onlythetruth

Well, no, it's not good, when the result of the monopoly is to essentially shut out other pathways to recovery.

I think we all agree that when it comes to recovery, one size does not fit all. But when only one size is available, only people who fit into that size get helped. Those people see the situation as good, but what they don't realize is that people of other sizes often have nowhere to turn. And what's really sad is that such people are often told that they are hopeless, "constitutionally incapable of being honest", and that if they try a different way forward they are "signing their own death warrant".

What's even sadder is how deeply this message has become embedded into our addiction treatment system due, in large part, to the efforts of one group to "carry the message", often in contravention of its own stated traditions ("attraction rather than promotion"). It's tragic, but the reality is that most rehabs in the U.S. still will not let their patients even KNOW that they have a choice of what recovery path to follow. It's mighty hard to spread the message that different paths are possible, when that message is being actively barred by people who have an economic interest in maintaining the status quo.

One nice thing about SR, though, is that it's a place where people of different recovery paths come to gather, where people get to see the breadth and variety of experiences that people have, where it's impossible to continue to spread the myth that there is only one "right" way to recover. I further think that the more this message gets spread through places like this, the more interest there is going to be in bucking the system and actually starting meetings of different recovery groups.