Answer Addiction

Tag: dogma

  • 5 Myths About Leaving 12-Step Fellowships

    5 Myths About Leaving 12-Step Fellowships

    We have a responsibility to do whatever we can — even if that means pointing someone to an alternative (non-12-step) pathway of recovery.

    I’ve lost count of the number of conversations I’ve had with people who are frightened to leave 12-step fellowships. They contact me because they heard that I left Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous over a year ago, and want to see if it’s true that I’m okay — that is, stayed sober.

    It’s true: I left 12-step fellowships in March 2017, and not only have I stayed sober, but my resilience, independence, and emotional well-being have grown exponentially. I’d even say that my sobriety has evolved more over the last year than the five years I spent in AA.

    What saddens me the most about these conversations — which echo my own fears of leaving — is that some members of 12-step groups believe sobriety is contingent upon their membership in AA or NA. So deep-rooted is this conditioning that they believe that if they stop attending meetings, they will return to using alcohol or drugs. Well-rehearsed 12-step myths say that without a program a person will become a “dry drunk,” or that they lack gratitude. Yet another surefire way of keeping people in the program is to tell them that leaving means they are unwilling to help newcomers.

    My experience, along with that of many others who have left 12-step fellowships, is that these beliefs are dogmatic conditioning. I will never tire of debunking these myths.

    Last month, a woman who spent over 20 years in a fellowship contacted me because she was tired of attending, fearful about leaving, and concerned that people mistakenly thought the length of her sobriety meant that she had the secret to long-term recovery. Such was her sense of responsibility that she blamed herself for the unfortunate fate of some people in the program. I’m saddened that someone in long-term recovery felt so confused and frightened about leaving.

    Today, my recovery represents independence. I now understand recovery as a knowing of myself and reclaiming my instincts. After six years in recovery, I’d like to think that I can make decisions based on what is right for me, rather than on the judgments of others if if I go against the grain. But this isn’t the reality for many who attend 12-step groups and they believe they have no control over their own sobriety other than showing up at meetings and working the program.

    These are just a few examples of the reasons many people have contacted me to discuss these very real fears and they’re always the same. Here is what I have to say about some of these common myths:

    • How will I help newcomers if I leave?

    First off, newcomers don’t always show up in meetings. They need someone to tell them that a meeting exists before they know to walk through that door. Second, there are a million ways to share a message of recovery: writing about your journey; giving peer support at a recovery center; sharing your experience in a treatment center or prison; offering help to someone who is struggling; or telling your friends, family, and doctor that they can refer someone who needs help to you. By leading a fulfilling life in recovery, you’re providing a real example to others that healthy and happy recovery is possible. I’d argue that all of these examples of helping a newcomer are equally, if not more, powerful than sharing your story and your telephone number in a meeting.

    • If I leave, I’ll relapse..

    This most pervasive myth of all has proven false for me and for hundreds of people I know who have left 12-step meetings. We feel a sense of freedom from breaking free of the dogmatic messaging and have taken back our power by choosing a pathway that is right for us.

    If someone wants to use drugs, they will find a way to do so whether they attend meetings or not. I don’t use substances because I choose not to, and because I care enough about myself to stop harming my body and preventing my ability to lead a fulfilling life. I no longer believe that I have a monster living inside of me, or a disease doing pushups in the parking lot waiting for me to mess up. Those are simply myths designed to keep me surrendering my will to an illusory bearded man who lives in a church basement, listening to people’s sad stories.

    • AA is the only way to recover.

    This statement is simply untrue. There are many effective pathways to recovery. In fact, a leading study shows that tens of millions of Americans have successfully resolved an alcohol or drug problem through a variety of traditional and nontraditional means. Specifically, 53.9 percent reported “assisted pathway use” that consisted of mutual-aid groups (45.1 percent), treatment (27.6 percent), and emerging recovery support services (21.8 percent). 95.8 percent of those who used mutual-aid groups attended 12-step mutual aid meetings. However, just under half of those who did not report using an assisted pathway recovered without the use of formal treatment and recovery supports.

    Another study comparing 12-step groups to alternative mutual aid groups found that LifeRing, SMART, and Women for Sobriety were just as effective as 12-step groups. Study author Dr. Sarah Zenmore and her team reported that “findings for high levels of participation, satisfaction, and cohesion among members of the mutual help alternatives suggest promise for these groups in addressing addiction problems.”

    • If you don’t feel suited to a 12-step program, you’re incapable of being honest with yourself.

    We’ve all heard of that paragraph in AA’s Big Book, “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.” Really?! What about atheists who feel uncomfortable at the idea of handing over their life to God? I’d argue that it is being honest with yourself to acknowledge that the 12-step program doesn’t align with your values and beliefs.

    It is harmful to suggest that you are the problem if AA doesn’t work for you. If the 12 steps are so powerful, how come their success rate varies wildly from 20 percent to only 60 percent? Shaming isn’t the answer to long-term recovery — that only deepens an already desperately low self-esteem. Supporting someone as they find the right pathway is a far more compassionate, helpful approach. When so many people are dying from substance use disorder, there is no room for shame. We have a responsibility to do whatever we can — even if that means pointing someone to alternative pathways of recovery — so that we have a fighting chance at saving some lives.

    • My desire to leave is my disease talking.

    You don’t have a monster with a different voice living inside you. Yes, our behavior changes when we use drugs, and yes, drugs override our ability to make rational choices. We also have a desire to avoid painful realities — that’s what got most of us in the habit of using drugs in the first place. But attributing your realization that something isn’t right for you to a walking, talking disease is utter nonsense. I decided to leave because I was sick and tired of entering church basements in a cloud of cigarette smoke to hang out with people eating candy, drinking tar-like coffee, talking through people’s shares, and listening to the same old story on repeat. There was a time that community was helpful, but a point came where I wanted to go out and live my life. After all, this program was designed to be a bridge to living normally.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • My Experience in a 12-Step Cult

    My Experience in a 12-Step Cult

    As part of my therapy I had to cut contact with my family and tell my professors I was recovering from sexual abuse. It was excruciating, but I wanted to do the “hard work” of recovery.

    “If you leave here, you will be on the street.”

    From her red upholstered chair, my psychotherapist Marlene launched one of her famous surprise attacks at the beginning of group therapy. This was another week-long intensive I was doing because I was in crisis. My ex-husband Terry* and I attended couples’ group and we were also in separate individual groups which were primarily inpatient treatment for addiction or codependency. We both attended various week-long “intensives” and all of our friends were also members of this group.

    Both Terry and I were many years sober. We were long-time members in this therapy community, started at the beginning of the codependency and ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) movement in the late 80’s when we were newly married. Marlene’s daughter, also a counselor there, her husband, and many other clients were our close friends. We all went to the same AA meetings and clubhouses.

    This counseling center started with a new kind of experiential therapy that took many of its practices from EST. They did psychodrama, beating pillows with bataka bats, breath work, confrontation and guided imagery, among other things. Breaking someone down— like “breaking a horse” —was the guiding therapy modality. Marlene, also in long-term recovery from alcohol, recruited people from AA meetings. At the time, this therapy was considered pioneering and so transgressions like this were considered necessary for “real recovery.” Or that’s what she told us.

    In the early 90’s, we moved abroad for several years to pursue Terry’s hopes for a career in his sport. When his prospects did not turn out, we returned to the states and the community, which was where all our friends and sponsors were. Upon our return to the States, Marlene suggested we live apart for a few months. It had become common practice for her to have couples in marriage counseling spend some time living apart. Terry moved in with Marlene’s son, our good friend, and I moved in with another woman from the community. We were told that after a few months we would move back in together. I got a job right away and Terry continued pursuing his sport, still hoping for the big break. Many people, including friends, sponsored him financially. Four months stretched into four years.

    During this time, the counseling center also grew to include treatment for food addiction, gambling, sex, as well as codependency and all the other relational disorders that are so common for so many of us in recovery. The recovery treatment movement at large was going through a similar change. I had sexual abuse issues from when I was younger and would have to say embarrassing things like: “I enjoyed the power.” To be a good client, of course I would comply. One woman was told: “If I were your husband, I would have an affair with your best friend, too.” And this was considered the most progressive therapy available.

    Many wealthy families sent their teenagers or young adults who had drug or alcohol misuse problems to the center, located in a tony suburb in Florida. It was similar to other addiction treatment centers that were booming at this time; clients would come for a week-long “intensive” and then move in with someone from the community for aftercare. Month-long aftercare would frequently turn into years. The more affluent the family, the longer they stayed.

    Eventually, Marlene and some of her wealthy clients purchased homes and turned these into group homes for aftercare. Every recovering person in the community was required to attend a daily 6:30 a.m. AA meeting with Sundays off for good behavior. Many members were asked to eat on a food plan and attend Overeaters Anonymous which is a tremendous program for food addicts. If you had sexual issues, you attended SLAA. If you had money issues, DA. If you were a gambler, GA. If your spouse was a gambler Gam-Anon, Al-Anon, S-Anon. In other circumstances, all of these organizations can be very helpful. Being an addict, I easily fit in with all of these groups regardless of whether or not I would have come to each of them individually on my own. My weekly calendar was full of these meetings, therapy groups, work, and then times set aside to supervise new members and take them to all these meetings.

    The group had a strong hierarchical structure. Marlene was the lead therapist and her daughter was also at the top. Then came the other therapists, then the group of “strong” people, and then everyone else was at the bottom somewhere. Terry was handsome and charming and one of Marlene’s favorites so he was in the strong group, very close to her. The strong people supervised the new members as well as each other. Once someone was in crisis, they fell out of whichever group they were in. Most of the time, a person in crisis would not go home but would go spend the night with someone else after group and have to follow certain rules. You would leave your car there and ask people for rides or whatever was needed. One time, I went to my friend’s house and had to wear all her clothes to work the next day, too-big high heels and all. One of my treatments was to ask for rides everywhere for two weeks: to work and home, to group, to 12-step meetings. And that meant that I often did the same thing: sponsoring or supervising new members, meeting them for lunch or dinner, driving them around.

    As the years passed (I was associated with this center for more than ten years) and Terry and I dealt with our relationship issues, as well as ancillary addictions, I was told to detach completely from my family. Even though my father was in AA and my mother in Al-Anon, I had to write letters to them explaining why I couldn’t interact with them any longer. I was not permitted to contact my siblings who had always been supportive of me. It was an excruciating exercise, but I wanted to do the “hard work” of recovery so I complied. Marlene would say that people with unresolved codependency were at risk for cancer or other diseases. Someone with codependency certainly couldn’t have a successful relationship with another without intensive, long-term therapy. But any other kind of therapy besides this therapy was “bullshit” and regular AA meetings were not “real recovery.” This, too had a purpose: if we weren’t spending holidays with our families, we spent them with the therapist, her staff, and her family. This was always unsettling to me, but I complied. The other members of the community spent holidays together at someone’s home, or typically one of the group homes. Terry would stay with Marlene at her vacation home with her family. In fact, Terry and I celebrated every holiday at Marlene’s home.

    After four long years of separation — thousands of groups and meetings — Terry finally went back to college to finish his degree. We were both considered “strong” members of the community, sponsoring many people, holding Big Book studies and step-groups. So separated had our lives become over these four years that our interactions with each other were constantly monitored and evaluated as part of our therapy process, to a degree where casual time spent together was not casual and what might have otherwise been a normal desire for a husband and wife to share each other’s company had ramifications for how we were counseled in our therapy sessions. Consequently, by this point we had advanced to starting to “date” and were making plans, all therapist-sanctioned, to finally move back in together. Like most of the married or unmarried couples in the group, we lived separately, completely celibate. Dating meant attending dinner or movies, always accompanied by other members of the group. Moving back in together was the ultimate carrot in the couples’ group, and ours was not an unusual situation as bizarre as it now sounds. A few new couples to the community lived together but the majority lived apart.

    On the surface, this system appears to be consistent with much of what we know is successful in legitimate addiction treatment centers. Young people or newly recovering addicts or alcoholics could and sometimes would stay clean and sober in this arrangement, because it was a variety of situations, all with 24-hour supervision. Outside the week-long intensives which were held at a hotel, all the supervision would come from other members in the community like myself. Several people in long-term recovery would schedule an hour or so to spend time with the new person and frequently give them rides or provide meals. Several members of the community had businesses where they could employ new people on an hourly basis. People traded services like home cleaning or rides to the airport for treatment. A new person would leave the group home in the morning and pack lunch and dinner (often prescribed by a food plan) and end the evening in a 12-step meeting or group or a planned group activity. My weekly schedule was packed with meetings, work, group, going to graduate school, and helping newcomers. This too is superficially consistent with best practices: the weakest part of addiction treatment today is the lack of solid aftercare programs. This group handled that part well, but at great cost, and not at all ethically.

    In addition to supporting the newcomers, to be a good member of a group meant participating in the confrontational functions of that group. Because it was a psychodrama-focused group, you would stand up in the middle of the room and act out any problem you were having. The other members played the roles of your family or friends. If you weren’t getting quite honest enough, others would get up and act you out for yourself—the more brutally honest, the better. I now regret many of the things I said to my fellow group members in that situation. If a member did everything properly and complied with all the demands, they might get rewards, like dates with their spouse.

    After dating steadily for many months, Terry and I purchased a small home and a group of the new guys painted the interior, getting ready for us to move in. After attending a movie, one of my good friends who had chaperoned us said that she felt “sex addiction coming off” of me in the movie. She and her dashing husband had come to therapy many years before, both looking as if they stepped off the set of Dallas. But when Marlene recommended they separate, he stormed out of couples group, never to return. He was not the first. When Marlene and my friend confronted me in group that week, I listened but I also knew what was coming. I had seen this happen to so many other couples. It was always a terrifying waiting game to see who was going to be the group’s victim-of-the-week.

    Being the designated person in crisis could actually persist for a year or more. Once, another therapist and her daughter were kept apart from each other for years, neither person in active addiction. And special treatment was not just reserved for the weakest in the group; the strong members would also frequently get special treatment. One of my friends started dating a man from her group who happened to be married at the time. His wife was just starting to get sober and struggling with recovery. I was vocal that I didn’t think it was right for this couple to get together even if his marriage was ending. But my reservations were not welcome.

    I also expressed concerned about my husband’s best friend from his primary group, a woman he would eventually marry.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • God Hates Pikachu and He Also Killed My Daddy

    God Hates Pikachu and He Also Killed My Daddy

    My higher power doesn’t want me sticking a needle in my arm. For me today, it’s as simple as that.

    I didn’t want to unpack this story so soon. My aim was to share my experience with getting and staying sober in a dry and witty way, do that for a while with you, maybe unpack the heavy stuff after we got to know each other a little more, and then go for the gusto. I didn’t want to bring up a subject that might rub you the wrong way but I recently finished a writing exercise that really got me thinking about my dad. He’s dead.

    My father died when I was two years old. He was a heroin user who shared needles. Nobody was talking about harm reduction in the late 80’s nor were they concerned about the consequences of IV drug use. After he got sober, he found out that he had contracted HIV. It wasn’t long after that diagnosis that he lost his battle to AIDS.

    I believe growing up without a father had an effect on the man I am today; but this isn’t a story about my dad. This isn’t a story about harm reduction or AIDS awareness. This is a story about God.

    Wait! Stay with me, please. Don’t go.

    I promise you this isn’t that kind of story. I’ve done right by you with the last two articles. I plan on doing the same with this one. I know the God word bothers some people. It bothers me sometimes. It’s okay, just keep scrolling. We’ll do this one together. Besides, you have to at least get to the part about Pikachu. I’m sure you’re wondering what the heck he’s got to do with all this. Stick around, I’ll tell you.

    I grew up in an extremely charismatic religious household; the crazy dogmatic type. Let me tell you how crazy: Did you know that if you listen to any music that isn’t religious, demons will literally fly out of your headphones like a vapor of smoke and possess you? It’s true. My aunt told me that when I was only eight years old. Also, if you watch any movie that isn’t rated G or about the crucifixion of Christ, you run the chance of committing your soul into the fiery pits of hell. Here’s a good one: My younger brother and I were not allowed to watch Pokemon because our grandmother told us that those cute little Japanese cartoons were actually demons and it was Satan’s master plan to trick unassuming kids into falling in love with his minions.

    Here’s a few more examples:

    1. Don’t drink beer. You’re ingesting the semen of the devil.
    2. True love waits. So if you have sex before marriage, you’re going to burn in hell.
    3. Never smoke cigarettes, you’ll accidentally inhale a demon.
    4. Don’t use profanity unless you want God to give your tongue cancer.
    5. Hey boys, do you like your hands? Well, don’t play with your penis, that’s how you lose them.

    Here’s my absolute favorite. When I was kid, my mom brought my younger brother and me to this old-time-holy-ghost Pentecostal church in the hood. The younger children had to go to Sunday school with some 16-year-old babysitter while the adults went to “big church” in the main auditorium. While we were waiting for our mom to pick us up, our babysitter kindly told me that God killed my dad because he was a junkie.

    Yup, that’s right. This ignorant girl basically told me that God “gave” my dad AIDS because he was in love with heroin. And it was God’s perfect judgment to execute my powerless addict of a father. Cool, right? I’m going to grow up to be a perfectly normal man, unscathed by any of this tomfoolery.

    When you grow up in an overbearing legalistic household and finally start doing some of the things that they told you not to and nothing bad happens, you end up slamming your foot on the gas, speeding straight into the freedom to do everything you’re not supposed to. The things you didn’t do growing up because you believed they would kill you turn into myths created to control you.

    This isn’t going to end well for an addict like me. Once I started thinking for myself and realized that my dick wouldn’t fall off if I watch porn, I started watching all the porn. When I realized that I wasn’t possessed after smoking a cigarette, I started smoking all the cigarettes. Add sex to the mix, sprinkle a little drugs on top, and my newfound freedom as a junkie sinner is complete.

    Let’s fast-forward a few years because I don’t want to get into other stories that deserve their own headline. Let’s land where I’m walking down the steps of the courthouse with a piece of paper that mandates that I start attending 12-step meetings. Meetings that I must go to or I’m going back to jail and possibly prison.

    Imagine my delight, sitting in my first meeting while they’re doing the readings. I hear the 3rd step read aloud for the first time and everything within my gut cringes. I die on the inside. I’m powerless over drugs and alcohol. I can’t stop. I need to stop. And now I’m being told that the only way to do this is with God. I’m in big trouble. 

    I have a confession to make. Remember when I told you that this story was about God? It isn’t. I mean it is and it can be for you, too, but it really isn’t. It’s about a higher power; something greater than you. It’s crucial that you hear what I’m about to say.

    If you’re a 12-stepper who’s all gung-ho about the 3rd step, that’s cool. If you’re not a 12-stepper who’s grasped the God concept, that’s cool too.

    What I want to be explicitly clear about is just one thing. It’s my experience, being an addict in recovery— whether it’s the 12-step route or not—that at some point I have to accept the fact that I need saving. And it’s not going to be me that’s going to do the saving. It’s got to be something greater than me. What I’m good at is getting high. Getting sober is easy. Staying sober isn’t. That’s where the saving comes in for me.

    In the beginning. G-O-D meant a lot of things.

    • Group of Druggies
    • Group of Drunks
    • Grow or Die
    • Guaranteed Overnight Delivery (kidding)
    • Good Orderly Direction

    A wise man once told me, “I don’t know what God’s will is for my life… but I know what it isn’t.” I know that my higher power doesn’t want me stealing in sobriety. I know I shouldn’t be smoking crack. I know that now that I’m attempting to live a new way, maybe I should concern myself with my physical health since I neglected it for so long. My higher power doesn’t want me sticking a needle in my arm. For me today, it’s as simple as that.

    For people who don’t subscribe to an acronym but actually believe in a God, it can be slippery if it’s not kept simple. It’s common for people to get sober and say, “Okay, what do I do know? What is my life’s purpose and what is God’s will for me?” If they do that, they end up stressing themselves out and thinking themselves out of the game, thinking that they have to understand the meaning of life at 12 months sober; or that they should have a roadmap for their life drawn out, down to every little specific detail.

    It’s not that serious. Instead of concerning yourself with some huge existential question mark, keep it simple. Get off the bench, get back on the field and play. Before you know it, you’ll find yourself sober years later with a beautiful life filled with purpose and meaning. I can promise you that only because I’ve seen it happen for many of my junkie friends around me.

    My higher power doesn’t hate Pikachu. That’s just silly. If you believe in God, that’s cool. If you don’t, that’s cool too. Just find something greater than you when the days get dark in your life. Hey! Maybe it’s this story. Who knows.

    If nobody told you that they love you today: I do. I love you.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Is There Life After AA?

    Is There Life After AA?

    I was fed up with the fear-based conditioning of being told that if I left, I wouldn’t stay sober, and I was tired of the constant message that my future was up to some mystic higher power.

    When I walked into my first AA meeting, I felt like I was broken into a million pieces. My bloated body housed a mosaic of a woman whose sense of self was shattered. I had zero self-confidence, and my self-esteem was so fragile that if you poked me, I’d erupt into a blubbering mess. My life seemed like a blur. I had no comprehension of where most of my twenties had gone—they seemed to have been washed away by a tsunami of wine and drugs. I’m not sure what I expected when I stepped foot through that door, but I distinctly remember feeling utterly defeated, completely lost, with no idea what to do next. I knew I had to stop and this is where I was told to go.

    I quickly adjusted to life in AA; they welcomed me, guided me through building social supports, and gave me a framework to live by. Initially, it stuck, and I stayed sober. The 12 steps seemed to be a very simple way to live my life as a sober person. At that time my life was simple: it consisted of endless meetings and a shitty job. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. It was like I was wearing someone else’s hand-me-downs: every time I looked down I was acutely aware of my long limbs being two or three inches too long—they were functional, but they weren’t the right fit and I felt constricted.

    Those feelings would resurface every time someone in the rooms gave me a suggestion, or made a remark, that seemed overly-controlling or dogmatic. Some of the highlights include one sponsor screaming down the phone at me for 30 minutes until I was in tears because I wasn’t doing what she wanted me to do. Another memory is of her sponsor insisting I call on a daily basis to “check out my thinking” and report my plan for the day. Then there were the messages that those who leave the program were destined for one of two fates: returning to alcohol/drug use, or death. Certified Recovery Specialist and MSW Adam Sledd, recounts: “The biggest lie of all was the one that said I couldn’t manage my own recovery. This myth singlehandedly disenfranchises millions of people.” Another damaging myth that keeps people from exploring other potential methods of recovery is that if you are able to get sober somehow without 12-step programs, you must not have been a “real” alcoholic to begin with.

    While I do not discount that AA contributed to my development as a woman in recovery—I stayed sober and I built social supports—I reached a point that it hindered the development of my sense of self. I had no life outside of AA and I felt like my core values of integrity, justice, and equality were reframed as character defects.

    In retrospect, I can see that having other people in recovery guiding you through the twelve steps leaves a wide margin of error. They are not trained therapists and they are not trauma-informed, leaving the risk of misinterpretation and potential harm. Through intensive therapy, I now see that my core values weren’t character flaws—they are a fundamental aspect of who I am. I also discovered that I suffer with complex PTSD, so being conditioned to believe I was powerless and had these presumably fatal character flaws wasn’t helpful—it was harmful. I needed to empower myself, not diminish vital parts of my identity. 

    Even though I rigorously applied the steps, I found myself increasingly numbing out feelings of doubt with food and cigarettes. It became clear that even though I wanted to stay sober, my life in 12-step fellowships wasn’t a life I wanted. I was depressed and didn’t want my life to revolve around sitting in church basements telling sad stories and disempowering myself by identifying as the same broken woman who walked through that door two years earlier. I was no longer that woman, and I was sick of suppressing the new person I had become. I was fed up with the fear-based conditioning of being told that if I left, I wouldn’t stay sober, and I was tired of the constant message that my future would be determined by some mystic higher power.

    In writing my blog and interviewing people around the world about what recovery looked like for them, it became startlingly clear that there were endless ways to recover—dispelling all of the myths and dogmatic conditioning we hear in the rooms. I began to see through the lived experience of others that the parts of me that I’d considered to be broken were actually the making of me. No longer was I defined by my past and instead I could embrace my core values and personality traits. That experience led to the realization that I had not been thinking big enough. I was shrinking myself to fit into a program that didn’t work for me, and I was too frightened to leave.

    Moving to America gave me the impetus to cut ties to 12-step fellowships in favor of trying something new and expanding my life. It was difficult at first. When you build a recovery founded upon the belief that you have to rely upon others to survive, it is inevitable that you will wobble once you remove those supports. But once you realize that you are in charge of your recovery, everything changes.

    I started to break free of those dogmatic beliefs that were simply untrue for me. I saw the evidence that many people just like me were thriving without a 12-step recovery. Gone was the conditioning of looking at myself as broken. Instead, I realized that I am no longer that woman who walked through the doors of AA six years ago. I no longer have to shrink myself or berate my character for being out of line with the core beliefs of a program that doesn’t work for me. I see much more value in looking at what is right about me, what I have endured and overcome, and rising to the challenge of helping others to see their strengths and striving to have a fulfilling, self-directed life.

    That experience stills saddens me today. The fear-based conditioning is still occurring in 12-step fellowships and in online forums in spite of a body of evidence demonstrating that there is more than one way to recover. In my work as a writer, I challenge perspectives on recovery by pointing out this evidence on a near daily basis. I passionately believe in showing others that they can find and succeed in recovery another way if the 12 steps do not work for them.

    To that end, I set up a Facebook Group, Life After 12-Step Recovery. The purpose of the group is to provide hope, tools, and resources for people who leave AA, NA—or any other A—because it wasn’t the right fit for them. I wanted to provide the real-life experiences of people thriving once they have left these fellowships and taken control of managing their own recovery.

    In setting up the group, I asked people on Facebook who had left 12-step groups about their experiences. I was inundated with examples of people leading fulfilling, empowered, and self-directed lives. And there was one person who said: “I know lots of people who have left 12-step recovery. They are all drunk or dead.” I think this illustrates not only the need for this group, but the need for articles like these to dispel such untruths.

    While I equally respect and consider the views of people who find the 12 steps do work for them, the reality is that we all have choices in our recovery, and we have the power to decide what works for us.

    View the original article at thefix.com