12 Steps to Nowhere

Years ago, I suffered a loss so incomprehensible that I could not take the pain. I medicated myself with alcohol and tried to numb out the pain as much as possible.  For years, my drinking was never 'out of control', just a daily evening dose of medicine to numb the pain.  I started to feel this 'medicine''s effect on my mind and body and realized I had to do something or I would continue to numb myself into a slow death.  In looking for 'help', I chose to try one of the only methods I knew of, Alcoholic's Anonymous.  Although, my story was not the story of many 'in the program', I learned to do what people told me to do and 'look for similarities instead of differences' and slowly began to be slightly brainwashed by something that never quite 'fit' for me.

With lack of any other available options, I chose to go to a place where I was told this was the 'only solution' to my addiction. Before this, I wallowed around scared and alone, not knowing where to turn.  I entered AA, vulnerable and sad.  I did not know or understand that perhaps if I focused on my underlying grief and trauma issues, I could live a fuller life.  Instead, I went in to something where alcohol and the 'ism' attached to it, became part of my 'character' in this insidious way.  I struggled through in these rooms with concepts that never quite made sense to me.

I stayed because I love connecting with people; because I was lonely.  I stayed because a gentle man worked through the steps with me in an openhearted way, patient and nonjudgmental about my questions.  I started to heal a little, with time and with my own work, from the grief and pain that brought me here.  I watched some 'get it' and take on this program with the fervor of a Southern preacher.  And sadly, I watched some come in and out sad and vulnerable, thinking that no matter how much work they did, they just couldn't quite get it. Seeing these people who worked hard, but could not stay sober,  broke my heart. It made me wonder if there was another way for some and that instead of saying 'it works if you work it', maybe the saying should be 'if it doesn't work try something else because your life depends on it'. I started to question, more and more. I started to question many of the steps as they did not fit with much that made sense to me on a deep level.

I went in with help for my addiction and was told I had a 'special type of personality', that my make up was vastly different from the 'normies', as they were called.  This puzzled me as my experience showed me that anyone can become an addict and that many of these 'special' traits that were talked about were also experienced by people who were not addicts.  My pain and grief had led me to numb out with an intoxicating substance. This did not make me unique or different from people who numb out in other socially acceptable ways like TV or video games. My trauma, my grief, my resentments were things that were universally felt by addicts and non addicts alike.

When I struggled with depression and anxiety, it filled me with deep discomfort to hear others in the 'rooms' say that AA was the only way and to scoff at therapy and psychiatry.  These people were not the majority, but their attitude towards outside help could make a deeply vulnerable person ashamed that they could not deal with everything with AA and the 12 steps.  They implied that someone who needed outside help was just not working the steps hard enough.  I firmly believe that this is one of the most destructive aspects of AA and other offshoot 12 step programs.  It could be literally killing people who need more help than the 'program' can offer them.

I now know, from my 4 years in and out of the program, that I saw the great value that came from connecting with others with similar problems. For some, the connection to faith and spirituality was life transforming.  For others, it was a baffling puzzle that never made sense. I saw lives transformed in the 'program' and I saw others that floundered. Central to this floundering, at times, was this inability to 'get' the deeply patriarchal religious underpinnings of this program.  For some of us, those ideas and concepts just do not work and trying to shame us into believing that they should is just wrong.

I knew what brought me here was deep pain; pain born of many traumas, many losses, much grief. This deep pain was often brushed over and disregarded as self pity, or 'terminal uniqueness'. I knew that these rooms were not addressing a lot of these deep pains or traumas.  This questioning led me to being in these rooms feeling like my head was going to explode, but feeling I must because I was told I had to. I was told I had a 'progressive disease'. Some took this idea so far that they believe their diseased character will just get progressively worse even when clean from the substance. I was told that if I stopped coming, I was bound to 'relapse'. Furthermore, that it is a given with this disease, if I relapse I will start using the substance worse than I used to and probably end up dead, in prison or in an institution. I was not told that a great majority of people who have problems with alcohol somehow 'mature' out of it and either move on eventually to moderate drinking or abstinence with no AA or specialized alcohol treatment.

Being clean of this substance did not protect me from horrible pain. Being in these rooms did not take away mind numbing debilitating pain and depression. Seeing others, who had many years of 'sobriety' be just as unhealthy, sometimes more so, than the newcomer, spurred me towards more reflection on what this all meant to me, to others. Things become clear.  A weight lifted, and I realized that I did have a choice.  I could change my relationship with alcohol just as I had changed my relationship with food many years earlier.  The 'rooms' were not what I needed, and I was now more aware of myself and knew that if I was drawn to self medication and numbing, that I might need something else, not some archaic program that made no sense to me. Not a higher power. But, my self will, harnessed and aligned and learning to fight for my own survival.  My self will was not the enemy I heard it was. It was something that could actually save me; because without this 'self will', I would not be here today. Nor would I have survived all the traumas that led me here.

In this country, our treatment of addiction and mental health issues is woefully inadequate.  For years, we have looked in the wrong direction with both, believing that 12 step models worked well(when the evidence clearly proved otherwise) for addiction and that pharmaceuticals were the answer for mental health issues.  For both, it is my firm belief, that the key to both, in many cases, is unresolved trauma, loss, and grief.  Further research has proven that it is also social connection and support networks that make the difference in both.(which, to me, shows why 12 step programs work for a lot of people) Years ago, I would talk to a friend about things I found on the Internet that were anti AA. Her question was why rail against AA? Why not just do your own thing and quit being so negative? For me, the answer is this: if there is just one person out there in the 'program' that hears what I say and feels less alone, then, I will have done what I set out to do.  If there is anyone out there 'in the room's feeling like their head is going to explode, that they just can't 'get it', my message is clear: find other things that work. Therapy. Exercise. Positive social connections. Fight for your life. Find treatment for trauma. Find treatment for grief.  You do not have to stay with something that doesn't feel right to you. There are other options. We,as a country, need to quit being so backward and recognize that addiction is a multi faceted experience with many answers.  If we continue down the path we are going without looking deeper at many options, we will continue to see tragic deaths of people that truly believed they 'failed' at the one answer they had and that there were no other answers.  Do we really want these deaths on our hands?