Am I Different?

When I was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous, I wasn’t really sure what an alcoholic was. Alcoholics were the upscale people who really enjoyed drinking. The executives who enjoyed a few cocktails at lunch that was my perception of what it meant to be an alcoholic. And on the weekends in their blue blazers, button down shirts, khaki slacks, and their ever present glass in hand.

Me, I fell more into the loser category. Sure I drank and ended up homeless and unemployable. Without drinking, what would I do? When I was asked if I thought I was an alcoholic my obvious answer was no. If memory serves me, I did do quite well on the pop quiz and agreed to go to an AA meeting that night. To be called an alcoholic, I should be so lucky. Without realizing it, I guess I was an alcoholic wannabe.

Most of us think we are different. I certainly did. True, we may have different drinking patterns, but as alcoholics our problems are very similar. At my first AA meeting I really don’t remember what was said, but I do remember saying to myself, yep did that, or yep that something I would do. What I was doing was identifying with the speakers.

One of the things that AA tells you is to identify and not compare. This is very important in maintaining sobriety. When you start to compare yourself to other alcoholics what you are doing is looking to justify why you are different and to create reasons why you don’t belong. It’s delusional the think that just because you weren’t as bad as or suffered lesser consequences as another alcoholic that you don’t have a problem.

Identifying with other alcoholics not only reinforces your acceptance of your disease it also enhancing your feeling of belonging.