In my small rural area here is a mafia as I see it, but not the Sopranos kind (I only wish it were that interesting); rather it is a group of men – primarily boomers in their 70s – who all belong to AA. I call it the Ah Mafia, a group of like-minded peer boy-ohs who don’t drink, judge others who do (I have personally experienced the lash of their disapprobation), while somehow maintaining that smoking pot on a daily basis is not a problem with regard to their promise to sobriety.
These boomer boys are all tied to Bill W’s maxims, which I gotta admit are excellent, including as they do an acceptance of reality, as well as admitting your feelings, letting go, making amends, and more; however, imo, these old guys are a tad creepy. They are too much – in my view – up in their and other people’s business – and they spend way too much time around one another, creating a social scene that, at least to this observer is a tad incestuous; this is especially true as another AA rule they allow themselves to flout (along with smoking pot daily) is fcking where they ought not, as in directly within their recovery network, often with much younger, very vulnerable human females within the first months of their own sobriety process. Ick.
Several of these men gave up drinking in their late teens or early twenties, decades and decades ago. I said to one of them ages ago now, ‘Maybe you were just being young and dumb, and aren’t an alcoholic? But hey, whatever works, dude.’ And, I suppose I could have done the same, given up booze and joined AA, but I knew I wasn’t an alcoholic; I don’t even like the taste of most alcohol, and I really dislike beer. I was just a sad, lonely chick growing up in rural America, where getting drunk and behaving like an ass as an underage teen was a right of passage. Was? Still is, I believe. Not necessarily a good right of passage, by any means; that I survived adolescence and drunk driving is a testament to my teenaged ability to drive while drunk, a boatload of good luck, and a total lack of other drivers on country roads after dark.
I attended a dinner party with the Ah Mafia once; a neighbor – who gave up drinking at 24 – invited me. It was weird and gross. The energy in the room reminded me of a very tense, unhappy family dinner, the kind where everyone knows dad is screwing the neighbor’s wife, who is sitting across from mom, and whose husband is gay and sleeping with another man at the table. Ick. One of the Ahs spent much of the evening verbally abusing and humiliating his wife, who may or may not have also been in the Ahs, but I believe not. At one point, being who I am – I said to her, ‘Why the fuck do you stay with this asshole?’ I was not included in future gatherings, and that’s fine by me.
In general, I am tribe resistant. Groucho Marx said, ‘I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member,’ and that seems about right to me. As for the Ah Mafia? Oh brother. Recovery matters, and having a healthy social life is a marker of better health both physically and mentally. Still, the local ‘Family’ is, in my view, rather toxic. Luckily, I like a glass of wine or a margarita once in a while, ergo, I can’t join because I do drink, and when I do, I like it! Yay. I can handle one margarita. One glass of wine. Maybe two. 🙂