Is a Generic Model of Recovery Possible?
By Scott N.
CThomas179 wrote:
> I read the Chapter to the Agnostic in the Big Book several times
> the other night. I was wondering about the AA approach, I kept
> reading it over and over, because I was amazed (don't know why)
> that they do say "just keep coming back, you'll get it, that so
> called spiritual experience".
What is perhaps more amazing is that it does seem to happen to many people. Not that there is a genuine spiritual experience, but that many people believe they have had one after hanging around AA for a while.
Drawing on my own experience, I have some hypotheses about how it might come to pass. First, when I first sobered up, I had to deal with the fact that I drank and used during my entire adolescence and much of my twenties. As a result, I missed many of the experiences that mature and integrate a personality during those very important years. I was basically an empty shell of a person when it came time to sober up.
Secondly, I was in a hell of a lot of pain caused mostly by the emptiness and the shame of knowing what I was and how I got that way. I would have believed just about anything if I thought believing it would stop the pain and help me become a person. Then, here are all these people who described being like I had been, who seemed much better than I was who told me I could have what they had if I followed these few simple steps.
Looking back on it, I count myself lucky that I didn't fall into a more mind warping situation than AA. I was certainly vulnerable. At least they let me decide what HP I would choose. I would have ended up believing just about anything I heard repeated often enough.
I can't tell you how much anxiety I felt when I stopped attending meetings regularly. Turns out the quality of my sobriety improved considerably after I quit going.
In retrospect, I was being too open and honest, something else pounded into me. Yes it is possible to be, as a psychologist would put it, inappropriately self disclosing. I was shaming myself. The doubts, the fears, the desires, basically, all the dark side stuff. It turns out that at some point, it is important to put that stuff away and focus on the positive aspects of ones character, not just the parts that are problematic. I guess I had to grow out of AA to fully see that. For me at least, the AA personality I had put on when I got sober ended up being, while not empty, not my size either (not to mention the itchy cloth).
In a sense, many people who have been addicted need to change the way they view the world, and I mean a wholesale change. It is expedient for many of us to have a tailor made version to step into while we get our **** together. I now believe it does not have to be the AA version though at one point I did. I find myself wondering if a generic model for recovery is possible. Most seem to agree on rule number one (i.e. abstinence). I wonder if there will ever be a second rule different camps pretty much agree on.