Twitter for Alcoholics

In England, the old ladies call, “Cooee!” over the hedgerows in their gardens to borrow a cup of sugar or a plant cutting or the latest gossip. In Staniel Cay, business, monkey business and most of the important gab takes place on the “locals side” of the bar at the Yacht Club. In Flint, Michigan we still speak on house phones and leave messages written on crisp notes of paper and watch the 6 o’clock news.

People will find a way to communicate.

As unfortunate as it is to be an alcoholic, I feel fortunate to live in a time when the sharing of my story, and my ability to communicate with others who are in recovery, is so exponentially abundant.

Let’s take Twitter for example. Twitter means: chirp, chirrup, cheep, tweet, peep, trill, warble, or sing. As in the sparrows “twittered” under the eaves. It is the perfect name for the quick wit and wisdom of the 150 character medium. I still use commas and proper spacing (old habits die hard), so I lose valuable character room, but there is no question Twitter is an incredible resource for sharing ideas, thoughts and fears about alcoholism.

Twitter is like a movie marquee to one’s more comprehensive (obsessive?) thoughts.

Yesterday, I posted a link to the blog on Twitter, about feeling like a Fish Out of Water when sharing in a 12-Step meeting, and went about my business. When I got home a few hours later, @1hevykevy, @surelybutslowly and @iflyatnight were having a  lively discussion about introversion and AA, driven by my tweet . It was fascinating, and I ended up finding kindred spirits and an interesting new recovery blog (I Fly at Night which is clearly fated because it fits with the “twitter” theme…).

See how that works? There is something about the brevity, relative anonymity and imperfectness of Twitter that fits for the alcoholic. And using a hash-tag like #alcoholism, or #recovery adds 100,000 people to one’s reach and one’s advocacy.

Follow me @MarilynSpiller

Friend me on Facebook at Waking Up the Ghost

Have a really great day.