do you realize the disease of addiction is IN your thinking? and that when you do drugs for awhile, your thinking is very fucked up? let alone how it was to begin with.
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the first thing in NA is stop using drugs. once your able to do that, then its time to start the steps so that you can change your old attitudes and behaviors. its simple bro. i hope you get cuz i've heard of atleast 4 ppl die in the past couple weeks due to OD. i hope you can get through this and move on w/ your life.
Are you talking to me? I dont use drugs. I been clean for over a year now. I just didnt do the steps to get there. IDK if you were still talkin to me or to jake there. Anyways....
Yes addiction is part of your thinking. (Dont get me started on the "disease" shit, I aint even goin there.) But the point is just becuz it is part of how your brain operates, it dont mean that EVERY SINGLE THING that you think is tainted by it. You can have legitimate concerns or issues with NA without it meaning that "your addiction is trying to trick you."
Also,
The analogy about the psych. patient is a analogy yo. you are completely missing the point of it. The idea aint whether or not he would really be in there. Its like the shit went totaly over your head, the point is that in NA, the "its just your addiction" response is a way to completely dismiss and invalidate everything a person is saying, even if it is true. In the same way that a sane person who happened to get wrongly committed, would be insisting they are sane, but the staff will just dismiss them and be like "yea ok, you crazy." Thats the same attitude they got towards people in NA who got a problem or issue with their program. they just dismiss and discredit the shit you saying by tellin you its your 'addiction' making you say that, trying to make you relapse by making you question NA. It couldnt possibly be that you have a legitimate concern or question, and that there is actually a flaw in their program, that would be impossible, so it must just be your addiction making you talk crazy. When somebody says that, when they dismiss anything you got to say no matter how legitimate it is, and treat you like a dumb child who dont even know wat they talking about, they are really telling you that they want total obedience, they want to have total authority. Thats the idea behind treating anybody with a concern or issue with the program as somebody who is just talking garbage and dont know wat they are even doin. They are basically just tellin you that that person is crazy, dont listen to them, its their addiction talking, a person who is really about their recovery would never question us.
In all the meetings I been in, the overwhelming expereince has been that any questioning is bad and means your addiction is just "making" you question--in their eyes there is no way you could possibly have a legitimate issue with the program, becuz "THE PROGRAM WORKS!" So anybody who says "hey, wats the deal with this, I dont agree, this totally contradicts this other thing that the book says", they just tell you "Dont question! Any questioning is just your addiction trying to trick you into quitting the program becuz it wants you to relapse!" Its like the people who questioned the church back in the middle ages. They told them that anybody who questioned gods word was a heretic and the devil was inside them, becuz any good christian would not question the bible or the teachings of the priests, etc. If a person had an issue with the teachings of the church, they must be possessed by the devil , becuz no sane, good christian would even think to question it, they would just go along with it and listen to it and have faith that the shit they bein told is right. In the program, its just that even if you dont understand something, just listen to it, just follow it, just go along with it, just trust that its in your best interest, just have faith that its the right thing to do , and do it even if you dont understand why or disagree with it, becuz the program is right and the program works.
That attitude is some shit I cant get with. Any program, any group, anything that discourages questioning, that discourages thinking for yourself and using critical thinking to examine the beliefs and teachings that it puts out, I dont trust. If they shut down anybody who questions them by just telling them "Its your addiction making you question , not your intelligence that happened to notice that this shit dont make sense" then they aint exactly being honest.
If any of the times that i questioned the program, and brought up the issues I had with it, and asked for explanations, people had answered those questions, welcomed them as an opportunity to share the shit that they really believe, I would have a different point of view. But all the times i ever raised my hand and asked things that didnt make sense to me, said, 'why is this like this, when you say something completely different somewhere else in the book? How can this be, when ______", and so on....All i was ever met with was the same old shit...."As addicts, our addiction is tricky and powerful, and we always gotta be on guard. As soon as it sees us get involved in something that might kill it or disable it, it goes crazy trying to lead us astray. Having all these questions and problems with the program is your addictions way of trying to lead you away from recovery with NA. Just keep working the steps and have faith and you will begin to understand."
That aint a fuckin answer. thats the answer that I hear applied to everything, and its a fuckin cop-out.
Not only that, but you know wat? you aint always got the same brain. Your brain grows and changes. When you recover and stop using, your brain aint the same brain it was. Just how drugs re-wire the pathways in your brain causin you to be physically changed, causing you lots of issues--The same shit happens in reverse once you quit. The "normal" brain slowly recovers and gets rebuilt. You dont keep the same fucked up drug-shaped brain forever after you be addicted to somethin. Your brain heals and becomes more like the brain it was before you ever used drugs after you stop. Physically, it changes, and mentally as well.
i aint got the same mentality, the same thought patterns, the same mindset, the same NOTHING as i had when I was addicted. I aint GOT the addict brain no more. For me, addiction AINT a disease, it aint permanent, and its something that I am recovered from. My addiction AINT in my brain, tryna trick me and fool me no more--That part of my life is over with. I think different, i act different, I live different, i AM different, in every way, than i was back then. My mind aint even on the same wavelength, it aint even in the same solar system as it was when I was a dopehead. So , when I say this that or the third, questioning the disease model or the steps or wtfever, it aint "my addiction fooling me", becuz my addiction dont even live here no more. From all that i seen in meetings, they dont even allow for that option to be possible.