“Now I have myself”

How the Alcoholics Anonymous community helps Belgorod residents return to normal life. Material Fonar.tv

The first mutual aid group appeared in Belgorod five years ago on the personal initiative of one person. Now there are already three groups in different areas of the city, each of them has from five to 15 regular participants. At daily meetings, they share their stories and slowly return to normal life. A Lantern journalist attended one such meeting to see how people with addictions learn to overcome them.

The text is published in partnership with the Belgorod publication FONAR.TV .

On Mondays, meetings are open to everyone, you can even come out of curiosity. Alcoholics Anonymous meets twice a month at a drug rehab center. Despite the fact that the society and the center have common tasks, these are different organizations, they have different formats of assistance, and, one might say, these are different stages of recovery from addiction.

"Hi everyone, I'm an alcoholic"

The Archangel Gabriel Rehabilitation Center is located in a two-story mansion on Kharkov Mountain. The doors and gates are locked, voluntary self-isolation is necessary so that rehabilitators are not tempted to obtain alcohol and drugs.

Now there are 13 men and women with different difficulties: alcoholism, drug addiction, gambling addiction. They spend one month or more in the center. During this time, psychologists try to “adjust the settings” so that people can see interest in a healthy, sober life. Overcoming everything is very difficult: it is long, expensive, and, despite the fact that everyone has a chance, the result is not guaranteed to anyone.

The center exists with money from a charitable foundation in the name of Archangel Gabriel . The stay costs from 40 thousand rubles per month, which is paid either by the family of the rehabilitator or by the foundation itself.

It is generally accepted that alcoholics and drug addicts are degenerate, dirty homeless people, or, conversely, representatives of bohemians and the upper strata of society, fed up with life. Both are true and deeply misleading at the same time. For alcoholism and drug addiction, as for any other addiction, there is no social status, no age, no gender. A deep alcoholic could be your intelligent neighbor who works as a doctor, a respectable official, a businessman with an expensive car, a 16-year-old teenage girl and a pensioner over 70. People usually end up in a rehabilitation center under the pressure of relatives and friends.

***

In the spacious assembly hall, men and women of different ages sat on chairs in a circle. Today we are scheduled to meet with those who were able to pull themselves out of the hopeless alcohol and drug dope and return them to normal life.

“Hello everyone, I... am an alcoholic,” a middle-aged man introduces himself.

The most difficult thing in any addiction is to admit your powerlessness, which is why every speech begins with this seemingly cinematic phrase.

I burned the wick and opened the window.

Its history began with youth parties, friendly drinking sessions, and barbecue trips. Family, children, business - everything is like everyone else, and a glass of vodka for bedtime, it seemed, did not yet make him an alcoholic. And at some point he wanted to continue, and he tried drugs.

- I didn’t seem to like it. Then a second time. It twisted, broke, and away we go. I drank a glass of vodka and mixed drugs. And this went on for five years. My loved ones turned away from me, my wife left, I lost my business. I was a millionaire, but I became a beggar: “give me a ruble, give me two.” Everything I had, I lost.

I tried to stop, went to rehabilitation for four months and after that I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. A year and a half passed, and I thought I was cured, but one day I accidentally met my drunks. “Would you like to have a glass?” Yes, not weakly... I drank - it’s normal, two or three days pass - it’s normal. And then, whoosh!.. I call it “burnt the wick” or opened the window. I went to rehab again.

As I understand now, the first year of sobriety for me is a year of unfreezing my brains, because until my brains were unfrozen, I did not understand that I was a human being and could live simply as a human being.

I’ve been sober for more than four years, and everything is great. He opened his own cafe, bought a car, got married. We [my wife and I] have traveled to so many cities! I entrusted everything to God, but lying on the sofa, God will not give you anything. “The actions are mine, and the results are God’s,” he concludes his story and passes the floor to the woman sitting next to him—his wife. They met at the police department, where he once again ended up in an inadequate state, and she pumped him out. She's a doctor.

“I started writing a book about how to drink without consequences”

“Hello everyone, I’m... not only an alcoholic, I’m the daughter of alcoholics and the wife of alcoholics, I’ve been sober for six years,” she begins a story that is impossible to believe. From such a pleasant, neat, smiling woman, you expect to hear about the joys of a large family or a new recipe for apple charlotte, but not about the fact that she drank 25 of her 45 years.

— I lived in a socialized family of alcoholics. I remember that at the entrance, my drunken aunt Lenka was being pulled by some guys - they were alcoholics. And my dad is an anesthesiologist at a regional hospital, my mom worked at the military registration and enlistment office, what kind of alcoholics are they? In fact, they were deep alcoholics, and neither mom nor dad are alive anymore...

I remember my first drink very well. The girls and I took the bottle, they felt bad, they vomited, but for me the world immediately became bright and colorful. When I drank, it was as if I exhaled: shame, fear, fears of not liking someone - everything disappeared.

I found myself a “medicine” that brought me to a state of absence of any anxiety or discomfort at all.

I became cheerful, moved coolly at the disco, and was the life of the party. By the end of school and at the institute, I no longer went to the disco sober. I got married, gave birth to children, graduated from medical school, worked for a professor, but I always chose those people around me with whom I would use.

At some point, my Friday binges began to lead to the fact that I started taking sick leave on Mondays to care for my child. When this became a system, the head physician clearly stated: either you are coded, or we break up. For the first time I had the feeling that alcohol was bothering me. I promised myself not to drink, and I held out for two weeks. And then some kind of madness struck, and I didn’t understand how I started drinking again.

I went to coding, they put some kind of helmet on me, they gave me an injection - go into the light of God. I came home in complete shame: the children knew, my husband knew that I was now coded and some kind of outcast. They started whispering at work. It became unbearable to live and work there,” she recalls.

During this period in 2014, the woman moved from Lugansk to Belgorod. It all started well: she got a job at a prestigious clinic, received the position of director, and was full of ideas on how to develop the clinic. And then the dry sobriety ended, and she relapsed. Then again and again.

Each breakdown was longer, deeper, more severe. She was kicked out of one job, a second, a third, she lost her documents and the opportunity to work in medicine.

She spent six times in drug treatment, and between them she worked as a cleaner, a saleswoman, a maid, and took on any hard work where there was no responsibility. While the hands worked, the head rested. This provided an opportunity, as she says, to “accumulate sobriety.”

— With my medical education, I always treated not the cause, but the effect: I bought sorbents, treated the liver, and drugs that improve blood circulation. She even started writing a book, “How to Drink Without Consequences,” and tried butter, activated charcoal, etc.,” she continues.

Those present at the meeting smile - apparently, they also took similar “tests” and failed them. The woman says that she dreamed of drinking like other people, not realizing that she was fundamentally different from them in that she simply could not leave a bottle unfinished.

— It was some kind of alcoholic madness. And then I really accepted the powerlessness and mourned it. I had a whole day where I lay and cried over my simple and easy remedy for all my problems. This is the simplest way: go to the store around the corner, have a drink and forget about all your problems, and you don’t need to do anything.

When I cried, I realized that my problem was not that I was using, but that I suck at sobriety. Everything became unbearable for me, and I retreated into this simple remedy,” she continues.

Having learned about Alcoholics Anonymous, the woman went there and realized that she had a lot of fellow travelers. Only with their help was she able to stop. After a year and a half, I managed to restore my documents, including my medical diploma, receive the highest category and get a job in my profession.

“I wouldn’t exchange a single worst day that I have in my sober life today for the best colorful and bright day of that life in use.”

My life is not filled only with lollipops - anything can happen, but thanks to the program’s tools, I can perceive everything with warmth and love. I have peace in my soul, I am very harmonious with myself: I appeared at home, and now I am at home. This makes me very happy and inspired.

I want to develop in my profession, I want to develop as a wife and mother, play sports and travel. And when I was using, I didn’t see all this, I wasn’t interested in anything,” the Belgorod woman concludes her story.

“The doctors above me said: we are losing him!”

“Hello, I..., and I’m an addict and an alcoholic,” a youthful, smiling man with an athletic build takes the word.

These are usually depicted in advertisements for fitness clubs as an illustration of a healthy and happy life. He has 20 years of drugs and alcohol in his baggage.

— Since 2000, I have been heavily addicted to alcohol and synthetic drugs. I tried to do something about it many times, I was on Novaya four times, I went to monasteries and worked as a laborer.

I understood that everything was very sad: my nerves flew away, my teeth and insides were destroyed, and the worst thing was that I destroyed everything around me. My mother told me: “You are dead to me,” but neither she nor my relatives could reason with me. There was a case when they pumped me out in intensive care in the narcology department. I heard the doctors above me say: “We are losing him, we are losing him!” I had already begun to leave for another world, but even after they pumped me out, I went out and used again. At some point, I realized that I had hit the worst rock bottom and I just couldn’t do this anymore.

At home, in a terrible retreat, I knelt down and said: “Lord, either let me die, or help me.” And it seems to me that this was the turning point: the Lord saw my attempts to cope, saw that I was trying myself. He healed me and sent me a friend, from whom I learned about Alcoholics Anonymous.

It happened like this: I came to him in the evening to borrow money and use it again. He said that he wouldn’t let me today, but he offered to stay with him and recover a little. I had no choice: they didn’t give me any money, I had nowhere to go, nowhere to sleep, no phone—I had nothing at all. And in my head there were thoughts that the whole world was against me: my mother wanted to poison me, my friends were persecuting me... I thought that my friend lived in a house behind a big fence, no one knew this place. If I stay here, I'll be safe. And I stayed.

It was Easter on May 2, 2021, when I went to the group meeting with him for the first time. From that day on, by some miracle, after everything that happened to me, I did not drink or use, and even quit smoking, but later. Do you know how? The engine started knocking very loudly, and I thought: the Lord helped me, healed me in one day, and I’m smoking. Bad. I threw away the pack of cigarettes and haven't smoked since.

At the very beginning, you always have to be patient - without this, nothing will work out, you just need to be patient for a while, and then it will be easier. I always lacked patience in my attempts.

I remember there was a moment at his house. I called, they brought me [alcohol], and hid it under the house. I thought: now I’ll tell him everything honestly, and for my honesty he’ll allow me a little. So I did. I say: “there you go out and in front of such and such a brick [a bottle is hidden].” He went, took it out and threw everything into the river nearby,” he says with a laugh.

The hall comes alive with laughter. You can feel how his actions resonate with the audience, how they are familiar not even with the situation, but with the train of thought itself. A pretty girl hides her smile behind long bangs.

The current speaker and a friend attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings every day for two years. They supported each other.

“I probably felt the most humane attitude towards myself, and I did not suspect my comrade that he wanted to harm me. I knew everyone around me, and in my head it was that they all wanted to harm me, but I trusted him. Two years later, I came to church, began to confess, take communion, and now I periodically go to services. I realized that it is important to try to do something ourselves. Then, perhaps, five or ten years will pass, but only by seeing your attempts will the Lord respond and help.

The realization that something was wrong with me came to me after about a year of my sober life. This is something invisible - you know, your head “freezes” for a very long time, and you still think: how could you even do that?! - the man admits.

The audience listens to him in different ways. One man closed his eyes and dozed off, the other taps his fingertips and glances at his watch, where instead of a dial it says “Here and Now.” A very young boy with a curly head and clear blue eyes listens, looking into emptiness. Surely his stay here is his parents’ decision. How many tears, hysterics, sleepless nights, drops of Corvalol and calls to 103 are hidden behind this look into nowhere.

“I’m a real drunk, a picture-perfect one”

- Hello everyone, I'm... an alcoholic. “I’m a week more sober than him,” says that same friend.

He arrived at the meeting in a very respectable and very expensive car, but his driving experience was even greater than that of his friend. He says that he tried to quit more than once or twice. 20 years ago I paid a million rubles for two weeks of rehabilitation, but even after that there were constant breakdowns. And then, as he himself claims, God sent him to help another person, and through this help he also recovers, prolonging his sobriety.

— Going back to where I came from, I understand that I seem to be a smart person: three higher educations, the last one I received when I was sober. I held good positions and was not socially degraded; I communicated with fairly high ranks. When people found out about me, they were surprised: “What kind of alcoholic are you?”, and I answered them: “I’m a real drunk, you just don’t go to the places where I drink”...

I couldn’t live like normal people, and I didn’t consider myself normal, because I wasn’t interested in being with those who didn’t use. I didn’t know what a sober life was, and, in principle, it wasn’t interesting to me either.

Everyone urged me to stop drinking, and I said that they are all idiots and simply don’t know what it is, they don’t understand how cool it is! Narcologists tell children that drugs are bad, alcohol is bad. I once asked a narcologist: “Have you tried it yourself? How do you know it's bad? You try it, and you will understand that it is such a high that it is impossible to refuse, and then you will argue how bad it is.” She was shocked, and I thought: she’s treating a person [for alcohol addiction], but she herself has never used alcohol...

The trouble is that the process is very good, but the consequences of use are not such a rosy story...

I had two moments that made me think. I just realized that I was dying. I felt like my heart was stopping and my breathing was not right. They drove me home, I drank water in small sips to get there. At home I poured myself a glass of wine to restore some balance and survive. And the next day in the morning I went to a meeting with Alcoholics Anonymous and spent the whole day there... I’ve been in society for a long time. A guy came from Voronezh to support me, and once I helped him myself. That day I felt very bad, but I understood that I was with my people, in an atmosphere of safety.

And before that there was an “event”. I had an accident, was running away from traffic cops in the dark, upon landing, fell into a deep hole, knocked off my lungs and lost consciousness. In the morning I woke up and climbed out: my face was in the car windows, my ribs were broken, my lungs were knocked off. I spent a week at home in recovery. The family is gone, all the people are gone. I turned off the phone so as not to hear anyone.

I lay there, and my life was scrolling like this, and I turned to God: “Lord, why am I doing this? It seems like I didn’t do anything bad to anyone, I’m a normal person, why is my life being punished?” This is not the first time this has happened, but probably the hundredth time. I’m a complete alcoholic: I drink, and I’m driven to look for adventure. And I always found them. And then I lay alone, completely depressed, broken and killed. This is what pushed me.

I believe that alcoholism and drug addiction are not a fatal tragedy if you start doing something about it. Thank God, now it’s not like during the Soviet Union, when it was believed that alcoholism and drug addiction were a way of life or a weak character. Society has changed. There is a rehabilitation center, our society, groups in other cities. And our examples confirm that you can return to a normal life.

***

The meeting ends with a prayer. Everyone stands in the circle of hands and pronounce in chorus: “God, let me take the calmness to accept what I can’t change, give me the courage to change what I can change. And give me the mind to distinguish one from the other. May your will be fulfilled, not ours. Amen".

The inhabitants of the center diverge into their rooms. Some of them may think about changing something, and someone will roll into the abyss again. The next meeting with representatives of the Society of anonymous alcoholics on schedule in two weeks. After all, even one saved life is already a lot.

Belgorodians suffering from alcoholism can seek help by phone (+7 4722) 22-51-61. The society is completely anonymous, its meetings are held daily at 18:30 in three places in Belgorod. On Mondays, they are open.

Irina Dudka