from the bottom of every bluelight page
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "SAFE" DRUG USE!
But thats beside the point. It seems most of your complaints stem from the nebulous idea that 12 steps programs are some kind of octopus that have their tentacles in every social institution that have anything to do with drug policy.
Sending people to rehab, and requiring them to attend 12 steps meetings is one thing. Its an easy way to monopolize a patient's time. It seems to work. It, in theory, gives them a place to go after rehab is over with. In that sense, I'd agree that AA/NA is over involved in the treatment scene. Its a cop-out, and an easy thing to assign, for the reasons I mentioned.
That notwithstanding, 12 steps organizations have policys to avoid the very idea of the institutionalization of the 12 steps you mentioned. I hate to quote the 12 traditions, or any other lit, but I'll go ahead.
The 12 Traditions of NA
exerpts
Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.
Narcotics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the NA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
NA, as such, ought never be organized, but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
An NA group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the NA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, or prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
As a person who has weekly contact with someone who helped write the basic text, and another who founded the NA chapters in two states, I can tell you that these things are taken
damn seriously. If there is any unhealthy crossover between the 12 step community, and the greater addiction recovery community, it has much less to do with NA proper, and much more to do with individuals operating within local governments and institutions not affiliated with NA. You got a problem with the death of diolouge in the recovery field, talk to someone else. The people who set policy in 12 steps organizations would like nothing better than to be left alone.
As for the criticisms, I'll speak to each of them on their own, with my personal experience. Most of what I have to say could be referenced easily, but its late, and its easy to come by on your own:
2. You continue to use your drug of choice and hence think of yourself as a failure - better take more drugs to kill the pain...
I don't know about you, but I was experiencing that on my own without NA. It still, with or without a program to keep you clean, comes down to a matter of choice. I chose not to get high today. I simply couldn't make that choice and succeed early on, thats where the friends and new ways of thinking I aquired stepped in and made it easier to stick to the choice I made. If I ever choose to get high again. That'll be the end of my clean time, nothing is going to stop me if I set my mind to it.
3. You try and attribute people's problems to their substance use - when they tell you that you are wrong, you tell them that they are "in denial"
Ya, and I'd be fibbing if i said I didn't see plenty of that on a weekly basis. That, however, is also something I did before I got clean, and would probably do if I stopped going to meetings. Thats not to say that the twelve steps have nothing to say: they do. Someone who is supposed to be following "the program" ought to be focused on their own personal shortcomings, rather than "taking another person's inventory".
4. Abstinence-based treatment programs get the funding, even though the evidence basis for them is at best ambiguous and at worst damning
Thats not entirely true. I went to a compulsory DUI class that advocated 1 to 2 drinks a day, tops. They, did, as a caveat, say that because of my binge drinking, I was an alcoholic, and shouldn't be drinking at all. Outside of that, I can think of a totally rational reason that rehabs, probations, drug courts, et cetera would advocate strict abstinence: most drugs of abuse in most countries are illegal. Don't put the cart before the horse. rehab advocates abstinence because there is already a structure, (the government), that says drug use, (not just drug abuse), is immoral and illegal. It isn't the other way around.
5. Harm reduction strategies with strong supporting research evidence like needle exchange, methadone, prescription heroin, safer injecting rooms etc get the shaft because politicians don't want to "send the wrong message"
See last response. There aren't shooting gallerys here (in the US), because shooting smack is against the law. Its impossible for the government to say that drugs are absolutely horrible (which they aren't), that nobody has the right to use them (which isn't true), and to, at the same time, say that its ok to use them once you've started. Write your elected leaders, don't take it out on the people who have decided to abstain from drugs.
6. People confuse sobriety with morality. Whether or not you like to get wasted is jack all to do with your personal ethical system. Drugs don't remove personal responsibility.
I'm not sure what this has to do with anything, but I'll share things about myself. I stole from friends to support my habit. I broke laws, other than the obvious ones, to support my habit. I hurt people emotionally and physically to support my habit. None of that phased me. I like to think that I'm much better now that I don't have to worry about how I'll get high. Thats just me though. Plenty of people don't do that stuff when they're using, or when they're actually hard-core addicts. Plenty of people still do fucked up shit when they're clean. AA/NA is notorious for people who have plenty of clean time poaching on chicks who have half a week clean, and fucking their brains out on their wife's bed
. People in NA are
supposed to be living by
spiritual principles, they may, and they might not be. Either way, none of this has much to do with your criticism, just as, in turn, your criticism has very little to do with 12 steps organizations.
7. A truck load of intelligent discourse on human behaviour is ignored or discounted (by the way, did I mention Zinberg?)
Ignored by whom? Go talk to those people. Also, see my other responses.
8. I think I'm running out of steam, but you get the point It's all about HARM REDUCTION!
Harm reduction has very little to do with the nuts and bolts of addiction. Harm reduction, in the forms you mentioned (shooting galleries, prescription heroin, methadone programs, needle exchanges) has nothing to do with "recovery". In all of those cases, use still continues, and addiction still exists. Psychological and physical craving may be abated, and the addict may be physically healthier, and more a member of society, but take it away, and you've got a raging, detoxing junkie. Most of all, that nasty psychological addiction stays put. Ultimately, I think all of those things should exist. However, calling an organization bullshit because one of its effects (you think) is that it makes other outcomes less likely, is short-sighted, close-minded, and obtuse. There is plenty of room for both to exist here in the states the way they do in Europe.
Anyway, this has turned into a fun discourse, and I hope I'm able to keep up.
It's all about HARM REDUCTION!