Here's what I learned from AA -- despite never attending a meeting

I have never been to an AA meeting. I don’t even drink – never really felt that particular pull. But over the past decade, I’ve learned some things from Alcoholics Anonymous. Here’s what I mean.

I’ve noticed a pattern in my life in recent years. It turns out that more than a few friends of mine wrestle with alcoholism. It’s not because these friends are fellow lawyers, a profession plagued by the disease, although some are. Their livelihoods run the gamut.

Nor do I specifically seek out friendships with people struggling with alcoholism. I just seem to keep befriending them. I think it is because there’s a certain intensity, a purposefulness, with which they live their lives. That’s the attribute in them to which I’m drawn.

I’m drawn to their intentionality because I like to set goals for myself. I give myself personal challenges, many too minor to discuss. Here are three larger ones, goals you might share:

?       Fitness – I surround myself with better athletes than I am so I’m always running with the swift. I find a guy in my workout group who dusts me in runs, and try to gain ground on him over time. It’s even better when he knows he’s my mark. Then we both push harder.

?       Diet – I try hard here but, mercy, I could use a little more discipline. All too often it comes down to this: If loving doughnuts is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

?       Faith - The hardest struggle by far and a constant one, not because I have doubts. It’s a hard slog because I’ve come to know that closing the gap between the me that I am and the me that I’m called to be takes everything I’ve got, all day and every day. Better to say my only doubt is self-doubt. I’m sure of the standard I’m running toward, but sometimes I question whether I can close the distance. I certainly cannot on my own.

This is where my friends who lean on AA come in, for here is what I’ve learned from them. While my self-improvement goals are important to me – faith in particular – it is ultimately my free choice to pursue them. I live that way because I want to live that way.

To be human is also to suffer from addiction. The particular vices vary as do our degree of addiction to them, but it takes precious little searching to know we’ve all got something unhealthy that pulls at us.

My friends who eschew alcohol in a fight to stay sober, in contrast, live that way because they have to live that way. When alcohol takes hold, their lives are no longer their own. Then they wreak havoc on those around them, even the ones they love. Especially the ones they love.

Make no mistake, it’s still an act of the will for them to stay sober. But it’s a much larger act, to reorder your life in that fashion, than the healthy but non-existential goals I set for myself. What’s different is the degree of two things: the self-awareness that goes into making a decision like that, and the self-discipline that goes into keeping it.

The sobriety decision reminds me of the tale of Odysseus at sea from Homer’s Odyssey. Odysseus wanted to hear the Sirens' enchanting song, but knew (from the goddess Circe) that doing so would drive him insane and lead to his death. So with Circe’s help, Odysseus hatched a plan.

First, he filled his sailors’ ears with beeswax, so they couldn’t hear the beguiling voices. Next, Odysseus had these men bind him to the ship’s mast, so Odysseus could hear the song without plunging into the sea in the ensuing madness. Last, Odysseus ordered his men to bind him tighter if he tried to break free of his bonds.

The result? Odysseus heard the Sirens’ ethereal voices, and it didn’t cost him his life. The reason? Self-awareness in planning, and self-discipline in execution.

That seems to be the choice my friends struggling with alcoholism make every day. They want to experience the fullness of life – to hear the Sirens’ song – but they know that to do it, they must draw up an exacting plan and stick to it, no matter what. They must be brutally self-aware, and even more brutally self-disciplined.

On good days they act like Odysseus and are strong for their sailors. Other times they themselves are the shipmates, relying on their AA sponsors to be Odysseus. But together, all of them have made a choice for true freedom, and hold themselves mutually accountable through determination. By addressing their addiction honestly and head-on, they are free to become their best selves.

This strikes me as an authentically human way to live; more so, frankly, than how I live today. To be human is to be flawed. To be authentically human is see yourself honestly, flaws and all, and then make choices in your life – hard choices – that maximize occasions for hope and minimize occasions for despair.

Seeing these friends struggle, often daily, with alcoholism has taught me an even broader lesson. To be human is also to suffer from addiction. The particular vices vary as do our degree of addiction to them, but it takes precious little searching to know we’ve all got something unhealthy that pulls at us.

None of us conquers addiction - whether physical or spiritual - until first we acknowledge the hold our addiction has over us. As C.S. Lewis said, “a sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on.” And none of us does it alone.

That’s why I think my friends who wrestle with alcoholism have figured out something critical to living a good life. They are better men and women not in spite of their addiction but because of their addiction, and how they’ve chosen to handle it. They live with extreme self-awareness and extreme self-discipline. They live in full.

It is widely known how much AA members lean on one other to live a good life. It is less widely known how much they help the rest of us try to live a good life. I hope this changes that.