It's the journey, not the destination

I was talking with a friend of mine the other day about the differences between Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. She knew that I had recently decided to stop attending NA meetings and withdraw from all my service commitments in NA, and was curious as to why I had done so. The conversation gave me a good chance to publicly state some of the things that have been rumbling in my mind for the past several years.

She said something interesting I had never heard before: She said that the big difference between AA and NA was that AA found something outside herself - alcohol - to be the problem while NA found that something inside herself - the addiction - to be the core problem in her life. She preferred to think of addiction as something deeply within her core rather than something "out there" that had to be avoided. In essence she was saying that AA finds its focus on a known commodity - alcohol - while NA finds that the core issue - addiction - lives within. This struck me hard. I had to think about the consequences of what she was saying for my own life.

Since the first day I got clean, I have been going to NA meetings. I was exposed to NA when I was in a treatment facility in January, 1988. I had stopped using about a month before when I collapsed in a puddle of emotions during my self-imposed detox process. I had been to one AA meeting since the day I stopped and I felt AA "was not for me," so, by the time I got to the treatment center I was confused about 12 Step programs and didn't think they could help me. But, when a man named Jerry brought a meeting into the treatment center and talked about his addiction and how NA had saved his life, I suddenly recognized that he was talking to me about my own addiction. I found NA and the people in it a welcome relief from the isolated suffering I had been going through.

For more than 25 years, NA was the vehicle for my expression of my recovery. I threw myself into meetings in those early years and gave myself to service work through the Hospitals & Institutions subcommittee of NA that talks to people in prisons and detoxes and hospitals. I was content with NA despite some developing difficulties.

During that whole period of time I found that it was not cool within NA to talk about AA. There is great pressure within the NA fellowship to see NA as a stand-alone recovery program that does not rely on AA. Founded in 1953, the NA movement has worked very hard to distinguish itself from AA and worries about blurring the lines between the two programs. You can't use the word sober in NA. You can't quote Bill W. or use the AA Big Book as a source. You aren't supposed to go to AA meetings or have an AA sponsor. And, you basically have to tolerate a lot less positive talk about recovery in meetings that are dominated by people still addicted to drugs and the lifestyle of the drug addict.

A few months ago that all changed. I had gotten into a debate with a fellow NA member over a technicality about "promoting" NA as opposed to allowing NA to "attract" new members. He was taking a dogmatic approach to the NA message, and I wanted a more expansive approach. He refused to budge. I began wondering what I was doing the service garden I was laboring in. So, I basically gave a voice to what lay within me about AA vs. NA and decided to move back to the practice of my recovering through the AA program.

I realized that for many years I had been squelching the urge to talk about my love of the AA program, its history and especially my affection for Bill W. I had long ago abandoned the AA Big Book as a source of reading about recovery and a guide for my life. I always felt guilty when I thought about Bill and his wisdom. I always felt that I was missing something by not being able to talk about my relationship to the AA fellowship. So, it became clear to me that I needed a change.

So, about three months ago, I started to go back to AA meetings. I bought the new edition of the AA Big Book and started reading again. I read a biography of Bill W. I dove into the meetings. All of a sudden I felt rejuvenated. I felt young again in my recovery. I felt a new sense of purpose and meaning in my recovery. In every sense it felt just plain good to be a regular member of the fellowship without the weight of expectations that falls upon someone who is clean 25 years within the NA system. No...I was just your everyday AA member, and I loved it.

For me today it doesn't make any difference whether the addiction lives outside of me in a bottle or whether is is something that is within the core of me. I think the AA principles handle all of that very nicely when AA says that drinking alcohol in itself is just a symptom of a larger issue of who I am as a man. And, the 12 Steps go deeper by telling me that abstinence is not the goal of the process...serenity is. AA found "a solution to the drink problem" and it lies within the changes that I make within me to live a life that is happy, joyous and free.

It's not that my friend and I disagree. We get to the same place by different routes. She knows that addiction itself is the core problem, and I realize that alcohol is not the only demon I have to cope with. It's the journey, not the destination that is the key difference between us, and I relish the chance to be on that sojourn again with the likes of Bill W. and Dr. Bob and the millions of other alcoholics who recover one day at a time. So...it's not so much that I am leaving NA behind as it is that I am rejoining the troupe of like-minded people in AA who have a deep and rich tradition of recovery based on the practice of spiritual principles in life. And, it feels very, very good indeed!

All the best,

Roger W.