Men Talk Articles - October/November 2009

A Man's Way through the Twelve Steps

– © 2009 by Dan Griffin

One night I was sitting with a young man who was sober for just over one year. He was struggling with a new relationship, fearing for his sobriety, trying to figure out if he wanted a relationship or just sex, and if he could do the latter and feel fulfilled. This young man had the ideas of what he was supposed to do, what he wanted to do, and what was most in alignment with his values and the struggle he was having was clearly intertwined with the conscious and unconscious script of masculinity that he was following.

Another time I was talking to a friend who has eighteen years of sobriety and was on his third marriage. His fundamentalist "preacher" father physically abused him when he was a child. He is a very successful and well-respected CEO. He was also on his third marriage and was ready to call it quits because of his struggles to connect in an authentic way with his wife and separate the pain from the unhealed wounds of his past from the inevitable hurt involved in an intimate relationship. At eighteen years of sobriety he began to look at how past trauma had impacted him and to apply the Twelve Steps to his life in a whole new way.

One critical fact about the two previously mentioned conversations is that men are not supposed to have them. Yet, these kinds of conversations happen on a daily basis all around the country, and even the world. I have sat with men while they cried over the pain of the abuse they have experienced. Sat with men who cried over the abuse they have perpetrated. Sat with men as they expressed their fears - fears that men are simply not supposed to have - about intimacy, of not being liked, of being frauds in their jobs, in being too sensitive, in not deserving love, and in being fated to suffer through life because of the wreckage they have caused in the past. I have watched men create loving, honest, and open relationships with their partners. I have watched men create loving and intimate (non-sexual) relationships with other men that defy the greatest taboos of male-to-male interaction. Yet, there are very few books written to men that speak specifically to men's experiences in recovery.

When I was working on my Master's research, looking at the social construction of masculinity in Alcoholics Anonymous, a friend gave me an advertisement for this certain liquor. It showed a very masculine arm with its hand outstretched to the reader saying, "Get in touch with your masculine side." There is power in that symbolism not only with what is explicitly stated: "If you want to be a man drink this liquor." But what can be inferred: "You are not a 'real' man if you do not drink."

The truth is that men are dying every day from addictions -- every day -- and they are destroying the lives of those around them along the way. I want men to feel utter permission to be themselves regardless of what other people think or what they think other people will think about them. When men realize that they really can define who they want to be in this world, the "rules" about being a man that they follow become less important -- or at least less obligatory.

A Man's Way through the Twelve Steps asks men to look deeper at their beliefs about masculinity and take an even harder look at some of the barriers that operate in their lives preventing them from experiencing the fullness that recovery through the Twelve Steps has to offer them. You can't see what you are not looking at, so I attempt to create an unflinching and brutally honest mirror for men, never losing compassion for the pain at the heart of it all.

I got sober just before my twenty-second birthday and I did not have a clue about how to be in recovery or how to be a man. The men of the Twelve Step community taught me how to be a man - they gave me guidance and continue to show me the way. I wanted to share what I have learned and tell this amazing story about men in the Twelve Step culture. I have sat in rooms all around the country and listened to men of all ages and from all walks of life share openly and vulnerably about who they are. And, who those men are and how they share themselves and live their lives as men in recovery is so different from how most of our society thinks about men. That is a story that needs to be told and I am privileged enough to be one of the men to help tell it.

Dan Griffin has worked in the mental health and addictions field for more than a decade. His graduate work was centered on the social construction of masculinity in the culture of Alcoholics Anonymous. Griffin lives in Minnesota with his partner and their daughter and has been in long-term recovery from alcohol and other drugs for fifteen years. To learn more or purchase a copy of the book you can visit Dan's website: www.dangriffin.com and become Fans of the book on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TwelveStepsForMen