The Extra Child
“I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self-indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival.”
–Audre Lorde
I wasn't thrilled with Alcoholics Anonymous. Growing up, my mother identified one person as being in AA, a certain Princeton person, and attributed his mediocre piano playing and boring conversation to his membership in that club. I had never been a group person, and when it seemed like I was accepted into any clique or inner circle, I immediately threw myself back out. This was partly my father's fault, for despite his popularity and professional success, he would frequently suggest he put on this Irish serf cap and go and grovel on the wide, verdant lawns of the Princeton rich. I certainly didn't believe in God, and while there was talk of a non-god, higher power, God was woven into much of the literature. It wasn't just a matter of belief but sheer hatred. God had killed my sister and best friend. God had made my father drink and get violent. God did nothing about violence, racism, child abuse, and poverty. I regarded God as a thing that caused wars and perpetuated patriarchal tyranny. I was very angry, but my former method of dealing with rage, drinking until blackout, was no longer available.
photo byt Louis Hansel
The Big Book, the bible of this God-fearing organization, struck me as dated and misogynistic. Yet, feelings were described, and shameful behavior was confessed that convinced me these were my people. I had never been where people shared stories of wreckage, humiliation, deception, guilt, and regret with such relief and gratitude. Even better, most of these stories were filled with tragedy and comedy; people laughed and cried and served up a litany of car crashes, infidelity, broken hearts, broken marriages, time spent in jail, and time spent living under a bridge. Most of these histories were narrated by well-dressed, seemingly sane individuals whose clear skin and eyes promised another bonus for getting sober. It was inexplicable. How could simply sitting in meetings listening to war stories, reading about the depths of despair experienced by my fellow drinkers, calling a person who was completely different from me except she was a sober alcoholic and, most importantly, not taking the first drink, enable me to live with grace and dignity, free of the bondage of substance abuse?
In my case, I mainly sat in the back of all those Manhattan churches, the Upper East Side filled with well-dressed, wealthy drunks, downtown, populated by punk rockers and needle users, weeping. With sobriety came awareness and understanding of how deeply traumatized I had been as a child. My drinking as a teenager and young woman had to be ignored in case the shaky foundation on which our family rested was finally destroyed. My accomplishments: graduation from Rutgers University with a 4.0, acting and working, navigating a world where shame and guilt dictated every choice was real but undermined and contaminated by my need to drink. The message I received from my mother was “alcoholism was the ultimate burden.” As it turned out, the abuse probably saved my life and then my recovery.
Getting sober was the backdrop for a chaotic period of clarifying the legal aspects of the separation and divorce, needing a place to live and a decent job. Then there was the baby, my father's baby with another woman, a baby born after Catherine died. This news was communicated to me by my sister, who indicated she thought my father might commit suicide, but, of course, as my shrink once pointed out, somehow your parents survive while you are crushed. The drama of the “extra child,” as I called her, solidified my sense that our family was a gothic soap opera.
—Molly Moynahan, author and writing coach