Cliques are Curse of GA

In the spring a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of love. So wrote Alfred Tennyson.

Lately my thoughts turn to casinos. And it’s got nothing to do with spring.

It’s got to do with isolation. Amid the very people who are supporters, allegedly, in GA.

Amid my triggers, isolation’s at the top.

I will write directly. There are cliques within the GA whole. Splinter groups and splinter friendships outside the meeting rooms.

As I’m well aware and reminded often, at meetings or the fellowship (so-called) dinner that follows once a week. These cliques and relationships outside the rooms are exposed by comments of one GA member to another. Comments more intimate and personal than the norm.

They also by their intimate nature divide the whole of the group. The so-called fellowship. They make outsiders of those who are not part of the interactions, friendships and activities enjoyed by those outside GA.

I’m not part of the clique or the in-group (defined as members who have formed a core of tight relationships to the exclusion of other group members). Truthfully, I don’t care to be. I hate cliques. Had no interest in them in high school; have no interest now.

Where the pain lies is their blatancy. It is a detriment, not an asset, to the whole and to the fellowship, supposedly, of GA. In theory, GA is a fellowship of one; in practice, it is not an equal opportunity or equal treatment or equal bonding.

Many is the time I’ve been right there, listening to others talk about the phone calls they’ve made to one another, their visits, their get-togethers, their involvement in one another’s lives away from the meetings, their parties.

Not one time in a year-plus in GA have I been asked to attend (and I am not the only one). Not once has someone asked: “Would you like to join us for lunch?” Or “we’re getting together for a Fourth of July party. Would you like to come?”

How do you think it makes me — how it might make anyone else feel — to be *right there* listening to references and reminisces about parties and get-togethers,  phone calls and visits and direct support extended in personal lives … hearing about them, learning about them for the first time and knowing I’ve not been included? Or even asked.

It makes me feel isolated. That most dangerous red flag of gambling. Invisible. Left out. Unsupported. A little hurt, yes, but more angry at the blatant practice and display of exclusion and inclusion in a support group supposedly based on fellowship whose very definition is inclusion of all. Exclusion-inclusion, the stuff of cliques, n’est pas.

Some GA meetings are like that — cliquey — and some are not. I’ve moved around enough to know that. That knowledge doesn’t ease my distress, just puts things into context. Meetings do differ place to place.

Those reminders of intimacies and cliques within the GA group happen sometimes at meetings and almost invariably at the (so-called) fellowship dinners — and so consistently that I’ve quit going unless I’m up for it. The dynamic’s so predictable that it’d almost be funny were it not painful.

The same cliques circled talking about topics new or familiar, events, circumstances, developments or people they know.  I sit listening attentively, all ears, eyes and mind on the speaker and surrounding others.

Then it happens, sometimes immediately, sometimes gradually. The conversation narrows. Confines itself to its confines. As the cliques and the familiars do their thing, I get shut out. No one’s making eye contact with me — or so infrequently that it hardly matters. I’m excluded (never mind whether I was truly included at the get-go). Doesn’t matter whether I’m the most attentive listener in the group — and ready to respond if someone asks a question and takes the time to listen and perhaps ask more, if they’re really listening. The cliques are in full swing. I can’t overcome their power or the power of talkers.

More than once I’ve driven home from those dinners feeling truly isolated, invisible and excluded from my gambling fellows. I might as well have not been there. My thoughts turn to the casino. Gets no weirder — or ironic — wanting to gamble after being in a recovery group for gamblers! “It’d make me feel better.” Isolation’s always been a giant trigger. Then I recall the consequences and make the better choice. Which is usually allowing myself to feel really badly — and not gambling on top of it.

“Have you ever gambled to escape worry, trouble, boredom, loneliness, grief or loss?” Yes indeed to each.

It’s one thing to feel lonely or isolated in the world at large; it’s another within the group whose design is fellowship and support.

It’s true I’m struggling a lot right now. The landslide of stressors is intense, the ground wobbly and loose under my feet — dirt morphed into quicksand. It’s the stuff in GA that’s making me wanna hit the casino more than all those stressors. Ironically.

To be clear, it’s not all of GA or every member or all of the time. However, it’s a significant enough portion to cause real distress and challenge my foothold in recovery. Because I hate cliques. I hate the exclusion-inclusion thing that’s happening. I feel it’s unfair. Hurtful without intent. And not in the spirit of true fellowship.

When I was a student, I was always very sensitive to those on the sidelines and the new students in school. I’d talk to them or take extra steps to make sure they didn’t feel left out. I knew the cliques wouldn’t or couldn’t.

Recovery calls me to be with my feelings, however unpleasant and uncomfortable. Too, it calls for me not to turn to the slots for relief and sedation.

So I write — my first and best go-to when things are good or bad in life. I write to express knowing that I’ll be heard by someone who isn’t standing in front of me. I write because this crap is weighing really heavily on me — and if I don’t write it, if I keep this all inside, then the risk of walking into a casino strengthens.

Through this distress with cliques and inclusion-exclusion and isolation unduly imposed,  I tell myself that I can choose. I cannot change others’ behaviors or words but I can choose a response that’s healthy or supportive of self. I can choose which meetings to attend or when or whether to attend the dinner knowing the likely consequences.

I can choose to write — what I’m doing — rather than follow through with a growing impulse to gamble to assuage the distress.

Yes, I’ve been tempted to go to the casino for relief from that dynamic of isolation and cliques within GA.

Yes, I may gamble if the emotions become too much to bear.

Or I may not.

I may keep my wits about me through my own efforts and growth.

Or I may cast everything into the wind with a fuck it, the cliques and insensitivities and why can’t everyone treat this as a true fellowship rather than as a hallway in high school.

Learning to just be with these feelings of separateness, exclusion and unsupport from the very group designed to support is a challenge of magnitude indeed.

Lately, to help myself through, I find myself reciting that prayer. It’s a good thing:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change

The courage to change the things I can

And the wisdom to know the difference.

—

And: Don’t gamble for anything.

Not when others behaviors or words make you feel bad, sad, angry, hurt. Not even when those others are in a group that you turn to for support. Learning to deal with others’ behaviors and the emotions they elicit *without placing a bet* is a goal of recover.

Today, I chose not to place a bet to deal with troubled emotions. Good for me. Good for each of us who makes — and can make — that choice!

When GA meetings make you want to gamble …

It happens. It’s happened before. It’s happening today. And it will happen again.

It is when a GA meeting makes me want to gamble. And/or when the (so-called) fellowship dinner at the treatment house makes me want to gamble.

Today, it is both. Rather, would have been both had I gone to the dinner following the meeting.

It was not a good meeting. Not for me. It was for others. The main reason is that a good deal of the shares, input, comments were directed to one person. I am not minimizing her current trouble and story. Rather, I cringe at the enormous amount of time devoted to her. The heapings of support from her friends within the group

They consume precious time. And they remind me that I’m an outsider. Even within my family of GA.

My group is an odd mix of tight cliques and transients by virtue of the treatment house in the area. I am not a member of the cliques, neither am I a transient. I live here, work here (for what that’s worth) and am basically trying to have a life here that is better than the lives of my past.

Many is the occasion, sometimes within meetings but more often at the “fellowship” dinners that follow, where I’m the lone wolf, excluded from conversations, even though I am present and attentively listening. The women are the worst at excluding; however, some men do it too.

Either one of two scenarios occur, depending on the composition. One, I’m sitting there, very present, very attentive and very listening to the others as they talk and none includes me in the conversation. Hell, most of the time, they hardly even make eye contact, they’re so wrapped up with one another!

Again, primarily — but not exclusively — this scenario occurs with the women.

I’m invisible.

The second common scenario is when I’m lucky enough to engage one person, two at most, in a one-in-one conversation and that person talks my ear off. Yak yak yak yak yak. I’m a Giant Walking Ear. A verrry good listener. I don’t just nod and say “yes.” I listen actively. Ask questions. Show interest. Probe. I’m psychologist – therapist – writer – reporter – caring and curious human being all wrapped up in one.

Unfortunately, for me, the same interest is not returned. I can listen for an hour and when the person finishes or the conversation comes to an end for one reason or another, h/she knows little to nothing about me. It’s not a dialogue we’ve had but a monologue … with one speaker and one listener. I could set a mannequin in my seat for as much as the other party knows — or doesn’t know — about me!

I’m invisible.

Invisible and isolated.

These are huge huge huge triggers for me. They are huge huge huge reasons that I gambled and sometimes still want to gamble.

Particular social configurations are worse than others. But “when the gang’s all here” is when I am at my worst. Feeling my worst. I know no one will listen to me or show interest. They show interest only in one another. Their bonds and friendships remind me that I’m on the outside. Looking in.

I’ve never been invited to their parties, lunches, get-togethers and whatever else they do. I’ve never even been asked.

I’ve never been a “joiner.” But I am a person and as a person on the outside, it’d be nice … just to be asked. Even if I can’t attend. Just to be asked.

The stressors in my life are swallowing me up. I do not need the added stress of sitting at a dinner (or in a meeting like tonight’s) with glaring reminders that I don’t matter. That I’m invisible. That people aren’t interested in knowing me, only talking about themselves.

I don’t need the reminder that all the great stuff that I have to offer and am goes for naught. Goes undiscovered. Because no one’s taken the time to get to know me.

I barely got out of the meeting without crying. As they drove to the house for “fellowship” — put in quotes because fellowship by its meaning is inclusive and I am definitely not included, not truly — I had a very strong urge to go to the casino. Not to gamble but rather simply sit there and be entertained by the machines played by others and to drink beer.

But I feared where that might lead … not tonight, but someday. So instead, I went over to Panera for a bite and coffee and company. With my laptop.

It makes for better company than the cliques in GA.

That’s all I’ve got stomach to say tonight.