Follow Program Etiquette

      I walk into the room. The floor is already a mess even though the linoleum is less than two months old. The new paint is peeling where someone had ripped a taped sign off the wall. Dead mouse smell hits my nostrils. On the wax board in front of the room [a thirty two dollar wax board, sigh...group conscience] someone had scrawled the words Follow Program Edecate. I put my stuff down on the couch. I approach the wax board. The eraser has long ago disappeared. I wipe off the offensive words with a sleeve.

     Several years ago, some of the bleeding deacons decided that the new people who were now infiltrating the rooms in droves needed to be taught about what they referred to as "program etiquette." I thought that was a lousy idea. We already had chair people announcing things like don't cuss and turn off the cell phones [group conscience] at the beginning of each meeting. How many rules did we need here?

     Not to be denied, some of the folks from the district got together and began going around to different places and holding "workshops" on "etiquette." Yes, I went to one. One was enough. There was a slew of things that were offensive to the bleeding deacons:
          
          New people got up and down too much.

          They went to the bathrooms too much.

          They dared to leave the meeting to take smoke breaks.


          New people talked too much to each other during the meetings.

          They talked about day treatment, drug court, and other addictions when it was their turn to share.

          Some of them even left the meeting before the final prayer at the end.



          New people didn't understand anonymity.

          They talked about the meeting in the parking lot.

          They ratted on people to their counselors or to drug court.


     If these workshops had been renamed "Traditions Workshops" and the trads were presented as ideals to follow, I would not have had a problem. But the etiquette workshops were simply bitchfests with lecturers. Nothing good came out of them far as I could tell.

     I have a lot of time in. I've been abstinent for more than half my life. When I get up during a meeting to use the bathroom, I don't get the stares from the bleeding deacons. Kids have to ask to be excused from the room or from the dinner table. Adults at a recovery meeting do at times have to use the bathroom during the meeting. This should not be a big deal people.

     Yes, some of us are easily distracted. It ain't just the newcomers, folks. Yes, sometimes the room is too bright or too noisy or too smelly. Yeah, sometimes we need to stand up or stretch our legs a bit. If an adult wishes to leave a room for any reason, why is that anyone's business? Sometimes, a topic is hitting close to home and someone may need a break for that reason. Tobacco is an addiction, we are now told. If you don't smoke or if your smoking allows you to sit still for an hour without a cigarette, count yourself lucky.

     Is there a list of acceptable topics floating around that I haven't been told about? If I am worried or angry or think I will relapse over some person, place, thing, situation, organization, or other entity, isn't that fair game for bringing up at a meeting? "Hardly any recovery in this room," you say. I was told that if I thought something was going to cause me to mess up, that I could talk about it in the rooms. Whatever.

     There are a few more non-theists in the rooms than there used to be. The growing trend of young people who are un-churched is also reflected in the composition of people in recovery. Some of us choose to sit or stand during the final prayer. We don't want to be fake and say words that do not hold any meaning to us. Folks leaving before the final "amen" disconcerts me too at times. Bottom line: We don't have (all that much, if any) control over the behavior of others. I don't have to die on that particular mountain. Neither do you. A few people will leave before the end of meetings. Suck it up and deal with it. 

     Breaching of anonymity is a problem but it is not only the newcomers who do it. Some people who should know better call up drug court personnel and rat out the mandated people. This one goes to the bathroom too much. That one comes a few minutes late. The other one is sleeping. These two are seeing each other secretly on the side. And so on. The professional staff at drug court are at fault for listening. So maybe new folks in treatment are in the parking lot talking about what happened at the meetings. Is that any worse than those of us who know better going home and telling our spouses who was there or what was said? Different from a gang of recovering people in a restaurant talking about other recovering people? More terrible than the rumors going around concerning who picked up again, who slept with who, or who is getting a divorce? Awful-er than snitching to drug court? We who have been there have a responsibility to follow the spirit of tradition twelve as well as the letter.

     This is not an us versus them thing. This is not a newcomers against bleeding deacons recovery. We have a responsibility at meetings. We are the ones who can gently take people aside and explain some aspect of a tradition. We are the ones who can help a chairperson out by asking for quiet. We are the ones who can practice celebrating the new people instead of verbally attacking them for not "following program etiquette."

     Cell phones are an annoyance everywhere. The abrupt ringing is a problem in movie theaters and classrooms as well as in meetings. Cursing is something that may offend some of the older folks. As for the rest of your shitty rules, stuff them.

     We have no business directing when someone may take care of their bodily functions, take a cigarette break, or leave a room. We are not prison guards. We are not the be all and end all. When we fail to be polite and respectful of newcomers, we add another notch to the belt of problem behaviors in the rooms. One of these days, most of us will wake up and find ourselves dead. Those newcomers that you deplore will be left to carry on the message. What legacy are you leaving them?

sapphoq itching for a coffee and more

          
          

     

Wow

Things recovering people have said:


"And there is this meeting, called the ___________ meeting..." [eyes roll].  ~ heard at a district meeting ~

"Once they get over their individual problem..." [about a glbtiq meeting].  ~ heard at a regional meeting ~




"_____________ is d a n g e r o u s."


"You won't recover if you don't believe in [a god]."


"They're always talking about ____________ . That's not recovery."


"___________ will never make it."








Things professional helpers have said:

"You've been over-emo at meetings, yelling about people breaking anonymity because you think they tell us-- your drug court overseers-- what you are talking about at meetings."  [drug court staff do not attend any meetings that the drug court participants attend]   ~ paraphrased ~

"Don't use __________ as a sponsor."  ~ verbatim ~

"If you sleep with me, then _______ will stop."  [to a patient]

Who Are YOU to Decide That?

     You attend a 12 step meeting. There are many folks there who are involved in the legal system. The group conscience is that problems they face dealing with legal personnel is okay to discuss there.
     After the meeting, you comment that there isn't much recovery going on at the meeting.

Who Are YOU to Decide That?


     You tell atheists at meetings things like "god believes in you even if you don't believe in him" and "without god, you will not recover."

Who Are YOU to Decide That?


     You no longer bring up problems or issues that you are having. Nor do you bring up topics that you wish to hear about. You only bring up topics that you think someone you are "concerned about" needs to" hear.

Who Are YOU to Decide That?


     You study various people at the meeting and you decide who will and who will not return to active addiction.

Who Are YOU to Decide That?


      You write snarky things on your blog about the bad behaviors of people at recovery meetings. Because you know what works and what doesn't. For the entire fricking universe.
    
Who Are YOU to Decide That?

34 Years of Freedom

     I hit 34 years of freedom from active addiction this past Monday at 10:18 a.m. Hooray for me!

     This past year has been intense. It's been good and bad and annoying and happy and sad and peaceful and everything in waves. 

     Losing a parent is not an easy thing to go through. Dementia seems to involve little losses. At first, it was increasingly difficult for me to find remnants of my father's old personality in his Lewy Bodies. But I did find them. He is the bravest man I know.

     This year I participated in #AddictionChat on Twitter [tm]-- no copyright infringement intended. I quickly found that the focus there is chiefly on what can be done for the addict in treatment rather than on what we as recovering addicts can do for our families, our communities, and our worlds. The interesting thing is that the professionals seem to collectively think that working steps in any sort of program ought to take lots of time. Conversely, the folks in recovery who aren't professional took the opposite tact: Get 'em done. And get 'em done again. And again...

     Much to my unhappiness, I found that at least one rep of Scientology [yeah they got into the drug "rehab" biz too] became an active participant. Hearing about L. Ron and how "all drugs" retain traces in the system and can create flashbacks [patently not true b.t.w.] was not a high point for me. 

     Disagreeing with L. Ron I suppose might make me an S.P. in some circles. In actuality, it marks me as someone who merely disagrees vehemently with a hack sci-fi writer who started his own religion. L. Ron knew nothing about recovery from addiction, period.

     I also disagree with the professionals. For one, I do not perceive of addiction as a "disease." Here is the definition of addiction that I've cobbled together from various schools of thought and un-thought:
    

I made it myself and it is copyleft. Take it, download to your "My Computer" and do whatever with it. No hot-linking please, and as usual copyright trolls go away.

     I've read lots of books, tramped through lots of fields and woods with the old dog, and went to lots of meetings. I picked up a coffee commitment. I am writing. I continue to strive for a better life on a daily basis.

                      ~ sapphoq itching for yet another coffee
     

Spirituality?

     There appears to be people in recovery who "hate" religion far more than the strictest atheist. Religion is a special sort of bogeyman. It's fake. It's phony. It's organized and abstinent people truly cannot stand anything that imposes order upon chaos. Somehow, "spirituality" is supposed by some percentage of people in the rooms to be superior to "religion." But is it?

          

              "Pure religion and undefiled before                God and the Father is this, To visit                the fatherless and widows in their               affliction, and to keep himself                unspotted from the world."

                               - King James Bible "Authorized Version", Cambridge Edition

     http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/James-1-27/

     

I took the picture of the cat and altered it myself with my legally obtained copy of photo manipulation software. If you want the pic, right-click and save to "My Computer."  If you are a copyright troll, just go away. You are not welcome here.

     The etymology of the word "religion" is a matter of some dispute. Some say it derives from the Latin verb religare which is translated as to tie or to bind. Others say it is actually from the Latin verb relegere which is translated as to read over again.[http://atheism.about.com/od/religiondefinition/a/definition.htm].

     There is some sense about the word religion as having a relationship to or a belief in the supernatural-- or possibly the preternatural-- rather than natural explanations for events. Religion can also denote organized religion as in a particular sect which then indicates certain ways of recognition and worship of one or more divine beings or powers. From an evolution standpoint, rituals bind people into a cohesive unit of society. Religion offers connection to something bigger than oneself as well as an interconnection with other beings and a shared moral code.

     In the United States, some percentage of people define themselves as "spiritual but not religious." Some attend services which are part of a particular religion but make this claim in spite of that. Others reject out of hand all organized religions, becoming personal mystics in the process. These others may embrace anything related to the New Age without any recognition that there is good to be found in organized religions.
[http://atheism.about.com/od/religionnonreligion/a/spirituality.htm]

     Those who identify as "spiritual but not religious" are subject to the pitfall of black and white thinking. The notion that anything of a personal spiritual nature is "good" and that anything deriving from an organized religion is "bad" is a form of dualism. 

GNUatheist2 by sputnik.
http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Gnu_Atheists

     The etymology of the word spiritual is from the Latin, meaning wind or breath. [http://www.naturalism.org/spiritua1.htm]. From that working backwards in time, we find the Old French esperituel rendered as that which pertains to spirit, or that which pertains to breath. [http://www.naturalism.org/spiritua1.htm]. There is some suggestion of the words wind, breath, mind, soul, and spirit all referring to the same concept-- something inside a human which is divinely placed, capable of a relationship with the sacred, and tangled up with life itself. [http://www.positief-atheisme.nl/atheisten/frank_r_zindler/spirit_soul_and_mind.html].

     The word "spiritual" is akin to the word "religious"-- with or without the inclusion of organized religion-- in that people are looking to some transcendent being for explanations of their special purposes here on earth and, usually, an unknowable capital P plan. Although some naturalists cultivate what can be referred to as "spiritual experiences" within the realm of the here and now, others prefer that the natural world remain good enough.

     Whether one is a congregational participant in a particular religion or religious group or a homegrown mystic, the pull of superstitious explanations over scientific ones is the same. Science is hard work. Having to formulate questions, evaluate evidence, test and test again, and then subject the results to peer review is a process rather than a set of quick "answers."

     At this time, I don't recognize the concepts of "spirituality" and being "spiritual but not religious" as having validity. When "spiritual progress" or "spiritual but not religious" or "spirituality" or a similar topic comes up at meetings, I substitute words. Being an authentic human being without the masks afforded by active addiction is certainly something worth striving for. I seek out how to be the best humane human being that I possibly can be. 

I took the picture of the dog and altered it myself with my legally obtained copy of photo manipulation software. If you want the pic, right-click and save to "My Computer."  If you are a copyright troll, just go away. You are not welcome here.

     I can be good enough without any deities. I strive to be the human being that my dog thinks I am. The fruits of the spirit [http://www.esvbible.org/Galatians+5%3A22-23/] referred to in Galatians 5:22-23 are available to all of us, although atheists recognize that practice is involved with character-building rather than some sort of divine rendering. Being an authentic human being means knowing who I am and what my values are. Neither members of a religious sect nor those who count themselves as spiritual-- with or without such membership-- holds the monopoly on morality. Atheists have moral standards also. 

     As an atheist, I favor natural explanations over supernatural or preternatural ones. As an atheist, the marvels in the world as exposed to me by science [and mathematics] are wondrous. No gods are needed to explain the stuff of life. 

This has the look to me of Fibonacci.

     Very soon, I will be celebrating thirty four years of freedom from active addiction. There are no gods in my recovery. I have no capital H higher capital P powers. And I'm cool with that.

                ~sapphoq itching for several more coffees

     



http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/hunt_19_3.html

http://atheisme.free.fr/Religion/What-is-religion-1.htm

http://atheism.about.com/od/religiondefinition/a/definition.htm

http://atheism.about.com/od/religionnonreligion/a/spirituality.htm

http://forward.com/articles/10776/roots-of-religion/

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3087765

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=religion

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=spiritual

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=spirit

http://www.naturalism.org/spiritua1.htm

http://www.positief-atheisme.nl/atheisten/frank_r_zindler/spirit_soul_and_mind.html

http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/James-1-27/

http://www.esvbible.org/Galatians+5%3A22-23/

http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Gnu_Atheists