Stanton Peele had a great blog post last month which I missed somehow. If you missed it too, check it out here, and here’s an excerpt:
Community-based, real-life (now called epidemiological) research paints a completely differently reality from clinical and laboratory research on alcohol and drugs.
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In broad strokes, this means that a quarter of alcoholics maintain their alcoholism (and a minority of those deteriorate to even worse fates) – at the other extreme, a quarter become fully normal drinkers. In between, a quarter eliminate problems but are cautious drinkers, and a quarter continue to have some drinking issues but carry on with otherwise normal lives.
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And it’s just as true about drugs: Patricia Erickson (author of The Steel Drug ) and Bruce Alexander found that roughly 10 percent of cocaine users continue to use the drug for an extended period of time, and 10 percent of those (1 percent of all users) resemble what we think of as the typical cocaine user – the all-out addict.* The overwhelming majority of these people are never treated.
Also, I recently found that Peele credited me for a point I made back in October, when I said that if Charlie Sheen went back to another 12-step based rehab, then that behavior would fit the definition of insanity which 12-steppers often repeat: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again while expecting different results”. Thanks Stanton!
If his treatment has thus far been steeped in the 12 steps, objective research indicates another approach is more likely to lead to a positive outcome. At this point, it might seem worth Sheen’s time to try something else. AA, after all, defines insanity as “Doing the same thing again and again while expecting different results.” (Thanks to Steven Slate.)
Wow, that is pretty cool, to be quoted by Stanton Peele.
i believe each needs to find works for them. i only did the 12 step group cause i was mandated too.
i do referral work and many want 12 step alternatives.
i know someone who has been in 12 step groups for yrs and has presently relapsed again. its wrong to force people into an approach that does not work for them.
many talk 12 step only to relapse over and over.
what worked for me is that i decided to get help and than decide to change my life. i am now working getting on with my life. i have asperger’s syndrome and struggle socially and meetings are awful for me.
an addict needs to deal with the issues they are covering by using.
i believe people should have a choice of treatment if mandated.
for me recovery is a process. i do have faith in god, but let others choose what works for them.
i am clean today because i decided to change my life.
diane
I agree with Diane: “an addict needs to deal with the issues they are covering by using.” When I would say in meetings I didn’t know why I used, people would say it doesn’t matter why. Well, it does, and I figured it out eventually and felt a new freedom.
I also think that those who have really conquered the past, don’t have to fear it by a) continuing to dwell on it, or b) going to meetings out of fear. I’ve heard so many times that “meeting makers make it”, and that people relapse after they stop going to meetings. A woman active in NA at the national service level tried to scare me into continuing the meetings. She said one of her friends with the perfect life stopped going to meetings. His girlfriend called the police when he had disappeared for a couple days. The man was found at the bottom of an elevator shaft in Mexico. Drug deal gone bad. The NA woman told me it was because he had stopped going to meetings, so the relapse is just around the corner, can happen to anyone at anytime. I asked her what was really going on with that man. She said nothing, he had a great life, great girlfriend, great job, and was in her social circle. Honestly, she did instill fear in me of leaving the meetings and I was so mad at her for that. So I had to work through it.
I deal with that story by believing he had some issues he wanted to cover up with an escape into the drug world. Perhaps he was told it didn’t matter why he used, who knows?
As a side note, the only reason I don’t drink is because if I have a drink tonight, I may have a drink tomorrow, and pretty soon I’ll be having a drink every night, and I don’t want to start that habit. I have no fear of alcohol itself, I don’t even like it that much. I do remember I spent years where I had a couple drinks every night, and my life is better without it.
UNDER LYING IT ALL – FEAR FRUSTRATION ANGER SHAME GUILT..ect.. lol. Some of us were taught that it’s not “proper” to express negative emotions even when we are being used and abused. Well, it took being in an abusive relationship with a MAN – at my age to discover the REAL reasons or excuses for using substances (even fetishes) is a way to CALM one down.
I we never understand nicotine “addicts”, i’ve used and abused tobacco for 40 years also, but I can quit. eventually it makes me sick. same with alcohol or bad carbs. When you discover that you can use your MIND to control your behavior instead of continuing to do the same detrimental behavior over and over. Yeah, that’s insanity because we always hope that THIS TIME it will work. Revolving doors of recovery, Lifetime of AA meetings – where you meet people you would not want as friends. The answer is within every single person, and the reasons to change are all different. I just like being FREE.
For me, it was boredom in my marriage, and loneliness/boredeom being home alone all day while the kids were at school, and a belief that doctor shopping and popping pills was not as bad as being addicted to hard core drugs, I was not hurting anyone, “mother’s little helper”, etc. I have the same husband a decade later, and he is the most exciting man on earth and I am no longer bored. Again, it was the act of not getting that part-time job, not reconnecting with him when I was lonely, having a couple drinks every night…. I believe there are thousands of pill poppers like I was, walking around, that will never make it to a recovery room or ever quit,because it is easy to get away with it, nobody can smell it or see it, and we can function normally on low-strength opiates.
And yeah, I got tired of hanging out with people with anxiety, bi-polar, childhood abuse, etc. I am just a normal person who likes the wild side. Now, my wild side is with my husband, not with drugs.