On Saturday mornings -- as so often -- I wrangle with an embarassment of riches. Specifically, I have to choose between going to the Al Anon meeting that has been my home group for a number of years now or an AA group filled with a lot of grey hair and wisdom. I think for the time being I'm going to tilt towards AA. Here's why.
Al Anon is an absolutely incredible institution, because the problem of sorting out the craziness that seeps into one's bones from years of living with an alcoholic is infinitely complex. What, after all, is it we need to arrest? Not the consumption of a substance, a relatively simple task, but a near-somatic way of living. It is like ideology, in some sense, in the neo-classical formulation that extends the purest expression of commodity fetishism -- ("Sie wissen das nicht, aber sie tun es") "They know not what they are doing, and yet they are doing it." Understanding how this ideology-like way of being has made us who we are is a never-ending process.
AA, on the other hand, is pretty simple at the most basic level. Just don't drink. Make it through till midnight, then try again the next day. Do it for a long time and see what happens. But what happens is the most magical thing in the world. People who stay at it blossom, at first from the shallowest of soils, but one which fertilizes and enriches itself over time. Then they come to meetings and speak about it, and others show up and listen and sprout from the deepening loam of their words. The gratitude and enthusiasm can only astonish, and it is very helpful in times like these.
So, for the near- to mid-term, I may overweight AA a little relative to Al Anon. But I'll discard neither.
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