How to Feel Visible

"I felt like I was muting a part of myself, censoring my identity and erasing key parts without even realizing it."

One of the most uncomfortable moments in early recovery is walking into a room full of strangers, searching for a connection, hoping that someone will see you in the way you want to be seen and, mercifully, help you find your way. But some rooms are more difficult to navigate than others, and it's even more challenging when the people you are seeking out the most in the room are absent.

Jenna (J) Wortham is a staff writer for the New York Times Magazine. They have written an essay for us about their experiences of finding serenity in 12 Steps, but they want to expand their community:

"I've been sober now for nearly three years—both emotionally and from substances, though I do have to start over almost every single day. But I wouldn't have any of it if I hadn't heard people speaking on the lens of being raised by Black parents who drank to deal with racism and closeted queer people who used to dampen the feeling of otherness. And I suppose that's what I hope to see more of here."

Read the full essay below.

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HOW TO FEEL VISIBLE

By Jenna “J” Wortham

One night roughly ten years ago, a massive snowstorm was scheduled to hit New York. The city was whipped up into a frenzy about it and a friend of a friend decided to throw an equally massive party during the middle of it. I got there early to stake out a space. I’d decided to offer free tarot readings (I’ve always liked having a task during social events to settle my nerves). I’d also brought two bottles of wine: One for me and one for everyone else.

There’s a photo of me from the night — in a black velvet dress, hair swept up into an impressive bun, white eyeliner and oversized earrings. I look poised, present, even a bit coy. Unfortunately, it’s the memory I have of the night - I woke up fully dressed in my bed later in the evening, unsure of what had happened and how I’d gotten home. I opened Snapchat and saw videos of myself swanning about the party, looking like I was having the time of my life. The videos unsettled something deep inside. I prided myself on not being a drinker who blacks out — at the time, the fear of what others thought always kept me from getting that intoxicated in the presence of other people.

A few nights later, still drowning in shame, I saw an acquaintance post about their sobriety on social media. I immediately DM’d them and asked if they’d take me to a meeting. They agreed, and a few days later, maybe even the next day, we went. 

The meeting was lovely. Everyone was warm and welcoming and extremely patient and kind. I got called on to share, and cried all the way through it. Lots of sweet humans got my phone numbers and checked on me often and supported me as I stayed sober from alcohol and went to meetings for a solid and unbroken thirty days. 

Still, it would take me 4 or 5 more years until I found a room I could belong in. That meetings, like all of the in-person ones I’ve attended since then, are largely, if not entirely, white. I kept cycling in and out of drinking and other process addictions I didn’t know I had yet (workaholism, overspending, food, people). I hit a bottom, then I started over again. I convinced myself it wasn’t “that bad.” 

Then, for me, like so many others, the onset of the pandemic ran a black light over my life and revealed what I could no longer ignore: Drinking wasn’t ever fun anymore. 

I always ended up crying in the tub or in a text fight with my mom or my then girlfriend. I was barely functional. I had the gift of desperation, as we say.

But throughout all those slips and relapses, I’d never stopped thinking about program. The questions of “What if I am?” and “Do I need help?” never stopped reverberating in my head. 

Sobriety itself took a while.  It didn’t help that many of the pop culture narratives about addiction feature wealthy white protagonists or problematic, oversimplified racialized tropes. It felt luxurious to spend this time on my healing. It was easier to reshare memes about self-love than actually do it. I did a little research and started attending some of the “only” meetings — women-only, non-binary-only, and LGBTQAI+-only. It was easier to attend meetings when I was grounded in one place and unable to bury myself and my anxieties with my schedule and other distractions. In the fall of 2021, I landed in a meeting for Adult Children of Alcoholics that was entirely for people of the African diaspora. 

The first time I went to that meeting, I finally fully understood what people were talking about when they talked about The Miracle. I was consumed by it, that feeling of belonging. The transmutation that happens when someone says aloud the words you’ve only ever thought in your head. When the person speaking tells your own story and then says, “It got better.” The feeling of possibility. The possibility of a solution. I heard the stories and felt the spirit of my dead alcoholic father present and my living para alcoholic mother in those rooms. I felt like I’d found the key to a door I knew I needed to open. Here were people, many of them AA old-timers, talking about how much these specific rooms had changed them, too. It was the opposite of being gaslit. I was learning and unlearning in the same breath. I felt relaxed in a way that I hadn’t in the other meetings I’d attended. 

Hearing people connect their experiences of addiction to their experiences as BIPOC and people of the global majority (yes, these are clunky terms, but people wiser than me use them, and so will I) and how living in a culture that equates human and normal to white, male and cisgender contributed to the conditions of inadequacies that made some of us desperate enough to escape the body and mind and rely on addictive substances to forget and numb and ignore. Hearing those connections made me feel like I belonged — like I could keep coming back. I’m also a Black biracial person, so it’s not like I couldn’t relate to other meetings. But I felt like I was muting a part of myself, censoring my identity and erasing key parts of myself without even realizing it — the same way I did in the outside world, which resulted in a feeling that my raw, entire self needed to be altered to be accepted. I wasn’t really being vulnerable or fully shedding my armor to let others and their wisdom in. I also wasn’t letting any of mine get out. It was reassuring to talk about race and gender as instigators of our addictions and support systems for our recovery. How learning to love the self meant learning to love your gender expression and your complexion and all the other elements of selfhood. 

It wasn’t as simple or as pat as finding “people who looked like me.” I flinched a bit each time I heard someone recite Tradition 10 (expressing no views on “outside issues”). I understood the code of leaving topics of religion, alcohol reform, and general politics at the door in order to focus on a spiritual base. But my body, my person, my spirituality was political, for reasons beyond my control. My humanness was politicized by the broader construct of America. And part of the reason I needed recovery. My past was my greatest asset, and not just the messy parts. Consciousness about my racial, gender and sexuality identity informed my feelings of uselessness and self-pity and they were crucial to understanding my fears and dismantling them. 

One meeting I attended early on took ten minutes at the end for racial sobriety practices that included kind self-affirmations and pledges to connect with our ancestry. It also acknowledged the links between oppression and white supremacy and targeted campaigns to push addictive substances on our communities.  The AA Big Book is not neutral (take the excellent but outdated chapter on “For the Wives,” for example), nor should it be. It’s a product of its time, which doesn’t make it less valuable. One of the groups I’m in has gently amended the 12-step workbook that we use to be more inclusive and it actually feels amazing to see this evolution of Bill’s vision and clarity. 

I feel a freedom in those rooms that I cherish and work hard to protect by doing service. I’ve made friends, many of whom I am still in touch with today and talk to regularly. I’ve met up with a handful: We seek each other out when we’re in each other's cities. 

I’ve been sober now for nearly three years, both emotionally and from substances, though I do have to start over almost every single day. But I wouldn’t have any of it if I hadn’t heard people speaking on the lens of being raised by Black parents who drank to deal with racism and closeted queer people who used to dampen the feeling of otherness. And I suppose that's what I'm hoping to see more of here.

I’ve been a devoted reader of TSB and finally a paid subscriber after getting out of vagueness about my media habits thanks to DA accountability! 

But I’d love to hear more from TSB readers about their experiences navigating BIPOC and queer recovery. Triumphs, setbacks, what you’re learning and unlearning in the recovery process. All are welcome.

Send yours to editors@thesmallbow.com SUBJECT: THIS IS ME

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Jenna (J) Wortham is a staff writer for the New York Times Magazine, host of the podcast “Still Processing” as well as the co-editor of the anthology Black Futures. They are currently working on a book about dissociation called Work of Body for Penguin Press. They can be found on Substack here.

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If you don't feel comfortable calling yourself an "alcoholic," that's fine. If you have issues with sex, food, drugs, DEBT, codependency, love, loneliness, depression, come on in. Newcomers are especially welcome.

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A POEM ON THE WAY OUT:

How Are You?

by Denise Duhamel

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When I visited her I’d ask how she was

and at first she’d try to be cheerful—

A little better, or Not so bad.

But soon she started answering

Lousy, or How do you think?

It was then the hospice nurse

told me this question

was not recommended—

too much stress for my mother

to answer in a jovial way.

I have always hated this question

myself, the reflex, the expectation

the one being asked will say, Great!

At the wake, I forgave every person

who asked how I was doing.

How could they have known?

The hospice nurse said it’s best just to listen.

Or bring news of the outside world.

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ALL ILLUSTRATIONS BY EDITH ZIMMERMAN