It was a freezing winter night, and I couldn’t quite believe what I was doing. I told myself that I still had time to change my mind as I said goodbye to my boys, closed the door behind me, and pulled out of the icy driveway.

I’d been sober for six days and I was terrified. I had secretly quit drinking four times in the previous eighteen months, and each time, I’d secretly failed. The humiliation of this, and the dread that grew in my gut, along with the scope of my problem, had become unbearable.

At a stoplight, I looked at the cars on either side of me. I peered at the drivers’ silhouettes and imagined where they might be going. I didn’t know what I was looking for, only that I’d never felt more alone in my life. 

The hospital parking lot was eerily empty. My hands shook as I reached for a ticket and slid it into my bag, which I now checked and re-checked: wallet, keys, phone. What was I supposed to bring to these things, anyway? Maybe, I thought, taking hesitant steps toward the sliding doors, maybe my phone will ring, and I’ll have to leave, and I immediately banished the thought of an emergency that might ferry me away. Who does this, I thought, who wills catastrophe to slip reality?

Inside, a receptionist waved me over to a big desk. I mumbled the name of the group I’d found online earlier that day. She shook her head and my heart leapt, a new escape hatch now open. But something made me say more.

“Oh, AA?” she shouted, “You’re looking for the AA meeting?” Her voice echoed through the lobby as she gestured, “It’s just down the hall there.”

I felt dizzy and disoriented as I turned and walked in the direction she had pointed. 

“That’s it right there,” she called after me, “on your left.” 

I looked in. Three senior citizens were inside, staring back at me. 

I took a seat at a table covered in pamphlets. A man asked me my name and I nearly lied, but didn’t. He asked me if this was my first meeting.

“Yes,” I said, feeling less and less anonymous.

He nodded and told me he was glad I was there. 

I glanced at the pamphlets as my heart galloped and I reminded myself that it was only an hour. I could do anything for an hour.

I’d thought the place would be packed. I had dreamed of a full house, a big room where I could sit at the back and slip out undetected if I needed to. I wasn’t prepared for this tiny room, the fluorescent lights, the chairs all facing each other. I wasn’t prepared to be seen.

The meeting started with a prayer. A woman slid a printout across the table to me so I could follow along. The prayer looked like it had been folded a million times, and my voice was low, like a foreign thing in my own mouth.

I don’t remember all that happened. There were announcements, more praying, and then, the part I knew I couldn’t do, the stuff we see in movies. 

“You can pass if you don’t want to share today,” someone said, for my benefit, and I nodded, trying to play it cool, like okay, maybe I will and maybe I won’t. I was a teenager at the family reunion, feigning distance and boredom while longing to fit in.

A man in a giant handmade sweater began. He had three teeth. He talked about loneliness. He spoke without a trace of embarrassment, describing what he lost as sweat pooled in my own sweater. 

I listened to their stories, and I told myself I was different. And on the surface of things, maybe I was. I didn’t have a DUI. I was not there by court order, or an ultimatum from my husband. I still had my job, my home, and my family. I had all my teeth. No one even knew I had a problem. 

But underneath my judgements and mean little criticisms, I was a liar. I lied about headaches that were hangovers. I lied about lunchtime walks when I snuck off to hotel bars. I lied about how often and how much, having mastered the art of topping up my glass before it was half empty; having learned to ease a bottle out of the fridge without making a sound, as shameful heat crept into my neck and face. I played the stress card, the grief card, the sad and lonely card. I lied about weekend mornings in bed, useless, hating myself, staring out the window as I made new promises about limits I knew I would never keep. I lied to cover my tracks, to avoid judgement, to control what people thought of me. 

I didn’t know how to be in the world honestly anymore. Every day was a misery that I couldn’t handle. And somehow, I knew that if I wanted to be free, I would have to find a way to the truth, as awful and ugly as it might be.

It was my turn to share. I swallowed and tried to smile. 

“I think I’m going to pass today.” My voice was barely a whisper. No one tried to cajole me into speaking, and no one told me to leave. 

Near the end of the meeting, the man who had asked my name now asked if I had The Book. By that point, I’d consumed enough sobriety podcasts and memoirs to know which book he was talking about. I didn’t have a copy, and I wasn’t sure I wanted one. 

He placed it in my hands. It was as heavy as the brick on my chest.

“You also get a chip today,” he added, “for 24 hours of sobriety.” He placed the oversized coin in my palm. It was warm from his own hands. The others clapped as I pocketed the chip and sat back down. 

The meeting closed with a final prayer. The man with three teeth reached for my hand. It was thin and strong. A woman who had knitted through the meeting held my other hand. 

Part of me wanted to laugh out loud; part of me wanted to run. But as I stood in the circle in that small airless room, a tiny insight whispered from within. These strangers believed in me. It was the clearest, truest thought I’d had in years, a pinhole of hope, as bright as a coin in a coat pocket.