Originally Posted by mle-sober

Kurt,

The question you might ask yourself would not be are you using someone else's ideas for recovery - but rather, do you see yourself as so exceptional and/or unique that you assert your individuality to the detriment of your recovery? To what extent does your protection of what you see as your special circumstances encourage you to continue to drink rather than encourage you to find lasting recovery?

The question of terminal uniqueness is not a question about whether each of us is special and wonderful (and inscrutable to others when it comes right down to it). The question is only how does our definition of our unique SELF allow or exclude us from our recovery.

If we define ourselves as so different from others that their solutions can in no way ever work for us, than we are in trouble. But when you ask yourself that question, you have to keep in mind that many, many, many people have come before you. We are not just talking about one or two or even three different programs. We are talking about books and music and conversations and sites like SR.

If you find yourself listening to other alcoholics or reading their stories or listening to their music and you say, again and again, "well, that doesn't apply to me because x, y, and z." than, you may want to ask yourself why, don't you think? Why is it that so many addicts and alcoholics, from so many different walks of life, can find comfort and assistance and maps to sobriety when you would only feel alienated, as if the world will never, ever understand you?

And then, I guess, we'd have to follow that question to the end. What are the results of your determination to protect your singularly unique identity?

Did you find that you spent your whole life marking your territory, deliniating it as unknown to anyone else, and keeping all attempts to help you at arms length? Did your need to designate yourself as unique serve to protect your drinking? Did it make you a happier person in your world or did it allow you to devote yourself to true and lasting misery through continued alcoholism? Did it pave the way for your death from alcoholism? That's the question.