“I know you’re be nervous, but you’d be a hell of a lot more nervous if you HAD to go there.” I kept trying to repeat that saying my mom told me to myself while waiting in the little black chair in the small room full of strangers. I told myself I was blessed I was here for a school project and not here because I was an alcoholic. I know Lili felt nervous too, we were so unfamiliar and naive to everything going on around us.
We started walking to the A.A. meeting in Hart Park around 7:15, we walked through the circle past some local businesses and delicious smelling restaurants until we finally ended up at the park. It was a brisk outside, sweatshirt weather, streetlights lining the streets and overall a relatively safe feeling part of Orange, CA. It smelled like a summer night, it was a peaceful walk, not too many cars or people, but that was disrupted as soon as we entered the park. As soon as you got there you wanted to look everywhere at once, the playground filled with toddlers and their parents, the beach volleyball courts packed with 20 year olds blasting music and serving up an intense game. Music playing and kids laughing filled the air, until the bell rang. An older white bearded man fit with suspenders holding up his blue jeans stood in the doorway of the little clubhouse and rang a bell above his head, it was time for the meeting to start. Once you walked into the little room the outside world seemed to shut out. You were bombarded with fluorescent lights and the smell of hot, pot coffee.
Everyone there was so inviting and friendly, we got a big hug when we showed up and everyone made it so that we felt comfortable in a place that was uncomfortable. The whole meeting was full of inside jokes and laughter, which I did not expect going into it. They all have such a good sense of humor when it comes to alcoholism, everyone can take a joke and make a joke. The room was full of older men who would yell “60” before someone would read tradition 9. It was a group of friends hanging out, all happy that everyone came back this week.
My life has been changed by A.A., but I am not an alcoholic. Through my mom and uncle’s experience in the program, I have found several life lessons through being the daughter and niece of an alcoholic.
My mom has been sober for 29 years and she has been in A.A. the whole time. A.A. has changed her life in more ways than just getting sober. She has created really meaningful connections through this program and she gets so much fulfillment when she helps other people who are struggling with the same disease she is. “I’m willing to help other people, sharing my experience and my strengths with other people, and helping them incorporate the 12 steps into their life.” My mom is a sponsor which means that she is there for people in the program when they are beginning their journey and they can call her any time of the day if they are feeling like drinking.
I’ve been familiar with alcoholism my whole life, my mom and uncle are both recovering alcoholics and they attend AA meetings quite frequently. However going to a meeting was never something I chose to do, even though it was so prevalent in my life. I used to go when I was very young but I don’t remember much, most of the time I was put in a playroom to quietly read, away from the conversation. It is funny how something can be so close to you yet such a mystery, to me that is AA.
I do remember wanting to go to the meeting when I was younger because there would be donuts and cookies there but that was all I cared about. I did not mind sitting and reading while my mom talked in a big circle with strangers. Then when I got a little older and stopped going to meeting because I could stay home alone or someone was there to watch me, I started to understand what Alcoholism really was. It was confusing at first because the stereotypical alcoholic in my head was not anything like my mom yet she still went to these meeting, why? I thought alcoholics recovering or not didn’t care about their life and I thought they just sat in bars all day because they had nothing else to do, but thats not my mom. My mom is a successful business owner, marathon runner, and phenomenal mom but she is an alcoholic. Over time I realized that alcoholism affects all different kinds or people and you are just a human who struggles with alcohol and hopefully you are in A.A to help you reclaim the control in your life.
I thought that since I struggled with the concept of alcoholism and what that meant for me and my mom that maybe other kids thought about those things too. I had found a breakthrough for children of alcoholics, my grand idea was to create a program in school where kids could meet up and talk about their experience and find other people who were in the same boat as them. However when I told my mom about this she let me know that it was already a thing. “Ala Teen is a program where kids can meet together always with a trained Al Anon person with them.” This surprised me because I had never heard about it before and I wondered why that was. Why had I, a child of an alcoholic, never even heard of this program? Honestly, I think it is because Alcoholism is a disease that we don’t talk about and is ashamed of and looked down upon so kids and even schools don’t want to associate with it.
The fact that alcoholism affects so many people in the US, but it is still not an topic at the forefront in our conversations is a problem. Especially because many kids are suffering from being in a family with this disease. A staggering amount of kids including myself, who have parents that are alcoholics, in A.A or not, are greatly affected by it. Sadly a lot of the time it is in a negative way because their parent is still an active alcoholic. “As many as 76 million Americans (around 45 percent of the population) have been exposed to some form of alcoholism or alcoholic behaviors in their family; and as many as 26.8 million of those people are children.” This means that those 26.8 million are also more likely to develop alcoholism, marry an alcoholic, or abuse a different drug. That is a staggering amount of people who are more susceptible to this deadly disease.
When I told my mom about this information I asked her if she was scared being a mom and an alcoholic and how those two identities of hers stacked up with each other. “Relapse never really scared me and that I wouldn’t be able to raise my children, [but] alcoholism is a family disease so clearly I worry about my children being affected.” When she told me this it made me think back to the Hart Park A.A. meeting I went to where two people shared their stories to me and how they connected to my mom’s.
Lets start with Steve, he talked a lot about his kids and how he knew he had to get better for them because he was ending up like his father who he did not want to be. He is now sober and he said it feels so good to be someone his kids can look up to in their life. He is grateful that his kids have not abused drugs or alcohol. He then asked me, “have you ever done drugs or alcohol?” I told him no, and he said “Good, you’re smart don’t get caught up in those things.” Which we both knew I knew, I told him about my mom and so we immediately has this mutual connection which I did not expect in the beginning, but we got each other in a way.
Along with Steve, the speaker of the meeting was a younger middle aged woman who has two sons. She shared her story of alcoholism and how it effected every aspect of her life. Her job, family, relationship with herself, and especially her kids. The part that stuck out to me the most was when she said she did not know if she was going to remember her sons graduation. She did not have any control of her life where she couldn’t stop drinking for the couple hours where her first son would be graduating high school. This hit hard for me because if my mom hadn’t have gotten sober before I was born this could have been her. And we would not have the relationship we have now and I would not be able to count on her like I can now and that scares me a lot. That is what makes me so thankful for her strength over this disease.
“A lot of people have a lot of guilt and shame around their parenting, the alcohol came before their parenting,” my mom told me. This makes sense and also confirmed my thoughts about how much more help there should be for children affected by this disease. There are programs for adults and even adult children that are more widespread, but only one for teens that I have never even heard about. Al Anon is a group for family members of alcoholics, whether active or recovering and how to cope with the worries and stress of living with someone with this disease. “Al-Anon members are people, just like you, who are worried about someone with a drinking problem.” ACA or Adult Children of Alcoholics is also a huge program that my mom had heard about and she said was really popular among the community. She told me “Ala Teen is not as thriving as AA or Al Anon because they are teens and thats not cool.” This makes me sad because its true, teens don’t want to be associated with it especially if their parent is still an active alcoholic, which is why the program is not as widespread, but that just proves the point more of how it is an ashamed disease, but should be talked about more.
I clearly did not fit into the group of people at the Hart Park A.A. meeting, I was not an alcoholic. I was an outsider, but not really. Because I am a child of someone that goes to these meetings I understand them more than the average Joe. However I did not have the one thing that they all had in common, a past of abusing alcohol. I do have to say though, everything else about them was unique, and that is what I think is so special about A.A. You don’t have to be one race, gender, sexuality, you just have to want to get better. “Ive been going for 30 years and i’ve never seen one person get kicked out. And i’ve seen many things, people come in drunk, people come in fighting, they just welcome them and help them.” Says my mom, and I totally understood that from the meeting I went to.
Overall going to the A.A. meeting at Hart Park really opened my eyes, it reassured me about the choices i’m making in my life, it helped me connect with my mom, uncle, and all the other kids like me. It opened my eyes to the realization of how many people, especially children are in risk of developing this disease bevcause of their family. It really is a family disease like my mom said and it effects everyone in that family. Everyone was different in the meeting I went to, they all had their individual lives and even thought theirs involved alcoholism that does not make them better or worse than mine, it just makes it theirs. My mom has always brought home the lessons she has learned from A.A. and it has changed my life dramatically. She taught me how to be compassionate, kind, giving, and open-minded and after this experience I realized that she learned those things through this program. I realized how much that has had an effect on me and how it most likely has had an effect on other kids as well.
As for parents that are alcoholics I hope that you get better from this disease or I hope that you continue to fight against it because it means the world to have a role model like you in your kids life, trust me.
*names were changed for privacy reasons
I’m not going to share details of Steve’s story or anyone else in that room tonight, because that is the 11th tradition out of the 12 traditions. “Our relations with the general public should be characterized by personal anonymity. We think A.A. ought to avoid sensational advertising. Our names and pictures as A.A. members ought not be broadcasted, filmed, or publicly printed…” I want to respect the traditions and people of A.A. and therefor will not be going into detail about their personal stories. However if you want to find out, check out the Hart Park meeting Tuesday nights at 8, I can assure you it will be an interesting time.
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