No Regrets ...

Open Door Policy
Originally uploaded by JLMphoto
One of my favorite lines in "The Promises" is: "We will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it." Today, in a reunion with college friends (who were former drinking buddies), these words came vividly to light.

I haven't seen this group of women in a couple years. The last few times that we did get together, it was always in a pub and there was a lot of drinking and the telling of stories from our college partying days -- many of which centered around the hilarity of my drunken antics. These get togethers down memory lane were painful and embarassing and, when I returned to AA meetings last year, I emailed this group of women to share that I was not comfortable in meeting up with them in drinking establishments.

Today's gathering was completely different. It was held at the home of one of the women in our circle. There was NO alcohol. After everyone arrived and we got settled into the livingroom with beverages and appetizers, some of the familiar storytelling began. My experience in taking this in, having now been working a recovery program solidly for a year and a half, was also very different. I shared very openly about my understanding of the extent and intensity of my alcoholism, which took off during my college years. I spoke about the recognition I've had about how my drinking was not like theirs (i.e. they didn't wake up in the morning shaking and, out of desperation to stop the trembling, drink warm beer leftover in other people's plastic cups from the night before). I did not have any shame when I shared these awarenesses with my friends and I had no regrets for the ways in which I conducted myself so grossly inappropriately. I wanted to relay to them how my disease progressed long after we left the college campus and how they were able to be social, weekend drinkers for the most part while I needed to drink multiple times daily just to function. And that I was no longer having a "good time" even though it appeared on the surface that I was.

I shared with this group of friends the kinds of things I engaged in that required me to make amends to them: stealing money out of the hoagie shop cash register and buying them drinks at the bar with the stolen loot; driving some of them in my car when I was well over the legal limit for alcohol consumption and not sharing that I had been drinking for most of the day before picking them up to go out. I also disclosed where my drinking/drug use took me, like getting arrested with my drug dealer boyfriend for cocaine possession.

I probably spoke for about a half an hour or so and the room was silent. I didn't feel any discomfort or awkwardness present in my friends; in fact, I felt them move in closer and I watched them look at me with a different set of eyes and regard me with respect. I realized today that if I am to maintain on-going contact with this circle of women who I've known for nearly 30 years, I needed to open up the door to my past -- wide open -- and with no regrets. This is what AA has taught me to do.

And with this door swung open wide, there was that much more room for intimacy and especially for laughter -- the kind that erupts from deep in the belly til your sides ache. The laughing was no longer at my expense but in unison, collectively. There was deep appreciation and gratitude felt in that room today for the simple fact that a group of people with so much history together were still willing to be in one another's lives after all these years.

I am still smiling. I have no regrets ...