GerandTwine

If you are addicted, please carefully read and understand the following important points of information in order to better evaluate what the people are saying who are trying to help you recover.

1. The disease concept of addiction is not factual but highly controversial in professional and scientific communities.
2. Independent recovery from addiction through planned, permanent abstinence is commonplace. According to official AA estimates, over 60% of all successful recoveries occur without recovery groups, professional counseling, or addiction treatment services.
3. The most realistic remedy for substance addiction is planned, permanent abstinence.
4. Your family, employer, and society may have a strong interest in you becoming securely abstinent, but how you achieve that is of no one’s concern but yours.
5. Addiction is not caused by personal problems, but serious personal problems certainly result from addiction.
6. Self-improvement does not lead to abstinence, although abstinence results in self- improvement.
7. Recovery group meetings are public meetings, and no confidentiality should be expected.
8. Quitting something you love one-day-at-a-time is easy in the short run, but difficult in the long run.
9. Quitting something you love altogether – for life – feels difficult only as you do it, but feels good immediately and in the long run.
10. It is unproductive to blame your ancestors or original family for your adult behavioral problems
11. If you quit your addiction altogether, you will not likely develop new problems or switch to another addiction or substance. It feels good to solve a serious problem, and your future will look brighter.
12. Your own native beliefs and original family values are the best ones upon which to base addiction recovery.
13. Your desire for group or family support in order to remain sober conceals a plan to drink/ use in the absence of support.
14. By choosing independent recovery, you are setting a higher standard for yourself, so you will experience a greater fall if you resume your use of alcohol and other hedonic drugs.
15. Addictive Voice Recognition Technique® (AVRT®) is a common means of independent recovery from substance addiction.

(the above 15 points are from the Rational Recovery Website)

soberlicious

Thank you for posting these.
Number 3 was especially important for me "The most realistic remedy for substance addiction is planned, permanent abstinence."

Those that were trying to help me actually discouraged me from looking at abstinence as permanent, rather they encouraged me to take it day by day. I already struggled getting through each day as a drinker, so I didn't relish the idea of having to think about this sh*t every day, or any day after I quit. I just wanted to put it behind me and move on. I got lots of pats on the head, and hugs, and big sighs "It just isn't that easy, soberlicious"

Turns out embracing permanent abstinence was just what I needed. and #9 proved to be true as well for me.

bradly22

Thank you for your post. Especially for #4. Someone had to mention all these bullet points that are commonly overlooked.

When I was getting better, the advice I had received from counselors and family was just plain terrible and ignorant. I'm very glad that I kept my boundaries up and laid into them with a firm "No. I won't do that.".

soberlicious

I agree, bradly, and glad you were able to keep your boundaries. It can hard for people who have chosen independent permanent abstinence, since it is opposite of many of the beliefs that are ingrained in our society about the nature of addiction and ending addiction.

I know that my family was very scared that I could not do this on my own, since they had actually been told that I could not do this on my own. I had to have some patience with them and give them time. They deserved that from me. Turns out the best way to get the people I love to believe that I would never drink again, is to actually never drink again.

dwtbd

“Quatitude, attitude without a twist” , new official T-shirt for members ?

zerothehero

Thanks for posting these. It's a reminder that I'm about 90% on board. #4 would be entirely true, except that social/human services and the courts often mandate treatment, especially in cases where the parents of small children are using. At that point the individual has little choice (or they could make choices and reap or suffer the consequences). #5 is mostly true because addiction is caused by repeatedly using or doing the same thing over and over and over... But, people sometimes repeat those behaviors due to personal problems like stress or mental illness or boredom. #13 isn't always true. People need people. Life gets lonely. It's not necessarily a cover or hidden excuse. Those three caveats aside, I'm down with the rest of it.

soberlicious

Remember though, that these points are made about ending your addiction, period, not a design for living. "13. Your desire for group or family support in order to remain sober conceals a plan to drink/ use in the absence of support." I bolded that part because I think the point being made is, if I believe that if I don't have support then I can't remain abstinent, then that's an easy loophole to allow me to drink again.

dwtbd

#4 doesn’t mention treatment , it is saying that people can expect that you become securely abstinent , ie that that expectation is certainly within any norm especially given that continued heavy use can/will have consequences that affect those people through no fault of their own.
How you get ‘there’ isn’t a concern for them, just the fact that you do.

GerandTwine

As I see it, mandated treatment is the purpose of point #4 being made. Mandation happens all over the place and instead of leading to independent permanent abstinence, it tends to lead AWAY from it. #4 is suggesting that a mandate for abstinence is logical (with random testing), but not mandating HOW a person acheives it broadens the means to include independent permanent abstinence, which, of course, is what the mandator should be expecting.

There are lots of reasons why mandators don’t mandate immediate permanent abstinence with random testing. I think point #4 is being made to inform people that if they don’t like what is being mandated, they should understand those reasons in order to better request what means of recovery fits for them.

GT

PS. For instance, looking at all the forums here on SR, which one has a title that would be closest to what a mandator would like their client to relate to?

GerandTwine

I’m not sure what you mean by “mental illness”, but every time I’ve heard the “stress problem” or “boredom problem” used as a reason to get repeatedly drunk/drugged, it always boils down to wanting to return to that particular assault of deep pleasure. The problems always disappear before or just as the alcohol/drugs are about to be ingested. And, of course, at that point, there is nothing in the blood, yet.

“I’m really excited I’m about to drink!” “I’m already not bored or stressed any more.” “I’m feeling great, but there’s nothing in my blood yet.”Hmmmm.” “So, why am I doing it?” “OK, you got me.”

AVRT sorts out this type of Beast attack. “Restlessness”, “Sudden Flood”, or “Vertigo.”

MindfulMan

What are these values?

GerandTwine

“Your own...original family values”. is how I interpret it. But I suppose it could also be interpreted as a more generic “original family values”

In my opinion, they are values my parents used all through my childhood in teaching me when, where, and how to INHIBIT myself from acting in ways that were against those values. That included everything from running into the street, to eating with dirty hands, to putting off my homework, to being mean to my siblings, to drinking too much when borrowing the car, to (thousands of more things).

MindfulMan

So...the values you learned from your family. Which are of course different for every family.

Tough if your parents were abusive alcoholic drug addicts.

GerandTwine

12. Your own native beliefs and original family values are the best ones upon which to base addiction recovery.

Yes, I can imagine it might be tougher to hold on to a non-abusive value learned from an abusive parent. But whose to say it could not be easier as a way “to base addiction recovery”.

There have been hundreds of stories, some true, some fiction, published over the course of U.S. history detailing this utilization of family values, sometimes from quite imperfect families.

And some of the values stand farther back than one generation. I look at #12 from an optimistic perspective, not from the pessimistic perspective that would perpetuate abuse.

MindfulMan

I'm still unclear what exactly those "family values" are. It's a very loaded term.

GerandTwine

Can you narrow “your own ... original family values” (or generic “original family values’) down in a way that would make #12 more understandable for you?

MindfulMan

I find the use of the terms "family values" and "native beliefs" in #12 very ambiguous. My original question was what they mean in the context of your OP.

What are some specific examples of these which are the "best ones" on which to base a recovery?

GerandTwine

The terms are actually “Your own native beliefs and original family values...”

For how I based my recovery, I would say enlightened-self interest without sacrificing discipline, trustworthiness, compassion, personal integrity, self-respect, high standards of intelligence, learning, forgiveness of self and others, and love.

There are also some great discussions of family values and native beliefs online.

Algorithm

MindfulMan,

In the context that Trimpey is using it, as part of his informed consent list, item #12, "your own native beliefs and original family values are the best ones upon which to base addiction recovery" simply means that you do not need a new, and possibly foreign, design for living, in order to recover from an addiction. You can stay just the way you are.

Although Mr. Trimpey certainly has become more conservative over the years, Jack is not using the term "family values" there in the way the anti-LGBT fanatics often use it, which I presume from your pride flag user avatar, is what you are in fact referring to.

Terminally Unique would post in the LGBT forum on this site, and Jack Trimpey nevertheless gave him permission to facilitate AVRT discussion on Sober Recovery. I believe that it was understood to be a non-issue, in the larger scheme of things.

MindfulMan

Yeah...not just the QUILTBAG issue, there are other issues that fall under that umbrella that I won't name in the interest of keeping this site apolitical. ;-) Just as I won't go into my feelings on Tripey's politics.

I found that in my journey I've kinda gone beyond just staying the way I am. I've found a more authentic self, or should I say, I'm FINDING a more authentic self. There is a certain amount of acceptance that happened, even though it was formally to a "Higher Power." That jazz didn't work for me at all. Try doing Step 2 and 3 when you're a stone cold agnostic and the idea of moving your locus of control externally is anathema. I'm sure I'm largely preaching to the choir here, and is why I stopped going to 12 Step meetings.

I really like the Serenity Prayer, if you take out the "God grant me..." part and replace it with "May I have the..." To me there is a value to letting sh*t go that we really have no power over (like what other people think and do, or sickness, or earthquakes). Thinking I could control far more than I actually could kept me anxious (and contributed to drinking/using) for a number of years. Courage to change the things I can is also huge. My drinking/using was also VERY MUCH about avoiding things that made me anxious and uncomfortable. It's not that drinking and drugs don't work to blunt anxiety, they work too well....and don't get to the root of problems that make us anxious in the first place.

And of course wisdom is always a good thing.

None of this is going to happen with continued use. This is really why I don't drink any more....I'm having WAY too much fun with sobriety. I can't see that ever changing.