instant

If there are underlying issues it is important to address them. Having said that being sober is a foundation for any progress. In addition i think the idea of someone who has been drinking alcoholically being able to drink again after they have got their "issues" done is a dangerous idea.

Threshold

I don't know how much the why matters to others. I will just share my own experience.

I had a doozy of a childhood. My substance abuse and other addiction issues stem back to as far as I can remember. I was "self medicating" and "self comforting" since I was three.

I was in therapy for 13 years. It was pretty clear "why" I had a lot of the behavioral and psychological issues I had. But that didn't help me behave differently, or stop being anxious, or stop self medicating. Those things worsened.

By working the 12 steps and trying to apply those principles to all my affairs, I am no longer acting out on my addictive behaviors and substance abuse. I am no longer on anxiety meds. I occasionally have glimpses of serenity, and even if I don't dwell in it, I understand what it is for the first time ever.

So. Knowing why may not have been purposeless, but it didn't stop me from self destructing and I know for a fact that the more crap I uncovered the more I felt like I could never possibly get over all that. That I was beyond help, useless and doomed. I mean who could overcome that?

Yet, unaccountably...I am making progress. I have not been in therapy for a number of years (it was expensive and it didn't appear to be alleviating anything). I have been clean and sober for over a year.

I am not in any way suggesting therapy is not useful and even life saving for many. I just know that therapy alone, and knowing why, didn't restore wholeness to my life.

I suspect it is because in therapy it was nearly always focused on what was done to me. I felt powerless and victimized. In the 12 steps I am empowered, shown there is hope and a way to live. I focus on my part, my life, what I can do, not what was done to me.

I can't believe it myself but in the past few months I can look back, back at things that happened over 40 years ago that I had dragged around with me all that time, and let it go and be truly OK with moving forward. To not be defined by that.

Harden1313

Thanks everyone. I'll address all questions in one post to make it easier.

I'm working through my second 4th step right now with my second sponsor.

As for family of origin issues, that doesn't mean family history, it means what happened to you while you were a child/teen to form who you are today. Good or bad. For me personally it means looking at the relationship of my parents and how it effected me as well as digging a bit back to figure out why my parents acted the way they did based on their upbringing. I'm comfortable with it. When I was a teen my parents were fighting nearly every day, my father was physically abusive and I had, what seemed like, a million problems and I was in a pretty deep depression. When I drank for the first time I found relief. It was the only thing that did it for me. Those problems aren't the why, it's the behavior of running away from life into a bottle instead of dealing with them. That is the behavior I learned at 15 and repeated for 18 years which slowly developed and progressed into the monster I battle today. I drank to feel better and dealing with that with a good therapist is hugely positive and healing. I have found through therapy and digging into the why that I have taken some of the power away from it. The work I do with my therapist mirrors and aids my step four work very well too. I have started being able to deal with life on life's terms and the why just doesn't have the same control over me anymore. It isn't simply the old school "because I'm an alcoholic duh!".

Alcoholism is a deviously layered emotional behavior with many facets. For me it's not simply a duh kind of thing. Now does that speak to everyone? Nope, of course not. But to me it makes sense and blends wonderfully and effortlessly with my step work and other AA related work just as I incorporate exercise, diet, doctor check ups, marital therapy, meditation and meetings into all of it. For me treatment of this disease is more than the Big Book. It is a lot more.

Thanks for the various views on this everyone. At the end of the day we all take from the program what works for us and leave the rest. I hope your day is sober and serene.

Harden1313

Thanks for the addition. For the record I want to make sure you understand that in no way did I suggest that once the "issues" are addressed that I or any alcoholic could or should start drinking again.

instant

I just mentioned it as it comes up periodically. People think they are now wiser/have more control/ more mature etc and so this means 'this time it will be different'

Harden1313

Ahhhh...gotcha. Nope, none of that garbage here. My first step isn't temporary.