I was very disappointed this past weekend at a conference when not one, not two, but three of the main speakers (both AA and Alanon), used the word "bitch" in their shares, derogatorily referring to various women in their lives. When the first guy used the word, I cringed just a little - come on, guy, you're at the podium. When the second guy let it fly, I was offended, and when the Saturday night speaker used it five or six times, I was shocked, as were several women seated near me. I'm certainly no prude, and I cuss with the best of them, but from the podium? At a conference? With newcomers in the room? With new women in the room?  I felt lower than low when I got into recovery. Hearing me and my kind called "bitches" from the podium would've stung, would've reinforced my belief that I was just that. My spouse talked with a couple of folks associated with the conference, and I plan to write them a letter, but I am sad that I need to.

I remember the first time I heard a couple of old farts make a snide comment about a woman who'd just walked into the meeting room. What I said to myself at the time was, "Damn it." I so wanted AA to be the egalitarian utopia that the Big Book implied. But, as I've heard more than once, "it's not Well-People's Anonymous." What I've gained over time is the gift of discernment. Sticking with the winners doesn't just mean those who are staying sober, but those who are walking a spiritual path, a path towards healing.

My spouse and I are conference people, hitting gatherings around the northwest and when we travel, culminating in the AA International every 5 years (this past in Atlanta was his first, my sixth). That's why I know it's not OK to use derogatory language towards women, gay "jokes" that are anything but funny, cursing, racist or ethnic humor...  anything that might turn the still-suffering alcoholic away. We already feel different and damaged when we get to the rooms. We don't need keynote speakers who reinforce painful stereotypes.

A positive aspect of the weekend is that I got to hang out with the woman who was my roommate in treatment, back in January, 1986. We stood on the vacant lot where the treatment center once stood, looking out at the view that would've been ours from the second story bedroom we shared. As we paused for a photo, I strongly recalled the moment that I hit my knees in that room, crying my eyes out over a young man who'd just made the decision to get on the bus back to the city, and his heroin habit. In a flash, I'd fully understood what it meant to be "powerless," over him and over my own alcoholism and addiction. As I cried that day, I said out loud, "F*** it, God. I can't do this anymore, You take over." It was the most honest prayer I've ever uttered, before or since, and in that moment I both surrendered, and had the compulsion to drink or use miraculously lifted. I am grateful for that moment, every single day.

I've also recently had phone contact with my ex, the man who put me through treatment and helped me get on my feet that first crucial year of sobriety. I am grateful for all the seemingly random acts that got me to here - his generosity, my cousin's part in an unofficial intervention, my best friend who drove my mother down to treatment for visiting each week, and for Linda, the hope-to-die addict who said, "If you have to go somewhere, go to that place at the beach - I've heard they're good people." I've written inventory and made amends galore for who I was and how I acted in the final months of my addiction, I know that everything worked out just the way it was supposed to, and sometimes the pain of hurting those I cared for can reach through the years and give my heart a little squeeze. I do sometimes regret the past, but I think that is simply part of being human and being aware.

My sobriety doesn't depend on what someone says, or doesn't say, at a speaker meeting. We are perfectly imperfect human beings. The Serenity Prayer offers me choices - I can't change the men who spoke, who I may never see again and have no relation to, but I have written to the conference committee and shared my concern. Many speaker meetings provide guidelines for what is expected - at some groups, you are asked not to identify as anything other than an alcoholic, at others you are directed on what to wear. Every one that I've seen includes "don't use profanity." I think that might help in this case, if the committee is willing to confront the "good old boy" mentality that makes it OK to use negative language to describe women. And you know, if I listened closely, what I might've heard under the word "bitch" was "You hurt my feelings," "You were right and I didn't want to hear it," "I'm sorry that we fought so badly," "You broke my heart."

If we're lucky, and willing to do the work of recovery, we learn to say what we mean, and mean what we say, without being mean. That is my wish for all of us. Happy new year to you, and happy sobriety anniversary to me.