rahrah

I agree to an extent....I have been trying to listen and process everything I hear whether I agree with it or not. I have learned throughout this year in recovery that putting my way of thinking aside and trying to see things from another perspective can be very enlightening...which is why I've stuck around in certain group therapy programs after hearing things I don't agree with...because things I used to be totally against I have since changed my views on..
I've listened to people who told me to just TRY another way and some of those new ways worked wonders for me. I may get worked up about something I hear and don't like...but isn't that sorta what we have to go through in order to change? I don't have long left in this program, I want to finish it because I committed to it. But I have learned that FOR NOW I benefit more from talking with someone who has been through what I've been through.
It's all worth it..the good, the bad, the stuff that I disagree with...its makes me think and work through my recovery...I don't regret any of it.
And P.S...this therapist I talk about is a wonderful person and his love and desire to help is genuine! Just not always on the mark...but hey, we all miss the mark from time to time!

Gottalife

Greed: noun, overwhelming desire for more.
Synonyms include gluttony, selfishness, excess and craving.

Without giving it too much weight, greed or selfishness seems to be a well recognised characteristic of the alcoholic. It may be different for addicts, I wouldn't know.

Many years ago a well respected member of the medical community described the 12 steps of AA as a very good means of turning "greedy self lovers into generous other lovers". Quite a shocking choice of words, but medical people can be like that. My medical file contains similar words, like grandiose, arrogant, squalor, self centred. Not nice reading, but it was all true, and the truth is not always comfortable.

In fact, avoiding the truth had become a full time job for me. Unwilling to face it, I wanted life to be one long party. And of course every time I drank I had an overwhelming desire for more. This definition of greed fits me quite well.

KAD

If someone asked me to apply a single word to my alcoholism, greed wouldn't even occur to me. But then when I saw that the Merriam-Webster definition is "a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is needed," it fits. To a certain extent. Before I became physically dependent, I did continue drinking because I wanted more and more, even though I knew intellectually I was overdoing it, and even when I was aware of not really wanting it. After becoming physically dependent, though, things got more complicated. I drank then because if I didn't, I felt like I was dying. I actually was killing myself, but withdrawal felt like it was going to happen much sooner and in a much more terrifying way. I think I was more motivated by fear then.

Gottalife

In my country, outside of AA, there is quite a big effort going in to help alcoholics and addicts. Our universities offer degrees in addiction medicine and therapy, and there are a few recovered alcoholics and addicts that go and work in the field.

They find that their own experience of recovery, especially 12 step based, is not recognised in the degree course, nor is mention of it permitted in the counselling sessions. Having had the experience of addiction is not that useful if you can't talk about how you recovered. Instead, one of my friends tells me, he has to recommend things he knows will not work, which he finds incredibly frustrating. But these services are provided by government and must be in line with the current political view.

The majority working in the field are non addicts, but the control over what the therapists can say or do means that even a recovered addict working as a therapist is restricted in what they can suggest.