This is from Terence Gorski's blog at a well known treatment centre (I won't advertise) -
Quote:
As the Director of Relapse Prevention Services at (treatment centre), I can assure you that the 12-step principles and the addiction focus of treatment will never be lost. The wisdom of the 12-Steps is an important guide to responsible living for everyone. More importantly, it is a set of critical tools for people in recovery from addiction. At (treatment centre) we use what is called a Twelve Step Plus Approach. We use the principles of the 12-steps plus the most recent medical, psychological, and social recovery methods available.
Terence T. Gorski
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There's a lot of interesting stuff in this debate. I'm one of these purists. I think that the programme of recovery in the first 164 pages of the BB should never be changed, for two reasons. One is a bunch of drunks will make a huge fight out of changing it, and that'll never be resolved. We either take it as it is, or not at all. If that means that something comes along which outgrows it - so be it. Nothing has so far. Two, I think the BB is the glue that binds us to each other. It is the "common solution on which we are all agreed". People can engage with AA in all sorts of ways, but warts, flaws, imperfections and all, we have a basic text and it gives us our common ground. It serves to reduce our egos because it asks things of us which we maybe don't agree with, or maybe we don't want to do. But if we want to be "in", we learn how to work against out huge egos and do as the book instructs, with humility.
But. The BB - my belief only - isn't perfect. There are lots of things we can learn about recovery outside the book. I think that AA teaches us a form of behavioural therapy, and there is much to be learned about behavioural therapy from other sources.
So - 12 step plus? Or is it just 12 step lite?