I often wonder if the critical thinking skills and techniques I use today would of been a good foundation at the very beginning of my recovery. Imagine during the first days or weeks of rehab there was no attempt to paint the "powerless" picture, no serenity prayers, no therapy, no vague spiritual concepts or 12 step platitudes, no delusional absolutes, no A-frame hugs or feeling assessments BUT learning the skills of the "How"when it comes to thinking, how to cut through the opinions and unfounded absolutes, how to ask for evidence and question everything with courage and integrity, how to use socratic questioning and scientific enquiry, how to build a life based in reality.
samseb,
for the most part, that is how it was for the first year or two of my sobriety. i knew i couldn't do 12-step, and so i looked and looked and found Lifering, where i fit in beautifully. for the first few years.
no unquestioned absolutes, no powerlessness. open questions encouraged. thinking encouraged. skepticism fine. no prayers.
it was right for me.
how that would have been for you? you can't know, now.
how is it for you today?
the funny thing for me (not haha funny) was that my honest questioning and looking at my own experience led me away from my initial lenses to a different view of what my reality had actually been while drinking and trying a multitude of times to quit and stay quit.
not sure why i'm saying this to you exactly; it struck me that i had much the scenario you wonder about having, yet it's not where my conclusions left me be.
i agree that mostly at the beginning, esp. after many tries, we are often overwhelmed and confused and have no idea what might "work".
your concept of creating your own critical thinking filter seems to counter your later suggestion of questioning everything. it was questioning everything with allowing filters to drop away as my courage increased, so to speak, that got me to understand what's true for me.
hm...are you thinking you lost out, somehow, by not starting out that way?