If you’ve heard any of my personal history, you’ll know that I finally get over my substance use problem back in 2002 at The Freedom Model Retreat (which was called The Saint Jude Retreat at the time). I have great reverence for that place and the people who started it, Jerry Brown and Mark Scheeren. Before I attended their retreat I had struggled for 5 years in and out of a range of addiction treatments including traditional inpatient, methadone programs, detoxes, outpatient, psychiatric treatment and therapy for “the underlying causes of addiction”, and several types of 12 Step groups (AA, NA, CA). When I say I struggled, I really mean it, as those 5 years were hell all the way through, and I never thought it would end. I had accepted the fate I’d been taught in treatment – that I would be an “addict” for the rest of my life. As a result, my behavior became more and more reckless, leading to a bout of homelessness, countless arrests and a short time in jail, repeated periods of probation, and a nearly constant betrayal and disappointment of everyone who loved me.
Within weeks of my stay at the Freedom Model Retreat, I knew that I was fully transformed into someone who would never be “addicted” to alcohol and drugs ever again. It was as if I had changed overnight. I hesitate to say that, because it’s a lot to promise others, but that’s how it happened for me. My struggles with drugs and alcohol ended with what I learned there, and I haven’t ever felt “out of control” of the choice to use drugs/alcohol ever since, nor have I felt any nagging “urges” or “powerful cravings” ever since. It almost seems like magic, so when I tell you what I think their two most important advances were, it’ll probably sound underwhelming to many readers, but here’s what they are:
- They communicated to every retreat guest “you are normal, and you are gonna be alright, and you will get over this.”
- They demonstrated that you can be immediately happy to quit heavy substance use – and indeed happier to do it.
I realize these may not sound like mind-blowing ideas to everyone reading this. I know that reading these two points alone won’t magically help any reader to instantly get over their substance use problem. But when they make up the backbone of an approach to helping people with a substance use problem they are incredibly powerful. People who’ve been struggling to quit with conventional “recovery” approaches to substance use problems find these two themes in our approach to be a breath of fresh air, and incredibly inspiring. Those two points sit at the core of everything we do at The Freedom Model Retreats, and are the key to our high rate of success in helping people to permanently overcome their substance use problems. I will explain further, but first let me give you a little background on why those points are so significant.
The 20th century addiction treatment industry and recovery movement has been a failure from the beginning because it is based on the antithesis of those two points. At its core, it is based on the idea that:
- People with substance use problems are abnormal (diseased/disordered/genetically flawed), and in for a lifelong struggle that they can never fully overcome. Helpless, powerless, and out of control are all terms that communicate this view.
- That quitting is hard and must be painful, both because of the incurable disease, and because the relief/pleasures provided by substances are so objectively wonderful that once you’ve known those feelings, sober life is a let-down, loss, or state of deprivation that can never compare to a life of intoxication.
Now, while the recovery movement openly advertises point number 1, they’re a little less forthcoming about point number 2, and might dispute that one. I guarantee you though that it is implicit in everything that they do. Whenever they talk about “self-medication”, they are agreeing to the idea that substances are effective medications for emotional problems. Whenever they say that you’ll never forget how great heroin feels, they’re agreeing to the notion that the feeling of being on heroin is objectively better than the feeling of not being on heroin. And so on. There are a million ways they actually promote intoxication, making it more attractive, whether they intend to or not (presumably, they don’t intend to). They implicitly promote the message that being intoxicated is better than not being intoxicated, and that quitting is thus a loss of a wonderful thing. Then they essentially tell people with substance use problems to basically just suck it up and accept that they will have to endure this great loss and quit all substance use altogether, forever, because they have the “disease of addiction.” This makes the task of addressing a substance use problem appear to be a guaranteed loss, a painful lifelong obligation, and thus a completely repelling task right from the beginning. It’s no wonder so many people get worse immediately following rehab, and so many continuously struggle for years, with this messaging at the core of “recovery.”
So after I spent 5 years getting this message from the recovery world, it really was a breath of fresh air to learn at the Freedom Model Retreats that, again:
- My struggles were normal and I could and most likely would overcome them.
- I could be much happier very soon about changing my substance use habit. I could do it for positive reasons!
I hope you can now see why I call these two of the most important advances in the field of helping people with substance use problems. When they started the Freedom Model Retreats, Jerry and Mark used a slightly modified version of the 12 Steps. They tested and morphed their approach over time, but these two elements stayed constant throughout the past 3 decades that they’ve been helping people with substance use problems. they were simple ideas with simple beginnings.
Jerry Brown had seen a loved one suffer and die in the treatment system. He was involved in AA for his own substance use issues, and although he had resolved his own problem, he looked around him in AA and saw that most people weren’t getting well. His career was in research, and so he had the mind to simply ask why it wasn’t working, and the first thing he locked onto was the doom and gloom often communicated in AA and treatment programs. So as he took on a new bunch of sponsees (a sponsee is a person being mentored in the ways of the 12 Steps by a senior 12 Step member), he decided to buck the trend of portraying “recovery” as a lifelong process and “one day at a time” struggle. He decided to let go of the doom, gloom, dire warnings, and lifelong alcoholic identity. And his main way of doing this was to simply tell people they were going to be alright, they were not broken or abnormal, and they could easily get over this problem.
Jerry also said you could be “recovered” rather than living on the fence of constantly “recovering.” Believe it or not, this tiny change in a mere suffix caused a massive uproar and controversy at the time. This is evidence that the view of the “addict/alcoholic” as tragically doomed is a sacred cow in the recovery world. Imagine that for a second – people get downright offended at the thought that a person with a substance use problem could permanently get over their problem. They also sometimes get violent. Jerry, Mark, and others were once seriously challenged at a meeting to go out in the street for a rumble because they dared to identify as “recovered alcoholics” when it was their turn to speak at the meeting. They actually considered themselves to be devout AA purists at the time too. They referred to the fact that the term “recovered” was used over a dozen times in AA’s famous Big Book. This didn’t matter. But to be fair to those who wanted a fistfight over the word “recovered” I should point out that in addition to using that word the Big Book also says in other ways that you can’t be recovered. For example, a popular passage says that the alcoholic is never cured, and only ever gets a daily reprieve from alcoholism by God. This is one of many contradictions found in AA’s Big Book and thus throughout the entire recovery industry. Regardless, the overall view that came to reign in the recovery world was the idea that you could never get over your substance use problem permanently.
Then on point two, Jerry and Mark constantly promoted the idea, in numerous ways, that you could be tremendously happy to let go of a heavy substance use habit. This gets right to the heart of the issue of choice. The recovery industry tells you that you simply must quit substances because it’s the right thing to do, because you owe it to your family, because drugs are bad, because you will end up in jails, institutions and early death if you don’t quit. Quitting thus becomes a duty or obligation, something that you are scared, panicked, and coerced into doing. But in The Freedom Model approach, we choose to focus on the positive reasons for change. We look at and critically examine the perceived benefits of substance use, and also look at the benefits of abstinence and adjusted substance use patterns. We orient our guests and readers away from panic and fear, and toward a positive choice made in pursuit of real benefits. That is to say, we explore the possibility of being happy to choose to change – instead of feeling forced to change by fear, threats, and panic. It’s a massive difference.
Of course, there will be some 12 Step purists who argue that my characterization here is untrue. They might point to “the promises” of AA and other 12 Step programs (or other passages) as an example of how change is portrayed as a positive in the recovery world. This could be a long debate, and I will concede there is definitely some positivity there. However, the promises are mostly about how you will feel if you admit all of your wrongdoings and focus on a spiritual lifestyle living out the moral code prescribed in the Big Book, and essentially have a religious conversion experience. This might be highly effective for some highly spiritual/religious people, but it doesn’t really get to the heart of the matter for most, which is directly about the perceived effects of substances. And even if the Big Book text did get to the real issue, it would still be contradicted by the things said on a regular basis by recovery group members and in rehabs. Let me explain.
The real issue is that people only use drugs and alcohol excessively because they have an exaggerated view of the utility/benefits of drugs and alcohol. Alcohol, for example is seen as both a stimulant (gets you riled up to party), and a sedative (calms you down and relieves stress). It’s seen as needed for pleasure and for self-medication of emotional pain, and more. These views are popular, and to the “alcoholic” they are sacred – he sees alcohol as an all-purpose magical elixir. As long as he sees alcohol in this way, he also sees the prospect of drinking less or quitting as a state of loss or deprivation. When he reaches the point where a day without alcohol is seen as unbearable or painful, he doesn’t just see it as one of many valid means of leisure or recreation. He sees it as his lifeline.
The recovery industry never questions this view of alcohol or any other drug, and in fact, they unwittingly promote this view. For example, it would seem logical when people say they drink/drug to quell stress and anxiety to simply offer people treatment for their stress and anxiety. And indeed that’s what is routinely done in addiction treatment programs. Now I won’t argue that seeking to deal with one’s stress and anxiety is bad, it’s surely a good. However, the notion that you must constantly be applying the most technologically advanced approach to stress and anxiety or else you’ll end up drinking, is dangerous. More importantly, it validates the view that drugs and alcohol are effective stress/anxiety medicines. So people leave treatment believing that substances are such effective and necessary stress relievers that they must get a better stress reliever, or else they won’t be able to resist turning back to substances when stressed. This message needs to be blown up, and we do that in the Freedom Model.
Then, the everyday statements by fellow support group members or prominent recovery celebrities/gurus do the same. Take for example Russell Brand, one of the most vocal 12 Step celebrities of recent years. Here’s a statement he made, which is typical of what you’ll hear in treatment programs and support meetings such AA/NA:
“I cannot accurately convey the efficiency of heroin in neutralising pain. It transforms a tight white fist into a gentle brown wave”
That was in an article for The Spectator where he explained how a relationship problem sent him into massive craving for heroin even though he’d been sober for 10 years at the time. He also discussed the feelings he had after watching documentary footage of himself smoking heroin from back when he had a drug problem:
…I felt envious of this earlier version of myself, unencumbered by the burden of abstinence. I sat in a suite at the Savoy hotel, in privilege, resenting the woeful ratbag I once was who, for all his problems, had drugs.
Luckily for Brand, he stays away from heroin even while he romanticizes it and lusts after it, and even though he sees his own abstinence as a burden. But for most people, this way of seeing substances leaves them with a constant nagging desire for substances that they eventually fulfill. Seeing abstinence as a burden makes it hard to sustain for most people. For many more, regularly hearing such things and the general attitude they’re part of, makes quitting a substance use a non-starter – they never even make any progress in addressing their substance use when they see it this wasy. Why would you quit/reduce your substance use if you can’t find a way to see that as a genuinely happier choice than continuing an excessive substance use habit?
Jerry and Mark have always portrayed ending an excessive substance use habit as having the potential for far greater happiness. That’s what reeled me in when I went to the retreat back in 2002 after five years of struggling to “get into/maintain recovery” from “heroin addiction” in the treatment and support group world. The way they opened minds to the possibility of greater happiness at the Freedom Model Retreats has changed and evolved in important ways over the years, but it has always been an element of their approach. I always thought a life without my precious drugs was going be to unbearable and a constant state of deprivation, and they showed me I wouldn’t be losing a damn thing and that I could be happier if changed.
Jerry is in partial retirement now, and I’m lucky to be able to carry the torch of The Freedom Model Retreats with Mark Scheeren and Michelle Dunbar, with whom I co-authored the latest textbook for this wonderful organization. I love helping to let people know that:
- They are not defective, diseased, or disordered, and can and will get over their substance use problem.
- They can be happier in short order when they make the choice to adjust/quit substance use.
Those two simple yet radical propositions make the backbone of everything that we do. Instead of showing people how to wage an ongoing battle against a fictitious disease, we show people how to problem-solve, and make a choice that they’re happy about and motivated to follow through on. Notice I said I co-authored a textbook too, it’s important. At the Freedom Model Retreats, we DO NOT TREAT ADDICTION. The people who attend our retreats are called guests – not patients or clients. They don’t have counseling sessions or therapy – they have classes. They are provided with an environment in which they are not seen as diseased addicts or alcoholics, but instead seen as fully capable people who can clear up any confusions they have surrounding substance use, and make new decisions with new information. Here you can see how proposition number one effects the entire way we help people.
There are many other ways these two propositions effect how we help, but I’ve already gone too long in this post. If you want a truly radical approach to substance use problems that works, and makes change a pleasure rather than painful, I hope you’ll consider the Freedom Model Retreats, or the online classes we offer. And if you’re on a super tight budget, we also have a solution that costs next to nothing – our book, The Freedom Model for Addictions: Escape the Treatment and Recovery Trap. We worked extra hard to make sure that book gives all the helpful information that a conscientious reader needs to sort out and solve their substance use problem once and for all, with no need for ongoing “aftercare”, meetings, or any such thing. We help people to solve problems and move on. We do not wish to be any part of the treatment system that sets people up for a lifetime of institutionalization. You’ll understand this if you read the book.
