What’s The Best Way To Get Clean? Ctd

In response to the reader who wrote that “AA works 100 percent of the time for people who are 100-percent committed to the program,” another writes, “Like much of AA’s homespun wisdom, that statement is completely untrue, yet very helpful at the same time”:

Most meetings begin with a reading that states: “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has rigorously followed our path.” Who knows how true that really is, but when you’re desperate to stop drinking, hearing that can give you hope. I have no idea if I could have gotten sober on my own. I have no idea if AA is the best approach. Clearly it isn’t the only way, and Bill Wilson himself never suggested that it was. What I do know is that when I was desperate and had no idea how I could stop drinking, AA members gave me hope. They had been where I was and were in a better place now. I’ll always be grateful to AA for that.

Another reader:

People in recovery understand that the statement that AA “works 100 percent of the time for people who are 100-percent committed to the program” is like saying that if you enter a room, you are going to stay in that room, unless you leave it. It’s not meant as a claim of a perfect record of keeping sober everyone who has ever gone to a meeting. It’s meant as a short, easy to remember slogan that just might keep someone from leaving the room when they are having a really bad day.

Anyone who has been in recovery for a while will tell you honestly that they know they are always about to leave the room, and possibly lose their sobriety. This isn’t a damning indictment of the ineffectiveness of the program; it’s a real-time understanding that there are no guarantees in life and no short-cuts to true self-awareness, and being in denial about that is what fucked up your life in the first place.

You will never, ever, hear anyone put themselves forward as an official spokesperson for AA, whether to promote the program, make claims about its effectiveness, or make any statements of what AA endorses or refutes. The whole point of the “anonymous” part of AA is to keep AA out of any public or political controversy. To argue against what AA “says,” or what the 12 steps unfairly mandate, is to misunderstand what AA actually is – a loose network of groups of people who get together, regularly, anonymously, to talk to each other. That’s it. That’s all AA is. The 12 steps are a framework that gives the conversation some structure, but it’s not a creed or contract. Everyone is free to interpret them in their own way, and use them however they see fit – as long as their way worksfor them.

Another refocuses the discussion:

The reader who wrote about his roommate becoming a smoker and sugar junkie illustrates a point that I haven’t seen discussed in this thread: Addiction is both a mental and physical process. This is why so many people who come into the rooms struggle to find serenity: They switch one addiction for another. The process of getting high – whatever the drug or activity – activates all sorts of biochemical triggers all by itself independent of the substance or activity’s effects. It’s Pavlovian.

George Carlin gave an interview to Playboy years ago where he talked quite brilliantly about this: how the ritual of cleaning his dope before he rolled a joint was just as comforting to him as the “high” itself and an integral part of the process. This is why people associated with 12-step recovery often say that “We’re a nation of addicts.” All one has to do is spend 30 minutes watching TV to see how advertising pinpoints and perpetuates this “mental craving” that is also a part of the addiction cycle. We’re taught from birth that some “thing” can assuage whatever bad or uncomfortable feelings we have. The addict is wired to want, and then need, more and more regardless of the consequences.