13th Step (was: Re: List Occupants)

[Guest guest]

Someone wrote, " Also, I've know of guys with no drinking problem who attended AA

to

meet women. "

And Steve wrote, " Some women do that too. "

Oh my, yes. This evokes a trip down memory lane....a woman joined AA and made

quite a big

splash at meetings, carrying on about how she'd been so dreadfully drunk that

her mother

had to come and drag her out of the bar. Her mother, who was a long-term AA

member shook

her head and looked bewildered and murmured to the person next to her, " I never

had to

drag her out of a bar. She never drank that much at all. "

But the woman was getting attention. At other meetings she'd do the same thing;

tell some

gawd-awful drunk story, and her mother would look embarassed and mutter, " I

don't know why

she tells those crazy lies. "

Uh, 'cause it gets her attention, that's why. And she sure got attention. The

men

flocked around her. And she'd hook up with one of them and date him and take

him to bed

and he'd be the Love Of Her Life - for a week or so. And then she'd dump him

and go on to

the next man. She went through the men in the program like compulsive

overeaters go

through a bag of M & M's, and there was a lot of snickering about who would be the

Man of

the Week this week, and a lot of embarrassed and pissed-off men.

Then she vanished for a while - but she was not gone forever. She'd been going

to school

to become a Drug and Alcohol Counselor. And she got a job at New Beginnings at

Cove Forge

Rehab, that dubious place my Partner was interning at and getting into

head-butting

contests over the issue of forcing the clients to believe in God against their

wills.

And this woman would come to meetings and look all wise and superior and preface

her

shares with, " ...when I counsel my clients at the Cove, I always tell them.... "

Eventually she got involved with one of her clients - he became the Man of the

Week or

Month or however long the period was by that time, and they moved in together,

just long

enough for her to leave her job - or get booted for getting sexual with a client

or

whatever.

So yeah, women can do this, too. (And her mother muttered, " ...she isn't even

an

alcoholic....she shouldn't be here... " )

Cheers,

nz