Clean Journey Day 7

Today was the strangest combination of difficulty and pride.

I went to a meeting I've never been to before that's only a few minutes from my house. My sponsor recommended it and said she'd be there, which always makes it a little less awkward than it would be alone. When I first got there I was really excited - I'd never seen so many young people at a meeting before, AA included. Everyone seemed really enthusiastic and happy to see newcomers, and everyone seemed really into recovery and pretty laid back. Then the meeting started.

They started by giving out clean time, as most meetings do, and I usually enjoy listening to people talk about their success, although it admittedly rubs me the wrong way on occasion - it can be difficult and intimidating to hear people talk about their success, especially if you only have 7 days. When I hear about people who have been clean for 15 years it makes me dread the thought of not getting high for 15 years instead of making me excited at the prospect of having long term sobriety. I don't care what anybody in those rooms says, it sucks to have to think about a life without feeling that kind of pleasure again. If it didn't suck, it wouldn't be a problem in the first place.

I'm too pissed off to even get to the point. First of all, these two girls who were the welcomers were talking through everybody's fucking clean time. Especially the people with 30, 60, 90 days who I would imagine are more important to hear than the people with 5, 10, 15 years. I don't think there could be anything more disrespectful than talking about random shit while somebody has their moment. They Kanye West-ed everybody there. Those people deserve their moment.

Except for some people who fucking didn't. This one kid got up to take a 9 month chip and said "I only have 8 months, but I just wanted to share." And then proceeded to talk about how he's only been to 6 NA meetings in his life. I've been to 6 NA meetings in the past 7 days. It pissed me off. Also, "just wanting to share,", also known as just wanting to hear yourself talk, set the precedent for the rest of the night. Everybody continued to talk and walk in late and welcome their buddies with loud high fives and obnoxious calls to each other, and it made me question the integrity of the whole damn program. How are these people calling themselves sober, and having no regard for anyone but themselves and the few people they hang out with?

Big surprise...as it turns out, one of the two girls who were the welcomers was getting her 18 month chip that day, and the other girl was giving the congratulations speech for her. Fine. But it became obvious that the reason they were talking through everybody else's clean time was because they were so excited about their own. It didn't help that when the girl got up there she spent about 10 minutes acting like she'd just won an oscar. ("Oh my god, is it hot in here?! I don't even know what to say, I want to throw up, I'm speechless,") I mean I know its a big deal, but can you at least try to cut the theatrics? Tell us how you did it? What it means to you? It really was a bunch of shit. So I got pissed off and I went to have a cigarette.

There were two other kids outside who had left the meeting. The one girl was obviously upset, and talking to her friend about how it was impossible to go to this meeting in particular because everybody was so fucking clique-y. That's when it occurred to me that THAT was what had been bothering me about the whole thing - it was as if you weren't the 8 or 9 people that were collecting clean time or talking about their friends who were collecting clean time, you didn't exist. NA is supposed to be welcoming, especially to newcomers. This was like fucking high school. I told the girl outside that I felt the same way, and I planned on talking about it at the open BEGINNERS discussion group afterward - that its hard to find a home in NA when you don't know anybody, and especially hard when people don't introduce themselves to you or effectively ignore the fact that you're there.

But I stuck it out and went back in for the discussion, ready to talk about my concerns, but also wanting to share about other things. Like the struggles I've had in the past 7 days as well as what I'm proud of - How the detox was horribly painful, how it sucks to have people that you think care about you call you for drugs on a daily basis, when they know you're in recovery, how grateful I am that I have a wonderful girlfriend who baked me a cake today because I made it through a week, or how grateful I am to God and NA for letting me stay sober another day.

But this fucking jackass comes in, the same guy who talked through everyone's clean time and accepted his 15 year chip (by the way, this guy wears all of his chips on his belt like its bling...perhaps the perfect analogy of this guys attitude toward sobriety). So this section of the meeting is for beginners to share their shit, but I can understand somebody with a lot of clean time coming, to hear people out or to help. The first person to share was this girl who was genuinely going through some shit and really needed NA's help. He practically cut her off and started talking about some "Japanese girl..or chinese, whatever" who was fucking all these people in NA, proceeded to talk about how he wants to fuck his girlfriend every day...he slipped in a few things about recovery here and there, but it was obvious he wanted to hear himself talk. Why would you come to a beginners meeting and talk about NOTHING? Especially if we just had to listen to you give a 20 minute speech about your 15 years of sobriety? He started making jokes and making jokes AT people, yelling at them for not laughing, and it became obvious to me that it was a fucking stand up act. I left. I was done. I was hurt that I didn't get to share and that someone could be so insensitive and obnoxious.

Luckily I got to talk to my sponsor about it afterward. Too bad my 7 days was tainted by a gigantic asshole. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Thanks for letting me share, although you had no choice.