sfgirl

It is interesting to me that most of treatment has to do with people after they have made the choice to get sober. It seems to me that the most crucial time in any addicts life is that contemplation stage where someone is contemplating abstinence. I think success in recovery has so much to do with the willingness with which someone goes into recovery (I actually might be really wrong here because I had a teacher who said that he found in his treatment center the rates of recovery for mandated people and self-reporters were about equal which I found really interesting and contrary to what I would think— but then there was the issue of risk of losing job-some were NFL players with million dollar contracts, some transport workers— for the mandated and what does success for three months mean or one year, what is rate after five? these were all his questions which he did not really elaborate on). But motivation is so important, if people would focus on getting people over that hump from using to being motivated to change, I don't believe in letting people find their bottom, and there could be strides made there that would be awesome. I do think listening to experiences in AA and identifying with them helps because then you can identify as an alcoholic and I know there are tons of studies to support motivational interviewing but it just seems absurd that you get thrown out of treatment for using, isn't that just your disease acting out? There probably should be different levels of treatment.