Hi all,
I have been thinking about this exchange I had with another member about "newcomers". There seems to be a concern about what people who decide they want to quit drinking and go online looking for information might read/see/be exposed to.
This misses the bigger picture for me which is what are newcomers going to think when they come to this site looking for help and instead of a sharing of personal experience they see personal attacks and disparagements of other methods.
I think that this speaks to the larger, overriding societal view that "the addicted" are a special group incapable of critical thinking, filtering information or making choices. It is as if an addicted person reads an interaction where members may be disagreeing on ideas surrounding addiction and recovery, that will confuse them and they will be unable to handle it.
It feels to me like "we mustn't disagree in front of the children". I personally don't view anyone looking to solve their problem with addiction as fragile or childlike. While I certainly recognize that the point of which many of us decided to make a change was fraught with pain and sadness, as a result of the physical and emotional consequences our drinking brought, I think that taking that tack reinforces a larger idea that persons who are addicted are helpless.
With an eye on permanent abstinence based recovery, do you think that how we view the addicted population matters?