“Sobriety” Does Not Mean “Abstinence”

[Jabberwocky]

For the Last Time: “Sobriety” Does Not Mean “Abstinence”
Words matter. We'd be a lot better off if we stuck with the older definitions of this one.

“He who commands vocabulary commands the battlefield.”—Napoleon

I confess: I made that quote up. But the sentiment is an indubitable truth.

“My boyfriend of five years has been sober since before we met. He abused alcohol and was a heroin addict. Two nights ago he told me he wanted to stop being sober.”

That one’s a real quote (with my emphasis), as relayed by Substance.com‘s Samantha Felix in her insightful response to an advice column this week: “Slate’s ‘Dear Prudence’ Column Gives Bad Advice About Addiction.”

Did the boyfriend really say he wanted to “stop being sober”? It’s entirely likely, because of what I have termed elsewhere: “The Hijacking of Sobriety by the Recovery Movement.”

I was moved to write that piece for Reason after The New York Times declared that octogenarian Elaine Stritch was no longer sober. As a “recovering alcoholic,” Stritch had decided to have a single cocktail a day while she was being filmed for a movie about her last nightclub act, Shoot Me. (The film was released in 2014, shortly before she died.)

The subtitle of my Reason piece was: “Sobriety isn’t an abstinence fixation; it’s about having purpose.” Let’s consider that “sober” has meant two things for centuries, before Recovery captured the term.

First, sobriety meant not being intoxicated. So you could drink and be sober—you know, like when you pass a field sobriety test because you had just a couple of drinks over an evening while eating.

A second, more subtle meaning for sobriety is that a person has a serious approach to life. Being “sober as a judge” doesn’t mean just not being intoxicated—it means going about your business in a steady, mindful manner.

And these definitions of sobriety carry great value when we speak about addiction.

The boyfriend in the advice column presumably has developed reasons, purposes for not being addicted to drugs in the intervening years, including finding his girlfriend. Does Prudence really think this man incapable of developing such meaning in his life?

I very much appreciated Felix’s analysis:

“There are some important things to find out here, such as, when he says he doesn’t want to be sober anymore, does he mean he wants to start doing heroin again, or that he just wants to have a beer at the holiday party?”

Exactly. And why isn’t the vast gulf between “I want to seek out my old heroin dealer” and “I’d like to have a beer while I watch the Super Bowl” open for discussion? Because of that word, that concept, “sobriety.”

Sobriety as Americans commonly use it imbeds the entire Temperance elimination of moderation as a possibility. “Temperance” itself means moderation, and yet it came to stand for prohibition. And the elimination of the possibility of moderation eliminates policy discussions not only about legalizing drugs, but about how we can encourage sensible drug use now that marijuana is being legalized.

This Hobbesian choice, cutting out middle positions, eliminates treatment alternatives like moderating drinking for problem drinkers or substituting marijuana for alcohol or heroin as a superior alternative for some people addicted to those substances.

But, most important of all, the idea that moderation is impossible prevents people facing addictions from considering their possibilities in optimal ways.

Instead, it sentences them to think of themselves as addicts, people who can never be allowed—never allow themselves—to have any psychoactive substance again.

Here’s one last real quote, from a woman on Facebook responding from the UK to the Dear Prudence article:

Anna Millington: It’s the reason Britain can’t ever have an evidence based insightful conversation about addiction. The ideology is so ingrained it is nigh on impossible to move beyond NA/AA thinking that we are forever trapped, forever one step away from jails, institutions or death.

We must defeat this black-and-white, all-or-nothing disease addiction thinking in order to move forward on drug use, drug treatment and drug policy.

http://www.substance.com/for-the-last-time-sobriety-does-not-mean-abstinence/17717/

I've been in recovery for the last five years. Does that mean I haven't touched a drug during that time? Hell no. Do it mean I've been committed to becoming a better person, improving the quality of my life and the quality of those around me? Hell yes. For instance, this morning I took 60mg of methadone along with 30mg of diazepam, shortly there after another 10mg. Just fifteen or thirty minutes ago I took another 65mg of diazepam. Tonight I will smoke a bowl or two of cannabis. I take methadone regularly, diazepam/temazepam/alprazolam much less frequently and cannabis whenever I come across a good deal on extremely high quality stuff. Does that mean I'm not sober or that I'm not clean - that abstinence is a prerequisite for being clean or sobriety is nothing more than dogma preached by AA, NA and their related fellowship. Bullshit.

In reality, to be "clean" or "sober", useless descriptions in the first place because they don't even being to deal with the reasons people use drugs, is almost always rational, calculated ways, is next to meaningless. It's a label, nothing more. For me, my behavior towards myself - self harm, unhealthy behaviors - and towards others - does what I do for myself or in the name of another help or hinder them, nurture or stunt their own personal growth, is the essence of what it means to be so called "clean and sober." The expression has nothing to do with anything but whether or not someone's using. And someone using has nothing, in and of itself, to do with hurting either one's self or another - except to the degree we organize our society to make using have such consequences.

To be in recovery required a desire to improve one's lot, to leave the world a better place than one found it. Nothing more, nothing less. Sure, some, if very few, people need to stop using all significantly mind and mood altering drugs to achieve such. But these are a rarity. What's so much more important than whether or not someone uses a drug is whether or not their drug use, no, the sum of their actions - those related to their drug use and those undertaken simply in the course of their day to day lives - as well as the context in which they choose to use drugs (or is chosen for them e.g. Prohibitionist United States), that's what's important. Relapse isn't so much about using. It's about the consequences, and I'm not talking about the consequences pharmacological, culturally or physiologicalluy and biologically as imposed on some foreign paternalistic or totalitarian outside force (Drug Law Enforcement, the criminal justice system, the AA complex, the Recovery Industrial Complex, etc. etc. even the vast majority of lay person and the US's very much still Puritanical and overly religious population culture).

Anywho, enjoi

EDIT:

This degrading babble traces back to the appropriation of the term sobriety by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), which has grown into a large and powerful recovery movement that dominates American thinking about addiction. Before AA hijacked the term, "sober" simply meant not being currently intoxicated. Now, sober is a state of being—one you can only achieve through total, lifelong abstinence if you ever drank alcoholically.

http://reason.com/archives/2014/03/22/alcoholics-recovery-and-sobriety-meaning

Reminds me how the words and concept of "addiction" was once coopted by modern medicine, politicians, modern [pseudo]science and the progressive movement, not to mention AA, circa alcohol prohibition and even prior to that, beginning about 120 years ago.

LINGUISTICS and syntax sure are fun :D A great way to understand our history is to understand how words have been lost, been created and have had their common meanings changed - just like the words "sober" and "addict."

 

[TheRapperGoneBad]

As if a beer or some dope are much different when it comes down to it.
That being said I enjoyed when my life wasn't bothered by the absence of drugs(withdrawls)
If you could just stop taking them or go as you please it would be different.

It's all a pretty scary beast

to think I brought it upon myself more than willingly or was there need?
Not quite sure when it became a problem for the world or me...
Mankind an the animal kingdom a like have been using since the beginning of time.

 

[alpha_centauri]

This sounds like more addict bullshit and denialism such as "oh I don't really have a drug addiction/problem, so I really can use drugs, or other drugs, and still be sober/clean!" It's more of the typical BS that addicts do to justify their use or claim that they're not addicted or can use drugs or other drugs. *facepalm*

No this is not AA/NA dogma, it's common sense. If you use drugs then you're not sober or clean.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

Extremism is always very, very bad. Never good.

Quotes from famous war heros are like statistics, 65.7% of them are made up on the spot.

(OK I'll stop)

Interesting related reading: the euphemism treadmill. It annoys me that I can't use the word freethinker without meaning "atheist", or that I can't use the word janitor at all anymore, apparently. The problem with the euphemism treadmill is that it is both a product of, and further encourages, black-and-white thinking about issues. It negates the subtle shades of grey that characterize the opinion landscape on almost any issue.

Sober, to me, implies that one is at one's baseline mental state, with perceptive and cognitive faculties fully intact. In many cases when coming down from a drug experience, one regains sobriety before one is free of all the bodily effects of the drug, and often long before the body is completely free of detectable levels of the drug.

Clean is not a medical or legal term, and I avoid using it, but to me it is synonymous with abstinence, as confirmable by not only behavioral testing, but labwork as well. The reason I don't like this term is because it demonizes drug use by implying that anything shy of full abstinence makes one unclean.

While we're at it, let's put the word recovery on trial too. After much soul searching, I do agree that this is a valid, helpful, and dignifying term for the process of ceasing substance abuse. But again, I see a subtle process by which it's come to be used as a polite euphemism for abstinence. I honestly don't think these are necessarily the same things at all. Ever meet a "dry drunk", who hasn't touched alcohol in years, but still clearly misses alcohol very much, still has an alcohol-shaped hole in their life coping skills, and has just substituted some sort of unhealthy compulsive escapist behavior for drinking, instead of facing the reason they're driven to escape in the first place? I'd argue such a person is abstinent, but I'd have a hard time accepting that they're truly in recovery.

Conversely, if someone still uses their DOC, but has gotten much wiser about their use, such that they do not use it as a crutch to cope with life, do not put themselves or others at needless risk by their use, and never lose sight of the things that really matter in life, I would argue they are not abstinent, but are in recovery. Most of the time this involves the former abuser using considerably less and less often, weighing each decision to use much more heavily, and avoiding sets and settings (i.e. old cues) where they used to abuse. But not necessarily. Everyone's path to recovery is different.

When I took psychiatry in medical school, my attending physician said one of the wisest things I've ever heard: "The sine qua non of disease is suffering, and mental diseases are no exception. If neither you nor others suffer for your mentations, you are not mentally ill." He said this loudly and with much righteous indignation, at a medical student's suggestion that anyone who claims to hear voices ought to be diagnosed with schizophrenia and put on an antipsychotic right away. But it applies equally well to problem drug use, and this is how I draw the line between substance use and substance abuse: is there needless suffering involved? I snort at the US healthcare system's party line that any illegal use of a substance is substance abuse. There is no justice in obeying an unjust law, after all. At the same time, one must remember that taking drugs that feel good to the point where you and/or others in your life suffer is something that isn't always easy to avoid, because drugs that feel good, by their very nature, make suffering less noticeable.

Neurons that fire together wire together, and once a habit of problem use of a drug is established, that pathway never completely disappears. To be able to resume using a substance (or use a different abuse-prone substance) non-abusively after having abused it takes some real effort. It involves re-learning a whole new set of associations with the substance that in no way connect with the cues that used to trigger abusive use. It involves starting from scratch and redefining one's relationship with the drug. It definitely involves learning and looking for the warning signs that one is in danger of crossing back into the old path of abusive use. Having a supportive network of people who do not shame the user for using at all, and yet at the same time kindly help the user look out for these warning signs and triggers, is of great help in this venture. A defined but temporary period of complete abstinence, with the goal of un-learning the abusive pattern as much as can be done, distancing oneself from any possible triggers, and learning to not need any drugs to cope with life, is probably a helpful tool for many on the non-abstinent path of recovery. The right kind of guided imagery with a good mental health professional who believes in non-abstinent recovery and the patient's capability for it, probably is an excellent tool as well. Sadly, as of now, the system is just not set up to test and enact such recovery models. Hopefully someday soon.

And finally, if multiple high-quality and wholehearted attempts to recover the non-abstinent way have all failed, that is, have all led the user inexorably back to abuse and the needless suffering that accompanies it, there comes a point where recovery, for that user, is probably synonymous with complete abstinence.

 

[neversickanymore]

No this is not AA/NA dogma, it's common sense. If you use drugs then you're not sober or clean.

Very true, but although being clean and sober certainly means your not in active addiction, not being clean and sober does not mean a person is an active addict.

I use psychedelics from time to time, I am certainly very far from being in active addiction (besides tobacco and that getting kicked to the curb very soon) I don't worry to much about the old clean and sober argument. I focus on living a peaceful and rewarding life free from active addiction. Does this mean I can use the drugs again that gave me problems, well thats not really something I worry about as I no longer have any desire to use those substances. I think this is a big part of putting recovered instead of in recovery on my resume. The use of other substances esp psychedelics are not and will not drive me to use any of my "DOC's." In fact they do the opposite. The use of these does not have a negative effect on me, my life or my spirit. It has a beneficial effect instead.

I do not use substances anywhere close to regularly. I dont feal any drive to do this. So Im "clean and sober" 97% of the time and thats perfect for me.

Addiction is a state of mind and states of mind can be altered and healed.

Extremism is always very, very bad. Never good.

Quotes from famous war heros are like statistics, 65.7% of them are made up on the spot.

NSFW:

 

[Jabberwocky]

NSA's post above is a very good example of how simply being clean and sober and merely "abstaining from all mind altering substances" isn't, in itself, a worthwhile end goal. The end goal should be much more meaningful, something worth living one's life for and in pursuit of. Not using may be a useful, and in some cases necessary, means toward such an end, but it's not the end in itself. That much I know for sure.

Living simply to not use is hardly living at all.

[Being] clean and sober certainly means your not in active addiction, not being clean and sober does not mean a person is an active addict.

...

Addiction is a state of mind and states of mind can be altered and healed.

Words of wisdom.

Oversimplifying and boiling down a complicated issue down to that of mere denial is a indication of AA/NA dogma. Much of the Fellowship has a tendency to do that... It's like it makes a lot of them feel better about themselves. It's super ironic too, because in writing something off as an issue of being in denial avoids the more difficult issues that are the real heart of the matter, ending up leaving the AAer/NAer in a state of denial - allowing them to go on their merry way living their lives one illusion at a time, without consideration for reality or life on life's terms. Irony, like comedy and tragedy, can be an extremely informative and useful tool, especially when it comes to understanding our world and making the most of our lives - doing, or trying to do, the right thing, in other words.

 

[Erikmen]

It depends on how you see it..

 

[phactor]

"Clean" and "Sober" are just words that people can use to define many different things. What is ironic is that people in NA/AA will tell you that "only you can decide what clean means". People love to act like the 12 steps are extremely rigid and "dogmatic" (whatever that means) when its is one of the most flexible processes I have ever dealt with. There is a reason that NA's 2nd largest fellowship is in Iran, which is the polar opposite of the US. Its because the concepts in the 12-steps are very adaptable. Take Suboxone for example: Lots of old timers think that DRT means an individual isn't clean. However, younger people in NA tend to consider its use okay. Ultimately, its up to the individual.



All I know is that when I use any substance, I use it to the point where I have tremendous consequences. I cannot stop once I start using, sure, I'd have periods where I didn't use but they were fleeting. I had my "favorites" (Alcohol, Coke, Dope) but I would use any and everything too excess. I know today if I were to go have a beer (even if I told myself I just want 1) it would end up badly. It might not happen immediately, but I would soon be using again. I tried to learn to control my using for close to a decade. In fact, a large amount of posting on this board is evidence of me trying and failing to do so.

Living simply to not use isn't fun, but its better then using. The whole point of groups like NA/AA/SMART are to try to help the addict find a greater purpose. However, when an individual first gets clean, all they are able to do is basically live to not use. By not using, things start to come together.

I haven't used in a 7 and a half months, in that time I have repaired my relationships with my family, worked out and put on a bunch of muscle, started a great relationship with a wonderful woman (who is also in recovery), got a new job and finished another semester of Graduate School. These things only happened FOR ME because I worked an NA program.

NA works great for me... complete and total abstinence is what I have to do in order to be happy and healthy. If I used I start wanting to kill myself, it gets that bad for me. Its not the drugs in itself, its the mind state. I have an extremely obsessive thinking even when not using.

Its a ton of work to stay clean but its so much easier for me to not use. Why wouldn't I go for what works? I am so grateful and proud to be clean its indescribable.

"Oversimplifying and boiling down a complicated issue down to that of mere denial is a indication of AA/NA dogma. Much of the Fellowship has a tendency to do that... It's like it makes a lot of them feel better about themselves."

I haven't seen that much, the simplification comes from a shared tendency that we have found to complicate things and over analyze. It is clear that NA/AA is a program of complete abstinence. Its not denial, but its very clear what the program entails. That being said, we have people come fucked up to the meetings all the time. If you don't like NA/AA then more power to you, but I found that when I was using (after I tried NA a few times) I tried very hard to discredit the program so I wouldn't feel guilty about using.

Accepting that I am an addict and cannot use allows me to start doing what I need to do to live a fulfilling life. I cannot forget that.

 

[Crankinit]

Extremism is always very, very bad. Never good.

Quotes from famous war heros are like statistics, 65.7% of them are made up on the spot.

(OK I'll stop)

Interesting related reading: the euphemism treadmill. It annoys me that I can't use the word freethinker without meaning "atheist", or that I can't use the word janitor at all anymore, apparently. The problem with the euphemism treadmill is that it is both a product of, and further encourages, black-and-white thinking about issues. It negates the subtle shades of grey that characterize the opinion landscape on almost any issue.

Sober, to me, implies that one is at one's baseline mental state, with perceptive and cognitive faculties fully intact. In many cases when coming down from a drug experience, one regains sobriety before one is free of all the bodily effects of the drug, and often long before the body is completely free of detectable levels of the drug.

Clean is not a medical or legal term, and I avoid using it, but to me it is synonymous with abstinence, as confirmable by not only behavioral testing, but labwork as well. The reason I don't like this term is because it demonizes drug use by implying that anything shy of full abstinence makes one unclean.

While we're at it, let's put the word recovery on trial too. After much soul searching, I do agree that this is a valid, helpful, and dignifying term for the process of ceasing substance abuse. But again, I see a subtle process by which it's come to be used as a polite euphemism for abstinence. I honestly don't think these are necessarily the same things at all. Ever meet a "dry drunk", who hasn't touched alcohol in years, but still clearly misses alcohol very much, still has an alcohol-shaped hole in their life coping skills, and has just substituted some sort of unhealthy compulsive escapist behavior for drinking, instead of facing the reason they're driven to escape in the first place? I'd argue such a person is abstinent, but I'd have a hard time accepting that they're truly in recovery.

Conversely, if someone still uses their DOC, but has gotten much wiser about their use, such that they do not use it as a crutch to cope with life, do not put themselves or others at needless risk by their use, and never lose sight of the things that really matter in life, I would argue they are not abstinent, but are in recovery. Most of the time this involves the former abuser using considerably less and less often, weighing each decision to use much more heavily, and avoiding sets and settings (i.e. old cues) where they used to abuse. But not necessarily. Everyone's path to recovery is different.

When I took psychiatry in medical school, my attending physician said one of the wisest things I've ever heard: "The sine qua non of disease is suffering, and mental diseases are no exception. If neither you nor others suffer for your mentations, you are not mentally ill." He said this loudly and with much righteous indignation, at a medical student's suggestion that anyone who claims to hear voices ought to be diagnosed with schizophrenia and put on an antipsychotic right away. But it applies equally well to problem drug use, and this is how I draw the line between substance use and substance abuse: is there needless suffering involved? I snort at the US healthcare system's party line that any illegal use of a substance is substance abuse. There is no justice in obeying an unjust law, after all. At the same time, one must remember that taking drugs that feel good to the point where you and/or others in your life suffer is something that isn't always easy to avoid, because drugs that feel good, by their very nature, make suffering less noticeable.

Neurons that fire together wire together, and once a habit of problem use of a drug is established, that pathway never completely disappears. To be able to resume using a substance (or use a different abuse-prone substance) non-abusively after having abused it takes some real effort. It involves re-learning a whole new set of associations with the substance that in no way connect with the cues that used to trigger abusive use. It involves starting from scratch and redefining one's relationship with the drug. It definitely involves learning and looking for the warning signs that one is in danger of crossing back into the old path of abusive use. Having a supportive network of people who do not shame the user for using at all, and yet at the same time kindly help the user look out for these warning signs and triggers, is of great help in this venture. A defined but temporary period of complete abstinence, with the goal of un-learning the abusive pattern as much as can be done, distancing oneself from any possible triggers, and learning to not need any drugs to cope with life, is probably a helpful tool for many on the non-abstinent path of recovery. The right kind of guided imagery with a good mental health professional who believes in non-abstinent recovery and the patient's capability for it, probably is an excellent tool as well. Sadly, as of now, the system is just not set up to test and enact such recovery models. Hopefully someday soon.

And finally, if multiple high-quality and wholehearted attempts to recover the non-abstinent way have all failed, that is, have all led the user inexorably back to abuse and the needless suffering that accompanies it, there comes a point where recovery, for that user, is probably synonymous with complete abstinence.

Excellent post. I think your definitions fit pretty well (and I also hate the term "clean").

 

[Jabberwocky]

What is ironic is that people in NA/AA will tell you that "only you can decide what clean means". People love to act like the 12 steps are extremely rigid and "dogmatic" (whatever that means) when its is one of the most flexible processes I have ever dealt with. There is a reason that NA's 2nd largest fellowship is in Iran, which is the polar opposite of the US. Its because the concepts in the 12-steps are very adaptable. Take Suboxone for example: Lots of old timers think that DRT means an individual isn't clean. However, younger people in NA tend to consider its use okay. Ultimately, its up to the individual.

I tend to agree that is AA and NA, but especially AA, were actually practiced in more accordance to how it is laid out in the big book, antiquated a self help group it may still be, it be a much more helpful organization to many more people. I guess the irony here is that 99% of folks at meetings have no problems and often seem to take some perverse interest in telling others about their cleanliness, sobriety, or lack there of when what they're technically supposed to be doing in telling the other about their experience with their own sobriety or cleanliness...

And while a perhaps growing number of people are becoming more receptive of treatments like buprenorphine detoxes or maintenance programs, the majority of fellows in your ship are still stuck in the backwoods when it comes to harm reduction, medication generally and especially ORT. Funny cause AA/NA are forms of harm reduction themselves, although often conceived in rather limiting and narrowly organized paths.

 

[phactor]

And while a perhaps growing number of people are becoming more receptive of treatments like buprenorphine detoxes or maintenance programs, the majority of fellows in your ship are still stuck in the backwoods when it comes to harm reduction, medication generally and especially ORT. Funny cause AA/NA are forms of harm reduction themselves, although often conceived in rather limiting and narrowly organized paths.

You do realize that quite a lot of individuals that work in treatment and recovery tend to be also in recovery themselves right? (Ex: When I used Sub, I was prescribed by a Doctor in recovery) If you don't like it then fine, but save the blanket generalizations like claiming "99 percent blah" or a "majority of fellows". You have no idea what the percentage is and its obviously based on some type of perception and experience you have had.

You must have gone to some shitty meetings because it really doesn't seem like you have been to the ones I go to. NA is clear on its stance on medication (its between a doctor and client). It might surprise you to learn that just like anywhere else in the world, NA is full of good people, bad people, ok people, non-judgemental people, open minded people, judgmental people, assholes, near miracle workers etc etc... its a self help group. Which also makes your claim of "the majority of fellows in your ship are still stuck in the backwoods when it comes to harm reduction, medication generally and especially ORT" kinda silly because you have no way of measuring that. .

When it comes to harm reduction in things like DRT and Needle Exchanges, most people in NA are for it... because they are addicts themselves. The ultimate goal is to stop using. If you are going to NA and asking that people be okay with you "drinking once in awhile" or "smoking some weed" then its likely not going to happen. It is made very clear that NA believes in complete abstinence. Why? Because its the experience of people there that it is the easiest way to recover. It is for me that is for sure. Do I always like it? Fuck no. But I like living a decent life more then using that is for sure.

If by "harm reduction" you mean "I want to be able to use sometimes" then I'd argue that isn't harm reduction and wish you luck because most people that have been substance dependent are not able to begin to "use successfully". Some can sure, but that number is really really small. Why mess around with something as fatal as addiction?

 

[Jabberwocky]

AA, NA and abstiance oriented treatment has obviously been a benefit to you, as it has to others like and, I'm sure, unlike you. That avenue and perspective on treatment - which btw is all it is, one perspective among many on what treatment should constitute - did me a huge amount of harm. Your post also demonstrates you have no f'ing clue about my situation, which is to be expected as I never explained it to you and you've decided to get miffed and make miffy assumptions.

You're absolutely right on one thing: I've had some pretty horrible experiences with AA and NA. The vast majority of people I've met in or through the fellowship (hence the 99% figure you got upset about - and btw there are stats out there that are accurate concerning success and using AA based treatment modalities) have not been supportive of many of the most meaningful forms of treatment, harm reduction and the future of drug policy.

That said I've met quite a number of fantastic people through AA and NA. Problem is that for every such person I've met, I've met many more that are the polar opposite. I mean, think Atlantic Group or Pacific Group. Bunch of fucking nuts - no to ways around that statement. Do you know anything about the Atlantic and Pacific Groups? Not saying they're representative of AA or NAers as a whole - cause they're most certainly not (I like most the anarchistic and democratic aspects that the structure of AA and NA type meetings can, although do not necessarily, make possible).

These two subgroups of AA/NA/the Fellowship pretty much embody all I dislike and detest about groups like AA that promote abstinence based modalities - especially when they comes at the cost, as they so very often do, of other sometimes much more effective forms of treatment (like motivational therapy versus the AA standby of confrontational therapy, for instance - perfect example).

And regardless of the actual number, the majority of AAers and likeminded people (most people in other words) are not very supportive of treatments like Suboxone or Methadone. This isn't just my experience, but something I've heard from every person who has any experience with AA or a similar fellowship and ORT. They generally have had positive experiences with certain individuals in the fellowship or with certain groups and meetings that are supportive, but by in large most people in AA and NA look down on people on ORT and do not consider them "clean" or "sober," although one should care less what someone like that thinks as you said when one's working on and making positive steps in one's path of recovery.

I mean, what's the use of going to meetings where honesty and being able to feel comfortable and to open up with others when one has to hide the fact one takes some prescription like methadone, suboxone or even something as relatively inconsequential (psychoactive-wise) zoloft (see the Pacific Group)? Seems like being able to be honest elsewhere would be putting one's time to better use than wasting it keeping one's mouth shut or feeling like one has to be deceptive about something as significant as ORT at a meeting.

Again, the Pacific Group aren't necessarily representative of all AAers, but given everything I've experienced in various fellowships, at god knows how many different meetings and homegroups, with various, diverse groups of folks of all shades and peculiarities, coupled with everything I've heard and seen from others, all that leads me to believe that groups like the Pacific Group are more representative of AA and NA as a whole than the more progressive, balances and supportive meetings that often almost seem like AA's best kept secret, for better and worse.

 

[neversickanymore]

We almost have all the never ending debates covered in this thread. can't wait for the disease choice, or medical spiritual, or blahh hhalb to be brought up. 8)

Trouble with us addicts is that we are more than prone to polar oposite thinking. Something is either right or wrong. It either can help or can't help.

I love when I hear "it didn't work for me." Or "I was clean for seven months, but it wasn't right for me".. Or "I just couldn't get over this one part, so I scrapped it."

Nothing like watching a whole world community of addicts, addicts pursuing recovery, addicts in recovery, cops, judges, politicians, addict family members, doctors, recovery researchers, amateurs, and professionals endlessly argue about the color of an unseen ball.

Its blue, no way its orange, your nuts its purple, tell me another one freak its yellow, well what about this idiot its blue, and on and on and on AND ON AND SO ON.

With all participants thinking in failure assuring write or wrong thinking, we are cemented in limited success, guaranteed unlimited confusion, and exspierincing stupendous levels of misery and failure.


The ball is white as its made up of segments from all the other colored balls

 

[Dresden]

"Moderation in all things, including moderation."--Oscar Wilde.

The NA/AA model of abstinence only addiction treatment--based on the antiquated 19th century women's temperance (the older word for abstinence) movement that led to Alcohol Prohibition--has, regrettably and in the last century, become the standard, first line drug treatment program standard of care, mainly because it is so cheap / raises the profits for these newfound, mercenary, and exborbitantly priced drug rehabilitation programs.

The 12-step programs, however, see drug use in all or nothing, black or white, binary terms and dogmatically believes that its worldview is the only correct one to utilize in overcoming problematic drug and alcohol use. The problem with those beliefs is that it ignores the many people who quit using drugs problematically on their own and also that life is not at all black or white, but rather an infinite number of colors and often very complicated and messy to boot. Finally, these programs fail to realize that the 'disease' (what a crock of shit to call addiction a disease with a straight face--is it contagious? can you identify a physical, causative pathogen under the microscope?) of drug use exists because for many people controlled drug use improves their lives, and that's why they do it.

 

[greengummybear]

^
during my various institutionalization they had AA meetings that you could go to if you are near by. i wasn't an alcoholic but the coffee that they had was free. what i know from my visits was that they didn't want to be judgmental. they had their rules, book, and steps but they were totally open. and really they couldn't have been 100% abstinence based because they drank coffee. if you ever need AA/NA you should find another AA/NA group than the one you mentioned because each community is probably a little different. also my experience with addiction was i cant ever use the drug i was addicted to again. different types of drugs are ok but i cant use the old drug

 

[treezy z]

Whenever I went to AA or NA it was a bunch of fucked up people (with some bright lights mixed in) who happened not to use, the drama in those rooms would be better in a soap opera than the real world. i could never get anywhere in those programs because they are all or nothing, they preach "complete absistence" or "jails institutions and death." not true, not based in reality.

 

[TheRapperGoneBad]

Whenever I went to AA or NA it was a bunch of fucked up people (with some bright lights mixed in) who happened not to use, the drama in those rooms would be better in a soap opera than the real world. i could never get anywhere in those programs because they are all or nothing, they preach "complete absistence" or "jails institutions and death." not true, not based in reality.

I had a hard headed counselor hittin me with that one so I switched counselors and am much happier progress is going well

 

[Jabberwocky]

"Moderation in all things, including moderation."--Oscar Wilde.

Wise words indeed.

 

[StanleyJobson]

The one thing I know for sure out of my nearly three decades on this planet is that I would rather stick my head in a nitrogen bag than live the 12-step way of life.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Yeah pretty much agree. Outside vipassana, HR and a kind of hedonism I can't imagine a life I'd rather live.