I went to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting the other night, a meeting I have gone to sporadically over the years. It’s in a big church and tends to average around 200 people every Saturday night.
I was immediately surprised at the sparse attendance. This is something I have been seeing a lot lately. I was just at a meeting the week before that was half its normal size.
The idea of a person having a ‘drinking problem’ feels almost quaint now that most major American cities are full of drug-addicted zombies wandering the streets.
It’s not unusual for attendance at AA meetings to ebb and flow. One meeting will get hot for a while. Then it will die down and another meeting will become popular.
Also, COVID has had a lingering affect on AA meetings. People got comfortable doing Zoom meetings, and now they don’t want to leave their homes.
*******
I got a coffee and took a seat. The first of the night’s three speakers went to the podium.
He was from Texas. It was very entertaining to hear his accent and his crazy drinking stories. The next woman bottomed out in Los Angeles while working in the film business. The third person was a local guy and told his story of basically being in the grip of alcohol from age 13 onward.
That sober life
I’ve been sober for a long time. So I know how AA stories go. They’re all different, but at their heart, they are all the same. Also, there’s a certain AA language people use to describe their experiences. There’s a rhythm to the stories.
It’s all very familiar and routine for me. It’s a nice feeling to settle in and listen to your fellow drunks describe their experiences.
But sitting there this time, a dark thought came over me. I wondered if AA was getting old in some way. If I’m in my 60s, and this meeting felt like the perfect way to spend a Saturday night, what would it feel like to a younger person? Probably very old-fashioned.
AA’s glory days
AA began in the 1930s. It caught on immediately. Over the decades, it literally saved millions of lives and vastly improved millions of others.
In theological circles, many consider Alcoholics Anonymous to be the most profound and important spiritual movement of the 20th century.
But what now? Can it continue indefinitely?
I considered who founded AA in the first place: white Christian men, most of them professionals. Of course, AA evolved and adapted as it grew, quickly including women, younger people, and other ethnicities and social classes.
But it still bears the marks of its beginnings. And institutions with those kinds of roots tend to get targeted and harassed by leftist activists — even the most benevolent ones.
RELATED: When ‘live, laugh, love’ means ‘pour me another’
Matt Cardy/Tatyana Larina/Getty Images
First they came for …
So far, no one has accused AA of being sexist or racist or “white supremacist.” But it seems possible the left could find something wrong with it.
Not to mention that AA is a lot like church. There are prayers and talk of God, and many meetings actually take place in church basements.
And we all know how socialist/communist countries dealt with churches in the past. They shut them down.
I doubt that will happen, but the left could certainly try to discredit AA. Or file lawsuits against it, as with the Boy Scouts. The Boy Scouts were just minding their own business, until they were obliterated by lawsuits brought by the radical left.
To drink or not to drink
Another consideration: Is alcoholism still a major problem in our society? I mean, it obviously can be. But is it as bad as fentanyl? Or meth?
It usually takes years of drinking to seriously damage your body. Our new super-addictive street drugs can kill you in a week.
The idea of a person having a “drinking problem” feels almost quaint now that most major American cities are full of drug-addicted zombies wandering the streets.
In recent years, alcohol seems to have faded as the recreational intoxicant of choice. Think of how popular alcohol was in the 1940s and 1950s. Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin’s ever-intoxicated “Rat Pack” became the symbol of suave masculinity. The idea of a man not drinking was unthinkable. That’s what men did. They drank.
But not any more. Oh, men still drink. They drink Evian water out of their $30 water bottles.
Teenagers under the influence
And what about teenagers? Do they still drink? I’m sure they do. But not like the generations before them.
When I was in high school, everything we did was combined with alcohol from freshman year onward. That was what we did at social gatherings. That was how we talked to girls.
When you picture contemporary teenagers’ social lives and leisure activities, you see them online. On their phones. Gaming. Posting. Texting.
I don’t remember “reading” as being something I was good at when I was drunk. Or typing on a tiny keyboard.Maybe that’s why Adderall is so popular now. It sharpens your mental skills instead of blurring them.
Into the future
I am not suggesting I want Alcoholics Anonymous to age out or become irrelevant. I love AA. It saved my life. It gave me a life. The friends I made there will be in my heart until the day I die.
But the world is experiencing rapid change. And it seems inevitable that this will affect AA. I hope it can adapt and survive and continue into the future.
Because I, for one, still need a place to go when I’m feeling unsettled and overwhelmed. Where I can drink some bad coffee, lean back in my seat, and enjoy the company of my fellow alcoholics.
Lifestyle, Aa, Alcoholics anonymous, Sobriety, Blake’s progress