Online meetings a lifeline for recovering alcoholics Growing peril of that 1st drink
With thousands of in-person Alcoholics Anonymous meetings halted across New York due to the new coronavirus, Reagan Reed is worried.
She knows firsthand how a stressful public emergency can be a tipping point for members.
“I had seven years of sobriety, stayed sober through college, and then I relapsed during Hurricane Sandy,” she told the Daily News Thursday.
Reed, 32, was living in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, at the time. Her meetings weren’t canceled, but the “heightened anxiety” caused her to stop attending and cut contact with her sponsor.
“I felt isolated, scared, and unable to reach out for the help I needed — even though it was very readily available to me. So one day, with seven years of sobriety under my belt, I walked straight into a liquor store. It’s as easy as that,” she said.
Her relapse lasted about a year, ending after “many bottoms” including waking up from a blackout to learn she was being sexually assaulted in a taxi cab.
She’s now executive director of New York’s Inter-Group Association of AA, coordinating groups in church basements and other venues around the state.
“It’s times like this, during a crisis, when everybody is most vulnerable. Alcoholics tend to be depressive and isolating by natures, so being in a room for a meeting, having your butt in that chair, listening to others share their experiences, is really what’s so necessary,” she said.
“The worst thing for an alcoholic is isolation,” she stressed. “Right now people are relapsing and having a hard time.”
For those in need during the growing coronavirus pandemic, Reed said resources are still out there. Her group’s hotline (212-647-1680) remains staffed by volunteers from 9 a.m. to 2 a.m.
The nyintergroup.org website, meanwhile, has a list of AA conference call meetings, Zoom video groups and Google Hangouts.
She said tech-savvy millennial and younger members seem to be adapting fastest. She’s concerned about members who are 65 and older.
“They’re the most susceptible to the virus, and they tend not to have the technical skills to create or attend a meeting online,” she said.
But online groups are proving to be a lifeline for many.
Actress Ashley Tisdale took to social media last week to share her family’s gratitude for the service as social distancing was starting to take hold.
“Thank you #AlcoholicsAnonymous for having a streaming service at your meetings. My husband was able to stream his favorite meeting. Anyone else who doesn’t feel great about leaving the house check out the zoom app,” she said in a Twitter post.
Her composer husband Christopher French retweeted the post with a link to a national online meetings directory.
“Yeah, it’s kind of an amazing resource to be able to connect with 12-step recovery meetings from home,” he wrote.
One Brooklyn-based AA member who asked to be identified by his middle name, Patrick, said he and his group “moved everything” online with Zoom on March 14.
“We had people from all over joining us. A woman from Detroit, people from Washington state and Los Angeles. It was kind of incredible,” the 30-something with more than eight years of sobriety said.
“If I were to put out a concern, it’s for the people actively drinking right now who’ve maybe lost everything. If you’re drinking a liter to a handle of alcohol a day, you very well might not have a phone anymore and no tech capability,” he said.
“Before, you could stumble into a meeting all over New York City. And maybe if you stumbled into a good one, you’d find people who could get you hooked up a little bit. I worry about that margin of society on the fringes,” he said.
Some recovering addicts and alcoholics say they simply can’t forgo all in-person support.
Queens resident Ryan S. told The News he regularly attended Narcotics Anonymous and AA meetings in Manhattan before the pandemic. On Tuesday, he traveled to Chelsea to meet directly with his 70-year-old sponsor.
They sat more than six feet apart in an open-air courtyard, not even facing each other, and talked.
“I’ve never really liked online things,” Ryan said. “I knew not getting to a meeting would have its consequences for me. I can already sort of feel myself thinking, ‘You know, I’m stuck at home, maybe I can crack a bottle of wine.’ That’s a spiral.”
His sponsor delivered the “marching orders” he needed, Ryan said, and he’ll likely go back for similar meetings “from time to time.”
“Online just isn’t the same for me,” he said. “It’s like having a long-distance spouse.” And the stakes are so high. “When someone like me slips and starts doing drugs or drinking alcohol again, their whole life tanks,” Ryan said.
“It’s either jails, an institution or death. That’s the endgame. It’s not good,” he said. “There’s a lot of people who are going to drop out over this. We’re going to lose a lot of our fellowship.”