stayed most of the day. We would sit at the end of a row of chairs, four or five or more of us at a time. We called it the “talking and fooling around” section. Cancer areas can be very bleak.
“Who are all those guys?” asked my doctor, an oncologist for many years, during my weekly appointment. “When I met you, I said I was in AA. They are mostly from AA,” I said. “Not Anne-Margaret?” he guessed. “No, not Anne-Margaret, but most of the rest.” He said it was remarkable because often when people get cancer their friends don’t know how to behave. “These guys don’t know how to behave,” I said. He said that wasn’t what he meant, that often cancer patients’ friends just disappeared. He said that the loyalty of my friends impressed him.
This course of chemo lasted for eight weeks, and I was given three weeks off before the chemo/radiation started. I was amazed at how quickly my strength returned. This was the beginning of November.
On November 24, 2004, Anne-Margaret developed meningitis, and she died December 4. Because of a set of very strange circumstances, and the tenacity of her disease, by the time I reached her she was already in a coma. They wouldn’t allow me to hold her or kiss her good-bye. I was devastated. She had been so wonderful to me in every way. She had been calm through my tirades and patient during my tantrums. Everything seemed doable as long as I knew she was there. Now things were upside down.
My AA friends rallied again. They offered rides to the hospital in New Jersey so I could sit with her, then rides to the wake and the funeral. No one said “no” or “why,” they just did it without my asking. They helped me through a set of impossibilities that I could not have gone through alone. I did not drink and I have not died, yet.
I am about halfway through my cancer treatments and the treatment from my AA friends continues. I miss Anne-Margaret constantly. I could never replace such a unique girl and the fact that she loved me surprises me still. But, of course, none of this would have happened without AA.
Shortly after being diagnosed with cancer, I was put in touch with a guy in AA who had experienced a similar situation. I asked him now that he had recovered, if it had changed him at all. “Oh, absolutely. Physically, morally, spiritually, definitely.” “Really?” I said. “Oh yes. It took me almost six months to become the same selfish, self-centered bastard I’d always been.” I wonder if the changes that have occurred in me will stick—more patience, more trust, less animosity, less suspicion—or will they fade away like my scar, leaving just a very faint trace.
I do not believe there is a loving God working in my life. I think the job has become too much for him. But I cannot live without some kind of spiritual life, so I pray to Anne-Margaret for help, and I have an inexhaustible amount of AA power to draw from for which I will be eternally grateful.
JOHN Q.
New York, New York
Only Love Has Meaning June 1989
(Excerpt)
During my sobriety I have contracted the HIV infection (AIDS virus). The reason I am choosing to share my story is the certainty that I am not alone. With the great number of dually addicted people in AA (as well as their sexual partners), along with the long incubation period of the AIDS disease, I feel my experience might provide hope to someone out there who is hurting right now and feeling all alone.
When I had been sober for five years, my ex-boyfriend—whom I had not seen since 1983—advised me that he had tested positive for the AIDS virus. He was a recovering alcoholic and was abstinent from drugs during the two years that we were involved, though he has since gone back out there.
Imagine my consternation upon hearing this news. It took me quite a while to gather the courage and strength from my Higher Power to go for the AIDS test myself. I struggled with the insane, rampant thoughts running through my head. “I’ve been sober five years. I’m only twenty-seven. Oh my God, I’m going to die of a horrible disease. Who can I tell of this? I will be treated like a leper.”
I prayed daily and shared my turmoil and fears with my sister and my two closest friends. These three gave me the strength to take the test, if only to put my mind to rest. After all, how could I be positive? I had had very few sexual encounters in sobriety and before sobriety. I have never used IV drugs. I have been sober for five years. I had not been with my ex-boyfriend for three whole years.
In 1986, I took the test. I waited a week for the results. “Turning it over” took quite an effort, but I continued to ask my Higher Power for help. The diagnosis was “HIV positive.” I can’t describe to you the despair and hopelessness I felt at the time. I thought my Higher Power had deserted me. I felt as if I was being punished, as if my childhood God had come back to haunt me. I had fully expected the results to be negative. Instead, I discovered I have had the virus in my body for anywhere from five to seven years.
My background in AA then began to serve me well. My first thought after the shock wore off was, “I need a support group.” My Higher Power showed me then that he was taking care of me. Through the AIDS hotline, I had been referred to a meeting that had recently been started for IV drug users testing positive. I went to that meeting. It was in its second week. A drug counselor was running it. There was only the counselor, me, and a third person at this meeting. The third person was a girl like myself, five years sober, not an IV drug user, whose husband had also been a drug user and alcoholic years ago. We clung to each other during those first few months like two shipwrecked sailors. We shared our experiences, fears, hopes. We adapted the Twelve Steps and “How It Works” to our common bond, HIV positive. Since neither of us felt free to discuss this in an AA meeting, we needed the tools AA had given us to draw upon our strength and hope in living with this virus on a daily basis. The way of life we had discovered in AA kept us sober and sane in mind, body, and spirit, and we utilized these principles in coping with this virus.
What has emerged from all this pain, fear, and despair has been a gradual acceptance of the reality and uncertainty of my illness, as well as a gratitude for my Higher Power and a trust in him (at least most of the time, anyway). My Higher Power does provide for me as evidenced by the coincidence of a fellow AA member, a heterosexual woman, five years in sobriety, being at that particular meeting. Very few people are aware of my HIV status, but the people I have shared with besides my group have respected my anonymity and provided me with the love, care, and support I so desperately needed. I thought my Higher Power had deserted me and yet due to this program, and the way of life I had been practicing for the past seven years, my family was one hundred percent behind me. My two closest friends as well as my immediate family have shown me what true love and acceptance is all about. I have shared many tears with them as well as much laughter regarding this virus. You see, a person would never guess by my appearance that I carry this virus and, at times, it is very easy for me also to deny that reality. Humor at those times offsets for me the horrible reality of HIV.
Even though I sometimes despair of ever being intimate with someone again, I know through my past experiences in the program that when and if I am ready to share, my Higher Power will provide for me. I am single and I fully expected in my early thirties to experience motherhood and being a wife. My diagnosis as HIV positive changed that, for now, anyway. However, within every cloud is a silver lining and what I have learned from this virus is multifold.
The most important thing I learned is that life is too short. We must live only in today. We must live life to its fullest, giving it our best shot. For it is through living this way that we share the most important thing in life, which is love. It took a complete jolt like HIV to make me realize love is the only thing that has any meaning. I need people in my life today. My Higher Power speaks to me through people. Life is just too short to dwell upon past mistakes or to worry about future ones. Life is an experience meant to be lived, taking risks and knowing that the results are being cared for through our Higher Power. “Go with the passion.” I am trying to keep my life simple and just to appreciate all of life, the pain as well as the joy. My life is not over because of this virus. As a matter of fact, I have become more aware of just what is important in my life and I have eliminated what is not.
I have maintained