"You need to put your sobriety first"

[Foreigner]

If you're in a recovery program then your addiction must have already spiralled out of control and reached rock bottom, so it only makes sense that you would put recovery first.

I do thing the terminologies are useful, like "triggering". Yes, it's your responsibility for being triggered, and yes, it ultimately comes down to your spiritual fitness; but that's just looking at the end game. While you're in recovery you need language tools to help you identify the different aspects of addiction, and "triggers" are one such philosophy. I don't think it's a bad thing to teach people to examine their triggers.

A friend of mine is in AA and he has shown me some of the content they have to work through, and I realized that I would have to be pretty desperate to do that stuff. From a stable-minded perspective it seems like a lot of koolaid to me; but I understand if someone is at their wit's end they need some kind of structure to help them through.

I'm just wondering how people do it if they don't believe in a higher power.

 

[Jean-Paul]

it seems all pretty subjective, as far as what their shit means. everyone seems to make it their own, or adopt their sponsors beliefs or whatever.

i have my own triggers when it comes to downward spirals, so i can understand that. they are very personal though...i don't think anyone could set me off easily. let alone a song, or a book, or a film. but i get the concept. it can get out of hand. mine tend to be specific people.

i'm currently "recovering" in my own way, so i can't blame them for trying to build a solid foundation so their house doesn't crumble around them again.

AA and NA can be pretty cunty, though. mostly AA, if you mention any other drug. the old, white AA men were the worst when I had to go. god, how i used to just troll them to pass the time. too easy.

oh, and everything was "glorifying" drug use if you tried to tell a story. even if it was a story of how badly something went. UNLESS you were a guy who had been there for a long time and had a sage tale or something. ugh, and the reading...the shared reading out of books....shoot me.

okay, okay. i am done now.

 

[RedLeader]

I do thing the terminologies are useful, like "triggering". Yes, it's your responsibility for being triggered, and yes, it ultimately comes down to your spiritual fitness; but that's just looking at the end game. While you're in recovery you need language tools to help you identify the different aspects of addiction, and "triggers" are one such philosophy. I don't think it's a bad thing to teach people to examine their triggers.

I actually attended a lecture this morning about brain chemistry and some of the best scientific arguments for addiction. It was really fascinating stuff. Seeing how the triggering process works on this level, as well as practical and effective ways to help the rational part of your brain in its struggle with the more basic part that makes you feel like you need something to survive, was very helpful I think. It puts perspective on something and in a way that prayer and trusting a higher power does not for me. Well maybe my higher power can be my faith that it's all brain chemistry, but I don't think that would be too popular.

Other than that, a lot of my personal spirituality is stuff that I've taken from mushrooms and DMT. Beautiful stuff that really does help me be a more caring and loving person. However, good luck with that perspective in any 12-step program, and they're going to see it as part of the problem, not part of the solution. I wish some of these old hats would realise that Bill W was an LSD advocate.

 

[JessFR]

not to mention the fact that it's all about god and jesus, at least where i was at(regardless of your "higher power can be anything shit) and meetings can be court ordered. so they are a mandatory religious exercise.

I agree with the court ordered thing being BS. But, at least with NA (again, never been to AA and haven't heard many good things about them), and at least where I reside, I've never had a big issue with the whole god aspect. But then I actually do believe in a higher power of sorts (though I don't follow any of the abrahamic or structured religions). But I've never felt that interpreting god as the christian god was being pushed. Just that you should believe in 'something' higher than yourself. Probably very different in more religious areas. And probably still something I can see atheists having an issue with.

RL, I hadn't heard that one before about the AA girl. I know it's a joke but if you had witnessed the "13-steppers" (mainly, predatory men with significant clean time) trying to get numbers and dates from the newly sober or those who wish to get sober that I had witnessed and experienced, you would understand why I was not helped by the meetings. I was hit on, relentlessly, and made to feel like less of a person - alcoholic or not. The meetings were mostly males old enough to be my father. Guess who raised their hands to be my sponsor when I asked about availability?

I would attend meetings with a woman sponsor, preferably someone a little older with a good amount of clean time, my ideal sponsor would be an educated female a little older with a family. I will look around for a women's meeting and perhaps attend. I want a friend to help me get better, not a creep who wants to get into my pants and sees me as a target. I do not like addiction-speak. I would like to be able to have a friendship with my sponsor that has no basis in attraction or sex, and who is not cross-addicted to sex, shopping, gambling, other non-drug addictions. I want my sponsor to be able to set an example for me.

Placing my sobriety first means respecting myself and my mind.

Groups I went too had a male to female ratio of about 3 or 4 to 1. One of my first sponsors once told me after one of my first meetings in this area that "As a general rule, the girls sponsor the girls and the guys sponsor the guys", and warned me to keep my involvement with the male members at a distance. In hindsight I think she probably knew something I didn't cause some time later one of the guys who'd talked to me a fair bit disappeared from the groups at about the same time the rest of the group started more verbally reinforcing that guideline before starting the meeting. Just before that happened he told me to "not believe everything you hear".

13th Steppers...

 

[captaincaveman]

Putting sobriety first, for me, means that I make keeping a calm and clear mind my first priority. I cannot handle the challenges of everyday without a calm and clear mind, regardless of whether or not I have abstained.

I do not go to meetings nor do I wish to. My DOC is alcohol.

RL, I hadn't heard that one before about the AA girl. I know it's a joke but if you had witnessed the "13-steppers" (mainly, predatory men with significant clean time) trying to get numbers and dates from the newly sober or those who wish to get sober that I had witnessed and experienced, you would understand why I was not helped by the meetings. I was hit on, relentlessly, and made to feel like less of a person - alcoholic or not. The meetings were mostly males old enough to be my father. Guess who raised their hands to be my sponsor when I asked about availability?

I would attend meetings with a woman sponsor, preferably someone a little older with a good amount of clean time, my ideal sponsor would be an educated female a little older with a family. I will look around for a women's meeting and perhaps attend. I want a friend to help me get better, not a creep who wants to get into my pants and sees me as a target. I do not like addiction-speak. I would like to be able to have a friendship with my sponsor that has no basis in attraction or sex, and who is not cross-addicted to sex, shopping, gambling, other non-drug addictions. I want my sponsor to be able to set an example for me.

Placing my sobriety first means respecting myself and my mind.

Erm AA meetings you can't have a sponsor of the opposite sex. Not allowed. Over here NA/AA whatever A meetings that kind of behaviour is seriously frowned upon. That sounds nasty and predatory. Werid they allow opposite sex sponsorships in your neck of the woods, isn't allowed here and I thought the rules were kinda of universal. My sponsor was a complete bell end who had not drunk for 18 months (he used to drink whiskey in the bath when I laughed about that, reprimanded) and used to get me to come over to his house and get on my knees and pray. Also told me to get rid of all my friends (non of them addicts really) as the fellowship would be my family.

Long story short, I told him maybe he needs to get laid or something (he hadn't been with a woman for a couple of years as he was 'putting sobriety first'). You know what, I think an addiction is part of you, it isn't your sum total. So any 12 steppers good luck (I mean actually follow the programme daily not just the odd meeting) as it can save lives but the entire concept of surrendering my will to a higher power? No thank you very much