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Addiction Recovery Bulletin
The uneven impact of COVID-19 has long been evident. White-collar workers who can earn a living from laptops have fared better than blue-collar and service workers, who are more likely to lose both their jobs and their health insurance. Communities of color have seen higher rates of hospitalization and death than whites, and children from lower-income families face obstacles to remote schooling that more affluent students do not.
But classrooms aren’t the only mission-critical environments Zoom is struggling to replicate. Another is an organization that has saved lives (including my own) over eight decades: Alcoholics Anonymous. And as elsewhere, a chasm in AA has emerged between the haves and have nots.
That gap generally goes like this: Those with longstanding sobriety remain sober, while newcomers struggle mightily to achieve and sustain sobriety.
Some of this is well-publicized. Unsurprisingly the anxiety, fear and isolation COVID-19 has caused lends itself to increased risks for alcoholism and substance abuse. Evidence shows overdoses increasing, and analysts noticed marked upticks in alcohol consumption from the very first week of stay-at-home restrictions.
But while it’s relatively easy to track indicators of substance disorders, more difficult is assessing the challenges COVID poses to those ready to leave the bottles and baggies behind. Here, the growing pandemic-caused recovery gap is rooted in two truths: Getting sober is really hard, while remaining so is comparably easy.
I’ve been a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous for nine years, and can unequivocally state that AA’s Zoom rooms are an unworkably far cry from in-person meetings, which have served as lifelines for countless millions. AA works; I am living proof. But Zoom does not, and it’s costing lives.
For most addicts, myself included, getting sober is arguably the most arduous endeavor — and most rewarding accomplishment — of our lives. We come in broken and, with help from those who’ve walked the path before us, slowly emerge stronger, 2.0 versions of ourselves. We develop life tools we never possessed prior, even before descending into addiction’s depths. We become weller than well.
We did not, we could not, do it alone. AA thrives on the principle that addiction and alcoholism are “takes one to help one” diseases. Those with longstanding recovery pay their experience forward to the next generation of newcomers.
And for those newcomers, including me in 2011, there is something magical about an AA meeting — something whose spirituality is tied to physical symbols and experiences. The 12 Steps posted to show adherence to principles over personalities. The formality of the introductory readings — reverence to a text written in 1935 that remains penetratingly current. The Serenity Prayer said in unison by dozens gathered for one primary purpose: arresting addiction.
Recovery lives and breathes behind those closed church basement doors. The sing-song “Hi Chris” from fellow alcoholics as I identity myself as one of them, at once humbled and empowered. The atta-boys and applause received by a newcomer celebrating another day free of drugs and booze. The enraptured silence of a group listening to someone who once drank or drugged like them explain their downfall and ultimate redemption through the 12 Steps, sober mentors and fellowship.
And finally, a circle of sober drunks, hands linked, closing the gathering as they opened it: united against a common enemy.
The best in-person meetings are instructive, inspiring, fortifying. The best Zoom meetings are…a heaping pile of meh. If you think teaching a 6-year-old arithmetic is difficult online, try teaching a 26-year-old not to drink during the other 23 hours in his isolated day.
Instead of awed silence, there is muted awkwardness. Instead of a room full of engaged sober drunks, there is a Brady Bunch screen of stacked, often distracted faces. Instead of hugging and handholding, there is, simply, nothing. I’ve seen all this first-hand.
AA has an essence that cannot be digitalized and, because of this, many with substantial recovery time have limited their attendance during the pandemic. Others have undoubtedly abandoned it entirely. We’ve worked the Steps, adopted the principles, and have already proven durable through protracted emergencies, alcohol-related and otherwise. We have the luxury of time, and don’t want Zoom eroding our esteem for AA. With vaccinations pending, we can wait this thing out safely and soberly.
Newcomers, though, cannot. And therein lies the inequality COVID has foisted upon recovery. It has significantly diminished the effectiveness of the most prolific recovery program in human history, and those most affected are the ones most threatened by active addiction.
Is it possible to achieve and sustain sobriety via Zoom AA? I’m sure it is, but it’s exceptionally difficult. Remote rooms have made an exceedingly challenging, existentially important process exponentially harder. And so, for the vast majority of struggling newcomers, to arrest alcoholism we must first arrest COVID. The clock is ticking.
morThis article first appeareed at NYDailyNews.com