This post was originally published on this site
By Harry C.
When I first came to AA in December 1986, I didn’t have a clear understanding of what AA actually was but I knew it was about dealing with a drink problem, surely obvious by the title: “Alcoholics Anonymous”! I had a brother in NY who’d been in AA for 19 years and he was still “not drinking” but that’s as much as I knew of the place or how it functioned. Drinking, drunkenness and resulting damage was the way of life that I’d grown up with living in the 2-up tenement “bed & kitchen” in Glasgow, where I was born.
I was the youngest of three, 51/2 years between Margaret and I and 5 years between my sister and my brother Frank. Wee Elky was our Da and you never knew whether he’d be drunk or sober, but you knew for certain that he’d more than likely come in drunk and chaos would ensue. Week in, week out, and every weekend in life. I never had much to do with the Clark’s, I was always with my Ma’s side of the family. I have always been closer to the Flannigan side, and although my Ma never drank throughout her life, the Flannigan side had its fair share of problem drinkers!
One Flannigan cousin came to AA in Glasgow, another gave the booze up for decades but never came to AA, and another came to AA in Hamilton, Canada, after emigrating there. All male, all different families, and the fourth Flannigan uncle had girls, no sons, and none of the girls found their way into AA. My brother went to NY aged 19/20 and went to AA there aged 30. He’s still going and 57 years sober today. My sis followed to NY a few years later and tragically passed there in 1988. She wouldn’t come over for Elky’s funeral in 1972; she hated what he put us through with his drunken behaviour. Then there’s me. I drank for 20 years, knew I had problems with insecurity and resentments, easily identified in “jealousy and control”, and “why me” issues, but knew for many years that I had a problem with drunkenness.
I loved to drink and always loved the feeling of “ease and comfort” that drinking gave me. I knew at age 38 that if I didn’t deal with my drinking problem, that my ability to deal with my other problems would be negligible; my jealousy and anger were always manifest at some point in my drunkenness. It appeared impossible to control my behaviours when I was drunk; words and actions flowed with the drink.
I grew up in a constant state of fear and anxiety. Shame developed as I developed and I became aware of the poverty of limited privacy, poor hygiene, and tenement living with no hot water, a shared outside toilet, and a chronic alcoholic father that the neighbours below, above and next door could hear! Doctor Mate has given children such as I a name: a Child of Trauma. I bed wet until aged 12 and got my first toothbrush on my first trip to visit my siblings in NY aged 13/14. I got my first shower too at my sisters after being ill on the plane and came out wrapped in a towel and shivering; I didn’t know there was hot water I could turn on.
It is absolutely no surprise to me of the power of alcohol on me when I first drank. The “right of passage” at age 18 when walking into the pub and being served. The realization that I wasn’t drunk after those first 2 pints of lager, and the absolute choice that I made there and then that this new feeling of excitement and freedom was for me! From “fear and anxiety” to “ease and comfort” and I found the answer the more I went to the pub and the more I drank as my tolerance to drink grew. I was truly seduced by alcohol and who’d not want to rid themselves of always being fearful, watching what you do and what you say, needing the approval of others; who’d not want the sense of freedom that you can act and say spontaneously without having to edit yourself first!
The years passed, life happened to me, and my lifestyle was built around “the pub”. I’d enjoy the first pint, “Ah feck it”; by the sixth pint it was becoming “feck you!”; and when into double figures, “feck yous all, I need no one”! Then the resulting unintended consequences had once again to be faced and dealt with. Alcoholism had me and inevitably I’d prefer to drink again than accept the responsibility that I’d promised to take.
Crisis led me to call the Samaritans and they pointed me to AA.
When I phoned AA I told them I’d go to a Meeting myself and did so. I had no idea what to expect. I asked the guy at the Church door if there was an AA meeting there. He asked if this was my first Meeting and led me inside and introduced me. The welcome was warm, the people inquisitive and accepting, but I was anything but forthcoming. I was scanning the set up and the Scrolls. They announced they would focus on the First Step as Mr. Newcomer was there. I cringed every time Mr. Newcomer was referenced.
There was talk of God and the need for a Higher Power and then Wee Peter responded. He was an older guy with two sticks and an atheist with no need for a God. Wonderful, relief! I was an atheist and his declaration kept the door open for me.
I was an Alien in AA not knowing the language, the rituals and protocols, and not knowing if this AA could help me. But I felt the warmth of the intentions of those present towards helping me, I listened to the changed lives that AA had given those that spoke, and I realised that if Peter could stay sober and come along when he didn’t believe in God then maybe it may be able to help me. I got hope. That welcome and hope I got did the trick and for the next week I didn’t drink and I came back again the following Monday.
In spite of many trials and tribulations throughout my years of trudging, I’ve never drank again since going to AA, hence never been drunk again; never found any Dog or Higher Power that I can honestly say I’ve ever understood, and I went looking. I still regularly engage in the fellowship within AA to help maintain my choice to live a sober life. Since learning to live an abstinent life, the obsession dwindled away over time and I’ve developed a solution to my drunken experiences I previously encountered that led me to seek help through AA. I live with my solution, abstinence from alcohol and engaging with my AA friends for giving and receiving support.
To be clear: I don’t engage intentionally in any AA Steps; don’t engage with the Big Book in any way; never had a Sponsor; never sponsored; don’t pray nor “meditate”; I call myself an Atheist and don’t use the term “spiritual”; I have no love of religion.
There are so many variables in each life, so many experiences that have impacted us and influenced our frame of reference to our life and the world we live in. I have no idea how another person should choose how to live life. I’ve lived my life for the past 37+ years by choosing abstinence from booze and by never being too far removed from AA, one way or another. In this day and age we have Roger to thank for AA Agnostica and another way of giving and receiving through AA fellowship.
Harry is retired and worked for 17 years in local regeneration in Glasgow, Scotland. He lives with Christine his partner of 11 years outside Glasgow and is 76, but says he doesn’t look it! Happily divorced and living in sin but as an atheist he doesn’t worry about the sinning! He has only one brother and he lives in NY and between them they currently have 94 years of sobriety; Frank with 57 and Harry with 37. Loves to hear from his FB friends he met at ICSAA in Toronto. A skeptic at heart, he no longer attends Secular AA meetings but is still a regular attendee at his local meeting.
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