For Friends of Bill W

I’ll remember for the rest of my life the first time I said it. I wonder sometimes about starting my testimony that way, but I choose not to because it’s a little too obvious. I have quietly observed as people who have never attended a meeting laughingly role-play introducing themselves like they’ve seen it done in the movies.

It was a really powerful moment for me. I’d arrived at an outpatient clinic in Minneapolis and walked into the room I was supposed to be in and sat down in one of a large circle of chairs, glancing quickly around the room to see if my suspicions were correct – they’d all be people off the streets, surely, because that’s what drug addicts are and I’m still not sure I am one – and seeing C and A and J and M, and nervously looking down at the ground again.

The facilitator – I don’t remember her name now, but she was kind of harsh and older – the facilitator had us all introduce ourselves. I don’t remember who started, but they were using that same structure – inserting their names and addictions where necessary – and as each one of them spoke it out, a kind of warm, golden energy mounted up inside the words, barreling into the next person to speak, setting each of them free as they spoke truthfully about who they were in their innermost beings, and suddenly it was upon me and I said, “Hi. My name’s Ian, and I’m a heroin addict…”

And I stopped.

I think we were supposed to say something else about who we were but I forgot in this moment, and said instead-

“…and that’s the first time I’ve ever said that.”

And then I said something like, “And I’m really surprised to see that you are all normal people, nay, lawyers, doctors, college dropouts like me, because I thought you’d all be homeless and I would continue to feel totally alone because I’m not homeless, never have been, and yet I have this thing eating me up inside…”

I don’t remember what I said. That probably all happened in my head. It was a volatile time.

And that’s what was – is – so powerful about Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Suddenly, you’re a part of a community. In fact, you’re a part of a community of people who know they’re broken, which is way more powerful because we all know we’re broken but most of us don’t know how to admit it. Or don’t want to. But then you get into this community of people who knows, they really know, they’re messed up – nobody’s putting on airs, nobody’s self-righteous – and it’s powerful.

I remember the first time I heard the phrase “terminally unique” and how it just opened me right up. That’s what I thought about myself. It seems insane now (and I was, at the time), but I really thought I was living something that no one else had ever lived, and those two words summed up that whole feeling and suddenly I realized no one could have verbalized them without understanding the feeling behind it which means… I’m not alone. That’s it. I’m not alone.

I heard a story once – I think it came from the Big Book – about an alcoholic in an airport. She was in recovery, traveling alone, walked past a bar, and started having that craving. Somehow, she got a person on the intercom to ask for “friends of Bill W” (one of AA’s founders) to meet in such-and-such room, and a whole bunch of her fellow alcoholics and addicts showed up and they had themselves a meeting. That’s community. That’s what I live for. That kind of I’m-gonna-be-there-for-you-no-matter-what brother-and-sisterhood.

I thank God for C and A and J and M and D and S and B and all the rest who were in that room the first time and then took me to my first meeting afterwards. I miss you guys.