Boleo

I have seen a number of posts in this forum questioning the fallacies and misconceptions found in recovery. The following is what I have come to regard as the Big Three:

1. Not drinking/using treats addiction.
2. Knowledge treats addition
3. Logic and reason teats addiction.

Lushwell

I like threads like this. More like a "tech session", where we all sit and compare tools and usage, as apposed to the "I think I got 'er whipped this time, cheer me on while I charge another windmill".

I have also had to come to grips with the fact that we don't come to recovery with the best of thought processes. We often have flawed thinking, distorted through years of chemical abuse. This does not go away simply by abstaining. It has to be cleared out. or it continues. This distorted thought process has it's own built in protection system but that is food for another thread.

Some of the largest fallacies in recovery, and blocks to recovery:

Filtering: You take the negative details and magnify them while filtering out all the positive aspects of a situation.

Being Right: You are continually on trial to prove that your opinions and actions are correct. Being wrong is unthinkable and you will go to any length to demonstrate your rightness.

The Fortune Teller Error: One anticipates that things will turn out badly, and one feels convinced that the prediction is an already established fact. [This is where we need to shut up and go along]

yeahgr8

I honestly never would have dreamed just how much was "wrong" with me when i came into recovery...i am so glad that i have had a great CBT counselor since day 1 who is also an alcoholic and stopped drinking 24 years ago...along with AA it has been a hell of a journey in the last 18 months and really i have only just begun to scratch the surface...for so many years i thought that if i just stopped drinking everything would be ok with me, now it seems so obvious that there must be something "wrong" to begin with to feel the need to have to turn to alcohol/drugs in the first place in an attempt to compensate for whatever it is that was missing from my life...

And the bottom line is change requires action...i'm very good at talking the talk, now i am choosing to walk the walk and it is one hell of a great journey and adventure...i would never have gotten to where i am now without face to face help...

Nyte Byrd

I think the biggest fallacy I have heard on occasion is
that 'relapse is part of recovery'.

It most definitely is NOT a 'necessary' part of recovery.

Stick around long enough, and you can learn from someone else's error. They'll let you know when they come back, I'm sure.

nvrbeentospain

It's certainly not a necessary part of recovery, and it's ideal if we don't relapse. But I think it's useful to still have it included in the stages of change model because relapse does happen, and you can pull yourself out from it. Relapse also doesn't mean losing everything that you had gained previously. So if you relapse, stop! Don't give up and keep on working for sobriety. But yes, don't accept relapse as inevitable or something you should experience.

So I guess my fallacy would be to think that relapse counteracts all the good you did prior to that.

Onewithwings

I don't think relapse is part of recovery, but it was part of MY recovery, and you know what? I'm okay with that, now. I did it the hard way, but I kept coming back, and never stayed 'out there' during a part of my relapse.

I now feeel that I am really recovering. I can see my thought processes change, and I am no longer obsessed with drugs and the urge to use. I feel that insanity lifted, and that is through working the steps with a sponsor. I have noticed a great change, and OP, you are right, recovery is not simply not using-- I know people with several years clean that don't have much recovery, and others with a few months clean who are getting REAL recovery. I challenge myself to make every day a day of recovery, not just abstinence.

sailorjohn

More like a stage of the disease.

If you believe that, then you must also believe that alcoholism is not progressive.

What I've always been taught, and experienced, when you relapse you do 'counteract' every good thing 'gained' through a period of extended sobriety.

Everything.

coalfury

I don't think that relapse is part of recovery. And I haven't heard it said that way. I have heard "relapse is part of alcoholism (or 'the disease')" and I agree with that. In a way, alcoholism is relapse. It's saying we won't, and then we do. It's trying to stop, and then making excuses. I "relapsed" for years before finding my place in the rooms. I am very aware that relapse is a reality and a possibility for me. I've just got to fight it with the tools I've got and let go.

As to how sick we are when we first sober up...sheesh. Not only have I been shocked to look back at my drinking years and find more and more bizarre things, illogical choices, outright insanity, but the shocking revelations continue. AND I can look back at the early recovery, without the booze, and still scratch my head wondering what I was thinking. My sponsor was suggesting against a course of action at about a year sober. She said "you've only been sober for a year. Your brain doesn't work. Don't trust it." She says she was 'crazy' for the first five years sober.

That scared me, but only for a moment. The crazy now is better than the crazy of day one, or of the days before I quit drinking. Simply taking the drugs or the booze out of the addict does not a well person make. It takes us a good long while of patience, learning, practicing, and continuing humility.

I DO NOT have it 'licked this time'. It's still got me. But that's okay, as long as I don't feed it a beer.

coalfury

sorry- more thought. The biggest fallacy I struggle with is the idea that recovery is like winning a lottery. There are so many stories, very moving and very true, of people who get sober, get their wife back, go back to school, make a million dollars and have three more beautiful children.

But recovery doesn't promise the cash and prizes. Recovery just promises....meetings, I guess. 24 hours.

I lost most of my life in getting sober. That's okay. I need the sobriety before I can have the life. But I do get caught up in the 'why hasn't it gotten better yet?" and self-pity of comparison.

Boleo

I would not go so far as to say recovery solves every problem. But it does solve most of the suffering that goes along with those problems. If there is one promise that recovery guarantee's it is a better attitude.

Today I have less "stuff" than ever before, yet I don't see my life as full of adversity, misery or poverty as an outsider might. I actually have more equanimity than ever before.

coalfury

I ditto that.

Zencat

Having been on SR's forums for a wile, the fallacies and misconceptions regarding recovery I see are:

• There is only one method/ideology that successfully treats every conceivable aspect of addiction. Either expounded by an individual or group.
• Spirituality in any form is required to successfully treat all conditions that would be thought as alcoholism.
• Individual effort void of a any recognizable recovery program will not completely return a person to a greater state of health; mentally, physically and emotionally.

mikefreak

This propably sounds crappy ( I don't intend it to be). A HARD lesson I had to learn is:
Because a person has recovered from a addiction doesn't automaticlly mean they have bee transformed into a wonderful person. AT ALL.

Nyte Byrd

I don't think it sounds crappy at all. It is probably very true in several cases. "Wonderful", of course, could mean a lot of different things, to different people, but let's put it this way.....in the time I've been sober, I don't think I'm in any danger of winning the "Shirley Temple Award of Sobriety" but I think more importantly, we learn how to become 'responsible' more than 'wonderful'.

How about 'wonderfully' responsible?

onlythetruth

I agree: those are the most commonly repeated fallacies.

Another one is the idea that abstinence/recovery is a terrible lifelong struggle that never gets any easier. It's as though the notion that recovery is "one day at a time" has been translated to mean "even if you've been sober 20 years, it's always day one".

OTT

dratsab

Mike,

I can completely relate to what you are saying!

When I went into recovery and first got sober, I imagined myself becoming a super happy and positive person. I thought I was going to finally go out there and start enjoying life; going dancing, going skiing, playing sports, etc...

But that kind of stuff doesn't just happen! I can think of two things I've learned from this realization:

1. I am the same person I was in recovery that I was when I was doing drugs. I just have less issues to deal with and I'm a little bit better at coping with things. But I have been a shy and quiet person for my entire life. And I'm still a shy and quiet person in recovery.

2. Everyone has issues and problems they have to deal with. So I need to remember to expect that I will continue having to deal with life and the stresses that come from it. I think it's a lot easier now that I'm being more proactive with dealing with life... but it ain't a walk in the park either.

Boleo

Here again is the first fallacy: "Not drinking/using TREATS addiction".

A person merely ABSTAINING does not transform much, if at all.

Bamboozle

Misconceptions on recovery:

--One shoe/size/shirt fits all.
--Spirituality (in any or all aspects) is necessary.


Misconceptions on addiction:

--Addiction is a moral failing.
--There is a reliable treatment for addiction.

Boleo

"There are no wrong ways to stay sober".

(However, there are many unreliable ones)

dratsab

I think that's a big and important misconception to point out. I think it comes from the idea that there's more than one way to stay sober... What people don't realize is that it doesn't open up all the options in the world. Also, I think some methods will work for some people while they wont work for others.