Recently I had a conversation with a woman I know, she emailed me and asked for my opinion on something. I had spent a year or so listening to her daily and weekly train wreck drama in tedious detail, day after day, week after week, being gentle, telling the truth, but being gentle, so I asked, "are you sure? this is gonna be a pretty good sized 2x4 upside your head if you truly want my opinion I am going to tell you the truth finally."
"Yes, please, help me"
OK, so I tried to explain she was like a person who played with knives, then every 2 weeks showed up at Doctor Andrews House asking how to make better bandages, how to make better stitches, and if she could just try to deal with her symptoms differently somehow it work this time. I tried to explain without some deep therapy to figure out why she played with knives, she would continue to cut herself, that the bleeding wasn't "the problem" but the fact she liked to juggle knives, that she could work on "The Symptoms" until her eyeballs started bleeding, and it wouldn't help, nothing would help until she stopped playing with knives.
It's like the story about The Jaywalker coming to me for help in learning how to dodge cars and learn new bandages and stitches. It's insanity.
I see that in meetings, Alcoholism is like driving a car with no brakes, so the old timers all say "Fix the brakes" (work the steps) but what I see is rooms full of people with "no brakes" giving each other advice on how to drive with no brakes.
These people are all driving straight towards a cliff themselves, sharing tips and tricks on how to drive without brakes.
"I drove six months without an accident last time"
"I can't seem to make it past 30-60-90 days without crashing into something"
But they ALL crash, again and again and again.
Yet the next time they have 30 days there they are sharing how it's different this time, about how this time they will fix the brakes and blah blah blah and giving "advice" and "support" to the newcomer, spouting tips and tricks and platitudes like parrots.
"Drive One Block at a time"
"drive slower and think the stop sign through"
I just get frustrated when I see someone who has been crashing for years and years get a week or two and everyone who also hasn't fixed their brakes patting them on the head and telling them how great they are doing, and giving them tips and tricks about how to drive with no brakes.
I don't get mad at the people for "crashing" I get mad at the people who are lying to them, who are telling them they will be OK, who are telling them bullshit like "just drive one day at a time"
That shit kills alcoholics.
Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks-drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.
"Don't drink and go to meetings" or "don't drink one day at a time" won't give you the needed psychic change any more then sticking feathers up your ass will make you a chicken.
I was trained as a paramedic, the first thing they taught me was NEVER lie to the patient. They taught me that people KNOW what the truth is, even in denial, and that if I lied to them I would lose all credibility, and thus people would most likely die.
I literally saved peoples lives because they LITERALLY trusted me with their lives. They BELIEVED me when I said "you are NOT OK but if you do this, this and this you MIGHT be OK, we may get you out of this alive yet.
Well here is the truth about recovery from alcoholism as I see it in AA:
The great fact is just this, and nothing less: That we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God's universe.
If you are as seriously alcoholic as we were, we believe there is no middle-of-the-road solution. We were in a position where life was becoming impossible, and if we had passed into the region from which there is no return through human aid, we had but two alternatives: One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could; and the other, to accept spiritual help.
Here is a conversation I believe Roland Hazard had with Carl Jung, who knew a thing or two about how the human mind works:
Some of our alcoholic readers may think they can do without spiritual help. Let us tell you the rest of the conversation our friend had with his doctor.
The doctor said: "You have the mind of a chronic alcoholic. I have never seen one single case recover, where that state of mind existed to the extent that it does in you." Our friend felt as though the gates of hell had closed on him with a clang.
He said to the doctor, "Is there no exception?" "Yes," replied the doctor, "there is. Exceptions to cases such as yours have been occurring since early times. Here and there, once in a while, alcoholics have had what are called vital spiritual experiences. To me these occurrences are phenomena. They appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. Ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them. In fact, I have been trying to produce some such emotional rearrangement within you. With many individuals the methods which I employed are successful, but I have never been successful with an alcoholic of your description.
"Fixing your brakes" or working the steps give us that huge emotional displacement and rearrangement"
"Don't drink one day at a time" and "don't drink and go to meetings" doesn't.
I just don't know how to say that gently sometimes, and like I said, it's NOT the poor bastard that keeps slipping that gets me riled and upset, I get him, I understand him. it's the people that are killing him while giving opinions about experiences they have never had like actually ever getting or being sober for any length of time or non alcoholics that didn't need to have the spiritual awakening and that flat out don't understand real alcoholism, what it is and what it takes to arrest it that get me frustrated and sad.
These well meaning people that are just trying to be "nice" and "helpful" and "supportive" without understanding either the disease of alcoholism or the spiritual solution necessary kill alcoholics in AA
No wonder my first (Grand)sponsor didn't allow me to share for a year, he said if I couldn't teach anyone how to get drunk, and I couldn't teach anyone how to get sober, why was I sharing at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. He used to literally grab me by the ear and drag me out of the meeting mid-share and chew my ass in the courtyard where it was easily heard 2 counties away for sharing my vast wisdom when I was in my first year. He passed away 15 years ago, I wish he was still alive, I would tell him I finally get it, it took a few decades but i get it.
You know, I know this post probably isn't going to help a single newcomer, but I feel better having vented that frustration, I will be very surprised if anyone reads it all the way through.
-- Edited by AGO on Saturday 20th of March 2010 01:49:14 AM
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Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
I read it (yes, the whole frickin' thing!) and I consider myself a newcomer... That said it does help. It helps because it reminds me to be aware of what I'm listening to. To listen critically. My favorite people at meetings are those who have been in AA and sober for a long time. It seems like there are never as many of them as there are newly (relatively speaking) sober people. I get a ton from both... but the old timers seem to have figured out the new way of living that AA brings. They seem to be past the bullshit and oftentimes don't go into specifics of what happened... They just use their insight and it is VERY VERY powerful. Anyway, thanks for posting that. I need a little brake work in many ways and this was a good reminder. Laurie
I admit I started reading earlier & stopped & came back. But, I did read it all the way through. Unfortunately I see this all the time. Even with 2 years I don't feel like I have a lot to offer as far as advice & try not to teach others how to drive their cars without breaks (great anology btw). There's this one woman who keeps getting a 24 hour chip almost daily. Everyone starts hugging her, congratulating her, telling her how great she's doing, etc & most of the time she's still under the influence. Now, don't get me wrong I have nothing against a person drinking picking up a chip. After all it's a desire to stop drinking chip. It just bugs me the way everyone pats her on the back telling her how great she's doing. It's almost like they're telling her it's ok to come in drunk everyday as long as she gets a chip then she's forgiven or cured. It's sending the wrong message. JMHO
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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Rheinhold Niebuhr
I appreciate your post. I am a newcomer and thought what you said made a lot of sense. I have only recently realized I have a problem, but still find myself rationalizing that I "need to learn how to drive without brakes".
I Never witnessed you to have a lck of communication skills.
My experience has been that unless a newcomer follows the "Don't drink one day at a time" and "don't drink and go to meetings" they have no chance in hell of having the needed spiritual awakening as a result of doing the steps.
I have heard some refer to it as the step before step one. Get the alcohol out of the body and brain so that you can understand simple directions. This phase is bring the body. THe mind will follow comes after that.
For this alcoholic I needed a teacher, we call them a sponsor, why? because the brain that caused my problem could not fix it.
Then I had to get myself out of the way and follow the directions. In other words do the steps the AA way without Larry's modifications. This ment doing steps that I did not want to do, No one said I had to like it. It was to save my ass not to make me feel consoled or warm and cuddly or some crap like that.
I had to do all of the steps under my sponsor (teachers) guidance. Sometimes I had to be reminded that I had told him yes when he asked me if I was willing to go to any lengths. "Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path" Up North where I recently moved from we have several members that continually dance to the AA Waltz, One, Two, Three, Slip - One, Two, Three, Slip. They never go beyond step three. Quite often they have picked for themselves a sponsor who also never completed the steps. And thus a terrible cycle is borne.
I had to totally change my concept of God. Here my sponsor was invaluable. I had a strong belief in God when I came to AA but I did not Trust Him. A vast differance between belief and trust. I had to learn to pray with out placing conditions on God as I always had. In the beginning my sponsor asked me to pray for him. I did not realize that he asked this of me because he needed the prayer and I needed the practice.
My sponsor picked me up and took me to church with him and his family. I discoverd that the roof did not fall in and I was not struck down by lightning.
I experienced the spiritual awakening the same way that countless thousands have that have gone before me. Step Twelve tells us how "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps" Not by attending meetings and sitting on my ass, not by doing it Larry's way, Not by doing it without a sponsor.
What was my spritual awakening? Exactly like the Doctor said. Every thing was cast aside. I do not resemble the person that came to AA at all, not even my outward appearance is different. A group member at a meeting the other day said "You are always smiling" I find it difficult not to smile today, I have a full awareness of "What it used to be like, What happened and what it is like now.
Larry ------------------------------------------ A Sponsor is Someone Who Holds the Light While You Dig
-- Edited by Larry_H on Saturday 20th of March 2010 05:25:05 AM
I am definitely one of those people who have struggled getting and staying sober. Each time I get sober things get good, relationships are restored, and life becomes managable. There will always be a part of me, no matter how small, that thinks I don't deserve good things in life. That part of me is broken. Alcohol has broken my spirit and only a spiritual solution can fix me. It's really simple, get a sponsor, work the steps, ask for help, and rely on my H.P. to take care of my needs. How can such a simple program be so darn difficult? I want to live today. I want to live free from this disease of alcoholism today. I will rely on God to help me today. I will get outside of myself and offer to be of service to others today. Just for today things will be okay!
"Don't drink and go to meetings" or "don't drink one day at a time" won't give you the needed psychic change any more then sticking feathers up your ass will make you a chicken.
Ago, you did this post last week, it was undermining then, it is still undermining to me in early recovery. I don't know whether you go to meetings or not. I don't know why you are so judgemental about them and about the people who help those who slip.
I do know that I will be continuing to go to meetings. I hope they continue to help me. Your attitude has not helped me. So I am making my choice to go to meetings, take the steps slowly and hopefully stay sober, not cured, which seems to have happened to you. You are now cured. Unfortunately, I am not sure.
"Don't drink and go to meetings" or "don't drink one day at a time" won't give you the needed psychic change any more then sticking feathers up your ass will make you a chicken.
Ago, you did this post last week, it was undermining then, it is still undermining to me in early recovery. I don't know whether you go to meetings or not. I don't know why you are so judgemental about them and about the people who help those who slip.
I do know that I will be continuing to go to meetings. I hope they continue to help me. Your attitude has not helped me. So I am making my choice to go to meetings, take the steps slowly and hopefully stay sober, not cured, which seems to have happened to you. You are now cured. Unfortunately, I am not sure.
Hey NC, I am not saying "Don't drink and go to meetings" is wrong, I am saying they are not "the answer", they are the path to the answer which for alcoholics of my type is:
unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.
and:
If you are as seriously alcoholic as we were, we believe there is no middle-of-the-road solution. We were in a position where life was becoming impossible, and if we had passed into the region from which there is no return through human aid, we had but two alternatives: One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could; and the other, to accept spiritual help.
If that sounds scary it's because it is, those of us around the rooms watch people "go out" all the time, many don't or can't make it back, we watch people die from this thing regularly.
Stick around long enough and you will too, Like Larry said, we watch 100's if not thousands of alcoholics come in and do the 1,2,3 slip, 1, 2, 3, slip for YEARS.
For whatever reason they don't do the necessary work and they don't make it.
You watched someone go out recently and it scared you.
Had this person worked the steps?
Had this person done the work asked from them to make an entire psychic change, or did this person "half-measure" it, and try to stay sober with "Don't drink and go to meetings"?
Ask your sponsor why she thinks that person "went out" and ask your sponsor if she thinks a spiritual experience is necessary to recover from alcoholism. Ask your sponsor if she thinks the steps are necessary to stay sober. Ask your sponsor if this other person had worked the steps, and if not, if that was the reason she went out. Stick around long enough and other people will do your research for you, so you don't have to.
I am not "cured" however I am "recovered", for me the problem has been removed as long as I follow a few simple rules.
It's like being being shot, I am healed from that wound, but that doesn't mean I can't be shot again if I place myself in a situation where people are shooting at me. So I am not invulnerable to gunshots but I am recovered from that particular one.
I am recovered from a hopeless condition of mind and body
I have ceased fighting my alcoholism.
For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. 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 fighting 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 how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.
What the steps address is:
The tragic truth is that if the man be a real alcoholic, the happy day may not arrive. He has lost control. At a certain point in the drinking of every alcoholic, he passes into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. This tragic situation has already arrived in practically every case long before it is suspected.
and:
We were having trouble with personal relationships, we couldn't control our emotional natures, we were a prey to misery and depression, we couldn't make a living, we had a feeling of uselessness, we were full of fear, we were unhappy, we couldn't seem to be of real help to other people
I am not judgmental to those who "help" people who relapse, I am one of them, I am afraid, angry, frustrated and really, just frightened of those who lie to them like in Tessa's post. Of those who don't tell them the truth, which the are dying from untreated alcoholism and protecting them from the consequences of their actions.
I have also been welcomed back because I have drank after a LONG period of sobriety. I have been helped. It was humiliating and painful, but as I have learned, you can't save your ass and your face at the same time. My friends, my REAL friends told me the truth, because they loved me.
I am saying "If nothing changes, nothing changes."
Period, it's just not negotiable, it's a math equation, if nothing changes, nothing changes, and patting these people on the head and telling them they are doing great when the truth is they are dying from untreated alcoholism is not "support", it's not helpful, it's actually called enabling, and codependency, and as long as we keep alcoholics away from facing the consequences of their actions of course they won't get well, but that is a sickness all of it's own.
My mother has been "helping" and "saving" my sister for 25 years from the consequences of her actions, which in my opinion is why my sister is a junkie with a retarded child today.
My mother is murdering my sister with her well meaning "help" so yeah, I have strong feelings about it.
Codependency kills especially in meetings of alcoholics anonymous.
-- Edited by AGO on Saturday 20th of March 2010 12:15:42 PM
-- Edited by AGO on Saturday 20th of March 2010 12:32:37 PM
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Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
One of the things I have learned is if I have a problem with something, or somebody, it's my problem, and if somebody says or does something that upsets me, chances are it's me with "the issue"
The spiritual axiom is if I am upset there is something wrong with me. Something I need to address.
My problem might have your name on it, but my solution needs to have my name on it. I might be upset with "you", or have a problem with "you" but I am the one with "the problem", hence, it's "my problem"
So writing that last response made me realize what that is, that codependency and enabling triggers me because of my mother's behaviors with my sister. That I get so upset when I see it because that behavior ruined my sister's life. My mother has been rescuing my sister from the consequences of her actions for like I said earlier, 25 years, my sister was at one time the most beautiful, amazing, talented athlete anyone had ever met, she was an extraordinary human being who grabbed the attention of anyone who ever met her, she played on men's sports teams, she could have been a World Class Surfer, among literally the best in the world, to this day I have never seen another woman surf with the style and grace she possessed even among contests in the worlds best women surfers.
She was an incredible artist and an amazing human being, she was physically one of the most beautiful women anyone had ever seen, and this was in a California Beach Town, where you throw a stick and hit 5 Robert Redfords or 5 Carmen Electras. People 20-30 years later still come up to me and ask about her, and tell me stories about how amazing they thought she was.
How do I politely say, well she is a junkie now who married an illegal alien in prison and ran off to Mexico to get pregnant at 40 with another junkie and had a retarded baby because of that, but don't worry, mom rescued her AGAIN and although retired supports her and her granddaughter so she can once again return to drugs and a life of sickness and waste.
My mother has been actively murdering my sister for 25 years and I don't think I ever properly inventoried it, hence I am still carrying it, and it manifests itself by anger when I see other people, especially in meetings enabling other alcoholics.
I get frightened and angry because I have first hand knowledge that codependency can kill alcoholics and drug addicts as certainly as the addiction will.
I see the life my sister could have had without my mother "rescuing" her from the consequences of her actions, where she may have actually gotten and stayed sober, she may have remained that beautiful woman, she may have remained my best friend, the closest person I have ever known in my life, instead of that disgustingly sick street person that ended up turning tricks to get drugs.
I blame addiction and alcoholism sure, but the truth is I blame my mother more, without her my sister had at least a fighting chance, with her enabling and saving her, she never did.
Addiction and codependency stole my sister from me and I blame codependency more.
Interesting.
-- Edited by AGO on Saturday 20th of March 2010 01:35:14 PM
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Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
Saying a Prayer for your sister, a Miracle might be right around the corner for her.....do you ever see her or talk to her??
Hope is there, while we are alive for all of us...I truly believe that....
Sounds like you have been so deeply hurt by the way your sister's life has turned out so far, anyone would be...
Saying a Prayer for you too that you can heal from some of this wrenching pain you/ve expressed. I saw a lot of anger, but underneath felt such a stong undercurrent of pain.
Getting it out here, helps, hope so anyway. . Toni
You know, when I got sober, "don't drink and go to meetings" was about the best I could do. And the people who helped me the most were the people, whether sober a month or 40 years, who told me "what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now" for them. They were the people who didn't point my faults out to me as though they were looking down at me but those who shared that they were just like me. They were the ones who gave me hope. And they were the ones who helped me to see that I was an alcoholic. If it hadn't been for them and being able to identify with them, then---for me---it wouldn't have worked. I'd have been dead long ago.
They were the ones who said "don't drink, go to meetings", "take what you can use and leave the rest" because like most alcoholics, I didn't react well to having my faults pointed out to me by someone who talking down to me and making me feel more inferior than I already felt. God knows I got that enough in my daily life and hated looking at myself in the mirror for.
They were the ones who were humble enough to remember where they came from and treated me as a fellow alcoholic who was going through just what they'd gone through themselves. They could smile and accept me as I was right then, not talk down to me about what my shortcomings were. They were the ones who talked about THEIR faults and shortcomings and, in recognizing that I had those same ones, that gave me the hope, courage and strength to find my way following what they did, not what they preached that I should do. I had to see myself in them in order to identify enough with them to recognize that I had this disease.
I couldn't really grasp much besides "don't drink and go to meetings" for quite some time at first. If I'd been required to "fix my brakes" and "not play with knives" and not come there with my "weekly train wreck week after week" for as long as it took me to heal and learn how to do something else, I'd be dead today.
Our own experience, strength and hope shared with other suffering alcoholics through having gained enough humility to talk about our common problems openly is what saves lives. Telling just our OWN story, as simple as that might seem, saves lives. That's been the reason the AA program works and why it's worked for all these years. That's why oldtimers say "It's a simple program, but it's not easy." And it's in telling just our own story, no matter how tired we might get of telling it, that we reach other alcoholics and in so doing, we're keeping ourselves sober because it helps us never to forget where we came from. That's what we're doing it for. We help others coming along after us but the true miracle happens when two alcoholics get together and share, not the one more sober telling the one less so what the less sober one "should" and "ought" to do but by sharing what our lives were like, what we did, and what happened then. That's what saved my life and that's what saves millions of other lives.
It's been working for me for quite a long time now, as sobriety goes. If it ain't broke, I'm not going to fix it, either. I'll still not take a drink and go to meetings. I'm never going to be perfect. But I've been sober this long and I'm making progress on my character defects, so even if the next person might not think I'm doing it right, I don't care. My Higher Power isn't through with me yet and that's all that matters. :)
You know, when I got sober, "don't drink and go to meetings" was about the best I could do. And the people who helped me the most were the people, whether sober a month or 40 years, who told me "what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now" for them. They were the people who didn't point my faults out to me as though they were looking down at me but those who shared that they were just like me. They were the ones who gave me hope. And they were the ones who helped me to see that I was an alcoholic. If it hadn't been for them and being able to identify with them, then---for me---it wouldn't have worked. I'd have been dead long ago.
They were the ones who said "don't drink, go to meetings", "take what you can use and leave the rest" because like most alcoholics, I didn't react well to having my faults pointed out to me by someone who talking down to me and making me feel more inferior than I already felt. God knows I got that enough in my daily life and hated looking at myself in the mirror for.
They were the ones who were humble enough to remember where they came from and treated me as a fellow alcoholic who was going through just what they'd gone through themselves. They could smile and accept me as I was right then, not talk down to me about what my shortcomings were. They were the ones who talked about THEIR faults and shortcomings and, in recognizing that I had those same ones, that gave me the hope, courage and strength to find my way following what they did, not what they preached that I should do. I had to see myself in them in order to identify enough with them to recognize that I had this disease.
I couldn't really grasp much besides "don't drink and go to meetings" for quite some time at first. If I'd been required to "fix my brakes" and "not play with knives" and not come there with my "weekly train wreck week after week" for as long as it took me to heal and learn how to do something else, I'd be dead today.
Our own experience, strength and hope shared with other suffering alcoholics through having gained enough humility to talk about our common problems openly is what saves lives. Telling just our OWN story, as simple as that might seem, saves lives. That's been the reason the AA program works and why it's worked for all these years. That's why oldtimers say "It's a simple program, but it's not easy." And it's in telling just our own story, no matter how tired we might get of telling it, that we reach other alcoholics and in so doing, we're keeping ourselves sober because it helps us never to forget where we came from. That's what we're doing it for. We help others coming along after us but the true miracle happens when two alcoholics get together and share, not the one more sober telling the one less so what the less sober one "should" and "ought" to do but by sharing what our lives were like, what we did, and what happened then. That's what saved my life and that's what saves millions of other lives.
It's been working for me for quite a long time now, as sobriety goes. If it ain't broke, I'm not going to fix it, either. I'll still not take a drink and go to meetings. I'm never going to be perfect. But I've been sober this long and I'm making progress on my character defects, so even if the next person might not think I'm doing it right, I don't care. My Higher Power isn't through with me yet and that's all that matters. :)
I agree with you
I humbly ask that you reread the entire thread as I did have a bit of an epiphany as to why I was carrying this resentment.
There does come a day for me when, as the Big Book states:
Do not be discouraged if your prospect does not respond at once. Search out another alcoholic and try again. You are sure to find someone desperate enough to accept with eagerness what you offer. We find it a waste of time to keep chasing a man who cannot or will not work with you. If you leave such a person alone, he may soon become convinced that he cannot recover by himself. To spend too much time on any one situation is to deny some other alcoholic an opportunity to live and be happy. One of our Fellowship failed entirely with his first half dozen prospects. He often says that if he had continued to work on them, he might have deprived many others, who have since recovered, of their chance.
or, as my dear friend Tiana wrote me when I wrote to ask her and a few others if they thought I needed to make an amends for finally telling the truth after over a year of the same old bullshit:
As far as I can tell and in my opinion, the only thing you might even possibly owe her an amend for is staying engaged as long as you did, thus providing some measure of indirect support for her fantasy that she is actually interested in healing/recovery...(...because you have some solid recovery and tend to be quite perceptive, so if she could keep you hanging around that long, that's a pretty big feather in her denial cap!),and I'm not really sure how one makes amends for something like that without almost certainly creating more offense. Because I don't really think she's at the point where she could possibly understand what might have been "wrong" about your colluding in her self-delusion and denial.......because she obviously refuses to see that it is self-delusion and denial in the first place.
I have had occasion to say to a couple sponsees that I needed out of the relationship because I felt like all I was doing, remaining their "sponsor" despite the fact that they didn't appear to value or want to do anything suggested, was being complicit in helping them to pretend they were working a program they actually had no intention of working. It doesn't go over real well -- but sometimes it does need to be said...
...and as far as the "advice" vs. "ES&H" thing goes, I tend to believe that if someone asks for advice, then there's nothing wrong with giving it. If they can't take it or decide not to take it, then that's on them. Although I am trying to keep myself to no more than once or twice because, if they don't take it by that point, they are just using me to let off steam or, as above, to help support their illusions of really wanting thing to change.
Anyway, that's my take. I guess for myself I can be kinda merciless when it comes to deciding who I'm going to spend recovery time and energy with/on.....because, really, this is valuable stuff, and, as a very wise AA member told me a few weeks ago when we talked on the phone: "It's not a good idea to be casting your pearls before swine." That's kinda harsh, but, really, it's the truth...I want/need to work with people who honestly want help and are doing everything they can to help themselves. As soon as I get the sense that someone isn't doing that then, for my own sanity and my own recovery, I've got to cut him/her loose pretty fast.
Anyhow, there comes a day when people wouldn't co-sign my bullshit any more, and truthfully, those are the days I remember as life changing days, not the times people lied to me, patted me on the head, and told me I was doing great when the truth was I was dying.
Truth without love is cruelty, and I won't be party to that, but I also refuse to co-sign someone else's bullshit, I will only give my opinion or experience if asked however, as unsolicited opinion is asinine to me.
-- Edited by AGO on Thursday 25th of March 2010 01:13:51 AM
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Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
You and I agree on many things, AGO, we just say it differently. I'm not intending to be antagonistic to you personally. I'm telling how it is for me and how I see things. It takes each of us being willing to speak up and as we both know, this isn't a popularity contest, so I have to take the chance that there will be those who don't like what I have to say or who disagree or even who misunderstand.
My home group where I got sober was called the Tough Love group. I didn't get molly-coddled and I don't molly-coddle.. But I also don't point out the faults others have. I point out the ones I have. Since we're all alcoholics, the ones I have are similar to the ones other alcoholics have and it's back to the old "identification" thing again----if I tell my own character defects, then the suffering person needing some help is going to identify with that and I haven't poked a finger into their chest saying it's their fault, too, causing them to just get defensive and resentful and driving them away. The important thing is that they clearly see that those are yet more points identifying them with me, an alcoholic, thereby solidifying not only their realization that they're an alcoholic, too, but that there's hope for them to recover because if I can do it, they can and they can take from what worked for me and put it to use in their own life to see if it's gonna work for them.
You know already that what you do is something that helps a lot of people. You see it here on this message board and so do I and I'm sure you see it even more in real life. I think that's the most wonderful thing in the world because you're reaching other alcoholics! I'd be giving you the biggest hug if we met----or handshake if you'd rather but I'm a big hugger----but then there will be other people who identify more with me, what works for me, and even with my shortcomings.
So in a nutshell, I share my own stuff. I don't do it because I'm antagonistic toward you. I do it because it's my way, it's how it works for me, and it's what I've found works to share with others. When I say something like that quote I did of yours about the playing with knives and the brakes and stuff, I'm saying it not to antagonize you----I'm saying it because it was true for me. It wouldn't have worked for me. That doesn't mean you shouldn't say it and it doesn't mean you're wrong. There are going to be people who grab that and run with it, get sobriety and flourish because they saw you say what worked for them. I'm just saying what I'm saying because I'm sharing my own "stuff".
If I just came and sat at your feet and said, "Yeah, AGO, right on! Go, AGO!" when that's not true for me, wouldn't I be doing the very thing you refer to as "co-signing bullshit?" Not that what you say is bullshit. My point is that if I didn't say my piece if I disagree or have a different story, I'd be bull-shitting myself and everyone else.
agree again. on cell phone so long replies are out. im a big hugger as well so id take the hug. i come across much more bb thumper online, i even look at my posts and and in many cases wonder why they come across as antagonistic, whereas irl the bb thumpers like me but consider me a bit too tree hugger granola-ee lovey dovey. must needs work on gentle delivery. aight thx again, i agree with everything you,ve said thus far but maybe did hit you with maybe you heard of dr bob in resppnse to calling identifying treatment lingo. calling something treatment lingo is a pretty big insult where i am from
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Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
I'm sure sorry if I insulted you. I didn't mean to at all. I thought maybe you work in a treatment center or something. It's easy to pick some of that lingo up even if we didn't go to treatment ourselves, I think. It's all over in meetings here now that treatment is a big thing. One oldtimer friend here called it "satin sheets sobriety". He's passed on, still sober, a few years ago but that stuck with me. Now that you mention it, though, I see how you might take it as an insult. My sister gave me a plaque for my wall once that said, "Be sure brain is in gear before mouth is in motion." so that's some indication that if it hits my head, it often flies out my mouth without thinking things all the way through. I work on it but HP isn't through with me yet, so it's still one of my more troublesome qualities sometimes.
On the other hand, however one gets sober, whether in AA through a treatment center or just the way we did it, the important thing is the program and helping others coming along after us.
Gee, did I actually get through a post this time without editing?
