Toxic People

It is very important to be aware of what types of people are in your life. It’s you. I mean if I’m surrounded by drug addicts, alcoholics, queens, thieves and lairs, means I’m guilty by association.

When I started getting my life together, sobering up, asking myself the tough questions, I started to realize the people who once were attracted to me no longer saw me. I remember when I would walk down the street in the middle of the day and attract the strangest people. It was like there was a vacant sign on my forehead for all the drug addicts, liars, hustlers, sex addicts and whatever. I couldn’t understand why they noticed me, but I also noticed them. It was as if we were traveling on the same tragic level of existence.

I changed. They didn’t. We don’t see each other anymore.

I remember when I started AA, it was just a game. I was just trying to hustle it. I figured if I went to a couple of meetings my lover would decide I was trying and get back with me. I figured if I went to a couple of meetings and had proof, I wouldn’t be evicted from my apartment. My boyfriend still broke up with me. I still got evicted from my apartment. When I started AA, it was just another hustle. I lied so damn much. I would show up to the meetings, drunk. It was like I just felt the need to rebel.

What I found interesting were the types of people I started to attract in AA. They were on some bullshit themselves. I mean, they weren’t drinking or anything, but they weren’t good people.

They were toxic. AA was another hustle, game for them, the same way they used to get attention when they were drunks; they were now using AA to fill that void in their empty tragic souls. I met this one guy, and I thought he was really cool in the beginning. I started to share things with him, thought he could be trusted but then he started using against me. He would make cruel jokes about something I said to him, at first I thought that was his sense of humor and then I start to realize that’s how he got his kicks. It turned out; he didn’t have to drink to be a cruel drunk. I quickly ended that relationship.

The thing I disliked most about AA was the concept of Sponsors. I was supposed to befriend some stranger, allow that person in my life, and trust him or her blindly with my deepest and darkest secrets knowing that person has no formal psychological training. As a person with a degree in Psychology, I found the concept to be really dangerous. Trust means there is a give and take. Trust has to be earned. I would need to question everything. I would need to know if that person had sponsored others in the past and how that turned out. Every body gets sober differently. Not all addicts are the same. Not all addicts are created equal, there is a spectrum. At thirty years old and only been drinking for seven years, I had little in common with the drunk he had been doing it for thirty or forty years.

I learned in AA, I couldn’t believe every testimony that came out of some people’s mouth. Some people just liked to be Drama Queens. Some just lied for the hell of it. I was one of them. Some of them just wanted to hear themselves talk.

The stories that changed me the most were the one who were honest. It wasn’t self-serving, let me tell you how I suffered kind of bullshit, but straight to the point like the guy who said, it doesn’t matter what you tell those people or who you tell it to, it’s what you tell yourself when you are alone. If I was going to beat my addictions, it was the battle with me, not how many can I fool. I can’t fool myself. I’m the only one who knows the truth.

The truth hurts. It likes a muscle. No pain, no gain. My goal is to keep eroding my own toxicities therefore I completely disappear to those who are toxic.