12 Steps & Solutions To Addiction
The same man will drink again.
Not to mention most of us come into the rooms with horrible relationship skills. We are skilled in the art of getting what we want at nearly any cost.
When I got sober in 2006 I swore the last thing I wanted was another
Page 64 Big Book: Our liquor was but a symptom. We HAD TO get down to causes and conditions.
Here’s the thing. Recovery is a process. It can be dangerous for a person under approx. 5 to 7 years (w/variables) sober to adapt the “recovered” view point because you know what they might do. I don’t believe anyone should stop going to meetings until they truly are fully recovered and/or know how to apply the steps in their daily life.
Who is recovered?
What is at the core of your addiction? I suppose everyone must answer it for themselves. But I think it’s important to answer it. For me it was a deep wound. An emotional constipation. A deep hurt that I didn’t know how to express in a way that was healthy and appropriate. Shame was at the core it surrounded the wound.
So when I finally got the spiritual and emotional laxative (therapy, 12 steps, God) it took quite some time to cry it all out. All that’s left now of my malady is a scar and a few old habits that die hard called character flaws. Many of the character defects I acquired through the years of addiction, like resentment were nothing more than a distraction from my painful shame. Resentment was a place to lay blame on how a felt. I needed to lay blame because it was myself I condemned deep in my heart.
No, for me resentment wasn’t the number one offender, shame was. I mustn’t be ashamed and keep secrets. I try to stay clear of shame and be an open book. Writing and sharing…the truth sets me free. Shame….no one wants to admit shame. People are ashamed of shame because it is perceived as weakness. It’s a dirty little word.
It wasn’t the wound so much as the shame I blanketed it in that made me so self destructive.
I was taught to be ashamed of who I was, and that my feelings were wrong. And that basically I didn’t even have a right to be on this earth. That’s a hard one to shake…so I drank.
Resentment is the acceptable blame based emotion that distracts me from my hurt and shame. I am too ashamed of being hurt cause I see it as weakness. So I cover it all up in a nice package called “blame” and put a big bow on it called resentment. And I carry the package around with me never having to look at what is really inside.
That is until I got sober nearly Ten years ago. But for the Grace of God, But for the Grace of God.
THE CURE FOR MY ADDICTION IS WRITTEN IN PART 1 OF THIS TWO ARTICLE SERIES-RESENTMENT THE NUMBER ONE OFFENDER. https://www.recoveryfarmhouse.net/resentment-number-offender/
Why is it that there are more men getting and staying sober in the program of AA than women? Why is it that we women seem to have more emotional issues that need addressing than men? Partly we just talk about our issues more, men repress on a much larger scale. Nevertheless we woman that do stay sober are usually more of the “tomboy” type. The very feminine and highly fragile woman rarely can get through what it takes to stay sober. Experience teaches that us rough types even often bi-sexual type women have a much higher chance statistically of staying sober than do the frail and feminine.
Clearly experience teaches it’s the “alpha” females who stay sober in much greater numbers than the more submissive woman. But we must learn to make ourselves vulnerable emotionally rather than protecting ourselves emotionally. “Sobriety ain’t for sissies!” So bone up ladies! You can do it but it’s gonna hurt! The bad news is…we can feel again, the good news is…we can feel again. Yes and we have a boat load of emotional issues and character flaws to give to our Higher Power and to ebb-away at.
Firstly, in my nine years of recovery which ya, hey it is allot of clean-time and I won’t pretend that it isn’t even if it is by the Grace of God. I have done a hell-of-allot of work on myself, with the help of other women. And what I have seen in AA is there is only one woman in AA that I have met whom was not sexually abused as a child. I have silent theories this is the “why” behind most addictions. The guilt and shame a young child will place on her-self for something she really was not equipped to resist is astounding even life-changing. We addict woman have learned by the age of ten or younger that we can use our sexuality against men (or women) to control them, manipulate them, and force feed them guilt to get whatever we want from them.
We are in recovery now it is time to do our sexual inventory not absent of crimes done to us. We write how that made us feel but rite now we are addressing our side of the street and cleaning it. On page…ok ya page 69 in the Big Book Itgives us a long list of questions to ask ourselves. These question help us with this inventory of our sex based wrongs. It is imperative for our emotional sobriety that we go over this list honestly and thoroughly and own up to all those that we have manipulated with our sexuality. Usually the men on our Fourth Step resentment list will also be a big part of our sexual inventory. In spite of how these men have wronged and abused us it is vital that we see “our part” so we can learn to Love and keep Love close to us and in us. Yes I am saying Love is of greater importance than anything however we are usually incapable of showing Love and acting out of Love when we are deep in our addiction so that sets sobriety up as a priority before anything else in our lives even Love.
Most of us when abused, didn’t run to an adult and snitch the assailant out, we wanted someone to Love us. We confused affection with Love and we thought to get Love we had to drop our moral boundaries. We thought we had to be hurt to get what we needed. Perhaps that’s what our parents ingrained in us. And so we turned things around because we are survivors and we used our sexual power accompanied with lies and deception to get what we thought we needed at the time…usually money, drugs, & the basic things like food and shelter.
Some of us even sold our bodies outright for money to get drugs. We were exposed to many disgusting and painful situations. Some that we barely made it out of alive. It’s no wonder we learned to hate men. It’s no wonder we learned to hate women! They were our competition they betrayed our confidence! Screw woman! We could not manipulate them as easily.
But now we must put our “woman’s issues” on our fourth step. We will need other women if we are to heal and stay sober. So we pray for God to put the right woman in our lives so we can experience the “sisterhood of The Spirit”. Men absolutely are incapable of relating to many aspects of our personalities therefore they are of limited use to us in recovery when working through these core woman’s issues. If we have a chance to get into a woman’s meeting we DO IT! These meetings are much more intimate and women will share things that absolutely will not hear in a regular meeting, shares that are vital for our healing
We begin to let our abuses out of our bag of secrets. We expose some shameful actions of our past in our fifth step with a sponsor and we expose other secrets in the rooms with the woman. We will find that doing so will put in place the connection that we need to other woman. When we listen in our women’s meeting we train ourselves to LOOK FOR THE SIMILARITIES RATHER THAN THE DIFFERENCES!
Finding someone to criticize is an old survival skill that deflects self-guilt. Criticism feeds the ego that which it needs to go-on however, criticism is not what we need now…we need empathy, we need healing and that will never come whilst seeking differences so we can criticize others. We write ourselves a note “seek the similarities don’t criticize!” and we put that in front of us in every meeting we go to until we have trained our brains and have built a bridge over the sick neuron-pathways called addiction. Our brain-bridge is called “survival for the sober”. Building a sober brain-bridge takes work and a supernatural kick so we start by ninety meetings in ninety days and we pray for willingness, clarity, guidance, healing, and for HP to make a way where there seems no way.
We have deep and imbedded trust issues that simply must be ignored to an extent so we can get what we need. We may not be able to trust but we will nevertheless choose a sponsor and work the Fifth Step leaving no debauchery uncovered. That which we want to keep secret the most should be at the top of our fourth step. The Truth will set us free.
We put the “blame-game” in the garbage. We are responsible for processing every feeling that comes into our hearts. If we have sex with a person they owe us nothing! It is our choice weather we have sex and unless we tell the person up-front a price for that sex…they owe us nothing. Not a phone call, not to fix things for us, not to make our choices for us, nor a place to stay they owe us nothing. If we expect something from a person we are in bed with then we should be up-front about it. We can propose that if they are screwing other people we will have to leave the relationship. They are adult they can do as they please. They can make promises that they won’t keep. If they don’t respect us then we leave the relationship it is our choice if we stay therefore blame is off the table. Granted we can command respect but it is us who must draw the line in the sand and walk away when it is crossed. We cannot make other adults do anything we can only request and suggest.
If we feel we have been wronged we should call a woman and talk it out. If a law has been broken we may call the cops. We may find if we talk things out with another woman that it is our unresolved issues that are haunting us rather than the person we are in bed with in the present. We addicts tend to carry an ink-blotter stamping “guilty” on anyone we are intimate with once the fairy-tale phase of the relationship is over. Not anymore! Now we journal, we write “fuck you” letters (do not send) to vent our angers. We scream in our cars if we have to. We beat the pillow, we talk it out with woman but we do not blame anyone anymore for our feelings ever.
Even if we are wronged…can the person process our emotions? No! If others had the responsibility of processing and dealing with our feelings then we would be slaves to other people which we are not. We are learning how to take responsibility for our lives and our emotions. It is not easy, not for sissies but you can do it my dear because you are stronger and capable of a deeper Love than most women can even imagine. Why? Because of the deep pain you have suffered.
Your emotional pain has carved out a deep dark hole in your heart. You will process that hurt and replace it with Love. That is why we women in recovery are more capable of a deeper Love than anyone who has not been through the trauma that we have. Seek God and The Sunlight of The Spirit and you shall be a vessel of joy, Love, and happiness amidst the tears that have gone un-cried for too long.
WHY ADDICTION DIFFERS BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN
That is provided we do a certain amount of spiritual maintenance. I suppose technically it is a cure that requires maintenance and action. “Cured” does not mean we can drink normally, it means now we have no desire to drink and we do not consider alcohol a solution to anything.
So why is it that people in AA so often have the attitude that they are chronically ill and will never be “recovered”. The only CHRONIC part of this disease that cannot be healed is the allergy. We will always get a different reaction from alcohol than normal people get.
But the real reason for the apprehension to say “cured” is that most of us have relapsed so many times before we reached AA that we feel it is a disease that we are powerless over. And just after the paragraph where Bill W. writes “the problem has been removed it does not exist for us” he also writes “We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.”
Personally being a recovered addict/alcoholic I think it’s a negative fail-safe constructed by the addicts reasoning like..waiting for the other shoe to drop. If we don’t accept that we are “well” then we won’t relapse because we are always working toward getting better. Therefore hypothetically we never “rest on our laurels because we never get well enough to lighten up. I guess the theory has it’s advantages. This attitude is clearly akin to the fear of success and sprouts from the low self-worth that repeated relapse ingrains. BUT NOW we rely on the program NOW we rely on God. THE PROGRAM WORKS! So as long as we work our program and rely on God we are good. ANYBODY can grow into a complete and miraculous recovery if they learn the program and work on core issues. You gotta feel to heal.
We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fight it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality–safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.
Title Page: “ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS. The Story of How Many Thousands of Men and Women Have Recovered from Alcoholism” (I totally agree with him on this one we absolutely do recover, at least I have.)
Page 20, paragraph 2: “Doubtless you are curious to discover how and why, in face of expert opinion to the contrary, we have recovered from a hopeless condition of mind and body. (here, here!)
Ok then what is a “fit spiritual condition” and how do we attain it? The Program is simple not complicated, simple but not easy. “Fit spiritual condition” does not mean I am happy all the time or my life is perfect. I am a human with human emotions. I did not come to AA to learn how to further repress my emotions, put on a mask of happy joyous and free, and walk around saying “life is good” every three seconds. NO THAT IS TOTAL BULLSHIT! Life is not good all the time and just because I am sober it doesn’t mean that it’s a good day.
If people die or get sick it sucks. If I break my toe it sucks. If my lover has an affair IT HURTS! Crying is a healthy emotion to relieve emotional pain. Tears are a sign that my emotions are balanced and I allow myself to feel what my heart is saying. Fit spiritual condition means that I have an on-going relationship with my Higher Power and I have learned to rely on Him/Her/It. It also means that I have worked on my core issues and learned what to do with my intense emotions when they do surface. It means that I have worked the 12 steps and know how to implement them when I need to. I know how to revisit step three and remember God has my back. I know how to do a step four and five when I get a resentment. I know how to make amends if I hurt someone. I recognize when I am slipping into complacency or insanity so I formally work all 12 steps again. I take time to connect with nature and I get peace from that. I eat right and show others the respect that I desire. The wreckage of the past must be processed I must not hold on to the worst offences. No secrets. We are as sick as the secrets we keep.
The three things that cure addiction are this= 1. therapy, working on the core issues that made me want to numb myself in the first place, 2. The 12 Steps combined with the fellowship and service work, learning and recognizing my dysfunctional patterns so I can guard against them in the now, furthermore the steps teach me humility, honesty, and more 3. spirituality= a relationship with my Higher Power to RELY on God and soak up God’s strength and Love.
Leaving out any aspect of this healing recovery recipe could result in a return to addiction, dry drunk-ism, possible eventual suicide or hurting others.
I woke up in the middle of the night with an intense feeling of impending doom. I felt like I was somehow in a position where I had no safety. I felt like I was dangling miles high in the air with no safety net. In my heart and mind I must be putting my wellbeing in the hands of the wrong thing. It is not uncommon to sub-consciously put our faith into a cigarette or a pill while in recovery from a traumatic addiction. When in that addiction our neuro-pathways had been trained to take the direction where drinking is a solution. Sometimes in recovery our brain takes a wrong turn if you will. All we need do is put our faith back on the right neuro-road where we depend on our spiritual God rather than a person, place, or earthly thing.
When I was a very young child I remember having an intense realization that one day I would die. It frightened me because there is no earthly solution for death. It prompted me to seek and connect with my Higher Power.
When I experience impending doom all I have to do is pray and tell my Higher Power how I feel (fear) and remember that He/She/It does have my back and the feeling of fear will leave me. Maybe it was the prospect of death itself that haunted me. Perhaps I had awoken from a nightmare that I don’t remember. Do I need to write a fear list? If the feeling does not let-up by prayer alone then “Yes” back to Step Four!
The fear list is an important part of our on-going maintenance in sobriety. You will find the directions for it in Step Four of the big book. “But that’s Step Four I should be over that!”….So some say. However my experience is in the matter of emotional sobriety and overcoming grave emotional disorder I revisit the fourth step as often as needed and Step Ten is far from enough maintenance to keep my emotions in check.
In Step Ten the book reads that we are pretty much cured of regarding drink & drug as a solution, this is true to any extent. “The problem has been removed, it does not exist for us.” However emotions and emotional sobriety are another matter, if I don’t stay emotionally balanced I will eventually see alcohol as a solution. Absolutely we do “recoil” from alcohol if we work the steps but will we “recoil” from being self-destructive or hurting others? Or will we just switch to another self-destructive habit?
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
This is a very limited prospect of which is useless without the rest of the 12 steps.
Step ten works good enough for a quick apology or when simple self-acknowledgement of a defect then a little prayer will resolve resentment, shame, guilt or fear but if it doesn’t rectify my deep negative feelings a little more work may be necessary even though I have worked the steps thoroughly. Truly Step Ten is not much of anything without the rest of the 12 Steps actively in place in our lives. Furthermore without prayer and meditation we are usually not spiritually fit enough to take our own inventory anyway.
Do I have any unresolved resentments I ask myself? If so I need to pray for that person and if that doesn’t work I do a step four and five including “my part” and not eliminating “wrongs done to me” and how both of those have made me feel. If it brings up deep feelings I let myself feel them and I cry.
If I have a reoccurring memory of an event in my past and it is attached to an intense feeling; that is when prayer is not usually enough. That does not mean I don’t pray. It just means that there is something in my past that I need to explore with an empathic listener who can hopefully relate to the event. I write down what happened. Have I wronged anyone? Do I feel guilt or shame? Remember our heart does not have to make sense it just needs to express itself, raw, & without editing. I share my feelings with a listener whom will neither shut me down, shame me, nor invalidate me for my feelings.
Staying disconnected from our feelings is an old survival skill that worked. To truly process core feelings we need to connect with them 100% and write, cry, scream, talk, moan, run, or even punch (the bag, pillow) them out.
Let’s face it folks some AA, NA members are in the business of invalidation. These members will always look for the differences instead of the similarities. Furthermore they will look for the “wrong” in anything you propose to them. This may work for some people…but blame is a principle of co-dependency not a principle of healing in recovery.
Do I feel dirty, wrong, and bad? We must not allow our intellect to cloud our fourth step by invalidation. Admitting core feelings like “bad, dirty, wrong, disgusting, or cheap sounds embarrassing but these are the common human feelings that surface after living an addicted life. These deep feelings need to come out or they will make us sick. Let’s face it not only have most of us crossed our own moral boundaries when in addiction but we also have core issues that need addressing from childhood. Oftentimes adults taught us that we were just plain “wrong” and that we don’t even have a right to be who we are and feel how we feel.
Remember we in recovery usually reach out for some secondary dependencies or lesser addictions when we get sober. You won’t hear it talked about in the rooms much but that’ what we do.
There are two kinds of people in AA those who struggle and admit it and those who struggle and don’t talk about it. We certainly don’t struggle at all times and we do reach a place of peace if we work the steps but we are never finished doing the work while human and alive.
Do not be too hard on yourself for that is a character defect within itself! Come on folks! We are all doing the best we can for right now. From what I have experienced in Narcotics Anonymous the way they sometimes ostracize fellows for secondary addictions it feeds into the sickness of keeping secrets, repressing emotions, and feeds our shame issues. Some groups forbid members to chair meetings if they are on much needed psyche meds or pain meds even non-narcotic meds. Intolerance and a lack of acceptance for others and their personal medicinal status is just that…a lack of understanding and empathy.
In recovery we often struggle with sick relationships (co-dependency), cigarettes, food, sexual promiscuity, anger issues, even your non-narcotic prescription drugs…nevertheless we are doing way better than we were before AA and the 12 steps. Do not think that your recovery is counterfeit if you struggle with one of these? Believe me we all struggle at times. You will find that when one of us overcomes ALL of our little crutches we then become highly judgmental, and our control issues hit their highest peaks. It’s always something! Not a justification just fact. Best we accept ourselves and other as human and remember “OUT OF THE PROBLEM INTO THE SOLUTION”!
Secondary addictions are what we usually do when we are in recovery from alcohol and drug addiction. And usually if we are moving toward progress our second addiction isn’t nearly as destructive as the first…if at all destructive. We get addicted to coffee, cigarettes, over the counter drugs, pornography, sex, prescription drugs, the internet (guilty) and people. I am a self professed website junky. When I ran across this “YOUR BRAIN ON PORN” I thought it might be interesting to read and maybe you guys would like it too.
Remember we in recovery usually reach out for some secondary dependencies or lesser addictions when we get sober. You won’t hear it talked about in the rooms much but that’ what we do.
There are two kinds of people in AA those who struggle and admit it and those who struggle and don’t talk about it. We certainly don’t struggle at all times and we do reach a place of peace if we work the steps but we are never finished doing the work while human and alive.
Do not be too hard on yourself for that is a character defect within itself! Come on folks! We are all doing the best we can for right now. From what I have experienced in Narcotics Anonymous the way they sometimes ostracize fellows for secondary addictions it feeds into the sickness of keeping secrets, repressing emotions, and feeds our shame issues. Some groups forbid members to chair meetings if they are on much needed psyche meds or pain meds even non-narcotic meds. Intolerance and a lack of acceptance for others and their personal medicinal status is just that…a lack of understanding and empathy.
In recovery we often struggle with sick relationships (co-dependency), cigarettes, food, sexual promiscuity, anger issues, even your non-narcotic prescription drugs…nevertheless we are doing way better than we were before AA and the 12 steps. Do not think that your recovery is counterfeit if you struggle with one of these? Believe me we all struggle at times. You will find that when one of us overcomes ALL of our little crutches we then become highly judgmental, and our control issues hit their highest peaks. It’s always something! Not a justification just fact. Best we accept ourselves and other as human and remember “OUT OF THE PROBLEM INTO THE SOLUTION”!
This article lists coping skills and dealing with FEELINGS.
And of course the famous AA pamphlet on “AA and Use of Medication” is found here: https://www.recoveryfarmhouse.net/aa-member-medications-and-other-drugs/