Booze, God and 12 Steps

So you've decided to quit drinking.

Sure, you can chug them down with the best of them. You're the life of the party. But when you drink, your life always seems to self-destruct in some bizarre sort of fashion. Maybe you got nabbed by the CHP at a sobriety checkpoint. Perhaps you stumbled out of a promising relationship or lost a job. Or maybe you've never had a problem with alcohol, but you know someone who has, and their life is a mess. Shit happens, as they say in Alcoholics Anonymous. If you have an alcohol problem and are seeking help, get used to hearing pithy little sayings like that. They've got all kinds of them in "the program."

The program is Alcoholics Anonymous. Founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Robert Smith, a stockbroker and a physician who got together to help each other stay sober, the quasi-religious organization has blossomed into a worldwide fellowship with millions of devoted adherents. The 12-step recovery program, first outlined in Alcoholics Anonymous (the so-called Big Book published in 1939 and in its fourth edition), has been adapted to treat substance abuse by Narcotics Anonymous, so thousands of drug addicts have been exposed to the program as well.

Today, "the program" dominates America's approach to drug and alcohol treatment. After indoctrinating clients into the 12-step system, many, if not most, 28-day treatment centers, public and private, strongly suggest that newly clean alcoholics and addicts attend 90 A.A. or N.A. meetings in the first 90 days upon their release. In addition to wallet-busting fines and driver's license restrictions, judges frequently require convicted DUIs to attend A.A. meetings.

If you end up in such a meeting, chances are high that you'll be steeped in religious dogma, even if you're an atheist. You will be told that you have a chronic, lifelong disease that can only be cured through abstinence and the practice of spiritual principles. Despite the fact that there may be no scientific basis for that claim, if you have a drug or an alcohol problem in most of America, you're going to run into the program and their principles sooner rather than later.

Rebecca Fransway and Pam Helm know the program from a long way back. They seem perfectly normal now, a couple of nice-looking women in their 40s, both mothers of two. There's nothing that indicates that Fransway spent a 20-year span wandering in and out of A.A. meetings. Nothing to tell you that Helm spent most of the '90s in the program.

But not too long ago, Fransway was a down-and-out drunk. She'd pop open a beer on Friday afternoon and the next thing she knew, it was Monday morning in the county detox. She felt sick and scared, crumpled up among the pee-stained winos. She vowed never to repeat the scene, but dogged by relentless depression, she always started drinking again, with the same results.

Helm started shooting cocaine at age 35, shortly after the unexpected death of her husband. The cool rush of cocaine helped ease the pain of her loss, but she continued sticking needles in her arm long after the sorrow subsided. She switched to speed to keep costs down. One day she looked out the window and realized she'd fired up crank every day for seven years straight. The one-time chairwoman of the local March of Dimes drive had become one of the biggest methamphetamine dealers in the city.

Both women spent years working the 12-step program, and both women had profound experiences in A.A. Helm, who now works as a consultant for court-mandated drug and alcohol treatment programs, has a "take the best and leave the rest" attitude when it comes to the program. She followed the advice that made sense to her, challenged information when she didn't agree with it, and after a bumpy start, strode the 12 steps into sobriety. Helm is grateful that A.A., with its free meetings and large fellowship, was there when she needed it.