Alcoholics Anonymous Buoys Members, Aides
By Marcia Gelbart
(In keeping with the traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous, no real names
are used to identify AA members.)
It's a brisk November day at the Capitol, almost noon, and Congress'
marble halls echo with talk of the pending government shutdown.
But in the basement of a Senate office building, eight men and three
women sit around an oak table sharing their most private thoughts.
"I promised myself I wouldn't drink that day," Andrew says, tapping his
black wingtip shoes as he recalls how he wanted to be sober when he met
President Clinton. But at lunch, he sipped one cocktail, then three more.
When the meeting was delayed, he gulped another two.
Andrew is just one member of Capitol Hill's least talked about, but most
regularly attended, meetings: Alcoholics Anonymous. Founded on the Hill
in July 1979, AA groups today convene usually three times each weekday in
offices throughout the Capitol.
With names such as "Yeas and Nays," which is the oldest group, "Attitude
Adjusters" and "Old Fashion Beginners," AA, much like a Women's Caucus or
Republican Whip meeting, has become a fact of life on the Hill.
Although one group is restricted to only members of Congress, most
include staffers, lobbyists, custodians, reporters, police and even
members sitting side by side. "Alcoholism knows no bounds. It treats
everybody the same," says Rep. Bill Emerson (RMo.), who went public with
his alcoholism in 1988, during his fourth term in Congress.
Indeed, at the epicenter of the nation's democracy, AA functions as a
kind of ideal body politic, in which there is no partisanship or
hierarchy. There's even a consensus vote taken at meetings to decide on
policytype matters, such as smoking or opening the meeting to a visitor.
Ironically, though, the egalitarian nature of the meetings can make for
some awkward circumstances. Deirdre, a member of AA who works for a
Senate committee, recalls how a colleague she knew for many years once
plopped down beside her in the middle of a meeting. "'We hide it well,
don't we?' he said."
At another meeting, she says, a first timer walked into the room and
froze when she saw her boss--a senator. Eventually, though, "she just hid
among the others."
It took Deirdre herself several weeks before she went to her first
meeting, even though she made up her mind well beforehand. "I wouldn't
even walk up to read the posting [of times] on the door," she says. "I
was too terrified of exposure and rejection."
Doctors as well as AA members dispel any notion that alcoholism is more
rampant on the Hill than other workplaces, despite the irregular hours
and hard work. But the Washington power culture, where image is often
everything and martinis a part of negotiations, can make dealing with
alcoholism on the Hill unusually difficult.
"Politics," said Rep. Jim McDermott (DWash.), a psychiatrist, "is a
profession where appearance becomes reality."
But the strength of AA, he says, "is that people can't buffalo each
other. At that point you're not a Republican or a Democrat, you're just a
person."
McDermott, who helped found the Navy's first alcoholic rehabilitation
program nearly 30 years ago, said, "It takes real strength of character
to admit 'I've got a problem and I'm going to do something about it.' But
if you deal with it, that in my opinion is what you want in a leader:
strength."
Several lawmakers, like Emerson, confront the process. And sometimes, as
in the case of former Sen. Bob Packwood (ROre.), their dissolute behavior
becomes frontpage news.
While the drinking problems of celebrities or public figures are the most
wellknown, for many alcoholics anonymity is central to the recovery
process. For one thing, on Capitol Hill, as elsewhere, alcoholics fear
being seen as incompetent or even losing their jobs.
The Hill is "saturated with ego" says Robert, a former Hill staffer and
longtime lobbyist with a Washington trade association who's been in AA
for more than 30 years. And ego is often an obstacle to getting over
denial, the biggest challenge for recovering alcoholics.
Some say fear of exposure has been exacerbated by the Republican takeover
in the last election. With the loss of many Hill jobs due to reform
initiatives, some AA members say attendance has dropped at meetings
because some alcoholics are afraid their drinking problem might cost them
their job. "It's been a hostilelike environment," said Kevin, who no
longer works at the Capitol but still attends AA meetings there.
But whether it's Democrats or Republicans in charge, alcoholics face a
difficult time confronting their disease.
"I wasn't afraid of the stigma of alcoholism per se," but people's
responses to it," said Mark, a top committee aide who has been in AA for
18 years.
When he later told some colleagues that he joined AA, he said, "The
reaction wasn't unsympathetic, but they had a hard time believing I had a
drinking problem. I mean, I was functioning well: working and going to
school at night.
"What nobody knew was that I was dying inside," he adds.
Despite the hindrances faced by many alcoholics on the Hill, many also
view it as an oddly ideal place to recover.
"The meetings are a cocoon where you can be yourself, you can ventilate
and get the love you need," says Charles, who has been going to AA on the
Hill since meetings began.
And once alcoholics begin honestly treating their disease, their
experiences can breed wisdom and prove to be assets in their everyday
life. 'You can be a better employee than the people who are still in
denial," Charles says.
He notes also that the noon meetings help alcoholics get through a tough
day. "When you see people [from the meeting] in the hall, that helps you
too."
Mark agrees. "I regard alcoholism as a gift because it's been a source of
perspective in my life," he says. "It's very easy when we work here to
think the most important thing in the world is the continuing resolution
or tax bill or Bosnia or clean water bill. It's easy to lose sight of
other things important in our lives, like family and community."
Last month when the government shut down, dozens of furloughed Hill
employees suffered when they were deemed by their bosses "nonessential."
"I don't think someone in AA would have a real difficulty with this,"
said Sharon, who attends AA meetings four times a week, "because they
have more self worth."
SIDEBAR
Rep. Emerson's experiences inspire friends and colleagues
On March 28, 1988, Rep. Bill Emerson (RMo.) stopped by his office before
leaving Capitol Hill for the night. Unexpectedly meeting him there were
two of his House colleagues, a few personal friends, his wife and his l0
yearold daughter.
Tired of standing by silently while Emerson drank too much Scotch or
vodka or beer, they chose to confront him.
Two hours later, with a prepacked suitcase in hand, the 50 yearold
legislator was on a plane to California. "A member of Congress doesn't
just disappear for one month and not explain where he is," Emerson said
last week as he recounted the evening he says changed his life.
So on the plane, he pulled out a notepad and wrote a public statement to
say he was on his way to the Betty Ford alcoholic rehabilitation center.
"I used to kid people, if you're going to drink, drink!" Emerson said.
"That should have told me something."
It didn't.
Emerson, serving his eighth term in Congress, is a recovering alcoholic.
Since returning years ago from the 28 day treatment program, he's been a
guide and inspiration for many others on the Hill.
For weeks on end, people called his office to speak with him. "People I
knew for 20 years or more who I didn't know were alcoholics identified
themselves to me," Emerson said.
A few years later he helped create the House Employee Assistance Program,
which provides legislative and administrative support services for the
House, and helps alcoholics find treatment. A similar program exists in
the Senate.
Emerson, who first came to the Hill as a page in the 1950's, continues to
hold interventions for other alcoholics like the one that was held for
him.
"If people have a drinking problem or think they do," he said, " they
should avail themselves of the incredible network and good help readily
available.''
He added, "I haven't had a drink for eight years, and I think I've had a
healthy normal life of social intercourse that wouldn't have been added
to if I had a drink."
And he hasn't.
Source: THE HILL Vol. 2, No. 48, December 13, 1995
By James E. Royce
Can alcoholics be conditioned to drink socially? Under such titles as
"harm reduction" and "moderation management" that old question has been
resurrected. Moderate drinking is certainly a more appealing goal to many
problem drinkers than total abstinence. But medical professionals and
addictions counselors are unanimous in their opposition. Are they just
rigid prohibitionists?
As a lifetime member of the board of directors of the National Council on
Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, I must point out that the big problem is
that alcoholism is a progressive disease, often labeled as "problem
drinking" in its early stages. Monday's cold is the flu on Wednesday and
pneumonia on Friday. Most alcoholics are sure they can control their
drinking on the next occasion. The result is killing alcoholics, who can
expect a normal lifespan if they remain abstinent. For decades I have
defined an alcoholic as one who says, "I can quit anytime I want to."
Self-deception is so typical of alcoholics that the American Society of
Addiction Medicine included the term "denial" in its latest definition.
Talk of harm reduction just feeds the denial.
Most research fails to adequately separate true alcoholics from problem
drinkers, which makes reports of success misleading. We can't know how
many of the latter may progress into true alcoholism. The most thorough
research (Helzer and Associates, 1985) studied five- and seven-year
outcomes on 1,289 diagnosed and treated alcoholics, and found only 1.6
percent were successful moderate drinkers. Of that fraction most were
female and none showed clear symptoms of true alcoholism. In any case, it
would be unethical to suggest to any patient a goal with a failure rate
of 98.4 percent.
We psychologists know that conditioning is limited in its ability to
produce behavioral changes. To attempt to condition alcoholics to drink
socially is asking of behavior modification more than it can do. Some
have thought one value of controlled-drinking experiments could be that
the patient learns for himself what he has not been able to accept from
others, that he cannot drink in moderation giving all that extra
scientific help might destroy the rationalizations of the alcoholic who
still thinks he can drink socially "if I really tried." Actually, most
uses of conditioning in the field have been to create an aversion against
drinking, to condition alcoholics to live comfortably in a drinking
society and to learn how to resist pressure to drink. In that we have
been reasonably successful, since this is in accord with the physiology
and psychology of addiction.
The discussion about turning recovered alcoholics into social drinkers
started in 1962, but no scientific research had been attempted until
1970, when Mark and Linda Sobell two psychologists at Patton State
Hospital in California with no clinical experience in treating
alcoholics, attempted to modify the drinking of chronic alcoholics, not
as a treatment goal but just to see whether it could be done. The
research literature is largely a record of failure, indicating that the
only realistic goal in treatment is total abstinence.
The prestigious British alcoholism authority Griffith Edwards (1994)
concluded that research disproved rather than confirmed the Sobell
position. Drs. Ruth Fox, Harry Tiebout, Marvin Block and M.M. Glatt were
among the authorities who responded in a special reprint from the 1963
Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol to the effect that never in the
thousands of cases they had treated was there ever a clear instance of a
true alcoholic who returned to drinking in moderation. Ewing (1975) was
determined to prove it could be done by using every technique known to
behavior modification, but he also did careful and lengthy follow up -
and at the end of four years every one of Ewing's subjects had gotten
drunk and he called off the experiment Finally, Pendery and Maltzman
(AAAS Science, July 9, 1982) exposed the failure of the Sobell work,
using hospital and police records and direct contact to show that 19 of
their 20 subjects did not maintain sobriety in social drinking, and the
other probably was not a true alcoholic to begin with.
The research of Peter Nathan indicates that whereas others may be able to
use internal cues (subjective feelings of intoxication) to estimate
blood-alcohol level while drinking, alcoholics cannot; so that method of
control is not available to them. To ask a recovered addict to engage in
"responsible heroin shooting" or a compulsive gambler to play just for
small amounts is to ignore the whole psychology and physiology of
addiction. Alcoholism is not a simple learned behavior that can be
unlearned, but a habitual disposition that has profoundly modified the
whole person, mind and body. That explains the admitted failure of
psychoanalysis to achieve any notable success in treating alcoholics, and
renders vapid the notion of Claude Steiner in "Games Alcoholics Play"
that the alcoholic is a naughty child rather than a sick adult. Even the
Sobells' claimed successful cases are now reported to have given up
controlled drinking. For them abstinence is easier - for them trying to
take one drink and stop is sheer misery. The reason is that one cannot
"unlearn" the instant euphoric reinforcement that alcohol gives.
James E. Royce, S.J., Ph.D. is professor emeritus of psychology and
addiction studies at Seattle University and author of a leading textbook
on alcoholism.
Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 7/29/95
Contact:
The Legacy Group of Alcoholics Anonymous © 2005