SMART Observations...

I went to my first SMART Recovery meeting last night.

I'm going to reserve judgement until I've attended a few more (I try to never make decisions based solely on first impressions), but here are a few observations I had last night.

I was sad that they didn't have coffee.  Not that I would've had any that late at night, anyways.  It's just that, I started drinking coffee at AA meetings when I was a kid, and I've never had coffee I enjoyed quite as much as those first styrofoam cups full of burned, generic-brand, tooth-achingly sweet non-dairy creamer off-white java.  And I guess part of me was looking forward to revisiting that experience, without even realizing it.

They also didn't have any donuts, which was an equivalent bummer.

The people I saw there reminded me very much of the people I remember from AA meetings:  old, sad, tired-looking people, complaining about how difficult their lives are.  And I believe them.  Every one of them looked rode-hard-and-put-away-wet.  You could almost read the toll their addiction has taken on them on their faces, and in their posture.

It surprised me, though, how little discussion of addiction or recovery there actually was!  No horror stories of rock-bottom moments, no woeful tales of lives and fortunes lost to the demon Addiction.  Mainly, everyone just bitched about what was going wrong in their life that week; their work, their friends, their families (in-laws and children were a repeated theme).  A couple of them actually had some positive developments to report, but they were still about work/school/kids.  People would mention once in a while how the issue they were discussing was related to their addiction in some manner - such as saying, in the middle of a long rant about in-laws, that they used to drink in order to deal with being around them, and that now that they're not drinking, they don't want to be around them at all - but the other 99% of the discussion would be about the in-laws, not about how the in-laws make them want to drink, or how they are dealing with the not-drinking.  One person's story was exclusively about their struggle to avoid online gaming, but that was the one and only addiction-and-recovery themed discussion of the evening.

It also surprised me how few of them there were.  Only a handful, compared to the dozens of people I used to see at a typical AA meeting.  A typical AA meeting wouldn't have even fit in the tiny little room we met in.

The back wall of the room was covered, oddly, with all these pro-drinking bumper stickers, that said things like "Some people call it a six-pack; I call it a support group" and "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy" and "BEER: helping ugly people have sex since 1800" and so on.  There were others that were worse that I can't remember right now.  They struck me as really out of place in this context, and I couldn't tell if they were meant to be funny, or ironic, or what?

"I hope you're still as pretty when I'm sober."

"God made pot; Man made beer.  Who do you trust more?"

Towards the end they passed a hat to collect donations.  And I couldn't help but wonder, What's that for?  They obviously aren't spending it on coffee and donuts.

They asked me to introduce myself at the very end, with about two minutes left before the end of the meeting.  I wasn't really comfortable with it at that point, but I also didn't feel right refusing, after having just sat there and listened to all of their stories for the past ninety minutes.  But with the meeting almost over, I felt a lot of pressure to hurry up and get it out ASAP so that I didn't keep these people late.  So, I stumbled and fumbled, trying to quickly deliver as condensed a version as possible of what I believe my problem is, and why I had come to SMART.  I got a couple of encouraging comments at the end, but I honestly wasn't even listening.  I just wanted to get out of there and go home.

I didn't feel comfortable there at all.  These people obviously know each other well, and I'm a stranger suddenly plunked down right in the middle of their intimate and familiar conversation.  And the reverse was true, as well - it didn't make me feel very good to be revealing intimate details about myself and my own life to a room full of complete strangers.  What if one or more of them are complete assholes, whom I would never spend a minute trying to converse with in any other situation?  Do I have to pretend that I like these people?  Or worse, that I care about them?  And I didn't even share anything really personal, either.  Just some basic details of how I ended up there, and not AA.  So, how much worse will it be next week, when I have to start telling them my story?  I feel like it's going to make my skin crawl to have to open up and get deeply personal with these poor, sad strangers.

But, maybe that's part of the point.  I'm already doing all the expressing of a group therapy session here, with this blog, but let's face it - there's a comfortable safety in being hidden behind a computer screen.  Fuck, this isn't even my real name.  (Though, to be fair, that has more to do with feeling a need to protect other people in my life that I care about - mainly my family - than any desire I may have to be anonymous.)  So maybe there's a lesson to be learned from being able to say these things out-loud, face-to-face, to a group of people.  Or, maybe not.  Or maybe I'm entirely wrong, and it won't even feel uncomfortable after a couple of meetings, because we won't feel like such strangers anymore.  I don't know.

And I don't know what to expect.  But I've committed to going to at least a few meetings before I make any decisions.  So, I guess I'm gonna find out.

So far, I'm neither encouraged nor discouraged.  I don't see this becoming something I'll suddenly feel like I absolutely need in order to continue with my recovery, but who knows?  Stranger things have happened, I guess.  Right now, my only hope is simply that I won't hate it.  I would be happy if it was just a place that I felt I could go in those rare moments when I feel like I need help.  Ninety-nine percent of the time, I feel perfectly comfortable doing this on my own.  In fact, I'd prefer it that way, quite honestly.  But every once in a while, there's a situation where I do need help.  Where I suddenly, out of nowhere, feel an overwhelming desire to use, that I cannot talk myself out of.  Where I don't know what the proper response is, or how to react.  Where I don't know what's going on or what to do about it.  Times like my relapse a couple of weeks ago, and the depression and uncertainty that followed.  Because, in those moments, right now, I don't have anyone I can turn to and ask for help.  So, it'd be nice if this group could fill that role for me.  But I don't know if it can, yet.  We'll just have to wait and see.


At the end, when everyone was filing out of the tiny little room into the parking lot, the other new guy who was also there for the first time (I wasn't the only one!) yelled out, to no one in particular, "Where's Happy Hour?!"

Really, new guy?!

Really?