I know a person who has been in and out of the rooms for over 20 years. It appears that all they have learned in that 20 years is how to use the program to justify the next drink or drug.
They seem to have gotten the point of "powerless" down pretty good,
They seem to have gotten the point of "God either has or has not removed the desire to drink down pretty good"
They seem to have gotten the concept of alcoholism being a medically recognized disease, and that they are sick... down pretty good.
In short, I venture to say that they got the problem down.. pretty good.
But somehow is missing the solution all together.
It appears that this person surrendered to the diease, not to the recovery process.
Pointing out that even those with grave mental and emotional disorders can too recover if they have the capacity to be honest, seems to fly over their head. That God could and would if He were sought, seems to escape them. And most any other solution that requires that they participate in the process, by their being pro active in their own recovery efforts seems to evade their ability to comprehend fully.
This same person, was smoking "Spice", a substance that can be bought over the counter that provides a similar high as pot, just a few days ago. They tend to believe that because its legal and they were not drinking they are "sober". Night before last, they were swearing they are going to go get some crack and alcohol (Coconut Rum) and "pull a good one on this time". They threatent this as a "I'll show you" type of threat.. when it is them that will suffer the ramifications of it.
They are refusing to go to any more meetings, either AA or NA, "because it doesn't work", "because they see themselves as one of the people that will never "get it", because the rooms are full of a bunch of liars, cheats and theifs and are killing people every day"... etc, etc, etc.
Oh, and they see the oldtimers as people who were not as alcoholic like they are, as though they are not just another garden variety drunk like the rest of us. Their alcoholism/addiction is of a special nature, more complicated, above average type of alcoholism.
They tend to blame every one around them, and life conditions as the reason they go back out time and time again. They do not take any responsibility for the decision they make to do so. Namely because they don't even acknowledge that they make any decisions. They are powerless, they have a diease and suddenly... the bottle, the crack pipe, or the spice substance just falls right in front of them... while they are inside a liquor store, hanging out with people who are using, or in a head shop that sells the artificial substance that produces a high.
They make no committment to their recovery at all, and seemingly set the stage for their next run before even getting past the last one.
Have you ever met, dealt with, tried to help someone like this? After 20 years of their being in the rooms of AA or NA to no avail?
How much time and energy would you put into continuing trying to help someone like this?
Would you allow someone like I have described here to live in your home? If not, why not? If so, what would be the objective?
Please reply to this post with honesty. I care about this person, and I truly do believe that what they have recieved thus far in 20 years of being in the rooms, is how to justify the next drink. It is sad. And yes, they have been through detox, and treatment programs, psych hospitals, etc. repeatedly during this 20 year period. My heart goes out to them, and I hold out hope but its as though I care more about their recovery, that they don't die while caught in the mist of this diease than they do.
John, I have dealt with several people like this over the years. I know we are responsible and when anyone reaches out the hand of AA is supposed to be there. The question is how many times. It's been my experience that after many failure our help becomes a type of enabling. They will continue to do what they do because they know that we, or people like us, will be there to pick them back up and help them.There is a lady who comes to our group who is constanly going back out and drinking then comeing back and telling her same sad song. Many people giver her all their attention and gather around her after the meeting offering help, offering to sponsor her and feeling sorry for her. It's almost like munchausen syndrome, she craves the attention she gets she want to be the center of attention. I would not allow them to live in my house because there comes a time when we have to cut them off, stop helping and leave them with nothing. Untill we suffer enough we have no reason to quit or change. Who am I to keep interupting their pain, let them live with it and deal with it. God will do whatever is proper according to the choices we make.
-- Edited by Bob K on Monday 11th of February 2013 07:08:10 AM
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Tell me and I'll forget. Teach me and I'll remember. Involve me and I'll learn.
Amen Bob. There are those who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves....it's unfortunate, but that's the way it is. Focus on those who want recovery...leave the rest to HP. All you can do is offer them up in prayer.
Awesome post Bob - I have had to let someone get to their bottom (out of love) in my short time in recovery. There are so many sick codependents in recovery, that she'll surely have no trouble continuing on death row and finding someone to lay down a red carpet for her on her path... but at least I didn't have a part it in.
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Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
Hi John, Our book, says,"They are welcomed back cordially.......if.....IF......I F..... they mean business". I have been robbed, by non-sober drunks ( they SAID they were sober!!!) I have allowed into my home...........I survived.........You have been sober a long time, and like ALL longtimers, I KNOW you have seen alot of death! I believe we are also Alanons the moment we get sober......everyone we love in A.A., are drunks! We adore our pidgeons, and feel responsible when they drink again.......THAT IS Alanon!!!! I have HAD ( for my own survival) to redefine "success" in my 12th Step Work..............I am a success in 12....if I stay sober.....if I.....stay sober!!!! and guess what???? My 12th Step Work, has been 100% successful!!!! Wheeeeeeeeeeeee! I LOVE IT! LOL The last prayer, in 11 for me in the a.m., is the 12th Step Prayer: "We ask in our morning meditation, what we can do for the person who is still sick....the answers will come, if our own house is in order." Sometimes the anwser is,"You can do nothing, but pray for this person...and NEVER.....EVER......HELP them drink/drug/die! Meaning: NEVER do ANYTHING that makes it EASIER for them to drink/drug/die! I have lost family over this crap....NOT HELPING.......it hurts like hell....but.....BUT.....(though they fight it) God and I BOTH know....that THIS...is true L O V E!!!! God in A.A. , has sent me "Moms", "Aunts", "Brothers"....to help make up for all the sick addicts, in my family......But.......It hurts like hell....and it still hurts...... Now..the good news John? We NEVER run outta drunks to 12th step!!!! LOL!!! EVER!!!! We got lots and lots and lots and lots ..........of SOTS!!!! ha! You didnt Cause it...You cant Control it...You cant Cure it!!!! Love, Lady Eli
I don't know that this will help matters any John, but those I've been around that exhibit the condition and mental attitude that you describe are those that have 'convinced' themselves that they have 'nothing' to offer society(life) 'what-so-ever' ... they have convinced themselves that they are weak and beyond any help known to them ...
People like this that refuse to open their eyes to what 'could be', are those that have often found some kind of 'perverse pleasure' in being unhelpable ... these are also the type persons that frequently start romancing death, looking forward to death as a way out ... when a person starts seeing 'death' as a 'way out' or as 'freedom from life' ... then only direct, heavenly intervention will save them ... you and I may, or may not be a part of that ... It's in God's hands at this point and we're often just along to offer ourselves as best we can to those still suffering ... damn hard lesson to learn ...
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'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
John, this person either doesn't believe that this disease will kill him (or doesn't care) and/or is using the program to moderate his drinking. Like a a baserunner diving back to 1st base before the pitchout. It would be nice to say GTFO of AA and drink until you're entirely ready. But we don't roll that way.
It's also doubly difficult if .... ... ... IF, this person becomes our life partner ... or easily could have been ... In this case, when we would offer our very own life to help this person, and cannot, then our pain becomes that such we have never known before ... and it can make us doubt our own reason for 'sticking around' ... please be very careful here John ...
If we are to help another person with these kinds of problems, we must maintain our own health, physically and spiritually, first ...
I will pray for you and your friend John ... especially for your friend to see life as it could be ... I hope she (or he) will see the light ...
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'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
It's been my experience that we can't help the needy we can only help the willing. Until people become willing to do whatever it takes to save their own backside we are at a loss to do much for them. This is a program of action without action the steps and our advice is nothing but words.
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Tell me and I'll forget. Teach me and I'll remember. Involve me and I'll learn.
i took some very hard knocks to see that what is written in working with others works for me: 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. after them hard knocks, i have decided i will carry the message and not the alcoholic.
I've seen that repeatedly. Essentially, that's the story of most chronic relapsers. I think a big portion of it is a fear of growing up. It is like Munchausen's...They want to remain sick, childlike, and the one with "all the drama and problems." Some of this they know, but most of it they are in denial about.
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
What I've experienced was and still is that when I have been willing I become different and changeable and able to do my part of my recovery. I have worked with "them" and I was one of "them" at one time. We know how it works because that is how it worked for us. I learned from my journey that when I abandoned myself to my Higher Power, the program and the people who were there there was nothing that would keep me from "getting it" eventually. There was defined method and I resisted it and stayed abandoned...I didn't go back out as my alcoholic/addict wife did. We got sober and clean at different times and still I got sober and she got clean and sober. I know about help that doesn't work and which makes all efforts more difficult or impossible...that is called enabling. What ever is done for the good makes the situation worse. That is so mind boggling until I stand back and look at the wide picture; the sick person is unwilling in the face of allavailability of help. I know and have known some who were aware of what they were doing up to and including their eventual demise as they continued their journey and I know and have known others who allowed that journey to be changed toward sobriety. God is willing, AA is willing and now....All must be willing and available to "practice these principles in all our affairs". The program is only one available justification of so many others toward the next drink unless....
As the last line of the essay "Why we were chosen" says "Keep ever in mind the admission you made on the day of your profession in AA - namely that yo are powerless and that it was only with your willingness to turn your life and will unto my keeping that relieft came to you."
I dont know if i have anything to contribute but... Ive been told these types are "terminally unique" and ive seen some old timers straight up tell them (after a share) to "shit or get off the pot"
I know this one chick, ruhig introduced me to, who would get 6 months and deliberately relapse. Because she always wanted to be considered a newcomer. And if it wasnt liquer it was heroine or lottery tickets or nickel slots (did i get that right? Ive never gambled) she showed up to ruhigs funeral blown out of her mind.
My sponsor says that she'll only put as much effort into me as she sees me putting into the program. I feel like that makes sense. This is a "selfish program" isnt it?
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In the end, everything will be alright. If it is not alright, it is not the end... Paulo coelho (also marigold hotel)
Hey Neo, ... Yeah, I think many of us have come across those we would call 'terminally unique' ... in fact, I think I went through a phase like that myself ... and I think John appropriately named this thread 'using the program to justify the next drink' ... ... ... My early attempts at getting and staying sober failed miserably ... there were several reasons one could throw up on the chalk board as causes ... 'willingness' to work the program ... not convinced I had hit my bottom ... too smart to think I couldn't fix myself ... and one of the last reasons that fits in with this thread:
****** I knew I could come back if I couldn't make it own my own ... AA was always getting along fine, with, or without ME ... so I could bank on AA being there if I fell to pieces ... **********
I did finally hit my bottom ... there was nothing left for me ... I learned how extreme the phrase 'spiritually bankrupt' would get ... and did finally obtain the 'willingness' necessary for this program to work ...
I would 'caution' you and others on the use of the term 'Selfish Program' ... ... ... Indeed, we cling ourselves to this program for dear life ... as a drowning man would a 'life preserver' ... in that sense, it is a selfish program, must be, else we let go of it and become helpless to ourselves and others ... but it is also a program of giving and sharing as you well know ... more so than any other program I know outside of the religious organizations that also base themselves on giving to others ...
I still hold the program (principles) close to me today ... but because of the liberating qualities of this program, I have now learned to participate in life again ... I can NOW give something back where as when I was new, I could only take!!!
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'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
Thanks for your input python. It may be where im at right now, but i can only throw out so much line before the other person could pull me over board. Thats what i meant by "selfish", i will give as much as you need as long as i have enough slack to keep myself on this RSS sober. And i could be naive, but isnt that what everyone does?
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In the end, everything will be alright. If it is not alright, it is not the end... Paulo coelho (also marigold hotel)
I merely wanted those who read these posts and are new to the program, to know that we use some descriptions of ourselves, like 'selfish', only to describe some of the learned process we go through ... to let them know we are in a program of progress ... and that what we read from others needs to be taken 'in context' with the message given ... that's all ... (trying to keep 'stereotyping' down to a minimum ... LOL)
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'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
Thank you everyone! Some good reminders here! Some I have heard a thousand times, but I guess I just needed to hear them again.
The situation has been resolved. I let go and the alcoholic I am referring to will have to find their own way and take their own journey. I cannot, nor am I willing to take that trip with them any longer.
