“Try not to take these attacks personally.”
This is the opening statement from a Google[1] Doc sent to me by a 12-step “old-timer” earlier today.
“To those in recovery programs, know that these disruptors are not targeting your specific recovery meetings specifically. These are teenagers, gamers, attacking the Zoom platform itself. The attackers don’t seem to know or care who they attack, they are seeing who can be the most disruptive in Zoom meetings. It’s some kind of twisted form of competition; they’re trying to one-up each other. They are being judged by their peers, and there is a prize for the best.”
I stopped reading the document and exhaled.
When I sat in my first recovery meeting in Los Angeles, I was steeped in shame and crying so hard that I could barely see the people occupying the seats around me. After my third or fourth meeting, I found that I knew a few of the faces, and I began to take some comfort in the common bond I had with these complete strangers. The fact that I was often the only Black person in most of the meetings wasn’t an issue, as I had a great deal at stake.
To put it plainly, if I’d continued to drink, not only would I have risked losing custody of my two boys[2], it’s not hyperbolic to speculate that I might have died of alcohol poisoning in my sleep.
I went to meetings every day for those first few years. Now, nearly 12 years after my last drink, my life is pretty amazing, and my children have become incredible young adults. And although I am still often the only Black person in the meetings in my neighborhood, I make sure I go to one four