"I can't possibly show up for life. I'm in recovery!"

     Bunches of people these days-- healthy and able-bodied people-- are [apparently] being told by addiction treatment professionals not to work, or not to return to work "just yet." After all, the real world requires that most adults support ourselves financially. Having become freeloaders in our active addiction, the addiction treatment industry tells us to continue to live off the system. The memo is out, folks. People in early recovery are frail and vulnerable beings who are not capable of handling the stress of employment. Some percentage of our co-workers may not be abstinent. 

     To be sure, there are notable consequences of our addictions. For the sake of brevity, we can call them F-SPIES. Financial, social, physical, intellectual, emotional, sexual. [Those of a more mystical vein can add an extra S on the end to denote "spiritual."].

     A few of us sought help for our addictions when the landscape of recovery was different. There were very few in-patient rehab centers. There were few if any out-patient day treatment places specifically for addiction. Sobering up stations and crises centers existed only in the poorer neighborhoods. Folks went to hospitals to detox. We did not have a "disease" which required "treatment." Almost all of us kept right on working. We didn't have a choice. And some percentage of us also did volunteer work to fill up the suddenly empty hours that we used to dedicate to getting blasted.

     Alcoholism was first to be declared a "disease." Selling insurance companies on the notion that addiction to other drugs was a problem which also deserved "treatment" was out of the question. Gambling was a problem but not a "disease." Obesity was suspected to be self-inflicted with [perhaps] glandular or genetic involvement. Then the United States exploded with the addictions treatment industry and everyone wanted in on the act-- even Scientologists.
Rehabs, out-patient day programs specific to addictions [or addictions plus mental health disorders later on], detoxes, sobering up, halfway houses, community residences for those who have both addiction and mental health diagnoses, drug courts, family treatment courts, supportive apartments, and so on and so forth proliferated.

     People are being exposed to all of this stuff at younger ages these days. In 1980, someone under the age of thirty attending a recovery meeting for the first time was a rarity. The pendulum has swung the opposite way. These days it is rare to see someone over the age of thirty come into the rooms for the first time.

     Don't misunderstand me. I like the young people coming in. I celebrate them. I know that someday I will be dead and the young folks will have to carry on. Hopefully by then, the professional community will begin to get a collective clue about this work thing.

sapphoq itching for a coffee says: People, stop using your recovery as an excuse for not showing up for life. Learning how to live off of the system or becoming a better freeloader is not the "treat" part of treatment. If you are able to work, you probably should be working. 

     I am grateful that some percentage of drug courts will insist that their participant-defendants take jobs before being released from supervision. That so many others involved in the addictions treatment industry hand out excuses to their clientele is un-good. 

     To addictions treatment professionals everywhere: Working can be a part of early recovery. The idea that we can work together at work and then go home without buying drugs off of Jo co-worker or stopping off at the bar with the gang is a healthy one. Why do you want to strip self-determination from people in early recovery? Endeavor to show your patients that excuses are lame. If something is worth having, then it is worth working for. And I don't mean beginning of the month checks from our social welfare system. 

     

Is This a Meeting or a Revival?

     Now look it here, I understand that your capital H Higher capital P Power is Jesus Christ. I'm glad you found him wherever it was that you found him. I'm glad that you are no longer getting high or drunk. I even will support you when you specify who your Higher Power is at a meeting of recovery. You want to say, "My Higher Power who is Jesus Christ." I'm good with that. No problem. And yes, I will wish you a Merry Christmas during that time of the year even though I celebrate the winter solstice instead.

     When a recovery type meeting turns into testimony time of how much [most of] you really love Jesus, that becomes a problem. You are not at church. A meeting is not your preaching platform. Telling us [non-believers] over and over again how you got saved is not conductive to us wanting to get saved.

     I respect your right to believe as you wish to. I don't make it my personal mission to declare my atheism at meetings. Nor do I want to convert you to my way of thinking. I have never said to you, "Oh keep coming. And one day you will give up your silly superstitions and become like me." I have never told you the process that I went through that brought me to this place of contented atheism. Please respect my right to conduct my life and my recovery as I see fit, without any capital H higher capital P powers in my life. Atheism is the absence of belief. Got that?

sapphoq itching for a coffee says: People from many other cultural backgrounds and even non-christian religious affiliations have had experiences which have changed their lives. You christians do not have the monopoly on that. These emotional and spiritual rearrangements make recovery possible to people all over the world and not just christians. 
     Hey, I had a near death experience once [induced by fear, not because I was near death because I wasn't]. These sorts of events are caused by the firing of multiple neurons in the brain and not by religious [non] realities. Even so, my NDE changed my life.
     I prefer natural explanations to supernatural explanations even when dealing with the recovery process.

     

Platitudes

     Yes, I have an elderly parent in hospice. He has been dying in pieces for over a decade. Now, it seems death is closing in on him.

          Hospice prevents religious nutcases working in the healthcare field from keeping terminal people alive long after natural death would have occurred. 

     Yes, I am an atheist with long-term abstinence from my addiction. I came into the rooms of recovery believing. Investigating creation myths from around the world for a Spanish class report got me thinking. I discarded the dregs of my past fundamentalism at last. I was free. Atheism has granted me a peace that I had never experienced. Thinking and evaluating were no longer enemies. Logic became a friend.

          Learning how to construct rational arguments and how to avoid cognitive errors are worthwhile endeavors.

     Yes, I am angry. I reject the twelve step idea that anger is somehow worse than any other emotion and should be stifled. There are no gods big enough to rearrange the anger that is inherent in human experience. Nor do I want that anger to be surgically removed. Anger has become my truest friend.

          Anger is my truest friend but not my only friend. My anger informs me that there is an opportunity for change within my community and the world. Why are you so afraid of your anger?

     Yes, I have been grieving my parent and his many loses which his neurological condition has taken. And the things that family members have robbed him of. No one deserves what he went through.

          When you inform me that you cannot possibly help out in any way because you are "too busy" to talk on the phone or to answer e-mail, that is not a conversation. Financial affairs really can be managed from a distance. Dialogue is needed, not monologue interrupted by occasional demands from you to send you some paperwork. Piss off.

     Yes, I reject the notion of the "disease concept" of addictions. Addiction is a condition with multiple etiologies which is treated by quasi-religion and pop psychology. Step right this way folks. Some [usually male and monotheistic] god of your understanding will fix it for you as long as you are willing to be fixed. And allow the good professionals enveloping you to "counsel" you on how to be compliant. You will be grateful. Deviance is suspect.

          Compliance is not an indicator of successful recovery. Cookie-cutter recovery has nothing to recommend for it. If I wanted pop psychology, I'd read a pop psychology magazine. Much cheaper than engaging in what passes for treatment these days.          

     Yes, I have re-written the twelve steps so that I can remain in recovery. My life is worth far more than the words of a dead man. That's just how it is. 

          I reject the notion that your god believes in me in spite of my unbelief. That's silly. We need more scientific research in addiction and in truly individualized treatment of folks seeking recovery. As atheism expands, more options will become available to those of us for whom pseudo-religious programs do not fit.

     Yes, there are thirty three medical causes of dementia. Some of them are reversible. Others are not. When your elderly parent is receiving hospice services, it is a pretty clear indication that recovery is not in the offing. 

          Offering me your hope that we will all be united in a fantasy heaven does not alleviate the reality that I am dealing with. Telling me that he may miraculously not die quite yet is cruel. Asserting that your god has a divine plan is bullshit.

          Lewy Body Dementia is terminal. Period.

When "Treatment" Goes Wrong

     In my unasked for opinion, blaming the client/ customer/ participant/ patient for a failure of the system to treat that human being competently-- or at least adequately-- sucks. I've been alive long enough to know that this cookie cutter treatment that almost all of the newer folks in recovery are being subjected to is a sham. It is more than unfortunate that twelve step philosophy in general and A.A. in general [with a passing nod to N.A.] is presently dominating the addictions treatment industry.

     Now that we've all been edumacated into the disease concept-- alcoholism is a disease, drug addiction is a disease, gambling addiction is a disease, internet addiction is a disease, obesity is a disease...-- it is obvious to those profiteers of the misfortune of the addicted that a "disease" requires "treatment" that insurance companies ought to pay for. The identified addict is shuffled into counseling, drug courts, mental hell courts, detox, in-patient, out-patient, halfway houses, houses for people who have been identified as having both a mental problem and an addiction problem world without end amen. The identified addict is subject to inspection, psycho-socials, team meetings, social workers, case managers, and fishbowl living. Add on to all of that feelings groups, employment groups, recreation groups, spirituality groups, house meetings, and group groups. 

     I have been witness to more than several rather dramatic "treatment failures" through the years. Three people I knew committed suicide. Two were drunk and one was not drunk at the time of the taking of their lives. Shotgun [drunk], overdose of prescribed meds [drunk], jumping off of a bridge on purpose [sober]. Not easy ways to die for sure. The common reaction to the news of a suicide is something along the lines of "He or she wasn't working THE program." Countless people have left rehabs and day programs and halfway houses and other residences early and against the advice of the professionals and para-professionals. A few have opted for serving prison time rather than completing drug court. Some have been kicked out when it was determined that their addiction was complicated by more serious issues such as a rampant eating disorder or sexual abuse trauma.

     The drug court folks complain of fishbowl living. And that seems to be accurate. Anyone from the community can call the drug court staff in order to rat out a drug court defendant [NOT participant] for things like giving someone a ride home from a bar, being near a bar, bowling with a bowling team [hey, there's booze at the bowling alleys Jack]. What's even worse are past graduates of drug courts who have the ears of drug court staff. They report that one woman "looked" upset before a [12 step] meeting or that a guy "is not paying attention" during a [12 step] meeting. They should know better. So should the drug court staff.

     Folks who live in a residence with staff oversight have complained that staff have stolen their property, held back their checks, insisted that they attend a dance or other social event put on by the agency that runs the residence, treats them like children. They too are under constant surveillance.

     Groups conducted at the residences and those conducted at treatment facilities sponsor the viewpoint that all of the attendees are "sick" people with a "disease" who must rely on a "Higher Power" [supposedly of their choosing but commonly referred to in the literature as male and monotheistic] in order to halt the progress of their "disease." Atheists are pressured to find a "Higher Power" regardless of how sincerely an unbelief may be held. At the very least, an atheist should be encouraged to re-write the steps into something that is pertinent to him or her. Even better is a system that offers alternatives to twelve step meetings as a means to facilitate abstinence. Also [usually] missing is the opportunity to engage in treatment geared toward harm reduction. Some folks can cut back. Others may find that they are unable to cut back and then opt to go for total abstinence. 

     Twelve step meetings have helped some [very low] percentage of people to abstain from their addictions. Other folks may do better in a secular group or in harm reduction or gasp! on their own. [According to Harvard studies, approximately 77% of those people who themselves choose to quit drinking do so without any formal treatment or attendance at 12-step groups]. Some folks may opt for opioid replacement therapies for a time. [Others may have this option forced on them]. More research is needed on issues such as when treatment is needed and what kind is optimal to the individual. It is far too easy to assume that all identified addicts should be steered to a twelve step program. The real work is in helping a patient to determine what resources he or she want to access in order to mitigate or stop a given self-destructive behavior.

     Professionals and para-professionals do a grave disservice to their patients and drug court defendants by assuming that they know better than the individual being subjected to their knowledge does about what might truly help and heal. Until the system changes its operating premises that all of the clients are sick and diseased and too stupid to figure out what they need, there will be treatment failures. And these "treatment failures" are human beings. 

sapphoq itching for a coffee says: It is past the time when the dominance of a twelve step approach should be acceptable in treatment protocols for all identified addicts. Blaming the customer is bad practice. While there certainly are very dedicated professionals and para-professionals working in the addiction treatment industry, the overbearing system inhibits their ability to shine and to put the needs of their patients and drug court defendants first.  

      

Elderly Woman Raped in Her Own Home

     She was an elderly woman living alone in her home in a small village. Her name was-- I will call her-- Mary. I hadn't met her then. I imagine her as a cheerful but quiet sort with blue eyes that sparkled in the sun as she bounced a grandchild on her knee or waved to a neighbor. 



     The mother had blue eyes. The son and the younger daughter had blue eyes. The mother's ex-husband living in another state had blue eyes. The middle child-- my"little sister" in the program at that time-- had brown eyes. 




     I imagine her asleep. It was the middle of the night. An intruder broke in. I don't know how. I will say through the back door. The back door had three small windows. He broke the bottom pane and felt around for the lock.



     "I don't want to be his daughter," she told me. "I hate him. He is disgusting." I didn't know what to say to her. I didn't know enough to ask her those sorts of questions that one is supposed to ask children or to take her to someone who did. I was not able to keep her safe. I didn't know how.



     Carefully, he closed the back door and secured it shut. He didn't want any interruptions. He stepped into the kitchen, avoiding the shattered glass.



     The local program went on a witch hunt. I'd been in that program for eighteen years and I'd been clean for sixteen of those eighteen years. I'd had two "little sisters" before her without incident. One had aged out of the program. The other had moved away. 



     No lights came on, no dog barked, no alarm system sounded. Good. Silently he crept through the small kitchen to the hallway. 



     Unexpectedly, I received an application in the mail and a request to fill it out. Seems the office had "lost" my original one. The application asked if I was asexual, heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual. I was unmarried. I wrote in "celibate." I returned the application to the office in person. "We lost your references too," the woman in charge told me. "Please obtain three new references for us." 



     The stairs were there, to his right.



     I was disgusted. "I've been a volunteer with this program for eighteen years. If you don't know who I am by now, that is your problem," I told her. "I did not lose the references. I will not be getting you three new ones." My days in that program were numbered. 



     The house was quiet. He crept to the bottom of the stairway.



     The newest literature generated by the local program stated that if a "big sister" or a "big brother" was homosexual, the parent of the "little sister or little brother" had to sign a form releasing the program of all liability. As a single woman, I was no longer to be trusted with a child. I had suddenly became a liability after eighteen years in. Women my age were "supposed to be" married to men. Women like me who weren't partnered with men were suspected of a virulent form of lesbianism-- according to the collective imagination of the local program board-- which automatically preyed upon little girls from single parent households.



     The third stair creaked. He froze.


     John-- that is what I will call him-- found me outside. I had just returned from walking my dogs. I knew him from recovery and also as my ex-little-sister's ex-step father. 
     He had around six years clean. We were friends, so I thought. I invited him in. He could not sit still. He paced. "I don't know what to do," John said. "I'm clean for six years. This isn't getting any better."
     His long-term ex-girlfriend did not want him back. Ever.


     The intruder marked nine more stairs. Almost reverently, he nudged open the bedroom door.
     Buried in the blankets was his target. She was frail with papery skin and age spots. A head of thinning gray curls framed her face. She was an angel. He wanted to consume her.
     Savagely, he tore off the blankets and took her.


      The elderly woman in the nursing home was terrified of us. "She was raped in her home last week," a nurse told me in hushed whispers. Wordlessly, the elderly woman screamed herself hoarse, no matter how gentle we were with her. 



     He was tried and convicted. He was sentenced. I forget how many years. "Did you hear about John?" friends in recovery asked each other, startled out of their apathy. I could not talk about it.



     Nothing eased her pain. 



     "It's a letter from John," my neighbor said. "I don't know if you want it or not." I took it, retreated into the safety of my home, read the letter. 


     She shook and screamed until we were finished.



     If only I'd been able to ask you for help that night, John had written. I tore the letter up and threw it into garbage.



     She died still frightened of everyone.