Current mood:pensive-ility
so, i've been going to these AA meetings ...
sounds like the setup of some crazy joke, right? except its not funny. i've been to three in the past week, which is way more than i ever thought i would go to in my life. i mean, if i could figure out how to manifest negatives in my experiences, i would say that that is about 50 more than i ever expected to go to in my life. but there's this reason, right? a very very good reason. which is also the same reason that i will probably find myself at many more meetings. but that's not the point here. because that's none of your business.
the point is that i was surprised, shocked even, to realize that i was having a visceral reaction to the idea of AA based on the way a fucked up drunk man treated me thirty years ago. i mean, sure, that man was my father, and he got plenty of mileage in my life, even though he bailed from the moving car 24 years ago, only to be heard from when he disputed everyone's general idea that he should pay this thing called "child support." so, walking into the first meeting was like asking to be punched in the gut. which it was, in a way. and walking into the second and third meetings were like getting this special insight into why you were punched in the gut in the first place.
because suddenly i have this idea of what my father was going through, and i suddenly understand why he became what he became. i still cannot forgive him, though, for the abuse he perpetrated after he found jesus mixed up in his sobriety cocktail. mental manipulation became his favorite toy. but i can understand a little, now, how he got that way. why he got that way. it makes sense.
he chose one doctrine over another, one way of life over another one that was most certainly killing him, grinding him up whole. but the transformation couldn't erase the fact that he was, generally, not a very nice man.
sheesh.
i feel bitter tonight, and tired. so perhaps i'd best leave these thoughts for another day. except that i found his pictures on flickr, pictures my sister told me were up there so long ago. he's still working to help his fellow alcoholics give all of their responsibility over to a higher power. but i was surprised how little i felt, looking at current pictures of this man who had, really, done so much to make me the survivor i am today. and then i looked closer at one image, one where he is wearing short sleeves, lounging behind a bleached blonde with a plastered smile. on his arm he has a tattoo. a triangle in a circle, the emblem of alcoholic's anonymous.
branded indeed.
so this institution, this group of meetings that declares itself free from association with scandal, movements or political affiliation, is forever tied up in my head with my own particular brand of trauma, even when i feel most distanced from that trauma. i don't doubt that it does good things for some people who need it. it's doing good right now. but i'll have to pass on being anything more than chaperon, ally, tourist.
it's the very most i can do.
sounds like the setup of some crazy joke, right? except its not funny. i've been to three in the past week, which is way more than i ever thought i would go to in my life. i mean, if i could figure out how to manifest negatives in my experiences, i would say that that is about 50 more than i ever expected to go to in my life. but there's this reason, right? a very very good reason. which is also the same reason that i will probably find myself at many more meetings. but that's not the point here. because that's none of your business.
the point is that i was surprised, shocked even, to realize that i was having a visceral reaction to the idea of AA based on the way a fucked up drunk man treated me thirty years ago. i mean, sure, that man was my father, and he got plenty of mileage in my life, even though he bailed from the moving car 24 years ago, only to be heard from when he disputed everyone's general idea that he should pay this thing called "child support." so, walking into the first meeting was like asking to be punched in the gut. which it was, in a way. and walking into the second and third meetings were like getting this special insight into why you were punched in the gut in the first place.
because suddenly i have this idea of what my father was going through, and i suddenly understand why he became what he became. i still cannot forgive him, though, for the abuse he perpetrated after he found jesus mixed up in his sobriety cocktail. mental manipulation became his favorite toy. but i can understand a little, now, how he got that way. why he got that way. it makes sense.
he chose one doctrine over another, one way of life over another one that was most certainly killing him, grinding him up whole. but the transformation couldn't erase the fact that he was, generally, not a very nice man.
sheesh.
i feel bitter tonight, and tired. so perhaps i'd best leave these thoughts for another day. except that i found his pictures on flickr, pictures my sister told me were up there so long ago. he's still working to help his fellow alcoholics give all of their responsibility over to a higher power. but i was surprised how little i felt, looking at current pictures of this man who had, really, done so much to make me the survivor i am today. and then i looked closer at one image, one where he is wearing short sleeves, lounging behind a bleached blonde with a plastered smile. on his arm he has a tattoo. a triangle in a circle, the emblem of alcoholic's anonymous.
branded indeed.
so this institution, this group of meetings that declares itself free from association with scandal, movements or political affiliation, is forever tied up in my head with my own particular brand of trauma, even when i feel most distanced from that trauma. i don't doubt that it does good things for some people who need it. it's doing good right now. but i'll have to pass on being anything more than chaperon, ally, tourist.
it's the very most i can do.
