I Tried Going To An Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting After Being Sober For 30 Days, And It Was Incredibly Eye-Opening
Note: This post contains mentions of addiction, depression, and suicidal thoughts. All names and identifying details have been changed.
My name is Pernell, my pronouns are he/him, and I’m not an alcoholic…but I did go to my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting earlier this week. I had two reasons for going: I don’t come across too many spaces for queer people to hang out that do not revolve around alcohol, and I hadn’t drank or smoked weed since New Year’s Day.
I was sitting in my mostly empty apartment with a lazily rolled joint burning between my lips — my first smoke of the year — and the rest of Los Angeles was blasting fireworks. It was a new year, yet things felt bleak. Once again, I was high and alone.
I remember thinking, I am always going to feel this way deep down. I don’t know how many more years I can do this. It was the lowest I'd felt in a while.
I longed for a change after that night, so the next day, I started “Dry January,” weed included. Toward the end of my 30-day sober sabbatical, I discovered an Instagram post from a queer-, women-, and BIPOC-focused art gallery I follow — they were going to start hosting queer-focused AA meetings. And well, being around a bunch of sober queers sounded neat.
That’s how I ended up in the San Fernando Valley, an area of LA County I rarely willingly visit, at 8 p.m. on Monday night, January 31. I trotted past a boxing gym, stepped inside the red gallery next door, and filled an empty seat in the circle of 26 folding chairs.
I immediately felt comfortable being there. My familiarity with AA groups was limited to what I’ve seen in film and television, and they’re usually overwhelmingly heteronormative and white — not a judgment, just an observation. That wasn’t at all the vibe of the folks in the art gallery. There was a considerable amount of melanin, dyed hair, round glasses, and Doc Martens boots in the room. This room was 100% queer. I felt safe.
Shortly after, a woman who wore plaid pants and looked like the lead vocalist of Haim spoke up: “Hi, my name is Eli. My pronouns are she/her. I’m an addict and alcoholic.” The rest of the circle replied, “Hi Eli.” Behind my mask, my mouth dropped. Oh shit, I thought, we are just getting right into it.
I immediately felt like I should leave. I wasn’t an addict. I’d given up alcohol to be trendy. But Eli continued, “The only requirement to be a part of AA is the desire to stop drinking.” That was why I was there. I put my HydroFlask back down on the floor.
Trish, they/them and an addict, continued meeting traditions by reading how the Alcoholics Anonymous process works from a sheet of paper.
“Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now,” they said. “If you’ve decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps — the 12 steps.”
I’d already known that I had a bit of dependency, especially with weed, before jumping into my journey of living sober for a month. So to keep myself accountable, I wrote every day to keep track of my feelings and my cravings.
I like to think of myself as a creative artist…once I get past my writer’s block. And I do so with weed or alcohol. Or both when I really need to channel my inner Sylvia Plath.
Yeah, I’d rather be sober than high, but who the hell doesn’t? It's 2022. As my fellow queer folks introduced themselves by their name, pronouns, and why were they there if they felt comfortable, I debated how honest I was ready to be in that room. Then, it was my turn. “Hi, my name is Pernell. My pronouns are he/him.” I stopped there.
I didn't need to be in that chair. I wanted to be. I was being a journalist.
We finished introductions, and I learned there were four other newcomers in the room. That was comforting. It was nice to know there were other gay folks in Los Angeles that were curious enough about sobriety to show up to an AA meeting they discovered through Instagram. Outside of that gallery, it felt odd to be sober.
The chairperson, or speaker, of the night introduced himself next. “My name is Ed, he/him, alcoholic and addict. I’m going to talk to you about my story, but under a time limit. I don't want to talk about getting fucked up forever.”
Ed launched into his life story of how he ended up in the chair he was in, the one across the room from me. He took his first hit before he was 9 years old, and his first drink before 6. His journey with drugs and alcohol took him all across the country. He was known for having the best supply, and his identity was tied to substances.
Eventually, a partner recommended Ed try AA. He listened, though he felt like the meetings were a waste of his time. “I came for the AA book, and planned to homeschool that shit.” But being sober isn't something you can do on your own. He was in, then out of meetings for over a decade. It took him years and a relapse to return. He'd locked himself up in a hallway for days, surrounded by all his drug paraphernalia, just like when he was a kid.
“From a young age,” he continued, “I was getting high. As soon as I could walk, I was already constantly leaving the house I grew up in. That desire to run away and get out of our hometowns is just in us queer folks.” This really stuck with me. And I wondered how much of this desire to escape manifested in my current relationship with liquor, weed, and prescription drugs. It was like my off switch.
And I know that a lot of queer people feel the same way, especially other gay men. A few days after I stopped drinking, I became hyper aware of just how much money the people in my own circle were spending on sipping toward an altered state of mind. It's high-key ingrained in gay culture. The first place I was taken to when I came out was literally a gay bar. I mean, where else is there to go?
Several times when I'd gone out with my friends, I'd ended up having to help pay for their drinks because we'd split the astronomical bill, even though I wasn't drinking. That really made me want to drink.
When the speaker finished sharing his story, he gave the floor to anyone else who wanted to share what was on their minds. Couldn’t be me! I was just a visitor. I wanted to take up as little space as possible. So, someone two chairs away from me spoke up.
“I’m going to be honest: Breaking sobriety sounds really fucking good right now,” they said. “I'm over wanting to be good for my sponsor. I want to do drugs so bad. And it’s really fucking hard.” My heart dropped. I felt that.
A gay man in a highlighter pink beanie with really nice eyes raised his hand. “I became really good at conning people into believing I was the kind of person I thought they wanted me to be,” he said. My ears perked up. It was a familiar narrative. It sounded like me.
I frequently told myself I was a functioning pothead. I'd smoke myself to sleep, even though it slowed me down in the mornings before work. I liked that my friends asked me where to get drugs, and I always knew who to point them to. I liked drinking, I loved doing drugs, and I could handle my shit...right? I was starting to doubt myself.
A few chairs away from the cute guy with the beanie, a woman wrapped in a flowing, dark green cardigan spoke up: "It's hard that the things that make me the most happy are the same things that fuck me up the most," she said. "Like when I'm drunk and high, it takes me to the worst places." Instantly, my mind flashed back to 30 days earlier on January 1, when I so badly wanted to not be alive. Boom.
I thought about all the recent times in my life when I felt really dismal about the state of my life — I wasn't sober. Drinking used to be fun. Smoking used to inspire me. Vyvanze used to make me feel productive. Now, all those things just led me to feel really shitty about myself. It took 30 days of not touching them to realize the cold truth: I don't have a healthy relationship with drugs or alcohol anymore.
There's no way I'm an addict, I told myself. I'm just depressed. Yet my mind was swirling like a bottle of wine being poured down the drain. Maybe I did need to be in that red chair.
We closed the meeting with a serenity prayer, mostly out of tradition. I'm not religious, and I think only a handful of the people in the room were. You don't have to believe in God to be in Alcoholics Anonymous, but it is helpful to surrender to a higher power according to the 12 steps, especially when you feel powerless to your vices. That's what I'm told.
"Getting through the AA book is as enlightening as it is infuriating," someone said. "A lot of about shit God in there. But it's kind of fun just to scream at the text as you receive it."
Once the meeting was over, I left my red chair and stood in line for the bathroom. While waiting, the woman in the green cardigan turned around and introduced herself. "So, you addicted to something too?" they asked. I paused. "I haven't said it out loud yet, but I will eventually." And that was honest.
We exchanged numbers. It was nice to know that when I was ready to be more serious about what I need, that I'd have someone there to help.
I’m not an addict, and I’m not an alcoholic. But I’m on my way to becoming one. And I could either start facing that now, or wait until it’s my only option.
I walked out of the art gallery and sat in my car, pausing to process what I just learned about myself in these last sober 30 days. I'd given up weed, liquor, and others drugs to challenge myself, and ended up uncovering the beginning of an addiction.
I wondered if I'd be returning in two weeks for the next bi-monthly meeting. Was I ready for that? Then, I remembered: "The only requirement for AA membership is the desire to stop drinking."
I bookmarked the location, activated my Jetta's ignition, and turned right onto the main road.