And speaking of breaking the cycle, the 2nd, and possibly most, important thing
I learned in my session this week, was the existence of an organization
called SMART Recovery.
I've considered going to AA or NA meetings before, but having
some past experience with them and knowing the gist of what they're like
and how they work, I've never really felt like they would be a good fit
for me. The central core of the X-Anonymous twelve-step programs
starts with two things: 1) submit your will to a Higher Power, and 2)
admit that you are powerless over your addiction. The rest of the
program builds off of those two ideas, so if you can't do those, then
the rest of the program isn't going to be much help for you, either.
And neither of those ideas really work for me. More to the point,
they're basically the exact opposite of what I feel I need in order to
get and stay sober.
I don't believe in a sentient being that controls the Universe,
so the entire concept of "Higher Power" would be difficult for me right
from the start. I could use Tao, but that wouldn't really work,
either. Because Tao is not a sentient force, it's just a pattern. It's
the pattern of Nature seen throughout the Universe. It is the Set of
All Things. It is the Universe, and everything it in, and
everything outside of it (if there is anything outside of it) and the
motion of all things that repeats in the same way from the spinning of
galaxies down to the spinning of electrons. It is the cyclical pattern
of motion that is all creations, that spurs all nothings to become
some-things. So, it's not really a Power, and it's not really Higher,
either, since there is nothing that is not Tao. And how would I "submit
my will" to it, exactly? How can I submit to something that I'm
already a part of, merely by virtue of my existence? And then there's
just the whole idea of submitting my Will, at all, which I'm not real
keen on.
Which actually ties in with the 2nd step, admitting that you're
powerless over your addiction. Submitting my Will, admitting I am
powerless... these are not things that I've ever been good at. In fact, I have spent the majority of my adult life strengthening my Will, to the point that I was able to convince myself that I can actually bend Reality
to it. "Powerless" is not something I ever want to feel, or believe I
should ever have to feel. And more to the point, it's not something I
believe I am.
I'm not powerless over my addiction. That fact is self-evident. If I were
powerless, then I would've ended up deranged and out-of-control, like
my mother, or her mother before her. Or like one of those poor,
pathetic people on Intervention, who are incapable of caring about
anything beyond their drug use. I have never been like
that. Throughout my entire history of using, I have always carefully
monitored myself, my cravings, the amount of my intake; constantly
limiting the amount I use to "just enough;" never letting myself use as
much as I really want; dialing back my use whenever the cravings started
to become more intense; etc. I used always knowing that I was an
addict, and that I was walking a fine line
between having fun and losing it all, and always on the lookout for
signs that it was getting out-of-hand. (That's one of the reasons I'm
actually feeling kind of done with all of it at this point. That kind
of constant self-intervention takes a lot out of you, and it's getting
to the point that getting high is no longer worth the effort it takes to
maintain anymore.) In my entire history, I've only ever let myself use
with abandon, to my heart's content, a couple of times. And every one
of those times, things quickly got out of hand, and I scared the shit
out myself, and ended up getting my shit together in a new and better
way as a result. And even at my worst, even when I've hurt myself badly
with liver damage and ulcers and near-overdoses, I've still never
been even half as bad as my mother, or my grandmother, or the sick
souls on TV, or any of the people whose stories I heard in those church
basements as a child. So, if I have to start that program by admitting
that I am powerless over my addiction, then I have to base that entire
program on a lie. And what is the point in that?
And,
honestly, if we're really "powerless," then what are we even doing in
recovery? If we were truly powerless over our addictions, then wouldn't
we be out getting drunk and high right now? For me, my sense of my own
power, my sense of my internal strength, my strength of Will, is
exactly what I've used to keep from going off the deep end my whole
life, and exactly what I've relied on to get sober. So why on Earth
would I want to just abandon that?? The whole idea just seems
completely counter-productive to me.
And adding to all that the fact that my mother used to take me
with her to AA and NA meetings when I was a kid, and that she left one
of those meetings and went straight to the hotel room where she took her
life, it would be a significant understatement to say that I have some
emotional baggage associated with those programs. And if I went, the
only reason I'd be going would be to try to get and stay sober. I
really wouldn't want to also have to work through a bunch of my childhood
mommy-issues at the same time. So, for all of these reasons, I've
never really considered the X-Anonymous twelve-step groups to be a valid
option for me in my recovery.
So I always assumed I would just have to do this on my own. I
thought that the X-A groups were the only ones out there, and since
those wouldn't work for me, then it must be up to just me doing the
work, and the best help I could hope for would be the occasional 1-on-1
counseling session. And I was ok with that, honestly. But then my
counselor tells me about this other recovery group called SMART Recovery.
They're basically an alternative to the twelve-steppers, that
emphasizes scientific methods of recovery (constantly evolving as the
science of recovery evolves; none of that watered-down,
psuedo-JudeoChristian psychology "Higher Power" bullshit),
self-empowerment as the main recovery tool (as opposed to submitting
your Will and pretending to be powerless - more pseudo-JudeoChristian
nonsense; and none of this Will-undermining "my addiction is a disease
and I am sick and I will always be sick" crap, either), and recognizing
that there is no one right way to become sober that will work for
everyone - that everyone is unique and different and that each
individual has their own best method of recovery - and so the key to
recovery is finding your personal method and working it
(which is completely in-line with the way I have lived the entire rest
of my life; SMART Recovery is to traditional recovery what Chaos Magick
is to traditional Western occultism - find what works best for you, and use it). They try to get at the root of addictive behavior itself and deal with that, using modern Cognitive Behavior Therapy methods, rather than focusing on the particular substance or thing one is addicted to.
(SMART stands for "Self-Management And Recovery Training".) As such,
they aren't just for alcoholics or drug-users, but accept any kind of
addict at all. A meeting could include people ranging from alcoholics,
to drug-users, to sex addicts, or gambling addicts, or hoarders, or
anyone else who would fall under the category of "I'm exhibiting
compulsive behavior that I would like to stop."
I was
astounded that I'd never heard of this before. They sound perfectly
tailored for me. I found out there's a meeting in my area, and I'm
going to attend my first one next week. I'm going to try to reserve
judgement, though. In my experience, things that sound
too-good-to-be-true usually are. And while the base description sounds
fantastic, some of the material I've found on their website absolutely
screams "MOTIVATIONAL SEMINAR," and that could be a big turn-off for
me. So, I'm going to keep my expectations low, attend a few of the
meetings, and get a sense of what they're really like.
It'd be nice if they turned out to be even half as great as they sound,
and it'd be nice if I could actually get some extra help from them. But
it would be just that - extra. So if they turn out to be
not-quite-right for me, then oh, well. I still have no problem doing
all of this on my own.
And no reason to believe that I can't.
concluded in part three tomorrow...
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