COVID-19 throws a curveball at addicts

Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous members forced to adapt by taking their support meetings online

Social media is full of cartoons and memes lately about people driven to drink by noisy kids and too much social distancing.

It’s no joke to Alcoholics Anonymous members.

Everything COVID-19 has inflicted — isolation, school closures, job losses, stress — “certainly is” a recipe for relapse, says Gary L., a member of the answering service for the Niagara district group.

“But,” he says, “people are coping.” Normally, as many as 90 AA meetings are held every week across Niagara for nearly 2,000 members.

For people trying to stay sober, it’s a source of support and a chance to share their stories privately with other people fighting the same fight.

In mid-March, when all gatherings of more than five people were outlawed to stop the spread of COVID -19, AA’s recovering members went through “every range of emotion you could imagine,” says Gary.

“I think people thought there would be a lot of people relapsing, that there wasn’t going to be the support there.”

But, he adds, “Zoom (and other online platforms) has been a saving grace for thousands of people.”

Unable to meet in person, AA took to the internet.

Now local groups hold half as many meetings as they used to, but members can also remotely join groups around the world. Every country is going through the same thing.

“People are joining up meetings in Argentina, Europe, Japan,” says Gary. “Some of these groups have 600, 700 people in them. It’s awesome, it really is.”

He says he has about 400 members’ numbers stored in his phone, and he fields six or seven calls a day.

“The whole basis of AA is one alcoholic talking to another,” he says.

“The steps and all those conventions are important, but one alcoholic talking to another — I’ve been married 50 years, but my wife still doesn’t understand my addiction.”

One problem Alcoholics Anonymous faces now, as does Narcotics Anonymous, is trying to reach members confined to jail, or in detox or a hospital. Both groups used to go in regularly to offer help to people trying to control their addictions. Not now.

“You’d think with online meetings it would be even easier to get in there,” says Jim S., of Narcotics Anonymous. “But unfortunately, a lot of institutions are not set up for online access for their residents.”

His group adapted the same way AA did and took its meetings online.

“I’d say it’s the next best thing,” he says.

“You know, the little things like the gestures. Our greeting is a hug, and to not be able to welcome the newcomer into a meeting with that contact, it’s a big difference.”

Niagara Narcotics Anonymous groups have 100 to 200 active members. They had the same reaction AA members did when their meetings were cancelled.

“This is something that has been saving their lives for years, and this thing comes along and threatens it,” Jim says.

But they’ve faced tough times in the past. He says in the 1950s and ’60s it was illegal for addicts to congregate. And the drug use they struggle with has always been socially unacceptable.

“One of the things Narcotics Anonymous has given me is faith, faith in the process, faith that things will work out in the end,” he says.

“Even though I had a little panic at the beginning, I knew this is an international organization … it has had to face some pretty incredible obstacles in the past.”

Anyone struggling with an addiction can contact Narcotics Anonymous by phone at 1-888-811-3887 or email at pr@orscna.org. Also niagarana.com.

For Alcoholics Anonymous, phone 1-866-311-9042 or email info@aaniagara.org. Also aaniagara.org.

Information on both groups, including meeting times, is available on a Facebook page called Niagara Recovers. Gord.howard@niagaradailies.com