The last week in October is Alcoholics Anonymous Public Awareness Week and this year our theme is Always Here.

Why? Because despite lockdowns and the disruption to physical A.A. meetings, our members have rallied to ensure the hand of A.A. is always there for the still suffering alcoholic through these challenging times. Here are just a few of the ways A.A. is Always Here…

• During lockdown or high alert levels, our physical meetings move to online platforms. There are currently 176 online A.A. meetings per week. This number fluctuates depending on lockdown restrictions. Most meetings are ‘open meetings’ which means anyone who wishes to know more about alcoholism and how A.A. can help is welcome to attend.
• New online meetings have been established for members who are isolated and can’t get to physical meetings. There are also new meetings for special interest groups such as the Rainbow Community.
• Our 0800 AA WORKS number is active and allows people seeking help to speak to one of our members, any time of the day or night, wherever they are in the country. We receive up to 2,000 calls per month.
• Our website www.aa.org.nz is a hub for the latest meeting details and information with traffic to the site increasing substantially each time we go into lockdown. Over the past 18-months the website has gone from a steady 500-700 visitors per day (pre-COVID) to peaks between 2,000-3,000 during lockdowns. Around 70% of visitors are accessing meeting information with approximately 6% spending time on our ‘Newcomers’ page.
• Our help@aa.org.nz email is answered by members and provides another way for the still suffering alcoholic to contact us. On average we get two new emails per day.
• As an essential service, our General Service Office in Wellington remains open and able to send out A.A. literature and handle enquiries regardless of alert levels.

An A.A. member shares her story of finding A.A. during the pandemic

On 24 April 2020, one month into New Zealand’s first Level 4 lockdown, forty-eight-year-old nurse and mum of two Mamie* gave up her battle with alcohol and turned to A.A. for help. This is her story of finding recovery in the midst of a global pandemic.

“I’d always been a heavy drinker – all my siblings are heavy drinkers or substance abusers and the illness is riddled through our family. Growing up we had to keep drinking a secret – I couldn’t have friends over because I couldn’t predict what was going to happen at home and I became quite isolated. My Dad died when I was ten and I was caretaker for my alcoholic mum for several years before she died when I was nineteen. It isn’t surprising that my self-reliance kicked in early and I drank heavily up until the age of twenty-one when I got married and had kids,” she says.

Mamie was able to put the drink down while she focussed on raising her two young daughters, but when her marriage broke up in her late twenties she again turned to the booze to cope.

“I was known as the ‘hostess with the mostess’ – I had a heap of acquaintances but I didn’t really let people in. No one saw the sad person I was on the inside – the alcohol really enabled me to hide all that,” she says.

Mamie remarried and found herself in another volatile relationship and her drinking started to become the focus of arguments and friction within her family. “There were times when I was so drunk I put both my husband and I in dangerous situations. I nearly killed us twice while travelling overseas. My drinking had got to the point where I would get so drunk I would black out and be in complete oblivion. I’d come to the next morning and my husband would have to tell me what I’d done, which was never pretty.”

In 2019 Mamie started in the neo-natal intensive care unit of a large public hospital. “I lacked self-confidence and felt like I was constantly fighting everything and everyone. The pressure was just enormous. I was struggling to cope with a highly stressful job and my drinking became so intense that my family staged an intervention. I fought them and fought them, I thought they were wrong, that they didn’t know what they talking about, they laid down a set of rules they wanted me to follow and I broke them all and did what I wanted. I was in complete denial about how bad things had got… and it just got worse,” she said.

On 24 April 2020, a month into New Zealand’s first Level 4 lockdown, and at a complete loss as to how to control her dinking and her life, Mamie contacted Alcoholics Anonymous via the help email.

“A nice lady called me back and said she would help me. So, every day I’m talking to this lady I don’t even know who lives in another part of the country. She told me to get a copy of the Big Book (A.A.’s basic text) and I started working through the Twelve Steps with her. I thought, I’ll do this for six weeks and get everyone off my back, but a switch clicked for me and I realised how miserable I’d been for a very long time,” she said.

“She encouraged me to attend my first A.A. meeting online. The first couple of meetings I didn’t take much in, I cried and I was terrified someone would ask me to speak. I had been so isolated for so long that I didn’t want people to know who I was. I was filled with shame, I was scared, but I came to realise everyone has those same feelings. I began to open up and then every time I went to a meeting it was like being greeted with a big hug. I felt safe attending meetings in my own home and I was eventually able to let my guard down. It wasn’t easy but I felt like I’d run out of options and in A.A. I heard people telling my story. I knew it was where I needed to be.”

Mamie has continued to attend A.A. meetings regularly and work through the Twelve Steps with her sponsor (the “nice lady” who first reached out to her) and today she has 18-months of continuous sobriety.

“I’ve had to let go of friends and some of my relationships have had to change. The connection with my kids has improved, I’m present and am able to have more open conversations with them. My husband has been so supportive of me on this journey and I’ve also been able to be honest with my employer and put some boundaries in at work so I’m not putting myself in situations that cause me stress.”

“I have a higher power in my life today and I notice when I do everything that’s required of me I’m in better spiritual condition and I’m a better person to others. In those early days I didn’t want to show weakness, it was a protection mechanism, it’s taking a long time to weed away but I’m getting there. I try to keep on track because I don’t want to drink again. My biggest fear is getting into the drink and never getting out of it and losing my life. I am so grateful the hand of A.A. was there for me when I needed it. I’m not sure what would of happened to me if I hadn’t found recovery.”

*not her real name.

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