But You Are Not an Addict

The first person I told that I go to an abstinence club was my mother.

Her reaction caught me off guard. An abstinence club? But you are not an addict.

It was not an objection and it was not disbelief. She genuinely did not know. At that time nobody knew about my addictions.

I am writing this because most people get their idea of abstinence clubs from films, and that idea puts off exactly the people a club would help the most.

Is it like in the American films?

Yes and no.

We sit at a table and we talk. That is the part the films get right. Nobody stands up, nothing is recited, and nobody is going to want anything from you.

The first visit

When you come for the first time, you sit down at the table with the others and you listen.

You do not have to say a single word. You can leave at any moment.

All the members tell their addiction story in turn, one after another. Every one of those stories is completely different, and they have one common denominator. Alcohol. Slot machines. Gambling. Pills. Pornography. And other diagnoses.

A new person listens to it and can take a pinch from every story. Even taking one single thing from one single story is a success.

At the end we ask whether they want to say anything.

Some say only their name and that they have a problem with alcohol. Some say more. If they say more, we try to advise them how to start abstaining. But nobody has to say anything, and nobody will push them into it.

The second visit and every one after that

That round is not repeated. We deal with whatever we have in our lives right now.

One of us was wound up by his boss. Another is not enjoying anything at the moment and does not know how to get off the spot. The next says he went running again in the morning and how running is changing his life.

I usually boast. I say what I went through that week and that I was a little happier again than the week before.

It is not therapy. It is two hours during which you sit among people who know what you are talking about, and you do not have to explain it to them.

What it looks like in there

A room with three tables pushed together into a square and chairs around them.

Our chairman is the kind of man who makes everyone a tea or a coffee as they arrive, offers mineral water and lays some treats out on the table. It is not a formal meeting. It is a table with coffee.

People of all ages go there, though mostly the older ones, thirty and up. Professions completely various.

What it gives me

A reminder.

Every time I sit there and somebody new comes, we do that round and I listen to those stories again. And again and again I remind myself of one thing.

Between me and ending up in that derelict house in Bratislava, on an old mouldy mattress with a needle in my hand, there is one drinking binge and one line.

Nothing more. Years of abstinence change nothing about that. That is exactly why I still go there today, when I have not had an acute problem for a long time — because the feeling that I do not have one is precisely what tends to be the beginning of the end.

If you were thinking about it

There is nothing you need to be afraid of.

Nobody will find out you were there. We have strict rules that nothing ever leaves the club. That is not a polite phrase, that is the condition the whole thing stands on.

And if you are afraid somebody will find out that you are an addict, I will tell you what I learned on myself: usually everyone around an addict knows it long before the addict does.

Clubs are fairly widespread in Slovakia. Every larger town has one, and in Orava even smaller villages do. Around here they are in Námestovo and Trstená, and my home club is in Tvrdošín.

You will find a list and more information at askas.sk.

You can come without announcing yourself. Sitting down and saying nothing is allowed too.