A friend of mine went through rehab and on discharge was
advised to attend Narcotics Anonymous meetings. Since she was anxious about
this I offered to tag along and give her some support, since I had been there
through the downward spiral and rehabilitation.
FYI: Narcotics Anonymous meetings have taken over Alcoholics
Anonymous meetings and they have now been combined with drugs and Alcohol in
the Narcotics Anonymous meetings. Shorter known as NA meetings.
Arriving in and old church with the parking lot so full, it
already put pressure on my friend. The parking spaces were small and the worry
over scratching your car coupled with the anxiety of meeting new people in a
situation such as this was enough to send her home. After a pet talk and some encouragement
we walked into this hall filled with people all smiling at us. And instantly
they wanted to know what happened.
As an outsider without an addiction it was overwhelming of
me, so I could just imagine what it felt like for her. Imagine having 45 people
all rushing over to you wanting to know your story before they even know you
name. I understand that they want to create this caring environment for you to
share your story, but shouldn’t that be a gradual process? After all you don’t know
these people from a bar of soap and if it was me, I wouldn’t be so happy to
just blurt out my problems that lead me here so easily.
They even insisted that I didn’t have to say I was here for
support and that I could tell my story and it’s a safe environment so I could
admit I have a problem. After protesting that I really don’t have a problem for
about 10 minutes they gave up. (ANNOYING).
The people at the meeting took another tactic and started
telling us their stories, and as I sat there I thought to myself this is like
what we see in movies. The stories they took us were like taking it out of a
novel or movie, although I don’t doubt that they true it just felt so
dramatized. After knowing what had happened that lead my friend to this hall I couldn’t
help but shout in my mind…REALLY???, at some of these people as they told their
story. One story that stuck in my head was a girl who became addicted to
drinking mouthwash.
It was nice to see the racial integration within the
setting. All colours of this rainbow nation we live in coming together to admit
there is a problem we need to deal with. But surely these leaders of this
organization should know that a person that newly sober and out of rehab doesn’t
want to be overwhelmed by too many questions. It’s a process to building trust
so that people share their stories, because frankly having 45 faces staring at
you expecting you to share can make you want to run in the opposite direction.
I liked the fact that they give you little disc with numbers
for the amount of days that you are involved with NA. So of course my friend
got one with 1 on it. But that made me think again about how this is out of a
movie…. The man who’s lost everything putting his disc down with 100 days
written on it while sipping on his bourbon.
The meeting consisted of a leader reading a lesson and then
sharing how his experience related to the lesson then opening the floor to say
how your related to it too, but how many different ways can you say your
substance abuse was due to this or that? The stories all sounded the same after
a while.
Since no sharing was done on our behalf we tried to make a
quick and hasty exit after this bombardment. But two girls cornered us and
insisted we tell them what happened, which of course lead to the story of the
death of a boyfriend and my friend in frantic sobs. Not everyone wants to
relive those memories. The drugs were there to numb it in the first place.
Although I admire these people for admitting their problems.
I must admit that their tactics for new comers is also overwhelming. It is a
process to get someone to trust and open up in such an environment and
sometimes by coming across so strongly, you force the person not to return so
that they don’t have to feel that anxiety and uneasiness again. Maybe some intervention
is needed there to perhaps show them there are better ways of doing this than
getting all involved in someone’s business, because wanting to be someone’s
best friend after 2 hours of meeting them can be a little too much.
The journey to recovery is a slow and painful one, but it
begins with admitting you have a problem.
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