There’s an expression you hear around recovery circles come holiday time that alcoholism is a three-fold disease: Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s. Hey look, wintertime blues wouldn’t be an expression if it wasn’t real (though of course the blues can set in any time, as Lana Del Ray well knows). But any time that provides a chance to either reflect on what has or hasn’t happened over the year, or to invite opportunities to compare and despair, can draw in sober alcoholics the way the egg nog used to. All that being said, when we started discussing holiday-themed essay ideas around the AfterParty offices, several of us said that we didn’t feel depressed enough this year to write anything. So we thought: why not do something that reinforces what was wonderful this year? With that in mind, we give you our best read stories of 2015.
1) “What It’s Like to Go to SMART Recovery After Eight Years in AA”
AA never stops being controversial so it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that Tracy Chabala’s account of attending Smart Recovery meetings after eight years of being in AA hit hard, and her account of her experience in AA hit equally hard. “I’d been convinced by everyone on the planet that AA was the only thing that could protect me from drinking,” she wrote. Then, as she documents here, she went to her first SMART meeting and felt that it was “night-and-day from AA, and I absolutely loved it.” The bulk of the nearly 60 comments on the piece praised Tracy’s open-mindedness and assessment of SMART but there were, of course, dissenters who pointed out that there are indeed more similarities between AA and SMART than Tracy mentioned.
2) “I Will Be Gathering with 100,000 Others to Face Addiction on October 4, 2015”
UNITE to Face Addiction gathered its fair share of press, among it Lucy Morisette’s pre-UNITE piece about how she was planning to attend. (As it turned out, she didn’t end up going and I did but my summary of what happened didn’t garner nearly as much traffic!) In her story, Lucy quoted organizer Michael King—“The history of the advocacy movement in America is the effect of stigma and shoddy policy”—and detailed what the event would offer.
3) “Yes, It’s Possible to Stay Sober Without AA”
Now we’re back with another disenchanted-by-AA piece from Tracy, this one about staying sober without 12-step. Her main issue with the program, she wrote here, is the idea she feels is perpetuated that if you’re an alcoholic not in AA, “Your entire life will be miserable. You certainly won’t be happy, joyous and free. Instead you’ll be a dry, spiritually vacant, self-centered asshole, teeming with restlessness, irritability and discontentment.” Some not terribly surprising tiffs broke out in the comments and Tracy gamely chimed in to defend her words. (Now is probably the time to mention that her rewriting of the 12 steps for atheists also killed traffic-wise.)
4) “Debunking the 13th Step Movie”
Then we get to Danielle Stewart’s review of The 13th Step, a documentary that essentially portrayed 12-step as a place where innocent women are harassed and attacked by teams of lecherous, unsavory men. “All in all, the film flopped on many levels—ethical storytelling, casting, sound and video quality—but it’s the exposure to the general population, who have little to no information about a fellowship that has saved my life as well as the lives of so many people I love, is what is the most upsetting element about the film,” Danielle wrote. The nearly 300 comments encompassed more rage than 13th Step filmmaker Monica Richardson seems to feel for 12-step programs. (We get it, y’all. You like pieces that question AA.)
5) “Love Addiction Is Not Love”
Of course, you guys also like pieces about love, particularly love addiction, as evidenced by the response to Melissa Petro’s analysis of her struggle with it. In meeting a new potential love interest, she wrote, she feels a “craving I knew would not simply subside but would only get worse. Like an itch, my attraction to him felt like something wanting, needing, to be scratched.” When the recipient of her desire for itch scratching didn’t respond, she “started meeting strangers in the park. That led to meeting strangers online, which ultimately led to my trading sex for cash” (a habit that eventually cost her a career). Now, she said in the piece, “The moment I feel myself triggered, I disengage.”
6) “The 20 Best Recovery Blogs”
No matter where people stand on the AA-or-not-to-AA continuum, most everyone can agree that community helps with recovery. In Danielle Stewart’s round-up of the 20 best recovery blogs out there, she highlighted those bloggers out there who provide just that. Among our winners were Since Right Now, The Sobriety Collective, Hip Sobriety, I Fly at Night, Last Call and Sober Courage. (This, btw, is my not-so-subtle nudge to go check these all out now.)
7) “I Miss My Old Alcoholic Self”
Allison Hudson—who, by the by, also has a blog that was on our 20 Best list—is a regular AfterParty-er but no essay of hers attracted more attention than the one where she reminisced about her old alcoholic self. While she highlighted in the piece how much she loves being sober, she also mused, “I still miss old Allison sometimes…not the hopeless, miserable, self-destructive parts of her, but the ‘wild and crazy I do what I want when I want and think about the consequences later’ parts of her. I miss jumping on the plane with not enough money in the bank and calling in sick to work because something fun is happening in Mexico on a Tuesday.”
8) “5 Sobriety Tattoos You Probably Shouldn’t Get”
What’s up with y’all and your fascination with sobriety tattoos? I don’t mean to level random accusations at you guys but what else can I assume when a quickie list Laura Barcella wrote back in March of 2014 about five tattoos you ought to reconsider getting is one of our most popular stories in 2015? If you’re out there with the Serenity Prayer, the AA symbol, your sobriety date or “Breathe,” “Strength” or any other word that connotes serenity tattooed onto your person, I’m talking to you.
9) “Farewell Alcohol, My Old Friend”
Because AfterParty has a full glut of regular contributors, we tend to accept roughly 1% of the blind submissions we receive. Well, we made an exception for a gentleman named Paul Fuhr, who had originally written me months earlier to tell me how much AfterPartyPod had helped him. (Though hey, I wouldn’t put it past me to allow my ego to give preference to someone, if you read his essay, in which he bids goodbye to his BFF alcohol, you’ll quickly see how our publishing it has everything to do with it and nothing to do with me.)
10) “3 Ineffective Ways I Tried to Manage and Enjoy My Cocaine Use”
Did someone mention my ego? In that case is it okay if I confess that I’m relieved one of my stories made the list as well? This one, where I analyzed three highly ineffective ways I tried to manage and control my cocaine use, highlighted my decisions to: a) try to become a pot addict, b) visit my grandmother in Palm Springs to stop myself from calling my dealer and c) keep my cocaine at a friend’s house so I wouldn’t do so much of it. If you don’t have time to read the story, let me tell you that d) none of those things worked.
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