AA is getting a bad rap lately

I’m hoping I can change that rap.  Over the last few months AA has been in the media and not in a good way.  When I saw Gabrielle Glaser this past March on CNN discussing her most recent article in the Guardian, “The Irrationality of Alcoholics Anonymous”, I was super irritated.  Who the heck was she to eschew a “way of life” for millions of alcoholics and addicts in recovery from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body?   I don’t know why she felt it was her duty to take on the AA organization as a whole and discount what an amazing social movement and Recovery Fellowship it actually is.  This Fellowship helps people and saves lives.  Period.  If it’s used properly of course.  I should further state what AA is not: 

It’s not a speed dating venue, it’s not a place to go meet your new neighbor, it’s not a place to go looking for drugs, it’s not a place to further your career and reach your sales quota, and it’s also not a place to find a babysitter. 

AA is a place to get and stay sober.  More on that later. 

Back to Gabby and her irrational AA article.  I’m so grateful that Jesse Singal wrote a counter piece entitled, “Why Alcoholics Anonymous works”.  He went on to say, “Glaser’s central claim that there’s no rigorous scientific evidence that AA and other 12-step programs work is wrong.  Glaser is simply ignoring a decade’s worth of science.”   Further on in his piece,  Jesse gets input from an addiction specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, “No, that’s not true,” said Dr. John Kelly.  When Glaser’s argument was run by him, he countered, “There’s quite a bit of evidence now, actually, that’s shown that AA works.”  Further Kelly said, “In recent years, researchers have begun ramping up rigorous research on what are known as “12-step facilitation” programs, which are “clinical interventions designed to link people with AA.” 

Well, thank goodness Dr. John Kelly and Jess Singal were around to back up some of Glaser’s BS.  According to an 2010 article in Wired by Brendan Koerner, “the 200-word instruction set has since become the cornerstone of addiction treatment in this country, where an estimated 23 million people grapple with severe alcohol or drug abuse—more than twice the number of Americans afflicted with cancer.  Some 1.2 million people belong to one of AA’s 55,000 meeting groups in the US, while countless others embark on the steps at one of the nation’s 11,000 professional treatment centers. Anyone who seeks help in curbing a drug or alcohol problem is bound to encounter Wilson’s system on the road to recovery.”  Brendan’s article further goes on and list the pros and cons of AA and why it works for some and not for others, but the basis of his article was that it works, if you work it and if you want it.  It’s also not the only method to get sober, it just happens to be the method that worked for me and one that I truly believe in.  So of course I’m going to be an advocate and supporter of the 12 step program.   

However, the most disturbing piece I saw recently was about the new documentary The 13^th Step.  I had heard about this film through the recovery community and didn’t want to give it more than a second thought until I read Amy Dresner’s article on the The Fix.  Amy who has been in and out of recovery for the past 20 years (currently she has over 2 years now in AA) wrote a review about Monica Richardson's documentary,  The 13th Step, a film about predators in AA.  Amy goes on to write, “This film interviews a slew of women who have been sexually abused by men in AA, as well as the family members of women, like Karla Brada, who have been murdered by AA members. Brada met Eric Allen Earl in AA. He had nowhere to go so she took him in and was dead by his hands four months later. After the fact, her family dug into his history and discovered he had 22 years of criminal activity including eight restraining orders and a stunning 52 court-orders to AA. Brada’s family are suing AA for wrongful death.” Additionally she wrote about Julie, “Julie knew a guy in the rooms of AA for three years and he invited her over for coffee at his home, only to slip a date rape drug in her tea and assault her.  When Julie complained to her sponsor about the incident, she was met with “Well, what was your part?”   I was less than thrilled when I read this and even more so as to who the hell Julie’s sponsor was? But that’s not the point here.  The point is that AA may not be the healthiest environment to walk into, but not all of AA is an evil breeding ground for criminals and predators.  I’d like to see the documentary that focuses on the real recovery of AA and how it does help alcoholics and addicts regain their lives back.  How families are mended back together, how marriages are saved, how parents learn to be parents again and how sober citizens finally can get a chance at a true and sober life.  Where is that documentary?

I highly recommend reading Amy’s piece, and as disturbing as it was, it really annoyed the crap out of me.  Not Amy's piece, but the content of the documentary.  I’m actually sad that AA isn’t a safe place for a newcomer, or anyone ignorant to the 12 step environment, to get sober.  I get that AA has these sick freaky dudes and we are not a group of healthy folk , Well Peoples’ Anonymous it is not. 

When I found out, in my first 30 days of recovery, what 13 stepping was - I was shocked.  I couldn’t believe that men, who seemed to be so nice and supportive towards me, wanted to take advantage of my vulnerability and ignorance.  I was a shell of a person when I walked into the rooms, so to have my sponsor tell me what 13 stepping was, I was just mortified.  I had this old dude who kept asking me out for coffee and I was so naïve as I didn’t know how to say No.  My sponsor told me to tell him “No way” and to blame it on her.  Verbatim, she told me to say, “My sponsor said there is no reason for you and me to have coffee outside the rooms, so no thanks”   I was so relieved that I didn’t have to be rude to him.  I was actually worried as I didn’t want to hurt his feelings!  Crazy talk!  Same thing could be said for the “hugging” that goes on at meetings now a days.  I’m not a hugger if I don’t know you.  Just because I met you at an AA meeting, doesn’t mean we are friends and we can hug.  What is with that? Dudes just think that women are open game to hugging if you say “Hello” to them at a meeting.  I’ve come a long way since my early sobriety and figured out early on who was “safe” in the rooms and who wasn’t. 

Amy goes on in her piece to say that AA is a breeding ground for predators and sick people, which makes complete sense.  AA alone is not a remedy for our disease and what ails us.  It’s not a cure all for everyone and most people in the Fellowship, like myself, need to seek outside help for other issues.  The 12 steps, sponsorship, meetings, service, and the Fellowship are all fine and dandy, but they don’t work for everyone.  It’s true that most people who come into AA are not just addicted to alcohol – they can be dual diagnosis; either drug dependent, mental disorders, eating disorders, sex addictions, adult children of alcoholics and other co-dependency issues are wide and varied.   AA is a place for sick people just trying to get better and if everyone who came to AA  had a genuine desire to get sober and do what is suggested, I’m sure we wouldn’t have all these predators and sickies trying to get one over on us. 

I myself was 13 stepped by a sponsor.  Not in a sexual way, but in a manipulative and deceitful way.  She was very well respected in my Fellowship, well regarded as an AA pillar to many.  She sponsored a lot of women, she was asked to speak frequently at speaker meetings, she held a women’s meeting out of her home, she had a good rap and she ran a really great program.  She was the deal.  I wanted what she had.  BAM!  She was a fraud. 

I started noticing some holes in her story, “from the podium” and started asking some questions about this and that and soon after so did a few other folks and lo and behold, it turned out that most of her story was a lie and she had also been embezzling money from one of her customers.  Soon the local authorities were on to her and she was sent to an out of state prison for a few years.  So, yeah, there was a bad apple in the bunch, but it didn’t deter me from wanting to be in AA. Nor did it make me flee AA and join another sober Fellowship.  I saw this person for what she was, a con artist.  I thought to myself, “Wow, what a great place to come if you want to take advantage of people.” 

I’m not one to say that AA is the only way to recovery as there are other programs out there, SMART, SOS, WFS, Celebrate Recovery, spiritual advisors, meditation, yoga and white knuckling abstinence.  What I am saying – and this is just my rant and my belief, is that AA has worked for me unequivocally.  It works if I work it.  It’s a program that has helped shaped me to be a better human being.  It has also helped millions of other people and it’s a place where people come back to.  It’s a place where we will welcome you back whether or not you relapsed for 2 days or 2 years – we just want to help you. At least the majority of people I know in AA do.  The majority of people in AA are good, honest, helpful and caring individuals.  It’s the 13 steppers, 2 steppers and bottom feeders who aren’t there for their sobriety.  They are there for themselves and what they can get out of you.   They are the folks you need to stay away from.  They are the bad apples of the bunch and my advice to anyone would be to trust their gut.  Guys with the guys and women with the women – at least for the first year until you have some sober time.  The unsaid rule of “don’t date in your first year thing” was a great yard stick for me.  I started dating right after my year and let’s just say I was able to start working on Step 6 pretty easily after that.  I should also out myself a bit here and say that my now husband and I started dating when I had a few years and he had 9 months.  So, yeah, I guess anyone could say that I was a 13 stepper!  In my own defense, we had a very communicative, open and loving relationship where we both kept to our own programs.  This is also not to say we haven’t had our ups and downs in our marriage, because we have, but at least we have a unified belief together that AA is where we want to recover and that we feel lucky that we get to walk this journey of recovery together as we both want to live a sober and full life. 

At the end of the day, I have to believe in the foundation of the program and how Bill W. wanted it to be, “an easy program for complicated people”, and “Rule 62, just don’t take ourselves too damn seriously.”

11 years on the 11th

Since I launched my Memoir a couple months ago I’ve become really entrenched into the online marketplace of recovery, addiction and sobriety.  I’ve been able to “meet” (via social media) some very cool folks; all in recovery. Some in 12 step recovery, some not.  Either way, we are all sober and all want to help spread the message of recovery  - in whatever form that may be.  I’ve met women and men from all over the globe; US, UK, India, Egypt and Canada.  I’ve been interviewed on their sites and we’ve exchanged personal emails.  I purchased their books and they’ve purchased mine.  It’s a bit of a love fest if you will and I’m glad to be part of it.  So on this special day, I just want to say Thank You for accepting me into this very hip and cool community – a community I hope to be part of for many years to come.

If someone were to say to me 11 years ago that I’d have the life I have today, I would have thought pigs were flying and hell was frozen.  Seriously, I didn’t walk into my first AA meeting to get sober, I went there to get a court card signed because I had just been served my 2^nd DUI.  Life just hit a speed bump and I was just going there to appease the courts.  Things were going to get back to normal after I fixed this nuisance, paid the lawyer and did my community service.  But that’s not what God had in store for me.  God was nudging me pretty hard at that first meeting because what I heard in that dingy dark room with the plastic chairs and goofy sayings on the wall was Hope.  Hope that maybe I could have a better life.  It never occurred to me that to eliminate one of my main sources of happiness (alcohol), would bring me happiness.  I never had that fleeting thought. Ever.  Alcohol was my solution, not my problem.  Alcohol did for me what I couldn’t do for myself.  It gave me courage, it gave me confidence and it gave me entitlement to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted to.  It also fed my insecurities, took away my dignity and stripped me of all my self-worth and integrity.  Alcohol hollowed me out and bruised my insides to the point where I was comfortable beating myself up on a daily basis.  At age 37, I was living my life the same way I did at 18. 

Sobriety showed up at my front door step at the best time. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.  I didn’t get sober at my first meeting, I got sober at my 2^nd meeting and I’ve been coming back ever since.  I’ve been doing what the woman who walked before me told me to do.  Plain and Simple.  I didn’t question anything and instead of giving up, I gave in.  I was robotic those first couple weeks until the fog lifted.  I remember my first year of sobriety and I remember what I heard.  I heard, “a drink isn’t going to make anything better”, “we just don’t pick up – no matter what”, “play the tape through”.  I also heard work with a sponsor and do the steps.  I just kept signing along the dotted line.  And my life began to change, for the better.  So much better.  To those who know me and to those who have gotten sober, I don’t need to explain further.  You get it.  To those that have no clue or think they don’t need any help or think their unmanageable and miserable life is the only one they know – I say, give it a shot.  You have nothing to lose.  That’s what I said to myself on May 11, 2004 – I may as well give this thing a shot.    

Transitions

A couple years ago I entered an Essay contest for MORE magazine.  The topic was "Transitions" and how you have navigated through them in your life.  At the time all I could think of was how I moved back East to care for my sick mother.  This is the essay. Wanted to share. 

January 23, 2010

As I pulled into Mom’s driveway, after my five day cross-country drive from sunny San Diego, I realized that I was entering into my old neighborhood of wearied Wayne, PA.  The memory of my ocean view apartment in Encinitas was as faint as the cold and crisp reality of yet another new passage in my life.  Full circle. 

After spending over 10 years in San Diego, coming back home was bittersweet. I was about to experience some of the bitter.  Walking into mom’s house, with Lucy, my 4 year old boxer wagging and sniffing behind me, the sight of Mom startled me.  I hadn’t seen her in almost 9 months and her decline was apparent.  Her hair was messy, her clothes dirty and bland, and her makeup – well, there wasn’t much to speak of.  Before Mom got sick, she had a closet full of designer clothes and took immaculate care in her appearance.   

Mom was diagnosed with FTD dementia 6 months earlier and my siblings and I thought it’d be best for me to end my 10 year hiatus in San Diego and move in with her until we could figure out what to do.  Little did I know that Mom was as lucid that day as I would ever see her. 

            One week after our arrival Lucy was able to experience her first snowfall.  Snowmageddon had arrived dumping over two feet of snow.  Grateful that Mom lived in a condominium with no snow shoveling on the agenda, Lucy and I were able to enjoy the fluffy white stuff; if only as a respite from being housed with Mom.  Since my arrival I tried to re-immerse myself into life with my family and friends, as well as starting a job search as I had been out of work for over 11 months due to the recession of 2008.  The job hunt was going well and within two weeks I had some interviews lined up.  Through mutual friends I had also met someone.  He was the kind of guy I swore I’d never go out with; recently divorced, three kids and newly sober.  He was under a year sober and I didn’t think it’d be smart to date him until he had some more sober time.  Additionally, I was apprehensive and nervous about introducing him to Mom. 

Mom was becoming more and more challenging to be around.  Taking her out in public was more difficult as she would become very defiant if she wanted something.  If you were at the food store she always had to have her normal check out lady at Genuardi’s, in addition to getting her dark chocolate and gum.  Mom ate a new piece of gum every 45 minutes.  And she would tell you that too.  I sometimes felt I had my own personal Rain Main.  She would call a basic item, such as a fork a thingy majingy because she couldn’t remember what it was called.  This was all part of her disease.  As I understood FTD dementia, it affected the front right temporal lobe of her brain.  There was a dark spot on her brain and it would continue to get darker and darker as the disease progressed.  The best visual for me to understand this was that it was like a big mushroom that was mushrooming over her brain by simultaneously affecting her decision-making, behavioral control, emotions and language.  My mom was slipping away from me before my very eyes. 

Within a couple months I was able to land my dream job – Senior Associate at Korn/Ferry International in Philadelphia.  Working for the number one company in my industry was a big coup for me as I was used to working for smaller firms in San Diego.  I felt like I had hit the Trifecta - I was able to be present and loving for my Mom, I was dating a pretty fabulous guy and I landed a sweet gig.  Pretty good for someone who drove cross country crying from San Diego to Arizona not wanting to come home.  The man upstairs was orchestrating my life for me and I was able to relish in the symphony. 

As Mom’s disease progressed, Mom became very loving and liked to kiss everyone and regal us with stories about her childhood and early adulthood.  Certain stories I had never even heard before, so it was all very eye-opening to me. I was taken aback sometimes with some of her questions.  Two months into dating Liam, she kept asking me, “Do you think you’ll marry Liam?”  “Do you and Liam have sex? How many times a week?”  So yes, very eye-opening, to say the least.  I would chuckle though and call my sister, “Can I tell you what Mom is asking me about now?”  When I’d relay it to her, she’d reply back, “Oh she asked me the same thing last week, but it was at her monthly lunch gathering with her Bridge Club friends!”  Luckily for me my Q&As weren’t as publicly embarrassing. 

By the time summer came around, my career was in full swing, Liam and I were planning on moving in together, and it was time to move Mom into an Assisted Living facility.  One evening after I came home from work, I found Mom in her bed watching TV.  Albeit it was around 6 pm, she was wearing the same pajamas for the past two days.  I came into her room and she was very excited to see me.  “Hi honey bunch!” It didn’t seem like she had showered recently.  I had felt her toothbrush and it was bone dry.  When I walked into her bathroom there was feces everywhere - on the wall, the floor and smeared all over the toilet.  When I had asked her what happened, she replied, “Oh yeah I have that thingy.”  I replied back to her, “Mom, there is poop all over your bathroom.  What happened?” She gave me a blank stare, “Oh its fine, its fine.”  I tried to explain to her that it wasn’t fine.  I then called my siblings, Eddie and Janet, and shared what had happened.  A month later we moved Mom into Sunrise in Paoli.  I moved into an apartment with Liam one mile away.  We knew this was the beginning of the end.  What we didn’t know was how long Mom would be there for?  How much worse will this disease progress?  How long until she doesn’t know our names anymore? How much more time do we have with her?   These questions swirled around my head daily like a marble circling a salad bowl, around and around. 

April 12, 2012

It was close to midnight and my husband Liam and I were sound asleep.  Janet entered our home, “Nance, Liam,  It’s me.”  Dazed and confused, we awoke to see my sister standing in our bedroom doorway; her silhouette is all I could see.  All I could hear “Mom died, she’s dead.”  I burst into tears. 

Mom passed away due to heart failure.  She was 69, I was 45 and grateful that I moved back home for her.  And for me.  

Exposure, at so many levels.

For the past few weeks my life has been in what I call perfect disarray as we moved for the second time in 9 months.  Hence, there's been a lot of unpacking, cleaning, organizing, redecorating, making lists, shopping, joining the local LA Fitness, walking around the neighborhood with Lucy -- basically really trying to learn the lay of the land in my new Floridian town of Naples.  All of course in addition to maintaining my day job and trying to make new friends with neighbors and others in recovery.  

But through all of this, I'm also trying to spread the message about my Memoir and hopefully trying to help others who may have a problem with alcoholism or addiction.  I can't sleep (which I think is part of my aging process in my late 40's) and I awoke at 3.30 am with my head running a zillion miles a minute, now close to 5.30 I haven't accomplished much except realizing how much I have been putting myself, and my story, out there to help others.  I'm crunching numbers on how many books have been sold and how many resources I've tapped into.  And just since February, my story, and links to my Memoir, have been showcased on a few recovery blogs - so for that, Hot Damn, I'm stoked to be part of this amazing online recovery community and just for today, I'll keep on trudging.

Below is a list of the links that are helping me spread the message.  All of these sites are amazing and continue to help others in their plight to get and stay sober.  Check them out!

http://cleanandsobervoice.com/4/post/2015/04/last-call.html

http://www.breakingthecycles.com/blog/2015/03/22/face-of-addiction-recovery-last-call-author-nancy-l-carr/

http://www.sincerightnow.com/past-imperfect/2015/3/5/avalon

https://stephaniehansenwriter.wordpress.com/2015/03/24/author-interview-nancy-l-carr/

PRICE REDUCTION - $4.99 for an amazing page turner!

Check it out!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TBWNTGU

Memoir Synopsis

“That evening I wanted to go to a teenage party, and I wanted to drink alcohol, the grownup beverage of choice, the potion glamorized on TV and in movies, the stuff the older cool kids were drinking every weekend.  I wanted to be cool.  I wanted to fit in.  Whatever it took.”

She was attractive, popular and determined to grow up in a hurry. How would she have known that at age thirteen, during her first teenage drinking party, her life would play out in such a way that it would rule her life decisions going forward? The handsome boys and pretty girls were guzzling a certain punch, and she wanted to be like them.  Tentatively, she ladled the jungle juice from the punch bowl and had her first sip of alcohol.  She wanted more. It couldn’t have come at a better time.  This is what she’d been searching for – relief.  Instant relief. 

Getting drunk becomes her rite of passage as she careens through junior and senior high school caving in to peer pressure for her need to feel accepted. Through secretarial school and early jobs, her twenties are a blur. Quicker than she can take a tequila shot in a Mexican café, change her lovers weekly, and party with the dregs of society, as well as the socialites and future executives – Nancy finds a lifestyle that seems to work for her.  She continues on and drinks and uses cocaine through the snows of Aspen, the desert heat of Scottsdale, the California coast and her Pennsylvania homelands, only to find herself alone and desperate in her quest for love and her own identity.  Milk, she decides, has a longer shelf life than her romantic interludes. Surfer Boy, Boston Boy, Blondie Boy. Her big question becomes, who is going to marry her? As she approaches her early 30’s, she thinks getting married will fix her. 

“I am sitting on my couch finishing up a second bottle of Two Buck Chuck, watching Sarah Jessica Parker on “Sex and the City,” crying and wondering why I’m still  single.  I understand why Sarah is single. She spends too much money on shoes, and no one wants to marry a shoe whore. She had the perfect man too. She was a fool to let Aidan get away.  Ever since high school the perennial question from my parents and friends was always the same, “Are you going to marry him?”

It never occurred to Nancy to blame her loneliness on her beverages of choice. She’d kept her career going. She wasn’t an alcoholic. In fact, she relished hearing confessions of real alcoholics so she could assure herself that they—and not she—had a problem. Hello, Black Kettle? This is Pot calling! Terribly alone after receiving her second DUI at age 37, Nancy experiences a moment of clarity. She’s been looking for answers everywhere but the place she least wants to examine: the mirror. What glares back at her is over twenty-four years of living life in the fast lane, zooming by all the red flags.

 

“Sitting in the jail cell I thought about hitting bottom. I could stop digging now. My life couldn’t get any worse….How could years of my free-wheeling lifestyle as a partier, mainly a social drinker, bring me to this place?”

 

Compelled by a judge, Nancy walks into an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and begins the hellacious journey of rethinking her life to finally find what she’d been searching for – her true self. Now sober for over ten years, married and with a thriving career, Nancy wants to tell other young women what she wishes someone had told her.