  Today was Tuesday and Tuesday afternoon meant review and assessment by your peers. If you were not forthcoming in group you would be given a commitment or verbal that had to be recited at the beginning of every meeting, nearly all newcomers were given this commitment in their first group. After introducing myself as “I’m Dan and I’m an alcoholic and chemically dependent”. I would have to add the verbal “They used to call me laughing boy, but baby look at me now” this was supposed to open me up, all it did was make me feel a prize urlLink prat . I sat back down as individually and in turn each of us were pulled apart again by our peers. This particular meeting was known as urlLink “the inquisition” and people didn’t mince their words.
We were working around the group and it was slowly coming to my turn. The young junkie next to me finished telling us how her week had been for her since her last assessment. I could literally feel the girl shaking next to me and that was making me more nervous than anything else I had encountered as yet. The girl had come to the end of her statement when the group therapist suddenly said. “Crap, utter crap you are going to have to get to know yourself a little bit better than that Isobel, otherwise you are going to die”. The group went around giving their first impressions of Isobels summing up.
Some thought she had come a long way since last week, the older established members of the group, could see right through her and picked her up on most things like “being urlLink aloof ”, commitment and willingness. At the end of her assesment it came to me? What I would have done for a drink at this time was nobodies business. I was to talk solidly for the next five minutes. I started off saying that I felt I was joining in as much as I should and that everybody had been very kind. I was told to “cut the shit” and “get on with it”.
I didn’t have a clue what to say. To break the silence, I hate them, I said “I don’t know what to say its all a fucking mess”. The therapist said “That’s as good as any place to start”, “whats a fucking mess Dan”? “How did your addiction start”? “Early, late or what”? “Early I think, very young in fact, as I can remember being given small tastes of different spirits especially urlLink Advocat on special occasions”.
By the age of nine I was pilfering urlLink Advocat from the drinks cabinet, I loved the taste but I was also aware of that warm feeling spreading throughout my body, it felt good, even at that age. “Were your parents alcoholic Dan”? I replied that “my mother definitely wasn’t but my father is a different matter”. “He liked a drink but didn’t really go off the rails until my mother passed away and then pulled himself together”. “I know he still likes a drink but I don’t think he is alcoholic”. “I know his paternal father was a bit of a boozer as was his mum and his future step father”.
“Now I do know that they were both chronic alcoholics and it killed them both in time”. My other grandparents liked to drink socially but were in no way alcoholic”. I came to a halt thinking of my grandad. God playing football in the fenced in playing area on Borrodaile Road seemed another age away. I was abruptly brought to by the question “how do you feel Dan”? I remained silent “how do you feel Dan”?
I looked up to see who was asking the question. “I really don’t know ... ... ... there are a load of things hurtling around my head but as to what they are, I have no idea”. “Come on Dan how do you feel”? “Sad, happy, alone, hurt or what”? To try and worm my way out of it I said “All of those and more” I snapped back. “You sound pretty pissed off from where Im sitting Dan” said Keith with whom I shared a bedroom.
I made a mental note, bastard. “No not really Keith more sad than anything”. “So how do you think you’ve done in your first few days”? “I’m still here”. “Thank god for that” said the therapist “something positive” she carried on “Do you think you’ll be with us this time next week”, “I hope so because I really have had enough of booze and pills”. “Good” said the therapist.
I came away with the words “scared little boy” ringing in my ears as that is how most of my remaining peers saw me. I was also told to start trusting and sharing. I was to retain the verbal for another week. Thank god that was over for the week. What only took a few minutes seeemd like a bloody eternity, I just wanted to run. They moved on to the person sitting to my right.
I started to breathe again. Need Some Information? Try urlLink malesurvivor.org 
