My “Island of Misfits Like Me” — Anonymous, Winter Park

I was a child of the sixties and early seventies and, as a result, I was a child of the media, particularly television. I remember watching the lunar landing, Gilligan’s Island, Watergate. At this time of year, I vividly remember the Christmas specials. Frosty the Snowman. How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The Little Drummer Boy. A Charlie Brown Christmas. Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol. But my absolute, all-time, I-have-all-the-characterornaments-hanging-on-my-tree favorite is Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer! Rudolph is filled with characters I relate to. Rudolph, the unsure, self-conscious reindeer trying desperately to be accepted. Hermey, the geeky, over-achieving elf who wants to be a dentist. The characters I relate to most, the characters I empathize with, the characters who are my people and I will always love them, are The Misfit Toys. The Misfit Toys are toys with problems. They weren’t made right, didn’t fit in, couldn’t compete, couldn’t cut it in the real world. They felt unnecessary, unwanted, and unloved. They had defects! They wished and hoped beyond hope that they could one day be normal, and saved from their isolation on the Island of Misfit Toys. As a child, teenager, and long into adulthood, I didn’t fit in, couldn’t compete, couldn’t cut it in the real world. I felt unnecessary, unwanted, and unloved. I had defects! As a child, I isolated myself in make-believe. As a teenager, I discovered alcohol, banishing my defects and isolation forever. As an adult, I became an alcoholic, and isolated myself on the Island of Misfit Me. At the end of Rudolph, Santa rescues The Misfit Toys from their isolation and gives them a new lease on life. I have to wonder, though, how did they make out? The world can be harsh place, and they still had their defects. They hadn’t really been given any tools to deal with them. I wonder if they ended up back on their island, safe but isolated with their own kind. At the end of my active alcoholism, Alcoholics Anonymous rescued me and gave me a new lease on life. It plucked me off the Island of Misfit Me and dropped me in the middle of an Island of Misfits Like Me. They taught me The Twelve Steps and gave me innumerable other tools to overcome my defects. Then they gently pushed me off the island and back into the world. The world is still a harsh place, and I visit that island every chance I get. Alcoholics Anonymous is my Island of Misfits Like Me, but it doesn’t isolate me from the world. Alcoholics Anonymous is an island of serenity and strength to deal with the world on the world’s terms.