Leshar

Hello lovely SR folks,

I am approaching one year sober (July 3) and I've been struggling a lot, especially over the past one month. I've been quite depressed, wondering why, at almost a year, I don't feel farther ahead in my hopefulness about my choice to embrace sobriety. I feel lonely and adrift a good deal of the time.

I see an addictions counsellor, and am happily a member of SR. I joined in April 2013, and did not fully embrace sobriety until July of that year, when I called an addictions agency and fully admitted to being an alcoholic.

I had tried AA in 2012. I struggled with the concept, and upon seeing a former patient at one of the meetings (I'm a retired MD, and she is also an MD), I fled in terror and never returned to meetings. I live in a smaller city, and am known about town because of my former profession.

I post mostly in my July 2013 class and I value the friendships and support there enormously.

However, as I feel I've been floundering I decided to look at AA again, and suspend my reservations about the process. I've read so many encouraging stories of hope and good outcomes here, even from people who, like myself, have struggled with the concept of a faith system, a higher power.

Today, I went to a meeting. Afterwards, I saw a man who had been a former patient too, another MD. He spoke to me and said "I heard you were hanging around these doors". I said, "I thought this was supposed to be anonymous?" He said, "It was another medical person". I knew of course, that it had been my other former female patient. I think it was careless of him also, to divulge the matter in the way he did.

I haven't encountered this woman in any respect since that meeting, but if I choose to continue to explore AA, I'm likely to see her again. I'm struggling to know how to respond to the fact that she breached my anonymity.
I would have never done such a thing. Being in the medical profession especially, I fervently respected and guarded the privacy and anonymity of all my patients, even when/especially when such patients were known to my late husband, colleagues of his/spouses of colleagues and so forth.

I feel very disappointed and let down. I don't feel ashamed or angry, much to my surprise. I've come too far, I guess, to respond in this manner.

I wonder if those more familiar with the AA process might guide me as to how best to deal with this situation? I tend to bottle things up and don't easily reach out for help, but of course, things just go around and around in an endless loop of negativity if I'm left to my own devices, hence my decision to look again at AA.

My initial feeling is to not say anything to this woman, but is that getting off on the "wrong foot" with respect to the AA process? If I speak to her about my disappointment, can there possibly be a good outcome? It's a horrible dilemma for me right now, because there is the whole Dr- Patient (former) dynamic at play too. I'm terribly confused. I just want to do the right thing, and get better.

Many thanks to anyone who might provide me with some help.