Got My Shrink Thinking
 

I wasn't sure if or where to post this, but I know there are some members of this forum who will find this interesting, so I decided to post it here.

I started seeing a therapist/coach a few weeks ago for issues unrelated to my former drinking problem. She's pretty good for what I was seeking. She's young, still pursuing additional certifications. She markets herself as an addictions counselor (among other things), so it was only a matter of time before we talked about my history with alcohol. It came up toward the end of a session and she gave me some literature to take with me. It was everything many of us don't like about the addictions counseling industry.

I decided to let that sleeping dog lie, but she wanted to discuss my AVRT-based approach in more detail. She kept asking me to consider reframing my understanding of addiction - which is something I really don't care for. I never saw any purpose in telling someone who was succeeding against their addiction that they should do things another way. I told her as much. I also told her I didn't want to discuss it with her because I was afraid we would waste valuable time with her trying to force her text book learned approach on me when it wasn't necessary. Then I brought up the fact that the literature she gave me to read contains numerous absolute statements about how to get free of addiction that I knew for a fact were not absolute truths.

She agreed the "one size fits all" approach is not helpful, but did not believe the literature she had given me contained absolute statements. She even suggested I was being a bit defensive and that I was seeing what I expected to see in the literature. We got the literature out and I showed her where it said (bolding mine), "You will never get sober by simply deciding not to drink" and "defeating your addiction requires building a substantial support network".

She was quiet for a minute and then agreed those were absolute statements and she would not give that literature to anyone else.

There's hope for her yet. :)

Good for you. My therapist was a 12 step guy through and through. He urged me to work the AA way, though I expressed reservations about its long term viability for me.
He had no interest in exploring other options.
End of the day, I left AA and I left him after a while.
I don't regret it. AA wasnt for me and neither was he.

Nonsensical, despite your moniker, you always make a lot of sense to me!

Hopefully, you've worked through the therapist session, by posting here, perhaps?

I love your avatar...have a nice day to you, too!

"defeating your addiction requires building a substantial support network".

wouldn't being at a therapist and on this forum somewhat make the statement legit for you?

I can't answer for the OP , but I'd wage a guess as to the flavor of his answer.

'Requires' is used in that statement as an absolute. I've never built a support network, and I believe I've defeated my addiction. Am I wrong, or is the statement factually inaccurate?

My counselor isn't a fan of AA, she said she thinks it's too religious. I'm glad that there are so many more options today for people wanting to quit drinking, AA is one way but it's not the only way. I have explained RR to her a few times now and encouraged her to read the book so she can point people in that direction. I go to see her only once a month now because I don't need help with quitting drinking, thanks to AVRT that is over, but I do like getting her opinion on how I'm going to live my new sober life and mending relationships that my selfish behaviour damaged and just general self improvement.....self esteem and whatnot. I agree that one doesn't need a substantial support network. What does that even mean? To me getting and staying sober is an inside job that has to come from within. It's nice to be supported but it can't be what keeps a person sober. What if something happens to that support? And of course one can simply just decide to quit drinking! Isn't that what every person who ever quit did? Is there another way? I guess people can choose to believe that it was divine intervention, a miracle, but I think they made a decision to quit and day by day by day by day kept at it until it stuck.

Along similar lines, doesn't "You will never get sober by simply deciding not to drink" mean exactly that? No one learning and reading and practicing RR methods and posting on forums has simply decided not to drink and gone on with life, which is what that statement means to me. It's still false as an absolute statement, since many (most?) people with drinking problems caught early on do simply decide to stop, but I think everyone on this forum and others like it have done more than simply decide not to drink, and are making use of a support network.

Just trying to understand what you mean.

I compartmentalize between 'not drinking' and 'living a happy sober life'.

All that is required to defeat my addiction is to not feed it. Period.

Living a happy sober life may require sharing in a supportive environment. Many people do that, and I count myself among them. I learned things by participating here at SR that I was not exposed to through out patient rehab, AA, or family. It gives me pleasure to share those things and from time to time help someone else. But if SR shut down tomorrow I wouldn't start drinking again. It isn't required for my sobriety.

Telling people there is only one way to defeat an addiction isn't true, and I believe it is counter-productive when the way that was presented as 'the only way' isn't the right one for the addict it is presented to. The Secular Connections forum is loaded with people who have a story about that happening to them - but forum rules generally prohibit them from sharing those stories as they inevitably involve bringing up forbidden topics. :)

It is virtually impossible for alcohol to get into my stomach without my knowing about it. Evolution has made ingesting nutrients a very conscious deliberate activity because of the importance of not consuming poisons/inedibles. That's why our mouths are zero inches from our taste buds, one inch from our nose, and two inches from our eyes. Life has operated this way for billions of years.

I repeat these biological facts here to introduce the point that using the word "NEVER" should be used cautiously, such as "I will NEVER drink/drug again." Ingesting is such a necessarily deliberate act, that, yes, I CAN easily decide to "NEVER" ingest a particular something again.

Nonsensical's therapist pushing literature with absolutes ("never"s) about how one must recover from addiction, clearly reveals the tactic of the Institutional Addictive Voice (IAV) to not only avoid the easy way to end addiction (I will never drink again), but to actually coopt the word "never" into a reversed and completely untruthful usage, "You will never get sober by simply deciding not to drink." It has taken many decades for the IAV to gaslight public opinion into accepting these sorts of falsehoods as the way things are.

Consider if the addiction counselor's literature had said instead "You will not get sober by simply deciding to never drink." This sentence exposes the falsehood more clearly. You see, by switching the never and the not, the IAV has ruled out the concept of "never drinking alcohol" from any consideration at all to begin with, either pro or con. That's just how slick (and desparate) the IAV is to NEVER take the simple capacity of people to decide to "NEVER drink alcohol" seriously.

Furthermore, it is a false conclusion that "learning and reading and practicing RR methods and posting on forums" means the statement "You will not get sober by simply deciding not to drink." is true. Many people recover by simply taking the Crash Course on AVRT. AVRT recovery IS an EVENT. Making a Big Plan.

It is deprogramming one's thinking from the IAV that can take a little bit more time. So, it's really funny to me to see how the IAV uses its prevalence in society to further try to justify that the process of unlearning its lies means you can't get sober by simply deciding to never drink again.

I imagine hopefully what was going through Non's therapist's mind during that "she was quiet for a minute". But I'm not holding my breath.

Yes, my recovery from alcohol addiction was an action, following which I was recovered from addiction. I spent years 'in recovery' but it didn't work, for me.

My 'recovery' from the dreadful mess of a life I caused by drinking, is entirely separate and independent from my 'recovered' state from addiction. As a 'recovered former alcoholic', I don't have to protect that status by attending meetings, phoning someone, or sponsoring someone, avoiding slippery places, not stepping in the crack on the pavement. My new identity as a non-alcoholic, is a permanent status and completely independant of any outside support group, source, higher power or removal of any character defects. That is why I state I have freedom and truly, it's so liberating.

I hang around SR on an altruistic basis, hoping to assist someone who's tried the usually recommended route, but to no avail. If that route works for someone, great......but I personally lost years in the quagmire of ,'disease and powerlessness'.

I am still in awe, at the transformation in me, when it clicked that I always possessed the power to stop drinking, that addiction was just a lower/mid-brain issue, that my neo-cortex (ME the neo-cortex inhibitor, logic and reasoning - as opposed to the lower/mid-brain automatic, learned, operant, behaviour, survival drive) as are my family and friends, that I didn't push away whilst drinking.

I simply can't describe the impact this has had on other areas of my life. Whilst drinking I became very isolationist and was subsumed by negative thoughts, for which I sought professional guidance. Amazingly, the psychologist and psychiatric who's material I read, are effectively recommending AVRT, the psychologist, credits JT!

I hear you! I thought I was clinically depressed at times...... nope it was just the booze blues. I'm just so glad that I don't live that way anymore! What a bottomless pit it was....... so lame. The transformation I feel since quitting has been amazing. I didn't realize how much it was affecting my mood and my cognitive functions, it was really dumbing me down and turning my personality into someone who I've since learned that I'm not. I just couldn't see it while I was in it.

Personally, I think most humans need "a substantial support network." When I worked at the college library my friends and family was supportive of my job and the happiness it brought me. They were there to support me when I had the job from hell that made me literally physically ill. Zero and I have an online support network to discuss the special issues that only a service dog team will ever deal with in everyday life.

Often we don't recognize these support networks but we are social animals and naturally our needs and even our entertainment options (baseball or football team supporters-we got your covered).

It has become so drilled into our society that as people with past using and drinking problems we are special: so why should we be surprised to view the above context of "substantial support" as AA/SMART etc instead of just plain support like we do with the rest of our lives?

Just something I was thinking about today

Last night, I met a member of the support group I used to frequent. She said 'how is it out there, I guess you'll come back when you're ready'. I replied, 'I've stopped drinking for good, I won't be coming back', she said' oh I'm sorry to hear that, dry-drunk is a state of limbo and white-knuckling is so exhausting, so you'll probably lose your grip and start drinking soon. We'll be there when you want to come back'. I explained that I'd discovered a way to stop drinking and I was happy and rebuilding my life. She said 'oh that's the denial we were warned about, you can't stay sober without AA'.

So, yesterday, I was reflecting on how to add more to this support group thread....then would you believe it, I was given more material to add here. Please don't think I'm gloating, I'm just so sad that other folks are stuck in the hamster wheel of addiction. There are numerous ways out, but being told that that there's only one way, is not beneficial. I have a G-d of. my choice, and s/he has proven to me, that stopping drinking was my birthright, as was alcohol addiction.

The power was always in my mind and so why would a support group choose to tell me that I was powerless and I should pray to the support group, or the door-knob, or Mother Earth or whatever. I'm glad I no longer have that type of support, it was a massive hindrance, it did nothing but keep me tethered to drinking.

Just wanted to add, although I know this is secular, but truly, thank G-d for Sober Recovery and its Secular Connections!

Indeed, lots of support group options, including just a circle of close friends who know you well and who can listen and feed back. In addiction recovery, there are many, AA, Smart, SOS, LSR, a bunch of smaller organizations, forums like SR, medical treatment support groups, plus other kinds of support groups for other issues like PTSD. We're social animals, and I think we tend to thrive more easily when we're plugged into human networks.

I agree we're hard wired, as social animals, but NO, absolutely NO, I don't agree we thrive more easily when 'plugged into human networks". That's nonsense and without scientific backup.

I stopped drinking, forever, by disengaging from the human networks (AA) etc, and instead, by utilising this site, Sober Rocovery, and I realise it's a 'social network' but it's more informative and less jargonistic and doesn't require me to attend AA for the rest of my days!

I didn't get my support system from any program (SMART for the tools not support group). I did get support from those around me who saw I was doing things like taking better care of myself etc. Support can come in many modalities, even the person who ran the volunteer program who noticed my work picked up without know why, which was that I quit drinking and using.

This is for secular forms of recovery. Many, including me, are religious and/or spiritual. I just find the 12 steps were not for me personally after my 12th step and discovered SMART. That program doesn't discuss religion one way or another. Secular programs simply mean not G-d centered.

I think that it is only when you are in a position of not having support network that you realise how important it is to have one, how sometimes people take spouses, family and friends for granted and don't realise how lost they would be if they didn't have them hence rendering them support network.

What passes for "support" is mostly best wishes - verbal attaboys. They cost nothing and in turn are worth nothing.

Fact is, no one other than close intimates and family care if anyone drinks. All this "support" is nothing but the collective, cultural AV run rampant in the guise of recoveryism.

What if this "support" evaporated? Would you begin drinking again?