Covington has been in recovery for more than three decades. She thinks the only people who should break their anonymity are those like herself: those who have been sober long enough to be stable, not lose jobs or relationships. “I do think recovery needs a face and a voice,” she says. “Maybe it behooves those of us who can’t be hurt to be more vocal. It’s too bad there aren’t ways for people to understand the value of the program.”
What Cheever raises is something many authors have had to wrestle with. In the world of “quit lit,” many have broken their anonymity, most notably the late Caroline Knapp in Drinking: A Love Story. Others have walked a fine line, talking about meetings without naming the groups: Mary Karr in Lit, Susan Juby in Nice Recovery. Says Juby, who is more than two decades sober, “Anybody who knows anything about anything can presume. But I understand the sentiment around anonymity. It’s not just about being private concerning personal issues, or protecting an individual. The tradition is also based on humility. I like the idea that recovery moves through example at a community level. There’s a nobility to that. Still, the hostility to meetings always surprises me: the idea that it’s a cult has lots of sway.”
“It may be a cult,” says Karin. “But if so, it’s one I want to belong to. If it weren’t anonymous, I wouldn’t be here.” The woman to her right nods. “There’s a pecking order when it comes to stigma. If you’re male and drunk, you’re a good old boy. If you’re female and drunk, you’re not going to live it down.”
Is AA too shrouded in mystery? As a journalist, Roshan believes so. “I think AA is a very under-covered subject. It’s an institution unlike any other. It should be reported on just as the Catholic Church is, and the presidency. Who’s being served by this current situation?”
Perhaps the individual members, says Pat Taylor. Taylor is executive director of Faces & Voices of Recovery, an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. For a decade her group has helped tens of thousands of individuals in recovery, as well as their friends, families, and “allies,” tell their stories in a positive manner through what she calls “recovery messaging.” She agrees with Cheever on one point. “One of the greatest problems is that the general public and policy makers don’t understand that people can and do get well,” says Taylor. “They’re moms and dads, pay their taxes, and they vote. Not that long ago, women didn’t speak about breast cancer. Bringing recovery into the public health arena is critical.” But never does this mean breaking anonymity, she says. “There are many pathways to recovery, and we support and embrace them all. We support whatever any mutual support group advocates.”
William C. Moyers, one of the founders of Faces & Voices of Recovery, agrees with Taylor—and yet he revealed his membership in AA in his book Broken. “If I was going to explain the gritty details of the spiral of my addiction, I needed to give the nitty-gritty details of getting sober,” he says. “Recovery is a mind, body, and soul experience. It’s not magic. I owed it to my readers and their families to talk about the Twelve Steps and AA. Quitting is not about stopping drinking. I stopped a million times. It’s about staying stopped, and it’s hard to stay stopped.”
Still, Moyers believes “it is not necessary for most to break their anonymity to get the word out about AA. You can be a voice of recovery without breaking your anonymity. AA should stick to what it’s always done—which is people helping other people.”
Cheever envisions a different world. “What if it was widely reported that a significant percentage of U.S. senators are in AA, or that there are AA meetings in the West Wing of the White House?” she writes. “What if hundreds of the movers and shakers in recovery—doctors and lawyers and airline pilots, the Fortune 500 businessmen and ministers—stood up and were counted as members of AA? It would go a long way toward clearing away the misunderstanding that still surrounds us.”
The world is changing, and quickly. A series of online groups have been springing up around the world, offering support to those who want to stay sober—or give sobriety a whirl: Soberistas out of London, Booze-Free Brigade out of Los Angeles. One of the more interesting initiatives is called “Hello Sunday Morning.” Three years ago, a young Australian named Chris Raine started this online group, throwing down the gauntlet to others: take a three-month break from drinking and see what happens to your life. Raine, a handsome dude of a guy who started in the advertising sector, still drinks—but each year, he takes his requisite break. He says: “Our vision is to have one hundred thousand members by 2015. The idea is, you don’t need alcohol to be confident; you don’t need alcohol to have fun; you don’t need alcohol to be yourself. The majority of HSM members change their consumption long-term, learn how to re-form an identity to be the person who doesn’t drink the most in their circle.”
What Raine is helping to do is break the stigma around binge-drinking problems, opening up the dialogue. I hope the stigma will disappear in my lifetime. This year in Canada, I cochaired the first National Roundtable on Girls, Women, and Alcohol, a new initiative I helped found. Its aim is to open a public dialogue on the issues related to problematic drinking. We live in an alcogenic culture. We have normalized risky drinking. It should surprise no one that some of us fall through the cracks. We need to question: what are we doing to contribute to this reality, and what can we do to change it?
In the past decade, mental health has had significant leadership related to anti-stigma campaigns. I believe that addiction needs a similar response. But so far, most voices are silent. I hope to help change that. The gap between what we know about addiction and our perceptions of it: an embarrassment. People overcome addiction. They need to speak up, and they need to be heard. With a convergence of voices, so much could be won.
18.
Becoming Whole
IN WHICH I RECOVER MY SELF
You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.
—ANNE LAMOTT
Toronto, February 2013
I am not sure how men heal from addiction. For me, there has been one central fairy tale that has been totemic in my journey: “The Handless Maiden” by the Brothers Grimm, as retold by Jungians Robert Johnson and Marie-Louise von Franz. It goes like this:
Once upon a time, there was a poor miller who lived with his wife and his young daughter. As happens in fairy tales, the devil appears in the guise of an old man, and offers to make the mill run faster, in exchange for what stands behind the mill. Easy, thinks the miller: it’s my apple tree. He agrees to the deal. Immediately, the mill becomes profitable. In short order, the miller becomes a wealthy man.
Three years to the day, when the devil reappears to claim his part of the bargain, the miller goes to fetch his axe. To his horror, he learns that his daughter had been standing behind the mill, sweeping the yard. The devil tries to take her, but her goodness manages to ward him off: she makes a circle around herself with chalk so he cannot approach her. Enraged, he commands the poor miller to chop off her hands. (In his wisdom, Johnson points out that the alcoholic “makes one of the worst devil’s bargains,” trading suffering for oblivion—or, in Jungian terms, the sacrifice of the feminine feeling.)
Handless, the daughter is exceedingly lonely, wandering every day in the woods by herself. By chance, she makes her way to the king’s garden, where there is a prized pear tree. She reaches for one of the beautiful pears, and manages to eat it, an act witnessed by the king’s gardener. The next day, he brings the king to see the beautiful handless maiden. Immediately, the king falls in love. He marries her, and has his magicians make her a set of silver hands.
And as we all know, silver-handedness is a bad bargain. “No other loneliness is as deep as
silver-handedness,” writes Johnson—and indeed, this is true. Anyone who has been dependent on alcohol knows this well.
In time, the queen gives birth to a baby boy. There are many servants to help with the care of her young son, but the queen is bereft. She wants to manage her baby by herself. One day, she starts crying and cannot stop. She takes her baby to the woods.
Writes Johnson, “As soon as the queen has bathed herself in the restorative bath of tears and gathered a reserve of energy, a most wonderful thing happens. The miracle begins as an emergency—as so many wonderful things do—when her baby falls into a stream and will drown if not rescued immediately.”
The queen plunges her useless stumps into the water to rescue her child, and her own hands are fully restored. As Johnson writes: “The queen has instinctively understood that aloneness is better than false relationship—even if it be of sterling silver—and she takes refuge in the greatest of all feminine healers—solitude.”
And what happens? Writes von Franz of the woman who has reclaimed her hands: “She will have full consciousness of what she is doing and is therefore rewarded for her suffering, which is what Jung means when he writes that ‘a part of life is lost, but the meaning is saved.’”
Once I gave up the silver-handedness of my relationship with alcohol—the unrewarding habit of trading suffering for oblivion—I had to learn to fend for myself in the woods of life. New sobriety is a challenging experience if ever there was one: your first Christmas, your first New Year’s, your first wedding or funeral. I have never felt more naked, exposed to my feelings, raw.
I remember a particular cocktail hour at the houseboat, when I literally did not know how to breathe through the pre-dinner period. I sat on the little driftwood bench, feeling fidgety and vulnerable. I remember a fancy celebratory dinner in Chicago, with Nicholas: when the waiter uncorked a good bottle of red wine a foot from my face, at the table snug beside ours, Nicholas touched his foot to mine, in solidarity. Half an hour later, when the wine kept flowing, he offered to walk me around the block. I accepted. I will never forget the tenderness of my son, linking an arm through mine as we left the restaurant and headed out into the night air.
Most of all, I remember the depression of early sobriety: feelings raw, and the constant tears. I mourned my relationship with alcohol. At heart, learning to live sober is a solitary experience.
Today, my so-called Celtic Blood Disorder is solidly in my rearview mirror. I hang out in church basements, with joy. Each time I take my seat at a meeting, I find myself smiling. I never take it for granted, this daily reprieve from addiction.
Not that there haven’t been times when I would have killed for a drink. I was only eighteen months sober when Jake broke up with me, severing our deep fourteen-year connection. That first night, I would have given my right arm for a scotch. I had tea. There are nights when that wound can still ache.
Seven months later, at my father’s wake, I watched wistfully as others soothed their grief with Pinot Grigio, my brand. Again, I would have killed for a drink, a little social novocaine to numb the pain. I drank strong coffee instead.
There were a lot of tears on both occasions. After losing Jake, I was angry at my sobriety for a long, long time. For a while, I found it tough to sit on those hard chairs under bright lights, and be grateful: I had lost so much. Before my world filled back up again, it became very, very empty. It often felt like holding sand in a squeezed hand: everything was rushing out. It took a long time for me to learn how to release my grip, to loosen up with life.
For some, early sobriety is a pink cloud. Not for me. In my case, I rode the dragon of depression and anxiety with difficulty. It took me more than two years to find my equilibrium, and a full three and a half to soar.
In the beginning, you think it’s all about giving up alcohol. I remember counting out the days with pride, thinking: there, I’ve got it nailed! One hundred, two hundred, three hundred, a full year.
But slowly, you realize that abstinence is only the first requisite for growth. This is how you get ready for the real work: the emotional, mental, and spiritual push-ups essential to gaining some true perspective, some maturity. They say you stop maturing when you drink, and I believe it’s true: I had a lot of catching up to do.
Two years ago, I was on the phone with my son in Brooklyn, lamenting all that I had lost when I gave up drinking. He was very quiet. Then he told me to get a piece of paper. “Mum, draw a line down the middle. I’ll dictate this to you.” Dutifully, I did as he said. How odd, I thought: this boy-man being my tutor.
“On one side, Mum, write ‘Losses.’ Okay, put Jake’s name there. You lost the man you loved. And yes, he was a really, really great guy—and then he wasn’t, Mum. Not to you.”
“Now, on the other side, write ‘Gains.’ Write this, Mum. You got your son back.” My heart is in my mouth. “Mum, I wasn’t really even speaking to you. Our relationship was really strained.”
“Is this true?”
“You know it’s true. We didn’t even speak for four months. Don’t you remember? So write this: You supported me and my wish to go to art school. You have been a fabulous mother.” Now I am silent. “You got your sister back, Mum. You got your relationship with your mother back. You got your friends back. Name them, Mum. Gillian. Keep going, Mum.” I scribble. The list is growing. “You got your writing back.” What else? “Are you writing?” “Yes, I’m writing.” “Put it all down, Mum.”
He continues. I run out of paper. “So, you lost a guy, Mum. Have a look at the other side.”
When you emerge from an addiction, you actually get to choose the parts of yourself that you will keep, and those you will have to lose if you are to stay sane and sober. This is a full rebirth, in the truest sense of the word—painful and complete. In AA, they say it takes five years to get your marbles back. But it’s more than that: it takes several years to shape a new self.
Today I am a much calmer version of my former being, steady and humbled by all that I have witnessed and weathered. Things have evolved in ways I could never have imagined. I got my marbles back. Most days I know what to do with them.
Sometimes the universe sends you gifts. I have had several of these in sobriety—strange experiences that made me believe there was something larger at work.
Jake and I used to play a foolish lovers’ game: if we gave each other permission to run away with anyone in the world, who would we choose? Jake’s choice always changed, often depending on what movie we had just seen: once, it was Scarlett Johansson; another time, after seeing Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona, it was Penélope Cruz. Me? It never changed. It was always the sad-eyed, devilishly handsome Irish actor Gabriel Byrne.
That summer of the breakup, I flew to New York for a Thursday evening. Nicholas had a photograph in a show in a gallery in Chelsea, and I didn’t want to miss my son’s first opening. Afterward, he and his girlfriend and I headed out for something to eat. They stood on the street, while I checked out possible restaurants. I walked into one and emerged with a grin: “You’ll never guess who’s sitting at the bar. Gabriel Byrne.” “Go introduce yourself,” said Nicholas.
And so I did. I told him the story. “My sweetheart just broke up with me, and we always had a deal: if I ever ran into you, I was allowed to run away.” Gabriel Byrne fixed me with the saddest eyes I had ever seen. “You have a very tough time ahead,” he said. “Have a seat.” This is not how I expected it to go. “What are you drinking?” He had both San Pellegrino and an espresso in front of him. “San Pellegrino, with lime.” “Tell me what happened.” I gave him the short version, and he listened carefully. He was quiet for a minute. “I want you to get John O’Donohue’s To Bless the Space Between Us and read ‘For the Breakup of a Relationship.’ Copy it on a piece of paper, put it in your pocket, and take it out and read it every day for the next year. It will help. John O’Donohue, Irish poet.” “I have it,” I said. “By my bedside.”
He ordered himself anot
her espresso. We sat together talking for what seemed like a long time. He told me of his shoot that week, of a thirteen-year-old boy who thought his heart was broken. I told him how Nicholas had had an opening in Chelsea, how his girlfriend had been mugged on a Brooklyn street the night before. When Nicholas and his girlfriend appeared, she with a badly bruised face, Byrne said: “Well, you’re quite a threesome. You almost got your nose broken, you got your heart broken, and you are a star.”
With that, he leaned down and whispered something to me, spoke to the bartender, then slipped away into the night. Hours later, when I went to pay, our bill had been covered.
Two months later, I walked into a retirement party at the Drake, a hip Toronto hotel, listened to the speeches, and rose to get my coat. An elderly gentleman approached me, someone I had never seen before, and have never seen since. “Please don’t worry—it’s all going to turn out fine,” he said to me. “Do I know you?” I asked. “No, but you have the most broken heart I have ever seen. I want you to know this: It’s going to be all right. He was your soul mate. Give it time. Keep busy. I promise, it will turn out well.” “How do you know,” I said, tears welling up. “I can see it,” he said. “I have a gift—I always have. May I get you a drink?” “I don’t drink,” I said. “Neither do I,” said the man. “I’m allergic. I want you to know you have a lot to do, a lot of people to help. It will be fine.” “How do you know?” “Don’t worry,” he said. “You have a beautiful heart.” “Who are you?” I asked. “It doesn’t matter. Love will find you again, and when it does, he will be a much older man.” And then he left. I got my coat and circled back to him. “Why are you telling me all this?” “Don’t worry,” he said. “Just remember: you don’t always have to be right. That’s your one flaw. But you have a beautiful heart, and you will have more love. Remember: he will be older, much older. This will take time. In the meantime, you have a lot to do.” I left the party, feeling peaceful. I call this man my Clarence, after the angel from It’s a Wonderful Life. Clarence—whoever he was—soothed my broken heart.
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