timmy wants Mickey to know how he’s doing, he can tell him. (For the record, I sometimes use composite characters so as to not identify anybody specifically in my life. As you could have probably guessed, Timmy and Mickey are made-up people.)
I’ll end with a funny but educational story. Early on in my recovery, when I was still a little less conservative about my anonymity, I saw a friend at the grocery store from about 50 feet away. He was with a woman who was pushing a shopping cart beside him. I made eye contact with him, and he kind of gave me a wide-eyed look that acknowledged my existence and our friendship, but also indicated that I should maybe not approach him.
So I didn’t. The anonymity thing floated through my head but in all honesty, I was also thinking, “What’s this guy’s problem? I thought we were friends?”
A few hours later, he called me and said that he was sorry he couldn’t say hello, but that he had been on a first date with someone he’s really interested in. They decided they’d cook dinner together so they were there plotting out what they’d make. He said he wasn’t quite ready to hit her with the whole “Hey, I am an alcoholic” explainer just yet.
That interaction is mildly amusing but I took home an important message. Which is that our anonymity is valuable. You should be able to go on dates and maybe fall in love without some bozo like me informing your significant other that you have an alcohol or drug problem. Lesson learned!
ALCOHOLIC/ADDICT JOKE OF THE DAY
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke.
The drunk went to the police station to speak with the burglar who had broken into his house the night before.
“You’ll get your chance in court,” said the desk sergeant.
“It isn’t that,” said the drunk. “I want to know how he got into the house without waking my wife. I’ve been trying to do that for years.”
(Credit: AA Grapevine, April 2000, Shirlene H from Bountiful, Utah)
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