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Over the years, I’ve met lots of people who get sober and end up not using 12-step programs as a part of their sobriety.
It is a tempting notion: Get sober, learn a bunch of tools to stay sober, then bounce from any sort of program. Believe me, there are nights where I have to drag myself to a meeting and would rather be watching a football game.
Let me say this up front: I am a 12-step person. I really believe in those programs as a way to get sober and stay sober. It’s mostly because I have tried other ways and find that I live a better life when I am participating in 12-step recovery. But I’m open-minded about how other people might find sobriety, and I definitely don’t get mad if somebody tries something else. Have at it.
But I have found that other sober methods don’t work as well for me—and for lots of my sober friends. That was hammered home for me when the pandemic began and meetings disappeared for a bit. Some people scrambled to set up Zoom meetings. Some people met at parks and wore masks. And some people just sort of drifted away. I kind of drifted away.
I had a period where I leaned into using speaker tapes (there are lots of sober speakers available on YouTube) as my main way to stay sober during the pandemic. For a few days, I felt like I had found a cheat code. I could avoid meetings and just listen to sober speakers and get my daily dose of serenity there!
That wore out pretty quick, though, because I think speaker tapes don’t do the main thing that I need in sobriety: connection. It’s hard to get connected to a faceless speaker on YouTube.
I also have met people who went to 12-step meetings for awhile, then drifted away and never came back. I’ve even met people who stayed sober despite having no real spiritual program as part of that sobriety. But those results seem like hit-or-miss to me—it’s been much more likely that those people are more dry, than sober, which means they behave the same way a junkie would, just without the drugs and alcohol. That’s not the way for me, either.
So I don’t condemn anybody who pursues sobriety a different way, and I wouldn’t pronounce my way as a better way. But it’s definitely better for this alcoholic!
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:
A true story: At a district meeting recently, a member made a motion that we donate a couple hundred dollars to outfit the hospitality room at the upcoming New Hampshire AA Convention with refreshments. His motion was seconded, and the chair asked if there was any discussion before the vote. To clarify the motion, I asked if “a couple hundred” meant “two hundred dollars”
“Does a couple mean ‘two’?” he quipped.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I used to stop for a couple of beers almost every night.”
(Credit: AA Grapevine, July 2003, Andy H. from Portsmouth, New Hampshire)
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