Selfish

AA meetings are one of the few places, maybe the only place, where people openly share their shame in a group setting. The dynamic in a tight-nit AA group is completely alien to any other setting in life. People just set their darkest secrets loose on a small group of people harboring their own secrets with the expectation of acceptance.

“I’m really struggling with hating myself, you know? Thinking back on all the terrible times… All the mistakes. It’s the only things that stick in my mind,” Daven said to the group. He was relating all of this while gazing at the smoke curling up from the cigarette in his hand. He never made eye contact with anyone else within the semicircle of fold-out chairs.

“I’m sure I did actually do some good things. Surely I did. But I can’t remember them. I can only remember all the bad — all the fights, the puking, the shame. One of the things that’s keeping me sober now is recalling all of these terrible things I did.” He took a drag off the cigarette. The rest of the group waited patiently. He had hoped the group leader would have started talking but everyone just kept staring, he could feel their gaze.

“One that is stuck hard in my head is this time my son, he was only 5 at the time, stayed with me. I had started drinking that night even though I was supposed to be watching him. The little guy loved to take showers and play with toys while the water rained down on him. He was in the shower, and I was sitting on the couch. I had the door open so I could hear him. Well, because I’m drunk, I end up falling asleep. I wake up to him crying, and I mean wailing. I rush in there and find him on the floor of the tub curled up crying his little heart out. The water is ice cold, and the poor little fella is shaking. I had probably been asleep for a few hours, and he just stayed in that ice cold water waiting for me to come get him. I guess he didn't have the sense, being a 5-year-old, to get out of the ice-cold water. I’m sure he was hollering my name too, but I didn’t hear. I was passed out and shit-faced.” Daven starts to get choked up recalling this story. The other members give him a minute to collect.

“I think about this all the time. My son was probably the one person in the whole world who trusted me. Who believed in me. I’d already ruined every other relationship in my life by this time. But my son still loved me. And I let him down. I can’t stop hating myself for this. The memory is so vivid, and it won’t leave me. Every time I think about having a drink now, I think about picking up his shivering little body and wrapping him in towels. His voiced was horsed from crying for so long. This memory really makes me hate, no, despise myself. It makes me want to punish myself. There are so many more examples of similar times from my drinking days. This is one that eats at me often though. I don’t feel like I deserve forgiveness or a fresh start, you know? It’s like every time something bad happens to me it feels right. I think to myself, ‘good, this is what I get. I deserve every bit of this.’ And I get a kind of sick satisfaction out of it. I start wishing more bad things would happen to me. I start wanting to hurt myself because I want to pay off this debt.” Daven takes another long drag off his cigarette. Tears have worn tracks down his cheeks.

“I feel like until I’ve hurt myself as much as I’ve hurt everyone else in my life, the universe will remain skewed, out of balance. And the only way to level it or set it right is for me to consume all the pain I dished out to others. I do believe there is some point in the future where I will say, ‘Okay. That’s enough pain. now we’re even.’ but I’m not even close to that yet.”

Daven finally looked up and several of the others had their heads down shaking their heads back and forth.

“And I know what you all are thinking: ‘You got to let go of the past, Daven. Every day is a new day, Daven. You got to forgive yourself, Daven. You got to move forward, Daven.’ Right?” Daven looked at each of them in turn, but nobody spoke.

“But why? Why do I have to? Would it not be fair to make myself suffer just as much as I made those who loved me suffer? Why should I be allowed to forget about all the suffering I caused and start over new, spotless, guiltless. There’s no justice in that. No. I deserve to answer for the people I’ve hurt, the people I’ve let down. I should have to pay for it. I really believe this. I got evicted from my apartment 3 days ago and it felt good. I felt a peace about it. I’ve been sleeping in the bed of my truck, and every time I lay down there to go to sleep, cold and shivering, I think to myself, ‘Right. Yes. This is justice.’ And I end up sleeping better than I ever have. I got paid yesterday and the first thing I did was cash the check and send every last dime of it to my son. I have no idea how I’m going to get by until the next check and that makes me happy. I find myself hoping that I starve. I can’t get over how good it feels to hurt myself. I want it. It feels… right.”

An uncomfortable silence built and lingered. Tommy, the group leader made a point of looking at the clock. Slapping his knees, he stood and said, “Well gentlemen, that's our time for today. Good meeting. Daven, thank you for sharing and being so open and honest.”

The rest of the group echoed, “Thanks Daven.”

People began filing out. A few helped gather up the chairs. A couple of members came over to give Daven a hug and some words of encouragement. Daven began gathering his things and started to leave when Tommy said, “Hey Daven, stay for a minute, please. I want to talk to you.” Daven shrugged and went to go refill his coffee cup.

After everyone had left it was just Tommy and Daven left in the room. Tommy said, “So, Daven, can I be completely honest with you?”

“I thought that was the whole point of these meetings,” Daven replied.

“Good. Okay then.” Tommy let out a sigh and looked right at him. “You’re being a selfish little bitch.”

This understandably shocked Daven. Anger, surprise, outrage — all of these emotions vied for attention. “What do you mean?” He managed.

“Listen. I’ve been leading these groups for over ten years now. I’ve heard some truly horrific stories. And yes, you have done some bad things, but not nearly the worst. If you think punishing yourself is doing anything to right your wrongs, you’re dead wrong. Tell me, how is sleeping in your truck, living on the threshold of homelessness helping your relationship with your son?”

“I don’t guess it is. But I still feel like I deserve it. I feel like I don’t deserve forgiveness.”

“There you go again, ‘I, I, I, me, me, me.’ Listen to yourself. You are concerned only with how you feel, with what you deserve, with what you did. What does your son deserve? What about all the other people you’ve let down, what do they deserve? I’m telling you this, Daven, as your friend. You are going to be stuck, wallowing in this pit of self-loathing and self-flagellation forever if you don’t change your focus. If you really what to restore balance to the universe then stop thinking about yourself. Think only of others, what they need, what they want. Next time you feel like hurting yourself, go out and do something for someone else. Help someone else. You don’t matter anymore, only the people you care about matter. The whole time you were drinking it was about how it made you feel. You didn’t care how others felt. Hell, I doubt you even considered it, Right?”

Daven nodded. “Yeah, I was being selfish.”

“Exactly! And now, you are being just as selfish. Years of drinking has conditioned you into only considering how you feel. You used alcohol to feel something, and now you’re using self-loathing to feel something. Either way you look at it, you’re still primarily concerned about how you feel. I’m worried you see this desire to punish yourself as somehow noble, as justice being done when in truth, it’s you still concerned with yourself. The only difference is alcohol isn’t in the picture.”

Tommy put a hand on Daven’s shoulder. There was no hostility in his eyes, only a warm compassion. “I’m sorry if this is coming off as mean. That’s not my intention. I can just see that your stuck. You’re stuck on a road that has no end. And the only way off this road is by putting all of your focus outside of yourself.”

Daven considered all of this and as much as he hated to admit it, Tommy was right. This self-loathing and self-hatred was narcissism disguised as justice. Maybe the path to forgiveness was in forgetting — forgetting the self. Can I do this, Daven wondered. Can I put all my focus and all my energy toward the people I love and ignore the accusing voices in my head? “I think I understand,” Daven said. “And your right, I have been selfish… And there I go feeling guilt for that too now. I’m beginning to see the cycle now.”

“Insidious, isn’t it?” Tommy said.