When I first walked into AA, back in September, I don’t know exactly what I expected. Maybe people sobbing their eyes out, wringing their hands, and wishing like the dickens they could drink. I thought everyone would stare and point and ask me to declare my assurance that I had a problem. Kind of the AA version of my church experience growing up (”I know this church is true.”)
The laughter and joy really pissed me off. What was so goddamn funny anyway? Wasn’t this disease (or weakness of the will as I saw it) a serious business? Well yes and no. It is deadly serious on the one hand, alcohol abuse is the cause of much death and destruction, but these people seemed like regular clowns chuckling away about their last drunk, their happy lives, and their gratitude.
Honestly, I haven’t met so many happy people gathered in one room in my life. It’s super annoying.
On the other hand, and this is what in many ways keeps me coming back, I have never ever laughed this hard in my life. I cry too, the snorky wish-I-could-hide kind, but I laugh. Deep belly laughter, it’s all going to be okay or if it isn’t at least it’s funny, har hars.
And that’s the kind of laughter I had forgotten I had in me. The kind that I haven’t seen or heard in quite some time.
It’s the laughter that makes it all worthwhile.
And today is day #52.
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More about parenting and recovery in today’s Seattle P-I…
Dear Rachel,
I just read the article about you in this morning’s PI and my hands are shaking as I type this because it made me face my own dependency on those glasses of wine every night. It’s the enormous elephant that has sat smack dab in the middle of our kitchen table for too long and now I have to talk to it. Thank you.
That’s great. And 52. That fantastic.
Julie
Using My Words
You rock, girl! It’s so awesome that not only are you committed to your sobriety but also sharing this with others and helping strangers in ways you can’t imagine. I applaud your honesty and courage.
Hi Rachel,
Hooray for you. Your subject about laughter struck a chord with me.
I was a drinking (stay-at-home mom with three kids) the ‘never drink before 5pm’ type and sometimes it took forever for 4:30 to become 5. I can remember going to parties and watching people laugh. I was especially curious as I had forgotten how to laugh. I mean I could make some noise come out of my mouth and my shoulders would jiggle and that was the best I could muster. The joy had left my life. Shortly after finding my way to AA in 1975 I was having coffee with a group of fellow AAers at a restaurant. Someone commented about my laughter. They described a belly laugh that came from deep inside and just bubbled out. They were describing the sober me who had found joy.
I’m now 32 1/2 years sober, have watched my three, plus another child born in sobriety, grow up and now I’m grandmother to 7. My greatest joy is watching my children adore their children and I get to do it sober, one day at a time.
I also remember when I had one week of sobriety, I was amazed…7 whole days of sobriety. I could hardly believe it. I remember it as if it were yesterday and so by putting one foot in front of the other, listening to my sponsor and my new sober friends, going to meetings and not drinking or using I got to be an old lady…well not that old…I can still entertain my grandkids by standing on my head.
So I want to encourage you in your sobriety/journey. If you maintain your sobriety you will know life in a way unatainable in addiction.
Someone once described sobriety this way: “first it get’s better, then it get’s worse, then it get’s real, then it get’s different, then it get’s real different.”
Blessings,
joyce
I feel a bit cheesy saying that I am proud of you, but I truly am. My mother was an alcoholic and although she went to AA I don’t think she ever allowed herself to let go and laugh like that, belly laugh. She tried, but she was never able to just her guard down, let it all out — the good, the bad and the ugly. I always wished that she could.
And you are. You’re facing this, sharing this, writing about this, living this. And I am incredibly proud of you.