SURVIVORS ANONYMOUS
As for my book, I needed a break because I’d reached a point where I could no longer construct a sentence, so completing another essential re-write or two seemed impossible. Ever since I contracted chronic fatigue I’d gotten used to making detailed notes and setting two alarms for appointments and for my daily to-do list. But lately, even with a list of ingredients for meals I’d cooked dozens of times, I’d find myself lost and afraid in the middle of my regular supermarket. Overwhelmed, I’d decide on take-out for dinner. The brain fog had gotten so bad that my inner hypochondriac feared for early onset of Alzheimer’s disease and that any day now I wouldn’t remember or recognize my children.
With the latest encounter, the fog lifted. Inspired, I dove into my research and available Twelve Step literature. In business, the only concept I’d used from first-year economics was to look at what worked and that was obviously succeeding. To compete and to gain a slice of the market, all one needed to do was to offer a five per cent difference. Even though the Twelve Steps had been turned into a growing industry, I wasn’t looking at it as a business opportunity but rather as a voluntary association as it was originally intended to be. However, the concept of not changing much still applied, so there was no need for me to try to re-invent the wheel.
Eighty-plus successful years had started with the idea that one alcoholic could best understand and help another alcoholic to recover. It had successfully been adopted and adapted to help drug addicts, sex and love addicts, co-dependents, and families and children from alcoholic homes and other dysfunctional families. There was more than enough information available and all we had to do was to substitute some words and phrases. I’ve used the pronoun we because I felt that I needed to apply Tradition Two from the outset. Tradition Two reads, ‘For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority – a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.’ I had the two women from the convention, a knowledgeable friend – and a psychologist – from a sister fellowship they had invited to join, and naturally my sponsor, so I didn’t have to attempt the work on my own. Everything I wrote was written only as a suggestion first, then emailed for feedback and to determine an initial group conscience.
The changes weren’t too difficult to make. I’d been sitting in meetings for years feeling guilty for having an internal debate questioning whether I’d ever truly surrendered to being powerless over drugs and alcohol. I always struggled to relate to shares dominated by war stories, especially those that included the violent abuse of their families. Those shares would almost always trigger memories of my mother and her childhood story. It wasn’t a satisfactory answer, but I’d end the debate either with the reminder you haven’t been there yet, or that’s where this disease can take me. However, more often than not, I’d simply replace words. So, for example, ‘I’m powerless over alcohol,’ would become ‘I’m powerless over the effects of my childhood abuse.’ And ‘Self-seeking will slip away,’ became ‘Self-condemnation will disappear.’
We obtained written permission from Alcoholics Anonymous New York office to adopt their program. We adapted most of what we needed from the family fellowships of Al-Anon and Al-Anon Adult Child. In what couldn’t have been more than a few weeks, we had enough to get started. We now had our own Twelve Steps, Twelve Traditions, Twelve Promises, a Meeting Preamble, Meeting Guidelines, The Problem and The Solution, and Common Feelings and Behaviours for Survivors Anonymous.
Our Tradition Three was borrowed in its entirety from Survivors of Incest Anonymous and initially read ‘The only requirement for membership is that you be a victim of childhood sexual abuse that you desire to recover from and that you have not abused any child as an adult.’ It was immediately challenged by a long-standing member of Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous. He’d sponsored and worked with members of his group who’d been unable to forgive themselves for underage sex that they were responsible for as young adults. Some of them were also victims of childhood sexual abuse and he felt they couldn’t be excluded. It was a hairy decision; if we allowed for their attendance, what was there to stop other sexual predators from intentionally targeting our meetings? I’d previously sponsored a self-proclaimed paedophile – of course, I didn’t know that when I agreed to sponsor him for his addiction to drugs. I put boundaries in place: I insisted I wouldn’t continue to sponsor him if he missed a single appointment with his therapist, and I’d personally have him arrested if he ever thought about acting out on his impulses. Even so, it didn’t go well – a few months later he dumped both me and his therapist to relocate to the UK. From the research I’ve viewed, a little under thirty per cent of adult victims later repeat what was done to them. It’s a horrific statistic. But as much as I might want to help a genuinely remorseful individual, I’m not qualified to make that determination or to be of any real assistance. A safe environment is paramount for all Twelve Step meetings and even more so for a meeting of survivors of sexual abuse. That said, we decided that if we wanted to align ourselves with the founding principles, we’d have to amend our Tradition Three to read ‘The only requirement for membership is a desire to recover from the effects of sexual abuse.’
However, we did additionally amend our meeting guidelines to include ‘. . . a sense of safety in meetings is vital to survivors. This is especially true for new members, where it can be initially difficult for a survivor to set boundaries – well enough – to effectively protect themselves from re-victimization. Important to note; Many of our members that are here for their recovery are “mandated reporters,” required by law to let authorities know when privy to abuse. We cannot put members in a position of having to choose between anonymity and legal culpability. Recovery from the effects of sexual abuse is the focus of our program. For the protection of the group, any discussion of personal crimes of abuse will be stopped and immediately reported to the relevant authorities.’
JONKERSHOEK
At the treble A mini-convention, I’d been invited to represent Al-Anon Adult Child as part of a panel of speakers to open AA’s annual regional convention held at Simonsberg Christian Centre, Jonkershoek, on the 18th of November 2016. With the support and backing from my Al-Anon home group, we agreed to use the opportunity to launch Survivors Anonymous Cape Town. I started my turn by expressing my gratitude for the program, then jumped right in with a quote from Al-Anon Works (pg 25) ‘Most of us have had good reasons for hiding certain information from ourselves – it hurt. It probably still does.’ I then added parts from the preamble Common Feelings and Behaviours of Adult Children: ‘We deny, minimize or repress our feelings as a result of our traumatic childhoods: denial, repression, isolation, control, shame and inappropriate guilt are legacies from our family of origin. As a result of these symptoms, we feel hopeless and helpless, we confuse love with pity and tend to love people we can pity and rescue.’
Conscious of the time, and just how much I’d prepared, I briefly referred to my mother who I really wish had found an Al-Anon Adult Child group. I still saw her as a little girl who survived a violent alcoholic father. Incapable of love, she’d married my father because she pitied him. Because the theme for the convention was A Design for Living, I mentioned having it all in recovery – I had my children and a decent small business that provided us with a stunning home, cars, bikes, toys, and travel. I was truly grateful for having more than what I believed I needed or imagined I would ever have. Yet despite my gratitude, and while still working the program with a sponsor, following the suggestions, and being of service, it all started to unravel when unresolved memories returned to take me out at the knees.
I ran through some of the statistical data I’d found on what’s often referred to as the number one international taboo. I didn’t mention that every time I looked at a report, whether from the UK, the USA, or Australia, they all reflected a number I struggle to wrap my head around. And it’s not just the horrific numbers or the magnitude of the problem, which would mean that survivors of childhood sexual abuse are the largest individual demographic group of people living on planet earth. It is also the number one thing that we as a people cannot speak about – and in my understanding that makes it the world’s number one secret. An awful secret. And while some groups are more vulnerable, it does not discriminate. It happens in financially privileged families, as well as those of low socioeconomic status, it happens to those of all racial and ethnic descent, from all religious traditions, all ages and all genders. I didn’t express my struggle with the statistical data, but I did note that no matter which Twelve Step fellowship we’ve been privileged to be members of, we’ve all heard the catchphrase, ‘Secrets keep us sick.’ I shared some of the staggering statistics of the long-term deleterious effects associated with survivors of sexual abuse, making the point that speaking about the experience could potentially lower these.
I went on to say that though I’m not an expert, an academic, or a research analyst, it seems to me that in any study done on any form of self-destructive behaviour, the victims of childhood violence represent an overwhelming majority. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, and certainly not to this audience, that many of us look for ways to anaesthetize our feelings, drown out the ceaseless inner critic, and quiet the self-loathing chatter of our minds. The result is that eighty per cent of us end up with a history of alcohol and other legal or illegal substance abuse. The lucky ones find recovery in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotic Anonymous, and others find a home in the family fellowships of Al-Anon or Adult Child.
I had to add: ‘If you are recovering from alcoholism or addiction, it is important that you remain in your recovery fellowship. As you start to revisit the consequences of your childhood abuse, emotions that have been held down for years will surface. So that you will not be tempted to relieve those feelings in self-destructive ways it is strongly suggested that if you are recovering from addiction, you need to focus on that first – until you have had at least thirteen months of continuous recovery. However, we have also discovered that if you are struggling with an ongoing problem of switching addictions or repetitive bouts of relapse, finding a safe space to start looking at your abuse may well be the missing ingredient in achieving long-term recovery.’
I finished my share with ‘I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to live and enjoy life as others do. I have found that each time I attend a meeting and I’m able to open up a little bit more about what happened or about how it continues to affect me, I realize I’m not alone. And each day that I’m able to apply one of the suggestions, usually from the daily reading or from what another member shared, my day is just a little bit better – and that’s good enough for me.’ I hadn’t planned to stay for the weekend, and I hadn’t reserved accommodation. I did return Saturday to answer further questions. By Sunday morning, I’d lost my voice and I only left along with everyone else after the convention closed.
GETTING A MESSAGE OUT
I did a simple analysis of the number of different Twelve Step meetings in and around the Western Cape and determined that I could quite possibly visit every meeting in a relatively short period of four months. Naturally, I started with the meetings I’d been invited to share at, and then I looked at what other meetings were on route or in the area that I might be able to include. For notice boards, we put together a basic A4 information page, and because most fellowships have a daily reading, we designed a prettier bookmark. It took a little over six months to get to every meeting on the list I’d compiled. Where I’d been invited, it was a little easier to introduce the subject, and at other meetings I kind of pushed the ground rules to at least let their members know of our existence.
Meeting attendance ranged from a handful to around a hundred and twenty. I shouldn’t have been, but I was surprised to have three or six members brave enough to approach me after each meeting ended to share that they too had been abused. One old-timer decided to let me know that as far as she was concerned, she didn’t know of a female member of Alcoholics Anonymous who hadn’t experienced sexual abuse. To fund myself I’d long since sold my beloved Fat Boy, so when a local Harley dealership with a bums-in-seats sales strategy suggested I take one of their demos for a weekend to experience their new Milwaukee-Eight engine, I jumped at the opportunity. It was brilliant and I couldn’t believe they’d retained the authentic Harley feeling with a new, incredibly balanced powerful motor. I hadn’t ridden for a while, so I used their gift travelling the back roads along our coastline to attend outlying meetings. That weekend I managed to join my bike club for Sunday lunch, and I managed to get to ten meetings. The feeling of being of service can be extraordinarily seductive. But before going to bed that Sunday evening the combination of riding, catching up with club mates, and being of service, had me reeling with wave after wave of pure unadulterated joy as I’d never experienced before.
On the other hand, I needed help. I’d visited every meeting within a hundred-kilometre radius of Cape Town. It was still early days, but I hadn’t found a leader. One of the two women who had initially asked me, first looked into starting an invitation-only, exclusively female group instead. I completely understood and was pretty encouraged to have a potential meeting to refer women to. Then they both changed direction and decided to offer their service to support the supervision of a much-needed Al-Anon/ Alateen group for teenagers living with an alcoholic.
I was working eighteen-hour days, and between producing the best design work I’d done in my career and more than eighty per cent of my time focused on being of service, I wasn’t taking care of myself. I was already sponsoring way too many men. After discussing it with my sponsor, and a few failed attempts to connect her with a female member, I additionally found myself in the uncomfortable position of sponsoring a young woman – and a second woman shortly after. My sponsor simply asked, ‘Who do you think sponsored the first woman to walk through the doors of AA?’
Cape Town’s drug treatment facilities target and attract a substantial number of foreign patients. I’d had a few who, after I suggested they discuss my intention with their treatment counsellor – and yet another call with my sponsor – committed to getting through all Twelve Steps before they finished their inpatient treatment and returned to their country of origin. Here again, according to my sponsor, that’s kind of exactly what the original one hundred members of Alcoholics Anonymous used to do. They’d target potential alcoholics who were in detox and get them through the program while still detoxing, so they could pass the message on to the next patient that entered the detox ward.
Pushing that aside, I wasn’t keeping up and I wasn’t sure of the right way forward. All that I was sure about was an incredible need. I wasn’t sure if survivors wanted to sit in a meeting to talk about what happened. It seemed a little easier to encourage them to attend a meeting of Adult Child, where they could retain their anonymity as survivors and still work the program – just like I had and others before me. Nevertheless, most seemed to trust me and wanted to stay connected. Others felt more comfortable and a lot safer simply messaging me their personal story. Trying to honour their bravery over several weeks and several volumes of text messages, which often included their entire life story, was difficult for me to manage on a phone app. I knew that I had to find support – or another way that worked.
During this process, I was offered consolation space with the oldest drug treatment facility in Cape Town which was started by a medical doctor with a powerful message of personal recovery from addiction to drugs. Over the past twenty years, the treatment industry of Cape Town had boomed. Primarily because a parent could send their child and anyone seeking treatment could get nine months or more of the equivalent professional help for the cost of twenty-eight days in a facility in Europe, the UK, and I’m assuming the USA.
Then Vernon arranged for me to meet with the pastor from a local evangelical church group that he’d recently partnered with to develop a leadership program for high-school kids. This pastor knew what he was doing, he’d founded and built what was quite possibly the largest evangelical church in Cape Town. They had the right infrastructure and knew how to attract government and substantial private sector funding. Even though Tradition
Seven suggests ‘Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions,’ historically, Alcoholics Anonymous had initially accepted funding from the Rockefeller Foundation for the original printing and distribution of AA’s first Blue Book. I’d recently held meetings with two up-and-coming start-ups whose owners I’d known since they were children and they had offered their expertise to establish an interactive website. Another activist friend from the eighties who was still well connected with the current government, legal, and business communities had taken an interest in raising the needed funds. So, I thought it would be brilliant if the pastor would use his resources to raise funds for the interactive website we had in mind and which we thought could be the modern equivalent of AA’s Blue Book. I thought it could be a medium where a newcomer would feel a lot safer, and where other survivors with Twelve Step experience would be willing to share the solutions they’d found and what worked for them.
I needed to clear my head and Vernon had, out of an abundance of concern, set up a meeting with the pastor. After the pastor had left, Vernon stayed for another coffee. He let me know that I was in danger of alienating myself from my home group, which we both knew I couldn’t afford to do. Still, I’d chosen to dump all over him. Vernon told me I was starting to piss off some of the members of our AA homegroup. I didn’t react well, letting rip about how everyone is aware of just how difficult it is to get members to be of service. I’d personally found that it was worse than the eighty-twenty ratio in business, where eighty per cent of the work is done by fewer than twenty per cent of the staff. And I let him know that just about every call I got was from a survivor who would first need to get help with their addiction or their alcohol problem.
It had been time-consuming and frustrating trying to find help: to get a member to sponsor someone new, to join me for a Twelve Step call, meet with potential newcomers at a safe venue before their first meeting, or for that matter to find a member willing to give someone from their neighbourhood a ride to their next meeting. Thankfully, Vernon worked out most mornings at the gym attached to our complex and he’d often stop by for a cup of coffee, so I’d pretty soon get an opportunity to apologize.
I needed some space to think, so I headed for the Newlands forest, one of my favourite places where I used to regularly walk our dogs. I love the sound of flowing water, so I’d invariably follow a stream up the eastern slopes of Table Mountain, winding my way to one of several vantage points that offer exquisite views stretching from the city out across the flats to the Hottentot Mountain range. Following the stream I’d seldom encounter other hikers, so I could meditate as I walked, pray out loud, or even chant – something I’m still somewhat uncomfortable doing. In the 1800s much of the indigenous forest was felled, and the fynbos was cleared to make way for commercial pine plantations. However, I’d still find endangered Peninsula Granite Fynbos, the iconic Pincushion Proteas, clusters of striking Silver trees and an incredible array of daisy species.
This is where I usually felt a little bit more connected, and where I felt at peace. But not that day. My usual practice of taking my time, silently praying as I walked, or stopping to meditate with my feet cooling off in the stream, wasn’t working, so I decided to push myself and see how fast I could get up the side of the mountain.
Even though Vernon had softened his comment with, ‘They’re just jealous of you and your service,’ I was pissed off. I wondered if it hadn’t come from the same annoying old-timers who always tried to sound profoundly spiritual and who had to share at every meeting they attended – even though I’d recently been doing the same and taking up space I believed should be reserved for newcomers who initially struggled to share. I knew that I was wrong, but I couldn’t help thinking that something hadn’t worked whenever anyone with five years or more of sobriety still needed to share every time. I needed to remember that these old-timers had kept the doors open for me, and while I might have heard their story a hundred times or more the newcomer hadn’t – and the old-timers certainly knew what to share.
Next, I tore into my ex-wives, regurgitating old resentments I thought I’d worked through. Then I questioned God about why I’d been asked to write when He knew from my very first year of school that I had a problem. While my classmates could read, I didn’t get it. And to this day, I still can’t understand phonics or why words are spelt the way they are. Why me, when if I accept the statistics that I’ve looked at, there must be over six-hundred million other men to choose from who’ve been through the same thing as me? Surely, there must be someone among them with a more compelling story and who is better equipped to write? How
about a journalist or a novelist? Practically anyone with a bit of writing experience would be more qualified than me.
I was about to ask ‘And just where were you when I was besieged by headaches and depression?’ when I realized I’d almost reached Maclear’s Beacon, the highest point on Table Mountain, and I needed to get back. Blaming and venting may well be a healthy part of grieving, but this felt more like wallowing in self-pity. Which reminded me of a comic book joke I’d appreciated as a teenager. It’s a cartoon drawing of a shotgun wedding, where the bride looks like she’s about to pop out triplets and the groom questions, ‘Why me Lord?’ only to have the hand of God crash through the rafters to splat him and answer, ‘Because you irritate me!’ And I was starting to irritate myself.
On any other day, it would have been brilliant to walk along the top to the cable station and enjoy the views of the city and the Atlantic seaboard. This time I still had a considerable amount of correspondence to attend to before collecting Matthew and his wife for their next meeting. As I bounded down the mountain, I wondered if my reaction wasn’t about my insecurities and my need to feel better about myself – or my possible need to feel superior. I can all too often be highly critical of others and even harsher with myself. Like most rational individuals, I don’t usually voice my opinion or send that email till I’ve had a chance to calm down. It’s usually a good indicator that I need to be a lot kinder to myself.
With that in mind, I chose to do a gratitude list on my way down: I’m grateful for my health, the headaches have gone and the depression has lifted; I have my children and Jeremy regularly calls; I personally know three parents who have tragically lost their children, whereas I may still have a chance of someday restoring my relationship with Samuel; I have a few special old friends and I’ve recently made some new ones; I have enough for another two or three months and Fran has turned out to be the marketing assistant that I’d always been searching for; the business has a few potential deals lined up, any one of which would cover my new budget for at least another year; I have a program that works; I have a sponsor and I’m sponsoring others; I feel like I have purpose and meaning. I mentally signed off my list, as I usually did with, Thank You, Thank You.
I felt a lot better and yes, I’d over-reacted to the criticism from my homegroup. I was struggling with being kinder to myself while doing my best to carry a message to others that they are not alone, and being in the forest where I used to walk our dogs had triggered an overwhelming sense of being over-exposed and so utterly alone.
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