Alcoholics Anonymous on the Westside

Walking through the Westside, you might run into Melvin and never know he’s been “living a long, hard ride back up from the bottom.”

“By the grace of God, I haven’t had a drink since June of 2005,” he says, “but I have been a member of Alcoholics Anonymous for a lot more time than that.”

According to the official website, “Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership; we are self-supporting through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution; does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.”

There are dozens of meetings in West Los Angeles for AA, in rented rooms, schools and churches. Melvin found AA through a long battle with mental challenges that brought him to the Edmund Edelman Mental Health Center on Wilshire on the Westside. “I don’t have problems, I have challenges. You don’t have to stop and sit there when something comes up n make it an issue and get on with it.”

He wouldn’t say that was something he learned in AA, but it sure sounds like the things people who are involved in 12 Step programs spout. You’ll hear similar truisms at any of the AA meetings on the Westside.

By the way, there is a central office for Alcoholics Anonymous on the Westside. The Westwood Central Office of AA is on Westwood Blvd. Harvey is the guy who deals with the news media there, and he has a lot to say about AA on the Westside.

“We cover an area from Santa Barbara to Tijuana, and we have more recovering alcoholics here than in any place in the world. The biggest meeting, maybe the biggest in the country, is right here in Brentwood, the Pacific Group at the University Synagogue. Between 750-800 people show up there every Wednesday at 8 o’clock.”

If crowds intimidate you, you can rest assured that most meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous deal with between about 10 to 50 people, according to Harvey. Nobody in Alcoholics gives a full name. The idea is that the fellowship is anonymous. Doctors, physicists, grocers, Catholics, Muslims and Buddhists meet in West Los Angeles for meetings on various days and times. There’s no distinction, though you can find meetings specifically for people who speak nothing but Spanish by going online.

A pretty, young alcoholic named Emily was walking through Twelve n’ Twelve recently looking for One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps, by Kevin Griffin. They didn’t have it. It’s odd how alcoholics, in general, are wide open about talking about their affliction, even if they don’t know you.

“My doctor told me I was an alcoholic, and prescribed AA meetings for me,” she says. “That was about three-and-a-half years ago.”

“He asked me if any of my friends had asked me about my drinking and if I thought it was too frequent and too much, and I said yeah. Now, here I am.”

Emily was at Twelve n’ Twelve on Santa Monica Blvd. at Bundy Dr., a unique specialty hole-in-the-wall store with a light purple facade. It sells all manner of books and paraphernalia for anyone recovering from anything through a 12 Step program, though most of it deals with battles with drugs and alcohol.

Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia says that “The original 12 Step Program is Alcoholics Anonymous -- which deals with what they call the `powerlessness’ to stop drinking alcohol. The 12 Steps have been adopted by other groups including Narcotics Anonymous, Al-Anon, and Nar-Anon for people impacted by having or having had alcoholics or addicts in their life. Although Alcoholics Anonymous and the 12 Steps were initially offered for use by alcoholics, application of the 12 Steps to non-alcoholics is described and specifically invited in the book Alcoholics Anonymous …”

It’s called Alcoholics Anonymous. The Story of How Many Thousands of Men and Women Have Recovered from Alcoholism, published by Alcoholics Anonymous. It’s commonly known as the Big Book by people who are familiar with it, and you can buy it at Twelve n’ Twelve, along with bumper stickers, cards for people recovering from addictions and bookmarks.

Dave is behind the counter. “I’m a little different than most people you meet around here,” he says. “I’m a normie. I can take a drink if I want,” he says.

So, how did Dave wind up working behind the desk of the largest dealer in 12 Step gifts in the country? “My aunt owns the place,” he says. But he also spoke with deep respect for Alcoholics Anonymous, the largest and best-known 12 Step program in the world. “I went to my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting when I was 12, not because I needed it, but because someone else did.”

Harvey, the guy at the Westwood office of Alcoholics, makes it clear that his program deals only with people who can’t control their desire to drink alcohol. Other 12 Step programs deal with other problems, and sometimes, it’s not a friendly mix.

“I’ve run into people in AA who tell me not to take my meds,” says Todd, who suffers from schizoaffective disease. “They don’t understand. They think that quitting the bottle means quitting everything that alters your mood, but I can’t live that way.”

It all depends on your sponsor. And you can ditch your sponsor.

When you join Alcoholics Anonymous, you get an opportunity to team up with someone else, generally of the same gender, who will help guide you through your journey into sobriety. That person is your sponsor. If you have major disagreements with your sponsor over, say, the propriety of dating another recovering alcoholic, you can ask him or her to step back and let another sponsor step in.

Melvin, who lives in public housing and is in the process of trying to find a new place to hang his few clothes, says it’s most important to not worry about things like sponsor conflicts until, and if, they come up. “Remember life is a process, not a destination. Step one is always to recognize just one thing n as an alcoholic, you’re powerless over your addiction.”

These are the Twelve Steps as defined by Alcoholics Anonymous:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol -- that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. We're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Westside Today