I am not a drug addict and my choice was alcohol. But we have a number of addicts in our group. They are our brothers. One individual is 18 months clean and another is 12 months clean. Many do not identify with me, but still we have very good friendship. Tonight I am taking a friend's son to our meeting. He is a drug addict. Recovery for this youngster has been a tough road.
Please pray that we can at least save his young life.
I know a few of our members have had some encounter with addicts, so I would love to hear your opinions.
I am an addict who's drug of choice was alcohol. I also used Valium for 15 yrs.
I would use anything to make myself fell better... alcohol, drugs, sex, casino, food, drama, work, etc .. most anything to the extreme. An addicts THINKING is the same as mine.
Tell your young friend not to compare but to identify with the thoughts/feelings/emotions of the others at the meeting. He will fit right in.
I approached drugs the same way I approached alcohol: with a voracious appetite! It simply came to be that I was not around drugs as much after my early 20s, but my addict brain would react the same way to drugs as to alcohol. I think it's the same principle, for sure.
I primarily drank whiskey and beer....and any other type of alcoholic beverage that was within my reach. I only used pot about two or three times. But, the truth is....I'm an addict just as much as anyone else. What I mean by that is that I was in the grip of a deadly obsession. An obsession is pure destructive evil. You can be in the grip of many types of obsessions -- obsessions with alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, food, and the list goes on and on. It doesn't matter which type. What does matter is that all obsessions do the same things to a human being -- they destroy your life until they eventually kill you. Nearly all of the men I've sponsored over my 26 years had used a mixture of alcohol and drugs. Few of them were ever "pure" alcoholics. That never mattered because, as we worked the Steps together, we always knew that we weren't really dealing with a particular substance -- we were dealing with an obsession. The only one who can break an evil obsession is God. It is in the 12 Steps that we seek Him. What does it matter what type of obsession is killing me if God is my only Solution? That's why I've always been able to relate to drug addicts as easily as alcoholics. The substance may be a little different, but the problem and the Solution are the same.
I've been a clean & sober member of both alcoholics anonymous and narcotics anonymous for over 25 years, and I have also attended meetings for similar fellowships, like cocaine anonymous, from time to time. They are all based on the same 12 steps, and narcotics anonymous clearly states that it is a program of abstinence from all drugs, including alcohol, and is a program of recovery from the disease of addiction, regardless of the type of substance that a person used.
Sometimes people who have predominantly used substances other than alcohol may have trouble relating to the stories in aa, especially when they are new and don't yet have much of an ability to 'listen for the similarities'. So for people like that, it can be a good idea to let them know about those other fellowships in addition to aa so they can check them out.
It is worth pointing out that the availability of meetings and the strength and stability of some of these smaller fellowships can vary from place to place, so depending on where you are, there may or may not be many well-established meetings with long term recovery for those other fellowships. So in some places aa really is pretty much the only option for a 12 step recovery fellowship.
For close to 30 years ,an active member of AA....NA and Nar-Anon .....A physical,mental and spiritual illness that affects all areas of our lives...Identify with the disease not the drug has worked for me in my daily journey of Freedom...One helping another in a loving and caring manner..Guided by the God of my understanding and application of OUR solution, the STEPS in actions and words of my LIFE..
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Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.
