I think the whole idea of the recovery community being exspected to be anonymous has done as much as anything to keep the stigmatism against addicts alive and well. Like so many contradictions, in the current mess that the recovery community seems to be cemented in, addiction being a disease that we should not be ashamed is in direct opposition to the fact that they require anonymous practices in its treatment. If we want to push towards getting rid of the damn stigmas then stop practicing them ourselves.
Sure medical records need to remain private so they aren't abused. But people that go into treatment for cancer dont find it necessary to only reveal their first name. Like this provides any real degree of protection anyway. People sit around in meetings and rehab and share all sorts of stuff about their lives. Many people drive to the meetings so liscense plates could easily be checked. It is encouraged at many meetings to give your phone numbers out to many people including strangers in the form of newcomers. So if anyone including law enforcement or whoever else they pretend this "anonymous" practice will conceal your identity from, could find out who you are with almost no trouble at all. It is likely still promoted out of tradition and in rehabs it likely causes us to further dissociation from who we were, when we arrived. They rarely allow us to continue to use a nickname and often promote the use of a formal less commonly used form of a persons name, possibly to create as much separation from who we were and who they are trying to create. It also likely promotes transformation into identifying with the new identity of the fellowships take of an addict.
The system tells people they must hide in anonymous fellowships and "protect" our identities from association with with addiction by using the incredibly powerful non disclosure of the last name plan, who claims its only requirement for membership is the desire to stop using drugs but in realty by design it one big push at all times for so much more, get a sponsor, work the steps, hit as many meetings as you can, read the literature, and much of all this is very manipulative and demanding, designed to change who you are and how you think, but its results are rather undynamic. this is likely the reason that so many strong fellowship people are spitting images of so many other strong fellowship people. healing ourselves by giving our will and life over to God, while we entrust that some higher power that we just made up and ordained on a whim ourselves will restore us to sanity, while we are also asking God to remove short comings and defects of character. We are people that go pay thousands of dollars to be required to ware degrading signs stating we are king babies w.. make time lines of every drug we have ever done and present them in front of many basically strangers who are now encouraged to be our new and only friends but can only trust enough to tell our first name, while having to attend meeting where were recite the same brain washing propaganda, constantly reminding us that "we didn't know how to live" and if we rebel against all the ridiculous shit we are being fed we will end up in jail, institutions or dead,
So we had better get fully with the program and obsessively adhere to "getting better", sit around the world in "the rooms' regurgitating the exact same stuff that is being regurgitated in thousands of rooms, to the point that many people who spend allot of time in the fellowships sound the exact same because they have been brain washed and now have a token fellowship saying that explains every situation in life, and I we think all this shit is bizarre enough possibly one of the most confusing fucked set ups we have ever seen, Imagine what it looks like to a person who has never faced addition and is already filed with all the misconceptions, lies, and propaganda that has been pumped through the media for decades. I we have a hard time understanding addition then they must just be baffled. Many have no idea that the drug war creates so many of the problems that are dumped on addicts. Many non addicts and non drug users are really in the dark when it comes to so much to do with drug use and addiction and so many are already filled with all the negative bulshit that has been thrown at them for years. So promoting the extreme bizarreness of the the fellowships as our primary solution can not help our image or the overwhelming majority of people fro whom its really unappealing or didn't work.
Its time to bring addiction treatment out of the dark ages in the us. Brain washing works for some people but its well past time for a large segment to scrap this approach and break down addition and address it in a modern scientific based approach. Addicts need to be taught what addition is. what its symptoms are. How to address these symptoms and why talking this approach works. Instead of being brainwashed we need to be educated, Instead of all of us being encouraged to attend meetings and talk our problems out, looking for solutions to everything in the most poorly worde manipulative 12 steps and trusting in god, we should be focusing much more on developing and implementing strong coping skills to deal with life in a more traditional approach. To much of many rehabs are designed at promoting the break down of the already pieced out addicts who land there. I think a big part of this is its allot easier and cheaper to break someone down and introduce them to an established brainwashing conformist religious cult like fellowship who has helped people but has not worked as far as peer edited studies have shown results that it did not work for 95% of the people who attempt this possible solution. than it is to addresses and treat the addiction properly.
The felowships are there for anyone to attemt for free why do we need rehabs so focused on this aspect. They should be doing other things.
We need to quit stigmatizing ourselves and come out of the "closet" so to speak.
We need the drug war ended and we need drug addition treated as medical issue and not a legal one.
We need the black market of drugs eliminated.
We have to get out of the stone age as far as recovery goes.
People need to be educated about the truth about drugs and addiction.
People need to understand what harm reduction is and why its so important.
Looking at what I feal would help I think we do a pretty god job at trying to do allot of this here on Bluelight
Sorry to anyone wo took the time to read this as it was a rambling rant. So much nonsense around this issue
Sure medical records need to remain private so they aren't abused. But people that go into treatment for cancer dont find it necessary to only reveal their first name. Like this provides any real degree of protection anyway. People sit around in meetings and rehab and share all sorts of stuff about their lives. Many people drive to the meetings so liscense plates could easily be checked. It is encouraged at many meetings to give your phone numbers out to many people including strangers in the form of newcomers. So if anyone including law enforcement or whoever else they pretend this "anonymous" practice will conceal your identity from, could find out who you are with almost no trouble at all. It is likely still promoted out of tradition and in rehabs it likely causes us to further dissociation from who we were, when we arrived. They rarely allow us to continue to use a nickname and often promote the use of a formal less commonly used form of a persons name, possibly to create as much separation from who we were and who they are trying to create. It also likely promotes transformation into identifying with the new identity of the fellowships take of an addict.
The system tells people they must hide in anonymous fellowships and "protect" our identities from association with with addiction by using the incredibly powerful non disclosure of the last name plan, who claims its only requirement for membership is the desire to stop using drugs but in realty by design it one big push at all times for so much more, get a sponsor, work the steps, hit as many meetings as you can, read the literature, and much of all this is very manipulative and demanding, designed to change who you are and how you think, but its results are rather undynamic. this is likely the reason that so many strong fellowship people are spitting images of so many other strong fellowship people. healing ourselves by giving our will and life over to God, while we entrust that some higher power that we just made up and ordained on a whim ourselves will restore us to sanity, while we are also asking God to remove short comings and defects of character. We are people that go pay thousands of dollars to be required to ware degrading signs stating we are king babies w.. make time lines of every drug we have ever done and present them in front of many basically strangers who are now encouraged to be our new and only friends but can only trust enough to tell our first name, while having to attend meeting where were recite the same brain washing propaganda, constantly reminding us that "we didn't know how to live" and if we rebel against all the ridiculous shit we are being fed we will end up in jail, institutions or dead,
So we had better get fully with the program and obsessively adhere to "getting better", sit around the world in "the rooms' regurgitating the exact same stuff that is being regurgitated in thousands of rooms, to the point that many people who spend allot of time in the fellowships sound the exact same because they have been brain washed and now have a token fellowship saying that explains every situation in life, and I we think all this shit is bizarre enough possibly one of the most confusing fucked set ups we have ever seen, Imagine what it looks like to a person who has never faced addition and is already filed with all the misconceptions, lies, and propaganda that has been pumped through the media for decades. I we have a hard time understanding addition then they must just be baffled. Many have no idea that the drug war creates so many of the problems that are dumped on addicts. Many non addicts and non drug users are really in the dark when it comes to so much to do with drug use and addiction and so many are already filled with all the negative bulshit that has been thrown at them for years. So promoting the extreme bizarreness of the the fellowships as our primary solution can not help our image or the overwhelming majority of people fro whom its really unappealing or didn't work.
Its time to bring addiction treatment out of the dark ages in the us. Brain washing works for some people but its well past time for a large segment to scrap this approach and break down addition and address it in a modern scientific based approach. Addicts need to be taught what addition is. what its symptoms are. How to address these symptoms and why talking this approach works. Instead of being brainwashed we need to be educated, Instead of all of us being encouraged to attend meetings and talk our problems out, looking for solutions to everything in the most poorly worde manipulative 12 steps and trusting in god, we should be focusing much more on developing and implementing strong coping skills to deal with life in a more traditional approach. To much of many rehabs are designed at promoting the break down of the already pieced out addicts who land there. I think a big part of this is its allot easier and cheaper to break someone down and introduce them to an established brainwashing conformist religious cult like fellowship who has helped people but has not worked as far as peer edited studies have shown results that it did not work for 95% of the people who attempt this possible solution. than it is to addresses and treat the addiction properly.
The felowships are there for anyone to attemt for free why do we need rehabs so focused on this aspect. They should be doing other things.
We need to quit stigmatizing ourselves and come out of the "closet" so to speak.
We need the drug war ended and we need drug addition treated as medical issue and not a legal one.
We need the black market of drugs eliminated.
We have to get out of the stone age as far as recovery goes.
People need to be educated about the truth about drugs and addiction.
People need to understand what harm reduction is and why its so important.
Looking at what I feal would help I think we do a pretty god job at trying to do allot of this here on Bluelight
Sorry to anyone wo took the time to read this as it was a rambling rant. So much nonsense around this issue
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