All 12-Step recovery meetings are meant to be anonymous, which is why most people only introduce themselves by first name when they share. For the longest of time, I was a stickler to that principle and probably even more so than most. But nowadays, that’s changed quite a bit when I qualify upon speaking.
How this change began stems way back to the name I used to go by, which was simply “A.D.” Going by my initials started around the age of 17, when I allowed a person I had a crush on to tell me that the name “Andy” sounded corny. I believed him and had already begun a strong tendency towards codependency around that time. When the nickname of “A.D.” was suggested by this person as an alternative, it stuck and from that point forward that’s what everyone knew me by.
Truth be told, I didn’t like my name much either, because everyone I knew from family to bullies had always used it in such a negative way. Thus hiding out in my initials seemed to take some of the pain away from that. When I became sober from alcohol and drugs some 5 years later, many of those I knew then didn’t even know my real name and I kind of liked that fact. I still had a lot of shame about my name from the way my mother and father had used it during moments of discipline or when bullies had found unique ways to rhyme my name with ridiculous things that only embarrassed me. So during my introduction at every AA meeting, it was “Hey everyone, my name is A.D. and I’m an alcoholic.”
It wasn’t until my mid to late 30’s that I finally realized I was still holding onto anger and resentment towards much of those from my past. Through my recovery work, I began to forgive and release all of that pain and somewhere along the way, I found myself not wanting to go by “A.D.” anymore. So slowly by surely, as God helped me to heal one part of myself after another, those introductions at 12-Step meetings progressed from “A.D.” to “Andrew” to “Andrew Dawson” and eventually to “Andrew Arthur Dawson”.
The main reason why I use my full name today at recovery meetings is simply because I’m proud of who I am now. It’s my God-given name and one that took a lot of work to be happy with again. The fact remains that I used to be so ashamed of who I was, not only because of what others thought of me, but also because of what I had done during all my addiction-laden years. Thus going by a short nickname was my way of burying much of my past. Yet as I unburied my past and found healing through my work with God, I found myself gravitating to using my whole birth name. In some sense, it was rather liberating.
These days, I find it rather comical sometimes because quite often at meetings people will repeat my full name in jest after introducing myself. But I no longer feel shame or guilt or less then every time I say it, and people do remember my name now, which is definitely a change from when no one cared about who I was, including myself. Thus this is why I continue to introduce myself by my whole name at those anonymous 12-Step meetings, and everywhere else as well, because I truly have worked through all of my past pain. And because of that, a sense of peace flows through me in knowing I’m Andrew Arthur Dawson and a blessed child of God…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson