Ethnography

Lori Foster

March 21, 2012

English Composition

Holly Papas

                       

A Drug Based Community

Description:

I drive up to a big brick church and pull into the back parking lot and see the church function hall. It is a long white building that needs to be painted. The building is run down but presentable. There is a wheel chair ramp leading up to two open doors with a bright light coming from inside. There are about ten people outside smoking cigarettes and talking. When you walk in everyone looks at you expecting to see a familiar face, and when they don’t recognize you, you feel out of place. They give you a quick look over and then continue their conversations, assuming you’re a drug addict. Why wouldn’t you be? You’ve just walked into a Narcotics Anonymous meeting at your local church.

As I walk in and look for a place to sit I scan the room. It is an open space. I notice the bathrooms to the left and eight tables to the right. There are eight tables pushed together in a square that comprise the main table straight ahead. Chairs are placed around each table, and stacks of the Narcotics Anonymous Recovery Literature books are in the center of each table. The book is written by NA members and contains the twelve steps; it reminds me of the bible. Far behind the main table against the back most walls is a long table with key chains laid out next to about 20 different colored pamphlets. Pamphlets are available to help decide if you are an addict, for families and friends of addicts, on recovery and relapse, about how meetings work, and many other topics.  The leader sits in the middle of the table on left side of the square. Behind him between the two bathrooms is a stage with a curtain drawn. There are pictures on the wall of Jesus and other church like paintings and pictures.

Flow:

Traffic flows in the open doors from six forty five when they open up until fifteen minutes past seven. The meeting started on time at seven. I wonder how much they care about their sobriety to show up late. As people walk into the meeting they likely attend every Wednesday at seven PM I watch as they seem to know where they are going to sit. I think possibly they tend to sit with the same people in the same seats every week. I am sitting at a table with two other people. I think to myself, I have probably sat in someone’s seat. Ten past seven I see a familiar face walk through the door; he see’s me and we smile and wave. He’s probably confused. My boyfriend see’s someone he used to work with, he’s embarrassed and says we should have went to a meeting in another town.

The people:

There are 22 people at the meeting including myself. The room looks empty; it has the potential space for many more. It almost seems sad more people didn’t come. You can recognize the leader of the meeting immediately. He looks official with his gray hair and baseball cap. He is in his 50’s and sits at the table with a pile of papers near him. At the start of the meeting he asks for any paperwork he needs to sign and says he’ll return it and the end of the meeting. There are some people who sit quietly, I wonder if they are new to the NA community. Some older adults are very talkative, quick to speak up, and offer advice. I wonder how long they have been a part of the NA community. I recognize a man my father used to be friends with.

Members are all ages and seem to range from 20 to 60. There are more males than female and I am surprised by that only because I thought men would be embarrassed to ask for help and more women would be present in the community for support. The members interact with each other like they’ve known each other for years. They are laughing and joking and happy to see each other. When someone walks in a member says hello to them and tells them they’re happy they came and they seem to mean it. The interaction during the meeting is supportive, educational and informal.

General atmosphere:

The general atmosphere is relaxed and comfortable. It seems everyone has chosen to sit with their cliques and talks amongst themselves. Before the meeting starts there are many small conversations happening between friends. Almost every single person in the room has a Dunkin Donuts coffee. Once the meeting officially starts, it gets more serious and the chit chat is minimal. The first order of business is to recognize those who have reached a milestone in their journey to sobriety. The leader asks if there is anyone who is one day clean. No one. One week? No one. And so on up to three weeks. No one raises their hand. Next he goes on to recognize the members who have been clean for 30 days, and he knows who they are. He calls two names and gives them each a keychain, congratulating them on their sobriety; everyone claps and some people hug them. The person I waved to received a thirty day keychain. Next the leader calls the name John and congratulates him on ninety days clean and sober, he gets a coin. I recognize him as one of my ex boyfriends friends. I have a hard time believing it’s possible he’s clean. No other awards are given out. Everyone in the room is at least thirty days sober, or too embarrassed to admit otherwise.

The meeting:

Throughout the meeting people are asked to read from the books that were on our tables. It reminds me of church. After someone reads a passage from the book the leader asks them to tell us how that passage has affected them, or an experience it takes you back them to, he asks you keep it short. The aspect of the program we are talking about today is bringing prayer into your life to help you stay clean. I get bored while people read but listen to their stories and insight as they speak after. The experiences shared that stuck out to me the most were told by Emily and John.

Not long into the meeting John, who is almost thirty, reads a passage. I’m not surprised he volunteers to read because he seems to be an important member here. He has just reached an important milestone and contributes often during the discussions. He sits in his chair with his baggy jeans and tee shirt three sizes too big. His baseball hat matches his shirt and is on backwards. He is clean shaven with a chin strap beard. He wears big diamond earrings and a big chain around his neck. His sneakers match his shirt and hat. Once John finishes reading his passage he immediately rants about how praying for his sobriety wasn’t hard for him to accept. I immediately want him to stop talking.  Prayer is almost always the hardest thing for an addict to accept into their lives. His demeanor is derogatory and demeaning, he swears, he comes across disrespectful and gives the impression he is better than everyone else in the room. He is not motivating and I did not get the feeling he was welcome to talk for the ten long minutes he rambled on. I thought he would talk forever, and looking around I get the idea other members felt the same way.

Break is from seven thirty to seven forty. More than half the members left. John doesn’t return. How do you not stay for the whole meeting when you just celebrated your ninety days milestone? How does anyone come in after the meeting starts and leave early and say they are taking their sobriety seriously? What was the point of showing up at all? I sit there and look around at the people still there and feel sorry for the people who left.

Directly across from me a table with two women sitting are next to each other, Emily and Amy. They seem to be good friends. Amy is not paying attention to the meeting and is texting on her phone. That annoys me.

After break Emily and Amy return a few minutes late. Amy has been crying. Emily, who looks to be in her late forties, looks comfortable sitting in the chair with her feet propped up on another chair. She is tall and thin, wearing blue jeans with a big gray tee shirt. Her long curly brown hair is contained in a gray scrucci on the top of her head. She reads a passage from the book and expresses her recent urge to use. She tells her fellow members things in her life she doesn’t think she can handle, such as problems at her job and her home life. She says to help her, she prays. She goes on to tell us how hard it was to get into the habit of praying and that for a long time she didn’t think it would work. “It gets easier”, she says, “Stick with it and believe.”  She has been sober six months (this time) and seems grateful and happy. At one point she talks about how her friend had not only relapsed today but overdosed. She expressed her emotions with tears and anger and said praying helped her get through it and continue to stay clean. I may not understand, but I respect her for sharing and her honesty. I later realize that Emily’s friend who overdosed was likely the one she and Amy had been upset about and possibly why Amy wasn’t very involved with the meeting. “How could she be”, I wonder? And quickly change my thought to, “How could she not be?”  These are the times when you rely on your fellow NA members to help you get through life’s obstacles. This is the reason you are here, in this room, with these members of your community.

The church pastor comes in and quietly talks to some of the members while the meeting is going on. When he enters the function hall the first person he hugs and chats with is Emily. I wonder how long she has been a member here. Everyone in the room seems to know the pastor. He sits down at the table next to me and smiles in my direction. He probably assumes this is my first meeting and he’ll see my face again. I think there is a reason so many NA meetings are held in churches. The NA literature is big into God and praying, therefore it only seems logical to hold your meetings in the churches function hall. As the meeting ends everyone from every table joins in a circle around the main table for the closing prayer. I have never heard the prayer before so I just stand in the circle and hold hands with the person on each side of me.

Language:

There is a small amount of inside language in the NA community if you’re unfamiliar with the usual words associated with drugs. The members used words like “use” to mean take drugs or “clean” to imply they are sober. Most people, drug users or not, know that sort of slang. Some use slang to talk about their drug of choice, for example, they use is words like OC’s for Oxycontin, Roxy’s for Roxycodone, or Perks, for Percocet. I did not come across any unfamiliar words but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone sitting in and observing could pick up on a few they weren’t familiar with.

Community:

Narcotic Anonymous can work, if you use it. The fellowship community has a religious base, which deters some addicts. You are supposed to be able to go to a meeting and feel free and comfortable to share your experiences and problems because it is anonymous. If you go to the same meeting every week or even a few times, people remember your name and your story. Part of NA is sponsorship. Every member, especially a new one, will need a sponsor, someone who has been sober a long while and who is willing to take on the responsibility of being there twenty four hours a day to help them stay sober. The idea is to be able to always have one person you can count on to help you, especially when you are feeling weak, or like you might use drugs. Having a reliable and good quality sponsor is important for your recovery.

 The members of this community presented themselves, mostly, as strong individuals who will beat this disease. They talked with confidence and sound like they believe what they were saying. Some members were emotional while speaking, and I suggest that shows they are comfortable in the community they have created. A community they can walk into and say, “I’m still clean!”, or they can say “I used yesterday”, and still receive the support they need from their fellow members. A subculture is a group of individuals who share “ritual” behaviors, valued objects, common language, and a set of values. The fellowship of NA falls into all of these categories. It is its own community, and if utilized correctly, can be a strong support system.