Being Constitutionally Incapable

Estimated read time: 10 min

“Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women (people) who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.” This text comes from chapter five of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous (4^th edition, p.58-60).

My first real attempt at getting sober started in late October of 2018. I mention this date a lot because I am so grateful to have found the rooms of A.A. when I did. Otherwise, I might not have been alive to write this. A summary of events leading up to my very first meeting can be located on the blog page under the title, High Functioning at Rock Bottom: My First Day; so at this point, it’s probably unnecessary to recount the details from that storyline here.

For those of you who have ever attended a 12-step meeting, or other similar support groups, you know that 99% of such meetings begin with a slew of readings. This fact is true too for every meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous that I have ever attended; the most common readings typically are some combination of “How It Works,” the “Twelve Traditions,” and “The Promises.” Considering that I arrived a teensy bit late to my very first meeting, and the fact that I was absolutely, totally, and completely wasted; (mostly because I was late, though) I missed the readings and therefore was not privy to the phrase, constitutionally incapable, until later on in my journey through the program.

Now, please don’t think of me as an absolute ignoramus after this next bit, but… when I did finally have the chance to hear the phrase constitutionally incapable at the very next meeting I attended, I was somewhat puzzled.

What is particularly funny about this is that I was in the “gifted” program (ooooh special) all throughout elementary and middle school. In my honors and AP courses, we had the “Vocab Workshop” books with SAT prep workbook where we had to know not only the spelling, (duh Nina) but the origin of the word, accent marks, part of speech, et cetera, et cetera. I’ll also have you know that I was in the spelling bee multiple times throughout my academic career (even if I did get knocked out by the word kindergarten… in kindergarten). So basically, what I’m trying to say is that I’m not a total dummy when it comes to reading and comprehension.

So, believe you me, I was surprised that a short, two-word, phrase could throw me for such a loop. See the frustrating part was that independently of each other I could understand what the words meant, but used together in a sentence like they were, I was at a loss.

In the rooms, you’ll hear about the impact prayer and meditation (whatever that looks like for you) has on an alcoholic and the importance that such practices have for many alcoholics in their journey to achieve physical, mental, and emotional sobriety. I took this notion to heart, I meditated the crap out of constitutionally incapable! I got zip, zero, and nadda out of that particular experience.

I then resorted to using my super special gifted student powers and started to dissect the surrounding words and phrases. Gasp! The sentence itself contained context clues, imagine that… the two-word phrase was but a part of a larger sentence string.

“…constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.”.

I took this to mean that there are some people out there who are literally, physically, mentally, and emotionally unable to be honest with themselves, and therefore are unable to ever get sober. Yeahhh, I may have taken some extra liberties with that train of thought, but to be fair, I was still drinking almost a gallon of bottom shelf wine a day at that point.

Like most good alcoholics, I am an excellent over-thinker. I can complicate even the simplest of concepts, and confuse, even you, about something that you’ve been absolutely sure of your entire life, on accident… it’s a gift really. Alcoholic to the core, although I wasn’t “sure” at the time, I began exploring my newfound enlightenment on the concept of constitutional incapability. I hope you have your laughing pants cinched tight because this next part typically gets a pretty good giggle in a meeting.

Not many memories of my first few months in the room are very clear, but there are a few special ones that tend to stand out even with the passing of time. This one, well, this one is almost crystal clear. I was sitting at my desk in my dorm room (231C). It was a very chilly night in early November. The sky outside my window was turning from grey to black as the sun faded almost completely under the horizon.

I’m sure it goes without saying, but I was well passed sober and had been since probably 8 am that morning. I was feverishly typing away at my keyboard, the same one I’m typing on now actually, trying to complete a 10-page paper; an analysis of an African Folktale for my upper-level World Literature Course. Well, feverishly, may be a little misleading, I was also eating some easy-mac, and texting another alcoholic from A.A.

I had been seriously struggling with how to stay get sober for over a month now. I just couldn’t manage to figure out how to put the plug in the jug. I was becoming increasingly depressed, frustrated, discouraged, and confused as to what my problem was. I honestly would commit to not drinking anymore, or not buying more after my current stash was gone. I had tried not drinking in the morning, before 5 pm, or a few hours before bed. I was only drinking alcohol I could barely choke down, pouring it into a glass instead of drinking straight from the bottle. The only smidgen of success I had managed to accomplish was no longer drinking in a meeting.

What I know now, that I didn’t know, or couldn’t understand back then, is that at that stage of alcoholism… I couldn’t stop drinking. I’m not talking about that I couldn’t figure out how to want sobriety bad enough, that I couldn’t manage to not stop by the quickie store, or even that I couldn’t manage to not drink if alcohol was nearby.

I mean literally, physically, my body would not allow me to stop drinking without trying to shut down. I had crossed whatever line is drawn in the sand that allowed my body to know how to function without a certain level of booze in my system. I could make it an hour, maybe two hours, without taking a drink before withdrawal and DT symptoms started in. I just didn’t know it at the time.

In talking with this other alcoholic, managing to hold down some easy-mac, and typing a paper, we discussed various topics of A.A. addiction, alcoholism, experience, strength, hope, and all that good stuff, right? We continued to talk, and paragraph by paragraph I continued writing my paper. Then, finally, my paper was completed, and I was free to do as I wished for the rest of the evening, including giving my undivided attention (if one could call it that while intoxicated) to the conversation with this alcoholic who was so generous with their time and enthusiastic about recovery as a whole.

Then it dawned on me. I swear to god it was like the clouds parted, and the divine powers that be, from the sky shone a light on me from above.

 I, me….Nina, was quite possibly, maybe, perhaps, by chance, unfortunately, conceivably one of those people who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. Oh, it all made so much sense now! It even tells me right in the Big Book that it’s not my fault. I seem to have been born this way.

Tsk..Tsk, how sad. It was predestined that I wouldn’t ever be able to get sober. With this glorious epiphany, I immediately picked up my phone to share the terribly unfortunate news with my alcoholic friend. However, because I was confident now that I couldn’t really ever be sure about anything, I posed it as a question. The, what I now realize, laughable text message read: “What if I am constitutionally incapable?” Care to guess what the response was? An extraordinarily unreasonable amount of laughing emojis. You know the one, where it has tears coming out of both eyes because it’s laughing so hard.

I was shocked, confused, and a little hurt even. I was being serious dang it! What if I really am constitutionally incapable, and no matter what I do, how hard I try, or how badly I want to get sober, what if it’s just not possible for people like me? How is this, at all, a laughing matter? To this day I don’t know if that alcoholic thought I was genuinely trying to get them to co-sign my bullshit, or if regardless of my motive, the notion was just that hilarious to them. I may never truly know. What I do know, though, is the rest of my side of this particular story; and I’ll make it brief.

After the initial laugh and shock factor wore down, my alcoholic friend got serious and assured me that constitutional incapability was not my ailment. Now it may be the ailment of some, but just not me apparently. More A.A. jargon and phrases were slung about, including something about me just being a garden variety alcoholic, run of the mill, and not a special case; perhaps a little insensitive sounding, but this was actually a relief to hear, although I wasn’t entirely convinced in that moment.

My understanding of being constitutionally incapable has evolved with time in sobriety, and with a few 24 hours under my belt I can confidently say out of the plethora of things I am… that is not one of them. I often go back and forth trying to decipher what situations constitute unwilling versus unable. The answer is rarely ever simple and hardly ever clear.

What I have been able to determine at this point in my studies as a social work student, mental health professional, moderately reformed alcoholic, and grateful nut is… that being constitutionally incapable of being honest with one’s self is not referring to literally being unable, to tell the truth; it’s not even about having a clinically diagnosed mental health condition. Rather, it’s more in reference to individuals who are incapable of being willing to face the truth, so that they can be honest with themselves.

As it turns out… I’m not constitutionally incapable. Chances are… neither are you!

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