MIRecovery

I view recovery as a journey not destination. I can be in a state of recovery on a day, week, month, year, or 10 years but I will never say I'm recovered.

Try losing a child and you will know you are not recoved. 30 years of unhealthy coping skills don't magically vanish just because you are solidly in recovery.

No one can imagine the pain and mental anguish one experiences. The only thing that saved me was ODAAT. You want the pain to go away so badly and there is almost nothing you can do about it other than focusing what little energy you haveon making it through the day without taking your own life or drinking.

ODAAT is one of the tools in my bag of tricks and I am very glad it was there. In my opinion the secret of sobriety is continually moving forward toward the life I want and towards the person I want to be.

Boleo

I'm not much of a fan of RR and AVRT but I can see where they are doing at least one thing right... They don't allow short-term goals to interfere with long-term goals. It all kind of reminds me of a story I heard when I was just a toddler;

"Once apon a time there were 3 little pigs. The first little pig built a house of straw..."

Soberpotamus

I didn't intend to downplay the effectiveness or even the necessity of focusing on not drinking a day (or moment) at a time. I've been there. I've had some strong urges in the past that meant I had to focus on urge surfing or whatever in order to maneuver that particular circumstance, and it works. I guess what I meant was that my overall goal is long-term/indefinite sobriety.

Boleo, yes, I guess that's a great example of short-term and long-term goals working harmoniously.

I don't see having to get through a moment or day as ODAAT "approach" or "philosophy."

But then again, maybe it's semantics?

P.S. I did RR/AVRT for a short time and don't consider it a huge part of my early recovery experience, though I use the AV language and metaphors and such on an ongoing basis, so that part of it stuck and became permanent.

dwtbd

AVRT , for me, only does/did one thing. What are the other 'things' that need to be done or one 'needs' to be doing ?

Boleo

I'm no expert on AVRT so can't answer your question. However, I can see some elements of Zen in AVRT and would like to have someone with advanced knowledge explain the "detachment" element to me.

Andante

I do take your point. It seems to you a travesty that efforts to "dumb down" AA to make it accessible to the spiritually illiterate masses can result in the entire point of the message, the content of the solution, being lost.

However, are you sure the best solution is for you to take your marbles and go home? Even as more of an observer than a participant, I believe in the necessity of Step 12. Why not continue to offer the solution as you see it? Why should it matter to you whether you are perceived as a "nuisance" if you believe in the truth of what you share? You may never succeed in converting the ODAAT crowd, but isn't there also something in the literature about staying out of the results?

Boleo

I now take my "marbles" to Refuge Recovery meetings where my message may not be understood by many there, but at least I don't get old-timers shooting down my message by directing their counter-shares at me.

Perhaps the best thing about Refuge Recovery is they they don't have any "token-collectors" who can use their nominal recovery to trump my message. The book clearly states that abstinence alone is NOT recovery.

Gottalife

I found ODAAT a useful tactic in early sobriety. It was a weapon in my human arsenal which could help me maintain a temporary dry spell for up to three weeks. Dry misery that is. But it helped me while I was coming to grips with the AA program.

I reached a point where I gave up the fight to not drink. I was getting no where on that tack, and had to concede defeat. No one had less spiritual aptitude than me, but I found that as God has all power, my spiritual ineptitude was of no consequence. The only precursor I know of for spiritual experience is complete defeat, complete failure of my human resources.

My surrender in effect involved forgetting all about not drinking and putting all my effort into getting this God thing, which had become apparent to me as the most important thing. This was the action of putting step three into effect.

The result was that all thoughts of drinking were removed from my thought processes almost immediately. It was not until I was told I had been sober for three months that I realised the drink problem had gone, and the world had changed. In fact I had changed having had a change of personality sufficient to overcome alcoholism.

It all came from total defeat. Today I believe many folk in AA have not experienced total defeat. They have an ever increasing variety of easier softer ways to turn to and no shortage of people in and out of the fellowship to reassure them that they still have options, they can still beat this thing on their terms, they can try this or that, they can try a bit of this and a bit of that and come up with their own custom made personalised program which will keep them sober with the minimum of discomfort. For alcoholics of my type this is just a lie, pure and simple.

I never found such a solution. The only course open to me was to pursue a spirtual experience about which I had no understanding. I was only willing to do this because I had no alternatives.

I sometimes think ODAAT might be a misinterpretation of step 11, which contains the AA suggestions for successfully living life ODAAT. There is nothing about not drinking at this stage of the program as the concept has become redundant. By step 10 the problem has been removed. Drinking or not drinking is not part of my life anymore, and never will be if I continue to live my life each day the way the AA program has taught me.

Boleo

That's what I call; starting out in first gear without upshifting. Taking one step outside of a burning building without going any further. Staying stuck on short-term goals. The essence of "Recuperating".



That's what I call; shifting gears into overdrive. Moving clear from the burning building to a place that is safe and protected. Refocusing on long-term goals. The essence of "Recovery".

MIRecovery

Like gears on a car each is useful in it own way and at the correct time

Boleo

Exactly. We all start out in first gear aka ODAAT. However, when someone goes several months, years or even decades thinking it's supposed stay a ODAAT program, someone needs to let them know that they are straining their engine.

I have seen friends with double didgit sober time relapse because they believed ODAAT is all there is to recovery.

Is that all there is?
Is that all there is?
If that's all there is my friends
Then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is."

MIRecovery

But when you are stuck in the mud or need to go up a steep hill there is nothing like first gear

Gottalife

I dunno MIR. My experience is more: But when you are stuck in the mud or need to go up a steep hill there is nothing like God and step 11.

Redmayne

Personally speaking I've always taken the idea of ,'One Day At A Time' as a much more viable option, however long you've been sober to 'One Death At A Time', given that my drinking nearly killed me and has certainly seen the demise of others I've known, personally and publicly.

The saying,'Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down,' has a strong element of truth in it, but then again if you've no experience of these matters, you can, in all honesty, be hardly be seen as being in a position to comment.

Boleo

That's not how a spiritual awakening works or feels for me. The decision making process and the struggle phase are completely behind me. I just don't need to go there.


I don't choose to drink or not-drink ODAAT. Bad days don't make me feel like I want to pick up a drink. The entire alcohol issue now seems like a moot point.

That's what my message is. There is no need to struggle even one day ever again.

Boleo

One of my favorite sayings is: "If all you have is an opinion about an experiece that you have never had, the name for that kind of experience is conjecture."

A "Spiritual Awkening" is an experience so esoteric in nature, that no one can comprehend it before living it first-hand. It is NOT the same as finding the strength to not-drink ODAAT.

Redmayne

Applying cognitive (truth and reason) to my 30 year drinking history and my now well over seven years of sobriety there are certain salient facts bound up in all of this, the same that are known to 1,000's of others...

Addiction to drugs or alcohol, including those who at the time of their drinking, suffer from alcoholism, alcohol being but a symptom, left unattended, kills!

Time spent in recovery is not then an academic exercise to be pursued by way of psuedo-intellectual discussion, for those of suffer the rigours of either addiction or alcoholism, sometimes known as 'alcohell', it's all to real, with the consequences at least running the risk or proving fatal, if not to thev suffer but those surrounding them. For some it's an everyday occurrence.

Of course those who choose to , for whatever reason, ignore this very salient and for many real fact, serve no real purpose , other than to themselves. Which is far removed from those others who, in real terms, share their experience, strength and hope to help others, including themselves, in recovery...

But hey! 'Live and let live! right, let's not do anything silly, like letting reality intrude or being really stupid and thinking that, given the prospective consequences, that recovery is anything but an abstract exercise to be discussed bny only those who know all the answers but none of the questions. Whilst all around you others are dropping out of sight because of a fatal illness or addiction...

I've always thought that the Buddhist saying, 'Anything that contradicts logic or experience should be abandoned', living One Day At A Time, has never fallen into that category for many people including the fact that it's espoused by other philosophies and is an important part of cognitive behavioural therapy.

freshstart57

I am all for living in the moment, in a mindful life of awareness, acceptance and gratitude. If you choose to call it living ODAAT, go ahead.

However, I think that quitting drinking for today cannot, by definition, form the basis for any kind of permanent sobriety since there is always a possibility that one may drink tomorrow. That is a question whose answer has been deferred, waiting to be asked again and again with the rising of the sun every morning.

And yes, Redmayne, people die of overdose and alcohol poisoning, and from the mental illness issues that arise through substance abuse. All the more reason to get this right.

Boleo

The level of recovery that I am talking about transcends decisions. That's why I compare it to a Zen state. All decisions occur naturally and without struggle. RobbyRobot used to say "I couldn't care less about alcohol" and I fully understand what he meant.

Not to mention the fact that if my sobriety depended on me making the right decision every single day, thousands of days in a row... sooner or later I would make the wrong decision. That's why I call ODAAT unsafe and unreliable.

"Sought after virtue is not true virtue".
(Lao Tzu - the original Laozi old man)

Boleo

I agree. That's why I use academic knowledge to back up and properly interpret my "first-hand experience", rather that to merely gain experience in the first place.

Some of us go beyond tacit experience so as to be be able to articulate our experience for the sake of passing it on to others. That is also why I never trust reading just one single book on a subject and then pretending to have a comprehensive understanding of the subject matter. I read over a dozen books on Buddhism before I even began to interpret Buddhism. Every single Buddha quote that you have espoused so far appears to have been done at a neophyte level.

?Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it?? | Fake Buddha Quotes