A Cultural Embrace
MY name is Jackie and I’m an alcoholic. I’m a mixed-race woman born in the 1960s to a black Jamaican father and a white English mother. Dad was a dominant man, what he said was set in stone, so we grew up in the Jamaican culture. Our friends were mostly mixed-race and black plus a few white children. It was very normal for my parents to have friends round for dinner and drinks, and for we children to have a little drink of strong punch with our Sunday dinner. The punch was laced with several spirits. I remember that it made me feel warm inside, that I looked forward to it, and that I always wanted more. I was about eight years old.
At 18, legally allowed to drink now, I took to the Jamaican drinking culture. I drank and took other substances until the early hours in pubs and shebeens. I felt ‘part of’ and yet I was a lost soul in a world of alcoholism not knowing who I was anymore. Drink had stopped working. Where I had once had confidence, now I couldn’t hide anymore.
Before long, binge drinking was becoming a necessity along with another substance. I found I could drink all night long and into the morning, but then I became hooked on the drug and found myself in rehab in 1992. I was told there that I needed AA as well as another Fellowship. I went along, but there was no one who looked like me or my father. It seemed to me that it was full of middle-class, older people. I was only 28 years old. I listened to what was said, but my standard reply was always, “Yes but…”, I looked for all the differences. I was aggressive and angry, with a really poor attitude. When I left rehab I went straight back to drinking, because alcohol was my friend, it had always been in my life.
When I came back in 1999, I remember the deep loneliness I felt as alcohol had stopped working for me the way I wanted it to. Now it was my master. I was broken – but I was also teachable. Finally, I had acceptance. There have been many growing pains. I felt like a lost soul at first as I turned away from drinking and the shebeens and embraced life within AA where I began to find my true self.
I have met some fantastic people on my journey and my sponsor is perfect for me as she helps me to embrace my Jamaican and my English culture. AA doesn’t care what our background is or where we come from, if you are alcoholic the hand of AA is there. I am who my Higher Power wants me to be. I don’t need to separate my cultures; I am a mixed-race woman with dual heritage. Thank you, AA, for giving me a new life of freedom. I now live life on life’s terms, trying not to run the show one day at a time.
JACKIE M, Southampton