jdooner

While some alcoholic are quite stupid, I find that most are of higher intellect. Perhaps this is self serving to ease my own conscious but it is my experience that alcoholics (let me just use addicts in general) are like an unguided missile. They have in many cases greater than average motivation, ambition, but lack a guidance system and end up stuck in self harm and destruction.

Further, denial is one of the strongest human traits that I see. Self reflection and rigorous honesty is one of the toughest character traits or virtues to learn. So those that are able to develop I believe are among a small percentage of a very small percentage of people. Perhaps this is one reason why recovery rates are so low?

It is my belief that most people do not want to be enlightened in recovery. Everyone says they want to fall in love and be happy and want true enlightenment...but do they really or do they just want relief to their particular situation? Look at the posts on this site. Do you think if a newcomer comes onto this board and writes about his or her troubles and you could give them a pill to fix it all they would take it and return to doing exactly what they were doing that got them on here in the first place? Of course. People want relief from their pain. They want to bury their head in their pillow and comfy safe lives and go back to sleep...they are upset in the most part that addiction in some shape or form has woken them from their dream they call life.

I wonder if one must not walk through the valley of death to experience the most horrid of life's events to then understand the how lucky and beautiful it is to live in the present moment? To be truly grateful for what we have? Do we not have to experience hell to understand heaven (metaphorically speaking)? Do we need to experience pain to understand true pleasure?

I can walk into most circles and hold my own. I can attend a charity event in Washington with World leaders and be accepted based on my social status and professional achievements. However, I find some of the wisest men and women I have ever come across on this site. Not in those charity events. I find more addicts there who have yet to go through their own self discovery, driven by self will and out of balance egos. Some of the best conversations and debates I have ever been apart of that have really made me think are on this site.

So I humbly disagree that recovering addicts/alcoholics are dumb. I believe they are anything but...they are making the most honorable decision in my book which is facing fears and the mirror and consciously choosing to try and change - no small feat marked by the dismal recovery success rates of our shared disorder/disease/maladies.