Extract:
“By
the time May Clancy turned 15 years old, she was well on her way to
drinking herself to death. A middle-school student from Potomac, Md.,
she had been through 11 different psychiatric and alcohol-rehab
programs in two years. Each time, she started drinking again as soon
as she got out. Her parents were terrified. "We'd taken her to
hospitals—everything possible to get her the best care that we
could," says May's father, Mike. "And all these places told
us that they didn't think she could make it without Alcoholics
Anonymous.”
So
in November 2005, when May agreed to begin attending meetings at
Midtown, one of the oldest and largest AA groups in the Washington,
D.C., area, it felt like a miracle. Other AA meetings in the city
attracted mostly older men and women; Midtown was known as a place
for recovering alcoholics in their teens and 20s. Some of the group's
senior members were older, but there were also dozens of high-school
and college kids with stories a lot like hers. From the moment she
arrived, they seemed to go out of their way to welcome her. At first,
May was thrilled to find a group of people who accepted her as she
was. "When I went there," she says, "I didn't really
talk to anybody, didn't trust anybody. And these people would hang
out with me even if I didn't say anything, and include me in
conversations. I was desperate to be liked at that point."
But
something about Midtown was not right. After a few months, the
group's embrace of May began to feel like a chokehold. She says the
sponsor assigned to give her moral support and help keep her sober
pressured her to cut off ties to anyone outside the group. Another
member snatched her cell phone and deleted names in the directory.
She says she was pressured to stop taking the medication a doctor had
prescribed to manage her bipolar disorder: group members told her she
couldn't be sober if she was taking any kind of drug. There was a
hierarchy to the group. Younger members were sometimes expected to
wash cars, clean houses and do other menial chores for more senior
members.”
Source:
Newsweek
– Culture (5/6/07)
Comment:
It all sounds very familiar! But when anonymity transmutes into
secrecy and autonomy tyranny what do you expect!
Cheers
The
Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)
See
also:
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