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I've been asked to speak at an open meeting, and I said yes. Now I'm a bit stuck on how to tell my story. You see I view my recovery as 50% stopping drinking, and AA has been incredibly helpful to my continued sobriety, and 50% getting treatment for mental health issues. In my mind they are really intertwinned. There's no way I could have gotten / stayed sober without the mental health treatment I recieved which included hospitalization. Yet I find myself reluctant to talk about that aspect of my recovery. I guess it's partly internalized stigma / wanting to protect my image but I don't know how to say that AA while important has only been part of my recovery.
Even my history with treatment centres is a bit problematic. I went to one really well known treatment centre which has a really good reputation, and is completely 12 step based and it was a complete disaster because they were lousy at dealing with concurrent disorders. I finally landed in a treatment centre that is less well known nationally but certainly known in recovery circles in my part of town, and it's less than popular in AA because it's not 12-step based. But it's great on concurrent disorders and I still go there and find it incredibly helpful.
Meds are also a big part of my story - both in terms of psychiatric meds and using meds to treat my alcoholism. I know that there’s a bit of a group in AA that are anti-med, so I’m afraid that by saying I take Antabuse it’ll look like a cop out and that I’m not really working the program.
I’ve guess I’m just worried that it won’t look like I’m working the program if I admit to how much outside help I need and still get.
I’ve been in and out of AA for a few years and have only heard one speaker explicitely talk about mental health issues, so I know it’s not the norm in my area.
I guess I’m just not feeling entirely secure about being 100% honest about my journey and would appreciate feedback on how comfortable you’d be with hearing someone talk about mental health issues at an open meeting.
I want to be honest, but that means going outside what I consider the "norm" of an AA talk.
Opinions welcome.
Thanks.
Splitimage
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"I danced in the morning when the world was begun. I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun". From my favourite hymn.
"If you see the wonder in a fairy tale, you can take the future even if you fail." Abba
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