Sometimes I think that “AA” should stand for Adolescents Anonymous. With all the talk about the “inner child” these days I like to think of my “inner alcoholic”. There is no doubt that my inner alcoholic is an adolescent. Think about it. Aren’t the symptoms of alcoholism the same as the symptoms of adolescence?
Start with self-centered in the extreme for example. We say that as alcoholics we are self-centered in the extreme, that we have no capacity to care a damn about others, that every waking moment we are consumed with self, that we want what we want when we want it. It is all about us. Ever raise a teenager? We’ve all been one. Does any of this attitude sound familiar?
How about selfish? We define the alcoholic as selfish; all for me the hell with you. I used to hide bottles of beer under the couch when I had friends over so that when the night was over there would be four or five left for me after they had gone. I used to think that no matter how strong my friendship that most of the people I knew would kill each other over the last beer. How many families are held hostage by the teenager that is not getting his own way? “I want to go to that rave on Saturday night and I won’t stop being a jerk until you let me!!!”
Dishonesty is another of the less than attractive symptoms of alcoholism. I lied so often in my disease that it took several years of sobriety to even begin to recognize the truth of my life. I had to revise the bull stories to closer resemble reality. When I broke a collarbone falling in the street I told everyone that it was broken by a nightstick in a fight with the police. Adolescents are lying machines much like alcoholics; when their lips are moving they are lying .This is probably not a bad thing. If their parents knew what was really going on they would need electroshock therapy to stay calm.
We say that alcoholics suffer from doubts, fears and insecurities. Wow… this is almost a definition of adolescence. As an active alcoholic I often felt that I was not good enough, smart enough, slick enough. I didn’t fit in. I felt alone in a crowd. I was afraid to succeed and afraid to fail. I wanted everyone to like me but was afraid they didn’t. I would do just about anything to fit in. I don’t even have to elaborate on this one. It is a description of the teen age years.
When I speak I often share about an experience that occurred when I was fifteen and one line that always gets a laugh is, “Fifteen is a difficult age, I know this because I was fifteen for seventeen years.” I don’t think this is an exaggeration. I truly believe that our growth and development as normal human being ends when we pick up our first drink. If this is at the age of fifteen we remain fifteen until we decide to get sober.
The good news for most adolescents is that as time goes by they grow out of the disease of adolescence. This is purely a function of normal growth and development and a function of getting older, or better said: growing up. It happens as a process of life without the necessity of a program of recovery.
The key to successful recovery from the disease of alcoholism much like adolescence is that we need to grow up. It wasn’t until I put the toys away, changed my playgrounds and playmates and began the process of growth that I could become a mature and responsible member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Once I had become grown up in my program I was surprised to find out hat I was no longer a fifteen year old and I had become not only a grown up alcoholic but also a grown up human being.