No more drama ...

Leaving Drama behind
Originally uploaded by pirano

Oh, it feels so good
When you let go
Of all the drama in your life
Now you're free from all the pain
Free from all the games
Free from all the stress
To find your happiness...
I dont know...
Only God knows where the story ends
For me
But I know where the story begins
It's up to us to choose
Whether we win or lose
And I choose to win
~ Mary J. Blige, "No More Drama"

The young woman who spoke at tonight's AA meeting is someone who entered the rooms for the first time simultaneously as I made my return back -- she will soon be celebrating 9 months of sobriety.

I have watched this young woman blossom in this program. Her first months of sharing in meetings were riddled with drama. Over an abusive boyfriend, mostly. And even though she arrived into the rooms after a stint in a rehab, the "rush" of drama was still part of the equation that was minus the bottle.

Whether you call it chaos or upheaval or craziness or being out-of-control, we AA's have come to thrive on some form of drama. Primarily in our using, yet it may linger after ... to help us feel alive, to help us feel something, period.

When alcohol was in the mix of our lives, our lives were mixed-up. Everything we touched was impacted by alcohol and got swept up in the cyclone of our addiction. I really get why Step 1 has the component of admitting that "our lives have become unmanageable".

The speaker tonight shared very openly and candidly about how she continued to drink out of fear that she was going insane. And how she exposed herself to insane living conditions, regularly returning to an abusive boyfriend once she had a few drinks in her. And that she continued the cycle even after the drinks were put down.

Most of my drama took place while I was actively drinking. I got myself into situations that were incredibly insane, sometimes very dangerous. With enough alcohol in my system, I felt invincible. And I was grandiose. And a real asshole. In college, I was the Tazmanian devil in the flesh. I stole food out of student's hot pots in the dorms, often puking the contents up shortly after. Not always making it to the toilet, either. I would bounce off walls and disturb those who were trying to study for exams or attempting to get some sleep. I broke into the vending machines, trying to shake down the chips because the machine ate my coins and was then fined and had a letter sent to my parents. At parties, I was infamous for throwing beer on innocent bystanders in line to use the bathroom and had many a person attempt to beat the shit out of me and somehow managed to dodge the actual blows (mostly because I had others who felt sorry for me and talked people out of carrying out their threats). I mooned people in broad daylight and in the backseat of moving cars on busy highways. I peed in public places, squatting whenever and wherever the urge hit me. I would have public displays of sobbing toward the end of a heavy night of drinking. Sometimes the pain was so great, that I scratched myself with sharp objects, like car keys. I was found on several occasions after drifting out of parties, laying by the side of the road.

As my drinking worsened, the dramatic episodes got more outlandish. In my senior year of college, I had my parents' car. Countless times I ran into poles, onto curbs, into fields. I drove with the door ajar or with far too many people packed into it like sardines. I drove on the wrong side of the road. I was a moving time-bomb. I began stealing other people's drinks off of the bar and having serious threats made against me. I totaled my 1st car just a few months out of college when I fell asleep at the wheel, completely plastered, and ran into a telephone pole. I had the wear-with-all to take the beer out of the back seat and walk away. I told my parents that some guys were chasing me and it was raining and that's why I ran my car into the pole. About a year after that, I was arrested with my then boyfriend for possession of cocaine in my glove compartment, after having been pulled over for crossing the yellow line due to being drunk. I was finger-printed at a local police station and then let go, assigned a probation officer for a total of 9 months. Luckily, I was able to have my record expunged a few years later for "good behavior".

Drinking- drama found me raped. And then pregnant. It landed me in multiple emergency rooms for a slew of related injuries: sprained ankles from falling; a completely banged up face from plummeting face-first into a cement floor when doing MaryLou Retton gymnastic imitations off of bar railings; slamming my head into the steering wheel after running into non-moving objects with my moving car; having stones or glass removed from brush burns acquired after splattering onto city streets in drunken stupors.

It takes a LOT of energy to maintain this level of drama. And over time, as the AA saying goes, we get "sick and tired of being sick & tired". As the young speaker shared tonight, working the program left little room any longer for drama. And this is when we can take Step 2: believing that a power greater than ourselves will restore us to sanity. Living sober does not mean that there won't be any drama; what it does mean is that we won't be looking for it, creating it or seeking it as a substitute for being in the reality of our lives. I welcome the ordinary-ness of sobriety.