ANONYMITY
Sharing about my childhood was not something I ever wanted to do, and in my opinion it simply didn’t gel with the primary purpose of most Twelve Step fellowships. Tradition Six reads ‘Each group has but one primary purpose – to carry the message to the alcoholic/addict who still suffers.’ However, there are several readings on the subject of abuse that can be found in the literature from Al-Anon Adult Child and Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA), where it felt a little more appropriate to share. Initially, when first confronted with flashbacks, I’d inappropriately blurt out to friends and work colleagues, and unfortunately even my children knew about some of what was going on for me. Following this, I withdrew. My last meeting with Kathy had reopened that door. But I could no longer afford to see her, so it was brilliant having these smaller meetings to attend where if the topic for the day was sexual abuse, it felt a lot safer to share.
Perhaps it was purely coincidental, but it always surprised me that almost everyone I’d sponsored had some trauma from their childhood that needed to be worked through. And it happened again when Ryan from my Greenmarket Square meeting asked if he could speak to me. After several relapses, he’d been ostracised by his family and was living on the streets. Whenever I hear someone’s childhood story, my first thought is almost always This is so awful, how am I ever going to relate? Then after reminding myself that my only function is to listen, it usually doesn’t take too long before I realize I invariably can relate. With Ryan, it was very different. His story was just too close to mine, and it triggered all my memories from when I was eight. Ryan was only ten when his older brother started sexually abusing him. In my case, I could leave and go home to ask for help. Ryan couldn’t, and he didn’t know to ask for help.
Addicted and homeless, the only one left he could depend on for the occasional handout was his older brother who’d abused him, and he could no longer live with that. He’d previously tried to kill himself and according to him, like everything else in his life, he’d even fucked that up. He’d taken the last handout he’d ever need from his brother and had enough of his drug of choice to ensure that he could and would succeed with this one last thing. He’d attended the meeting essentially as a way of saying goodbye and asked me to buy him a cup of coffee because he wanted someone to know and believe his story. I told him I did because something similar had happened to me, not with an older brother but a friend’s brother who I guess represented an older brother to me. I told him I’d be willing to share my story another time, however right now my story didn’t matter. Then I asked, ‘As harsh this might sound, right now, in this moment, I need to know if you want to live or not.’
Cape Town has a few options available to someone in Ryan’s position. There’s a seven-to-ten-day detox facility out in the northern suburbs that is specifically designed to help heroin addicts, but it took about a week to arrange. So I suggested that he first voluntarily admit himself to one of two hospitals that I knew accepted addicts to their psychiatric ward. Despite my best effort, I couldn’t persuade him.
The best I could get Ryan to agree to was to meet me at a designated spot of his choice three times a day and I’d get him to morning, lunchtime, and evening meetings for the next thirty days. Nowadays, most members of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, myself included, are introduced to the fellowships while still in treatment at one of Cape Town’s many rehab facilities but it wasn’t always like that. Treatment facilities simply didn’t exist when two alcoholics first got together in 1934 to develop a program and a voluntary association through which one alcoholic could best help another alcoholic recover from the disease of alcoholism.
I wasn’t sure if this last option would work. I would have preferred if he’d chosen to check himself in. I’m not a professional and couldn’t draw from my own experience. Yes, after my relapse I didn’t go to rehab – I first cleaned up at home, which was not the best idea. And a month later I rejoined the program and followed the suggested ninety meetings in ninety days. Yet, despite my gratitude, commitment, and belief in these Twelve Step programs, I still wasn’t sure whether I was stuck cycling through them. Over time, I’d sponsored a number of addicts and taken them through the program, though in my own opinion I’d never truly completed a proper Step One – ‘How it works: Step One – We admitted we were powerless over our addiction – that our lives had become unmanageable.’ In Cape Town, as with most large cities around the world, we can attend three to five meetings a day and I’d met enough members of Narcotics Anonymous for whom treatment hadn’t been an option. Addicts who had hit a rock bottom similar to that of Ryan’s and who managed to get clean by initially telling themselves that whether they’ve used or not, they only have to make it to the next meeting. They’d get a sponsor, work the program, and most of them had significantly changed their lives for the better.
Ryan showed up from Tuesday evening to Friday lunchtime, then disappeared before the AA convention that I’d hoped we’d attend together – an entire Saturday of meetings that included the family fellowships of Al-Anon and Adult Child, and the members of Alcoholics Anonymous. I believe in these programs, what’s not to be believed? AA has been successfully helping alcoholics recover from addiction to alcohol since 1935. Al-Anon has successfully supported families and friends who are worried about someone with a drinking problem for more than sixty-four years, and the same applies to Narcotics Anonymous – adapted from AA in 1953 – and its comparable family fellowship of Nar-Anon started several years later in 1971. You may like these programs and you may not. You could also have at some point attended meetings and found that it wasn’t for you. Recently, there have been several reports on the undeniable success of policies adopted over the past twenty years by both the Swiss and Portuguese governments, who legitimized previously banned substances and replaced incarceration with supportive policies that encouraged integration. Well, in my opinion, that’s exactly what Alcoholics Anonymous started doing over eighty years ago, and it has been successfully adopted by a variety of other groups. At its core, it’s a simple but powerful message – you are not alone.
On my way to the convention, I started sobbing uncontrollably and I wasn’t sure who or what I was crying about. I wasn’t sure if I was crying for Ryan whose story was just too close to mine? Or the brave, damaged little girl who was my recently departed mother? Or because I was simply missing my children? I accepted that it was probably all of the above. Feeling a touch raw, I got through chairing a meeting with Al-Anon Adult Child, a little self-conscious about my bloodshot eyes. I didn’t share how I was feeling and I didn’t want to speak about Ryan, possibly because I didn’t want to start a discussion about sexual abuse which wasn’t the day’s topic. But most likely because I didn’t want to hear ‘You can carry the message, but not the alcoholic.’ In Ryan’s case, it would be ‘You can’t carry the addict.’
I’d heard this message repeatedly and it never felt comfortable. In my first year of recovery, Angela, a receptionist that worked in our business, knocked on my door looking for a place to sleep. I took her in and while she slept, I thought I’d better call my sponsor. As a recovering heroin addict now working in the recovery industry, he knew quite a bit about Angela’s story. Angela had been cycling through the revolving doors of the rehab industry for many years. After yet another relapse, her parents were told that they were enabling their daughter’s addiction and were advised to take a new tough-love approach. To potentially save her life, they’d have to cut her off; she could no longer spend a single night in her room, and no matter how desperate she might become, they were never to help her again in any way, shape, or form – and that had to include the occasional handout. I’m told that more often than not, this approach works; that without a safety net the addict will decide they want to live and finally start to take responsibility for their own recovery. This was in my first year and I couldn’t begin to imagine having to cut off one of my children. I guess my sponsor knew I wouldn’t understand when he told me I should immediately get her to leave if I didn’t want to get robbed of anything that could easily be exchanged for cash. He added that if I cared about her I should tell her if she wanted help she could get herself to a meeting or she could go suck her dealers dick. I didn’t listen to him and after a few hours of sleep, Angela left of her own accord without stealing a thing. Later I thought my sponsor was probably right – that as a parent, I should have backed her parent’s unbelievably difficult decision and we were probably fortunate not to have had anything stolen.
However, this broad-brush application of the idea that we cannot or should not carry the addict didn’t quite gel with what I’d been recently hearing about the first one hundred from my new sponsor. After my relapse, I’d intentionally chosen my new sponsor because of his years of service at both national and regional levels and because when he relapsed, after more than twenty-five years of sobriety and service to Alcoholics Anonymous, he asked me to be his sponsor. That said, he was passionate about AA’s history and he loved sharing stories about the founders and the original one hundred members. Back in those days, these guys would take active alcoholics into their own homes. They’d get them cleaned up, walk them through the program, find them jobs, and do whatever was necessary to help the newcomer – including keeping a bottle of whisky at hand to deal with their shakes so the newcomer could make it through his next meeting.
With the advent and growth of the addiction treatment industry, a lot has changed since 1935. As members of AA or NA, we rarely get involved with the detox process, and in a way it’s a relief to not have to take in strangers and clean up after them. Most of this is now taken care of by treatment facilities before they are introduced to meetings. All the same, I can’t ignore the first paragraph of Bill W.’s speech in 1955 at the St Louis Convention that would become AA’s legacy of service. For those who aren’t familiar with the origins of all Twelve Step programs, it was founded by Bill W. and Doctor Bob. At the celebration of AA’s 20th birthday, Doctor Bob was already gone, but Bill W. spoke for him and all the pioneers, turning over to all of us the responsibility for AA’s continuation and growth. He opened with ‘Our Twelfth Step – carrying the message – is the basic service that the AA Fellowship gives; this is our principal aim and the main reason for our existence. Therefore, AA is more than a set of principles; it is a society of alcoholics in action. We must carry the message, else we ourselves can wither and those who haven’t been given the truth may die.’
I need to be clear; I’m not opposed to treatment centres and the valuable service they provide. However, I am concerned that in some way we might be in danger of losing our way and in the process, losing ourselves. Needless to say, treatment is an option only available to those who can afford it. For someone like Ryan, there’s a brilliant state-sponsored seven-to-ten-day detox program which addiction centres often use prior to admitting the addict to their facility. I felt confident that after his initial observation we’d get Ryan transferred to detox, after which we could walk him through his first thirty days and then hand him over to the fellowship to complete his ninety days. I tried but failed to get him to voluntarily admit himself, and I was left with the lingering and awful question of whether I could or should have done more.
AA’S MINI CONVENTION
I’d usually leave a convention feeling lighter and inspired. This time I wasn’t in the best headspace when two long-standing members, one from Al-Anon and the other from Adult Child, asked me to consider starting a Twelve Step meeting specifically for survivors of childhood sexual abuse. It wasn’t something I was interested in because I didn’t believe it was something a man should attempt, and because I felt I was already doing my bit. The two were female, and they had way more experience than I – one had close to thirty years serving at a regional level. I was feeling overwhelmed and was afraid my writing, which I was far from finished, had extracted too high a toll: emotionally, personally, and financially. So I put the ball back in their court by suggesting that something similar must have been started somewhere. I suggested they google the info and I’d willingly support the process by committing to regularly attend any meeting they were able to get started.
I’d gotten my story down. Even so, while I’d estimated and budgeted for two years, I’d been giving it my all for six and a half years and it still wasn’t ready. It simply wasn’t sequential or coherent enough to hand over to an editor who would hopefully weave some of their magic into it. I felt certain it was going to take another two rewrites, possibly more. I had confidently started, believing that all I needed to get the job done was to find a competent ghost-writer. In reality it was too personal, so a ghost-writer didn’t work too well. I put myself through a creative writing course, attended additional workshops, and employed a retired professor of literature to mentor, guide, oversee, comment, and make suggestions. Even so, I was plagued by self-doubt, and I simply couldn’t dispel the feeling that I was dishonouring my parents and whining about my ex-wives. If I’m kind to myself, delving into and living in the past was just too painful. To avoid the pain I kept deflecting myself, thinking I needed to do more research. I found myself spending an incredible amount of time reading everything I could download or get my hands on. Subjects covered included recovered memories, traumatic amnesia, false memory syndrome, post-partum depression, narcissism, borderline personality disorder, self-victimization, chronic fatigue syndrome, and so on. As the years rolled by and the losses piled up, I became more afraid and increasingly questioned the spiritual experiences that set me on this path.
For a while, I turned to science in an attempt to validate if what I’d experienced was at all possible. That decision took me down a rabbit hole of everything from the neutrino – little neutral one in Italian – to wormholes, parallel universes, the Higgs boson particle, modern physics, quantum mechanics, and the superposition principle – which says particles can interact with each other across hundreds of miles, be in two places at once, or be still and in motion at the same time. I went on to explore dimensions and neuroscience where scientists and spiritualists alike have attempted to define consciousness and the question that has vexed philosophers and scientists for centuries: does time really exist, is time an illusion and is time simply another dimension? Learning that the content of the universe was 4.6% atoms, but 72% dark energy and 23% dark matter, intrigued me. And listening to renowned scientists proclaim that my body was constructed with elements that had arrived from different parts of the universe and existed before the beginning of time, and would continue their existence to the end of time, fascinated me. At times, I thought I understood some pretty complex equations. But in reality, I knew there truly wasn’t a lot that I could follow, and I was aware that I was potentially cherry-picking bits of info that allowed me to continue believing what I needed to believe. In this process of avoidance, I amassed more than ten thousand pages of medical papers, scientific articles of interest, research notes, and summations. And despite my best efforts to categorize them, when I needed to find or reference something, I was often lost.
I’d failed to make a difference for Ryan, but I’m not arrogant enough to believe that I can save everyone – and I’d had my successes. In early recovery, when I’d completed the Steps with my sponsor, it was suggested that I say yes to anyone who asked me to be their sponsor. Oddly enough, Grant, Aida’s current husband, was the only one I had declined. To be honest, he hadn’t asked – his girlfriend had asked for him – but if he had I probably would have agreed. In the main, the suggestion works because most newcomers who ask are unfortunately never heard from again. At times it did get out of hand, and I discovered that I can’t effectively sponsor more than five at any given time. So while I felt especially devastated by Ryan’s disappearance, I could take heart from the knowledge that I’d been privileged to have played a role in the successful recovery of a number of individuals.
One, whose success I could always lean on at times like this, was a young man who was still in treatment when his addiction counsellor called and asked me to sponsor him. Both his father and his older brother had committed suicide when he was still a kid, and he was left to be raised by a mother who suffered from schizophrenia. At times, in the middle of the night she’d grab a knife from the kitchen and try to kill him in his bed. The damage was evident for anyone to see, there was hardly a bit of exposed skin that was not covered by welt-sized scars from where he used to cut himself. His counsellor had called on his behalf because he struggled with the worst case of stuttering that I’d ever encountered, so couldn’t ask for himself. He worked his program and I was privileged to meet with him weekly for the next four years, and this beautiful young man made it to the cover of
Men’s Health. I’m not trying to take credit for his recovery: as I said, he did the work. But he was particularly disappointed when I relapsed, more than anyone else.
A NEW DIRECTIVE
That Sunday evening after the mini-convention I’d gone to bed wondering what the hell happened. I had thought the only real challenge to writing my book would be how much I was willing to share. Other than that, it should have been a relatively easy process that would involve employing an experienced ghost-writer and an editor. Yet I’d ended up utterly alone, consumed by an endless quest to understand and incapable of completing the task on my own. I’d mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially bankrupted myself. While I had imagined I’d be setting an example of service I hoped my children might follow, I’d damaged and potentially permanently lost my most treasured relationships. Meanwhile God, who had profoundly called me and who I trusted to have my back, hadn’t spoken to me again and appeared decidedly missing in action.
My friend Stan’s eldest daughter Fran had recently been in touch. As an aspiring theatre actor, she’d been supplementing her income freelancing for an interior design business. After they’d successfully delivered their first exhibition stand for one of their regular retail chains, they were looking to explore the potential of the trade show and exhibition industry. The owner John initially suggested that our two businesses collaborate. After a relatively short period of fewer than three weeks, he asked me if I’d be interested in taking over from him. He was seven years my senior and for several reasons, he needed to retire. It wasn’t perfect – nothing ever is – but it was a solid offer from a decent guy with an interesting set-up that was not too dissimilar to what I was accustomed to. It should have been an easy decision to make. Only, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get back into the business or if I even could.
I hadn’t finished what I’d started, but I was also so burnt out that I was finding it hard to construct a single coherent paragraph or even a sentence at times. Before turning in for the night I signed off my journal as I usually did, with a prayer, ‘I don’t know what to do – I’m too invested, and I don’t want to feel like I’ve failed. I also desperately need to start making some money again. Help please – I need direction.’ Ever since Samuel left, I’d been pleading for direction and I hadn’t gotten any answers yet. I kept telling myself to have faith, that there was a plan I wasn’t privy to, and to get on with it and just do the best I could.
The next morning, I was awoken by someone whispering in my ear, ‘You are exactly where I want you to be!’ I rubbed my eyes and glanced at my bedside clock to see it was only two-thirty. I was about to pull the duvet back over my head when the statement was repeated. In my room stood a particularly beautiful, middle-aged Indian woman draped with a brightly coloured gold and red sari, with gold bangles and the traditional red dot. In Hinduism, the bindi mark worn by married women is often viewed as the third eye. I was captivated – she was quite possibly the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on. I don’t know to describe these encounters, the best I can come up with is there’s a sense of wholeness, meaning, and purpose. Possibly because I was vaguely familiar with darshan, she appeared as light.
She never said a word, yet somehow, in what couldn’t have lasted more than a minute, I received so much. I often beat myself up when I kept deflecting by doing more research, but she showed me that my perceived avoidance was actually what I was meant to be doing. Attempting to simplify and improve the flow of my story, I’d been removing the bulk of research from the main body of my book. Even so, it was the summarized research, together with the volumes of literature from the various Twelve Step fellowships that I’d been privileged to be a part of, that I ultimately needed. For now, I had to set aside my own story and focus on preparing the basics for a new voluntary association: a new Twelve Step program designed to help survivors recover from the lasting effects of their abuse. I had to visit all known Twelve Step meetings to look for a female leader who I could support, and I needed to have faith. The next day, I called John to decline his offer, but as we had a few promising deals pending, we could simply continue as originally planned.
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