is it possible or practical to quit certain classes of drugs and keep using others?
Ive been curious about meetings to address my problem drinking, over-use of weed, and balancing act of trying to use gaba drugs and opioids as much as possible without becoming fully dependent again (i've been very deep into hard opiates but these days not dependent).
The thing that stops me is that i don't think i belong there if I know in my heart I will continue psychedelic, mdma and disso use. These are drugs i've been able to sit on and never had a problem with overdosing or overusing. I do not want to quit them. But i acknowledge that I could start abusing these drugs (especially dissos) if eliminated alcohol, pot, and pills from my life. Because i'm addicted to not being sober, not neccesarily to a drug of choice.
Im worried the people there will tell me to get lost until i decide i really want to stop ALL drugs. What am i supposed to say, "hi my name is lucid dreamer, i want to stop drinking but keep taking acid trips each month?"
so i just continue trying to navigate this lifestyle by myself and have no where to turn.
AA seems to be a little better than NA (at least in terms of their officially published material) when it comes to medications. That said, it doesn't seem many 12 step groups really understand much about medicine or medications. Some meetings (the Pacific Group) argue that taking psych meds precludes someone from making progress in recovery. Most people in most meeting argue that using ORT to get off opioids precludes making progress in recovery.
There isn't any truth to that, although perhaps it is built upon a small kernel.
Some meetings will be a lot better than others in terms of compassion, large/open mindedness and a less judgmental vibe. When I was exploring that scene around 2010, I couldn't find a single meeting like that, but do hear they exist.
I have this tendency to try and take things as their offered, in their entirety. This made 12 step meetings really hard for me. As other have said, the loudest in the rooms are often those still deep in their own shit (it's a sad irony at best).
I did make another concerted effort a few years later, first when I was taking buprenorphine and then when I was on methadone. You see, even if I fundamentally disagreed with much of their orthodoxy surrounding addiction, I was still desperate to learn about "traditional abstinence." I'd figured out their stance on ORT (well, the vast majority's stance), so I never advertised that I was either taking meds or what med I was taking - I mean, it isn't their business and as long as the med isn't being totally misused it's not related to their more behavioral program.
Point is, I was able to eventually leave the bad and take the good (although I hate that expression - it was more like I was able to laugh off the bad from sticking to my heart while remaining aware of whatever remaining wisdom they did have to offer). Part of that going into it I was pretty familiar with what to expect; another part was that I'd by then gotten my shit pretty well figured out and I was generally more stable than I was originally; and the final part is that I was taking appropriately prescribed meds I benefited from (methadone, etc).
I actually have more fond memories than not of the last meeting I went to regularly for maybe six months. I had no interest in finding a sponsor, for a number of reasons (one being I simply have zero desire to work the steps as they have been presented to me, and it's hard to find people who don't just toe the conventional wisdom with it), but I did enjoy the comradery of the people who showed up.
I noticed a big different in the social "quality" of folks' recovery - folks who got there early (this was a 6am meeting) to open/set up tended to attract a more developed crowd, where it was folks who were new or more so struggling who hung around more so afterwards. That is just to say, I was able to identify people I shared something (however small) in common with and associate more with them than the people who presented as more than I wanted to deal with.
Back on topic now, I think what you're really asking about is about the distinction between addiction, abstinence, sobriety and recovery.
Addiction is defined (poorly) many different ways, but my favorite definition these days revolves around overwhelming involvement that results in psychosocial dislocation - that is, whatever the opposite of a healthy sense of self, a sense of wholeness, and meaningful integration in one or more communities.
With this in mind, there are many ways to approach how you address the challenges of addiction, but it's safe to say they're be all about personal development (aka psychological integration) and social development (social integration). And THAT is to say that there are an infinite number of ways someone can find the means for ongoing personal and interpersonal growth. Actually, addiction is one of those adaptive strategies, although clearly it's something you want to get away from (specifically, from the harm you've come to know associated with your experience of addiction).
Abstinence it a little more straightforward (a lot actually). First of all, there are different types of abstinence.
There is "total abstinence" or "abstinence only" perspectives (although they often seem to come off as ideology), which argues you aren't "truly" abstinent unless one stops using all mind altering substances. There are soooooo many problems with this. Given that our brains produce all the mind altering substances we get "high" from on their own (according to primarily environmental factors), what the heck do they mean by "drug?" And what about the kinds of behaviors that create those same intense highs folks associate more with drug use? No one is suggesting anyone abstain from eating food.
Then there is how I like to think of abstinence. My understanding is that abstinence is that it's substance or behavior specific. I considered myself abstinent when I was on methadone, because I was using heroin/etc. I have no time for someone who tells me I wasn't abstinence while on ORT, because I can prove I was via all those fun UAs hehe
It's possible to practice abstinence from particular behaviors or substances and still make meaningful progress in recovery/personal development. It isn't just the drugs (or even the behaviors) that are what's really the issue with addiction, so the overwhelming obsession with whether or not someone is abstinent isn't so helpful. After all, even most 12 steppers would agree that the drug use/behavior is a symptom of the more significant, global issues someone's struggling with.
Addiction sometimes involves drug use, but even when it does it's only one layer to the proverbial onion that makes up an "addictive complex".
Sobriety is a fun one for me. In my mind, sobriety is first and foremost a state of mind or being. It is equanimous, cautious but not overwhelmingly afraid, open yet also oriented around boundaries. It all depends upon how the drugs are being used or the associated behaviors involved - namely to the degree they're harmful to self/others - but drug use in and of itself does not preclude someone from thinking or acting from a sober place.
People often confuse abstinence and sobriety, but they are distinct things. Abstinence is the state of whether or not one is using a particular drug or engaging in particular behaviors. Sobriety is essentially an aspect of character that isn't limited simply by whether not someone uses something - I mean if using something mean comatose drug use, then perhaps sober isn't the best word. But just using a substance doesn't preclude anyone from sobriety - or even abstinence.
My recovery started before I really became someone who practiced abstinence (in any form), before I had been able to develop a more sober minded character. Recovery is more a developmental process and journey of self discovery, resiliency, learning, growing and learning to skillfully face challenges than anything related to drug use per se. Sometimes drugs might be involved to whatever degree, but even drug addiction goes way beyond the drug taking aspect.
Now, the question is, will meetings help you? They may, they may not. You won't know unless you give it a good solid try. Whatever works works - maybe meetings/12 step stuff will, maybe it won't. Maybe it will be more helpful later on, or maybe you'll never find it useful for you. There is no wrong answer here. It IS NOT as simple as "it works if you work it." That is subtle marketing.
The other question seems to be about entheogens. My question would be why? If you feel uncomfortable using certain drugs, you probably are best served by listening to your intuition. You'll always be able to take them down the road if you feel it's more appropriate later on.
Certain entheogens seem to be more useful in particular populations. For instance, folks with depression and opioid use disorder tend to benefit quite well from some dissociatives or dissociative like substances. People who's have really difficult experiences of trauma tend to do well with MDMA pharmacotherapy, etc. LSD, mushrooms, and pretty much every other entheogen has its place. The trick is, if want to explore using them to assist your process in recovery, is what is best to focus on exploring.
That means you need to explore what you need first, before trying to integrate them into your recovery. And exploring your needs is a huge part of recovery more generally. Like addiction, it isn't going to be the entheogen that enhances you recovery - how you relate to the entheogenic experience will be what has an impact on your recovery. If you train yourself, do your homework, and just keep trying and exploring different things in your recovery, you'll be more able to get the most out of an entheogen if you ever do decided to try that kind of work.
AA is an abstinence-only cult, along with the offshoots. Grizzled old-timers will sneer at you if you still smoke weed, and some don't even like anti-depressants. But that attitude is slipping away I think, as the Big Book's 1930's attitudes finally fade.
No group is supposed to throw you out even if you show up drunk, they just ask that you sit quietly in the back (they will boot people that get rowdy). So don't come in high and reeking of weed and you'll be OK, depending on the group.
So there's absolutely no reason not to show up to them (while sober) to check them out, with a quick newcomer (they will ask) "I'm Lucid, from BL, trying to stay lucid, ha ha, I'm shy thanks" [sits down].
But the idea is that you are sober, trying to stay that way. Not using different, not-so-bad drugs and trying to get sober. I think the only thing you can be spared is the occasional tryptamine psychedelic, and weed if it hasn't escalated. Not because of group rules, but because the discussion just won't apply to you unless you're at the state you're trying to get to, and trying to keep it there. AA doesn't get you sober, it's meant to keep you sober (whether it works is a whole different thing).
Well said.
Lucid, please do yourself a favor and don't mention BL or harm reduction at a meeting (especially not publicly) - most people at most meetings will immediately give you the evil eye
Now, if you're a glutton for punishment and messing with people like me, go for it %)
It can be fun messing with people in meetings by challenging some of their uncritical beliefs sometimes. It may even help you find the few like minded people who may or may not be at the same meeting - or it just end up with you totally ostracized from the group...
I go to AA and it's helped me a lot. That said, my medical issues as well as the details about my Higher Power, are none of their business. The Big Book, which I believe saved my life, outdated verbage and all, says things like the only requirement is a desire to stop drinking," "we are not doctors," and "we can use any conception of a God that works for us." One of the reasons I don't attend NA is I find them to be much more cult-ish than AA, particularly in the issue of medications. Not only do many groups not allow those on maintenance medications to fully participate, and not welcome them at all, some of what I refer to as the "Med-Feds" actually encourage people to stop taking the medication their doctors and psychiatrists have prescribed for them.
They don't say it twice in my presence, because my head starts whipping around in a circle like that kid in the Exorcist, my eyes get blood-red, and I start foaming at the mouth and looking for people to bite. That's sort of a joke, except the first part of the sentence--seriously, nobody says it in my presence in a meeting more than once unless they are actually LOOKING to get a public shaming. I had a sponsor who told me, at a time when I was struggling, that I couldn't find "the sunlight of the spirit" because of my antidepressants. I had failed so badly for so long, I listened to her. Long story short, I came within less than 60 seconds from taking my life. My roommate came home and talked me into doing some heroin instead, which isn't the best solution, but it beats the shit out of putting a gun in your mouth. Needless to say, she was no longer my sponsor!
Very few people in my AA group know that I'm on Suboxone. Very few know what it even is, and even the lady who is my sponsor today agrees that my medications, as long as I'm not abusing them, are my business. They do think everyone should do abstinence, and since you want to be abstinent from alcohol, everything else really is your own business. If it bothers you too much to not be able to be honest with the group, there probably are better groups for you. I live in a small town with few alternatives. I have no use for organized religion, at least the Abrahamic ones, Judaism, Islam, and most especially Christianity. I am studying Buddhism right now, or at least Buddhist meditation, with a Buddhist teacher. I don't feel a need to wear a spiritual "label" to describe my views, which come from many different belief systems. I've studied comparative religions for years, and when I find something that resonates with my, I pick it up and keep it. I just don't feel the need to adopt the label of the religion it came from, or accept any of the dogma of that religion.
I like how you have made the 12 step stuff work for you. You certainly sound as if you have a healthy sense of self empowerment going on, and that's not something to be taken for granted when it comes to recovery work.
My other thought reading your post is that it would so enhance the AA community if only more people actually read, understood and worked to integrate the Big Book in everyday life - not just meetings or treatment centers.
It’s really good to hear about these experiences as I don’t know what I’m doing in support groups/ N/A. I’ve always been wary of any group therapy but anything to try and stay off the drugs right now. I’m still going to go, maybe I can find a more open minded group since I’m on prescribed meds. Even shamed by my own psych for being on benzos. What can you do.
Lop - what type of Buddhism are you studying? One side of my family is Buddhist. It’s an interesting practice and they seem to really be devoted to it.
My turn to ask - what's your family's buddhist heritage? There are a lot of good buddhist oriented recovery groups these days, although most of them seem to be a buddhist take on 12 step stuff, which isn't really gonna do much to change the dire status of addiction's status quo.
In NA, the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop using. There are plenty of members who are still using, but want to be clean (from something). I don't think it's a problem that you're still using some drugs, though obviously some members are going to have different opinions on that. There can be strong personalities in meetings, and that is where I've always heard the sort of preachy, holier-than-thou, exclusive stuff coming from. You should know that not everybody thinks that way, and the loudest voice in the room doesn't speak for everyone, nor is what they say any more important than anyone else.
I had a pretty similar outlook as you when I started coming to meetings - I'd get clean from all the junk that was fucking up my life, but keep some psychedelics and whatnot around so I could get in touch with that part of myself when the time is right. I ended up dumping all the drugs I had after about 8 months of being clean because I felt like I didn't need it, and having anything around made me feel too stressed and guilty. I don't know if I will use psychedelics or MDMA in the future, but I know that I don't need to hold onto them now, physically or mentally.
Personally, I don't think it was any one drug that made my life miserable and chaotic, it was the belief that drugs were helping despite evidence to the contrary. I could deceive myself into taking anything if I believed it was going to help me at the time. It didn't always happen right away, but eventually that belief would drive me to pick up the "problem" drugs again. I think by reserving a place for psychedelics/MDMA in my mind, I left myself open for the unpredictable mindfuck that comes with conflict, stress, and tough emotions. At some point, I'm going to want to get high to deal with whatever is going on in life, and there's enough of a window there for me to go through with it.
This is one of the reasons I can't stand most abstinence oriented recovery groups. In public before the group members disparage addiction and drug use, but after the meeting you get to talking to them about how they use cannabis, psychedelics, kratom, etc...
It isn't the contradiction that bugs me - it's how they hide it and present an imagine that is one thing on stage and another in their personal lives. I mean, I get the branding thing (especially living near Hollywood), but these are recovery groups. It's about growth, development and recovery from addiction, not presentation. Are you here to help yourself by helping others or to help yourself feel better by deceiving others?
It's no surprise to me that literature says one thing and people do another - human nature is all about contrary action. But I only have so much tolerance for the uncritical, groupthink vibe (which seems to be built into the structure of meetings, sadly).
