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Addiction to recovery tradition?

https://www.pinkcloudcoaching.com/wp-content/uploads/Addiction-to-recovery-tradition-1.m4a

Do we, as a society, have an addiction to the recovery tradition of Alcoholics Anonymous, Twelve-Steps, and believing all drinking problems are due to a disease?

addiction to recovery tradition? teresa rodden AA twelve steps alcoholism

 

“Alcoholics can’t stop. They can never stop, not on their own.”

“Recovery is what you do for the rest of your life.”

“She was gripped with the disease. It was all-consuming. That’s what killed her.”

These phrases are from a documentary made several years ago. It’s about a woman who kept drinking despite her being a member of the most revered addiction support group, Alcoholics Anonymous. She attended meetings, connected with a sponsor, and did step work. She died as a result of her drinking.

“Can’t do it on your own, you will die, forever fight the disease” is the same messaging I heard while in AA over sixteen years ago. But it’s not just AA. It’s many, if not most, of the spin-off twelve-step communities and treatment centers.

These statements are part of the recovery tradition, and they play on a loop in every meeting, publication, and broadcast.

Ask most people, what would you say to a friend or loved one that you thought had a drinking or drug problem? The majority would probably suggest an AA meeting.

If you talk to your doctor about your concern, they will do one of two things refer you to treatment or hand you a pamphlet. Some like my husband’s doctor will label you before even assessing you. His doctor asked how much he drank, and Rich replied, I stopped drinking sixteen years ago. Oh, you’re an alcoholic, was his doctor’s assumption.

 

Our culture’s recovery tradition is to label, place in a one-size-fits-all box, and put on the recovery ready conveyor belt.

 

Indoctrination

When I went to outpatient treatment in 2003, one of our facilitators was against AA, and the other was for it. But what was striking was every person that was in treatment with me was a member of AA, and this was their second, third, and more time of being in treatment. I didn’t attend AA until I had been abstinent for two months. And that was under the constant pressure of my then-boyfriend. It was hard to manage me when he didn’t know what I was saying and learning in the treatment center.

I would find AA was the next level indoctrination of the recovery tradition. Here is where the phrases I opened this article with were on a loop at every meeting, and it is strongly suggested that you go to ninety meetings in ninety days, or you may die. I went to over one hundred. Here is where I learned that the disease was getting stronger, no matter how long I abstained. Here is where I learned I couldn’t do it by myself and that I would have to attend meetings, work the steps, read the big book, and have a sponsor for the rest of my life. Hello, my name is Teresa, and I’m an alcoholic. This was my new normal, my new identity.

 

Recovery tradition

You have a concern.

You reach out for support.

Support comes in the form of treatment or AA or twelve-step meetings which are easily accessible and free. (it’s reported that upward of ninety percent of our treatment centers are twelve-step based.)

You receive the diagnosis of Alcoholism, Addiction, Substance Use Disorder, or Alcohol Use Disorder, all of which

is a chronic brain disease.

Alcoholics Anonymous/Twelve Steps is not only part of treatment, but it’s also the recommended aftercare.

Prognosis is a lifetime of managing your disease.

 

Addiction to recovery tradition

Let’s start with a dictionary definition of addiction.

physically and mentally dependent on a particular substance (thing, or activity) and unable to stop taking it without incurring adverse effects.

Similar: dependent on, abusing in the habit of using, dependent, obsessive, obsessional, hooked on, jonesing on/for

Every person I was in treatment with had been fighting their “disease” for years doing the same thing over and over; go to treatment, attend AA meetings, get a sponsor, work the steps, drink or use, and start over. With every failed attempt, confidence fades.

During the covid-19 pandemic, people were still gathering because they “needed” a meeting against the request of medical experts and government officials to reduce the risk of spreading the infection. “Don’t die by the disease that you do have by avoiding the disease that you don’t have” is one of the many messages suggesting a meeting takes precedence over public safety.

You hear about celebrities in and out of treatment, and many who have died after having recently attended a twelve-step rehab.

I know they say it’s the disease, but why are we so quick to accept that? Why are we not questioning the traditional recovery protocol?

Addiction treatment is an industry where failure is accepted because relapse is expected, and part of the recovery tradition. The traditional model of recovery is never-ending.

People keep coming back, and governing agencies continue to promote regardless of the adverse effects and recidivism.

 

Is our culture’s addiction to recovery tradition like all other addictions, incurable?  

No. Because there are more and more doctors, scientists, and reformers that challenge the chronic brain disease model.

Imagine if the science and research that Dr. Lewis, Dr. Peele, Dr. Dodes, and so many others have documented were equally considered in treatment protocol and used to design more modern approaches for recovery support?

 

Neuroscience

While in outpatient treatment, I abstained for two months, and my biggest challenge, a challenge for most people I talk to, is breaking the association with beer thirty, people, places, and activities.

A nice spring day reminds you of barbecuing and having a beer. Ding, it rings the recall feature in your brain.

My sister comes over after work on Friday night. Ding.

I just finished a stressful day at work. Ding.

The ex is being difficult. Ding.

And once these recall bells ring, it starts what the neuroscientist Marc Lewis calls the feedback loop.

If the feedback loop is not intentionally interrupted, you will continue to cycle through memory lane, stoking the desire with every pass, and your resistance grows weaker, causing decision fatigue. You simply wear yourself out, trying to resist the urge to take a drink or use.

With time, intention, and practice, you can become aware of this cycle and develop strategies to disengage the thought pattern. Redirect your energy and focus.

But this is not part of the recovery tradition. This is neuroscience.

 

Having other possibilities to explore

There are many nontraditional options available that range from books, support groups, coaching, therapies, and programs that help people take their life back.

We need to break the addiction to recovery tradition and level the field with alternatives that are backed by science and have evidence to support their methods.

Rich was in and out of AA for almost twenty years. He knew the talk, steps, and program perfectly but never found peace and freedom. It took a few years into sobriety before the automatic responses and thought tracks of traditional recovery, “I need a meeting, and my disease is waiting for me,” to subside. He left AA in 2004 and hasn’t had a drink for almost seventeen years. He broke the addiction, to traditional recovery and alcohol, by not incessantly talking about his past, disease, alcohol, and powerlessness. He got on with his life.

 

There is nontraditional addiction support available. Look for it.

Is there an alcohol crisis?

We are moving and hope you’ll follow us to https://soberrevolution.com/blog/f/is-there-an-alcohol-crisis

 

Is there an alcohol crisis? Are you an alcoholic? Do you have an alcohol use disorder? 

According to the Forbes article, The Alcohol Crisis In America Has Been Overshadowed By Opioids, But Can No Longer Be Ignored,

alcohol is the 3rd leading preventable cause of death in the United States, And my home state, Oregon is one of the leaders for the most alcohol-related deaths.

“CDC data shows New Mexico, Montana, Wyoming & Oregon have the most alcohol-related deaths in the U.S.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicolefisher/2019/02/23/the-alcohol-crisis-in-america-has-been-overshadowed-by-opioids-but-can-no-longer-be-ignored/#54db8484fd5d

 

Okay, message received. But before you go running panicked into your doctor’s office take a breath and read on.

Using fear as a way to promote my message and position around alcohol misuse and abuse has never been appealing. I don’t think fear is enough of a motivator for people to change their drinking ways. If it were the traditional teachings and recovery programs would be much more successful in remediating this growing challenge. In fact, I was so tired of being afraid of “my disease doing pushups in the parking lot getting stronger, even in my abstinence, waiting to take me down,” that I hopped on my pink cloud and left AA over fifteen years ago and trailblazed a new way to live sober. I don’t have a magic wand, but I have found a way to address a scary subject and help people take charge of their relationship with alcohol before it takes over.

Having a drinking habit does not automatically make you an alcoholic or have an alcohol use disorder. 

My work is focused around Primed Drinkers. A Primed Drinker recognizes something needs to change and can make conscious choices to drink or not drink. But Primed Drinkers have nowhere to turn unless they want to go all in and accept the diagnosis of Alcohol Use Disorder (an incurable brain disease, also know as, commonly referred as, Alcoholism).

Primed Drinkers can and do take charge of their relationship with alcohol. Sometimes on their own simply by becoming aware and acknowledging their concern and implementing strategies to change their drinking habit. Not everybody who is concerned with their drinking or struggle with their decision to not drink is an alcoholic or have an alcohol use disorder.

Typically Primed Drinkers will start doing research on the web and quickly get swept into our recovery ready culture and all arrows point to alcoholism (alcohol use disorder). This creates fear, and the Primed Drinker will either stop seeking information and support or hastily assume the identity of an alcoholic.

When they stop seeking support, they may continue their drinking, but now they have a head full of everything they’ve downloaded in their brief exposure to the all too common jargon of alcoholism and alcohol use disorder. This can cause more harm than good giving rise to fear and avoidance and fuel their need to misuse alcohol.

Hastily assuming the identity of an alcoholic or having an alcohol use disorder means a lifetime of managing a disease, also known as recovery.  There is nothing wrong with the latter, providing you are an alcoholic and not just assuming the identity because there’s no other consideration.

Read The Primed Drinker and learn how to avoid progressing along the drinking continuum toward alcoholism or accepting a diagnosis that may not be appropriate.

 

 

Alcoholics Anonymous, church, me and you

I have a little rebel, maybe a lot, in me. I live a sober life. I am a Christian. I don’t attend AA meetings. I don’t attend church. Yet, I have appreciation for both. Especially, if they keep you healthy and dare I say, happy – joyful most definitely. I have been told I’m not a Christian, if I don’t go to church. And I have been told I will get drunk, if I don’t go to meetings. To which I say, there are no guarantees, if I do or don’t do either of the above. Actually, what I know for sure is, if I go against my inherent grain, my soul, my spirit, my beliefs (which I challenge from time to time), I will more than likely end up drunk, bitter, and resentful.

Peace is my guide and love is my direction.

I was born with an independent soul that is connected to all living things. Peace is my guide and love is my direction. That’s truth for me. I have found I’m at greater risk when I fall under someone else’s spell in the way of their belief, truth, or way of living. If they, people of the church or program, fall out of step, are not rigorously honest, bend the rules, have shades of truth, areas of gray, seem disingenuous, yet are the first to talk program or preach the word in righteous tone, the whole promise crumbles, program or religion.

…sometimes I stand alone.

I found the way for me to be healthy and at peace, is to be willing to do my own work, and sometimes stand alone.  I study the word and talk to Jesus in my way, commune with the Father through nature, and be in the body of Christ through fellowship, in a less formal manner. I began my relationship with Christ unwittingly as a child, abandoned Him for most of my life, and it was He I returned to when I was lost and nearly broken. I began living my life many years ago, not as an alcoholic, but as a woman who digs deep, faces her fears, keeps no secrets, stop telling lies to herself. I am a woman who lives in forward motion, always growing. I got sober in the rooms of alcoholics anonymous, but I chose my sobriety over the rooms of AA, many years ago.believe in you alcoholics anonymous church and me

This is my way. I invite you to go deep and find your way.

Be still. Listen. Ask questions. Keep notes.

Get to know and love yourself. Practice. Change your mind.

Experiment. Express yourself. Take imperfekt action.

Make mistakes. Dust yourself off and carry on.

Dream. Aspire. Create a plan.

Go for it. It’s YOUR life…live it.

– Teresa Rodden, Certified Life Coach

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Concerned About Your Alcohol? Don’t rely on your health care provider to be helpful.

Concerned about your alcohol?  Don’t rely COMPLETELY on your health care provider to be helpful.

True Story:

I began living a sober (abstinent) life in 2003.  I started talking to others that I thought I had a problem with drinking as early as 1997.  I was a successful sales professional in the corporate world and had no interest in calling myself an alcoholic.  And forget about attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

Here’s the interesting point I’m going to make for this post.  I recently read a report released through the CDC – Center for Disease Control and Prevention, titled:  Most health care providers don’t talk about alcohol, even when patients drink too much.

In 2002, I jumped through the hoops and got an appointment with a mental health care professional through my health care provider.  I have long suffered massive anxiety and panic attacks and felt depression was fast enveloping me.

What has always stuck out to me in regards with that appointment was when he asked how much I drank.  I answered, very candidly, about a six pack a night.  He seemed unmoved.   So I followed with “talls”.  “I drink on average a six pack of tall beers each night”.  I think by most standards that’s beyond the high end of social drinking.  He didn’t recommend treatment or even AA.  He wrote me out a prescription for oxazepam and prozac and encouraged me to reduce my stress.  Hmmm…no mention of cutting back on the booze?

Thankfully, I’m not a pill popper.  Due to the memory of my grandmother having a sewing chest full of prescriptions sitting next to her is a fate I feared.  I filled the prescription, but never took one until…I was sober and going through some super deep shit and everybody was telling me I was going to crash off my “pink cloud” (always having a chipper disposition and optimistic view of life) and my sobriety was in danger.  So, I popped my first oxy and all was well.  I slept like a baby.  I woke up and dumped the entire bottle.  There’s no way I was going into the arms of another coping vice.

If you are not alcoholic (incurable disease) please be an advocate for your own health!  Do not wait for the health professionals to direct you.  Take charge and do some research.  Ask for some accountability.   Get focused on what you want.  Find support in a way that lifts you up and encourages personal growth.

If you feel you are alcoholic, please get your ass to Alcoholics Anonymous.  Your life is too precious to waste.  You would be missed if something happened to end your precious life.  And I know you couldn’t forgive yourself if you caused harm to another.

If you would like to begin your journey with Conscious Drinking, 30 days to Living in Awareness, Acceptance and Action – Click Here!

– Teresa Rodden, Certified Life Coach

pink-cloud-woman-thumbnail

Teresa Rodden, Founder & Certified Life Coach

Wisdom from my real life experience, knowledge and skills from my professional certification and training, and a deep love and passion to help women break free from the prison that holds them captive. It’s one thing to make goals… It's a whole new life to create a Pink Cloud.

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