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The General Mental Health Forum is now a Read Only Forum. As we had two large areas making it difficult for many to find, we decided to combine the Mental Health & the Recovery sections of the forum into Mental Health & Recovery as a whole. Physical Health still remains as it's own area within the entire Recovery area.
If you are having struggles, need support in a particular area that you aren't finding a specific recovery area forum, you may find the General Struggles forum a great place to post. Any any that is related to emotions, self-esteem, insomnia, anger, relationship dynamics due to mental health and recovery and other issues that don't fit better in another forum would be examples of topics that might go there.
If you have spiritual issues related to a mental health and recovery issue, please use the Recovery Related Spiritual Advice forum. This forum is designed to be like Christian Advice, only for recovery type of issues. Recovery being like a family in many ways, allows us to support one another together. May you be blessed today and each day.
Kristen.NewCreation and FreeinChrist
I have to share a book whose contents did what decades of trying could not. It's a book in Amazon called Addictions Spiritual Roots. It goes to the root of the problem. Psychologists and psychiatrists refer people to the author when they cannot help.
Yes, aa has worked for me for 30 years, I still go and help others, the spiritual life is not a theory, we have to live it. Drinking or using is only a symptom of what is wrong with alcoholics or addicts. If we don't continually work on our real problems, we eventually become uncomfortable in our own skin, fall back into self centered behaviors, separate from God and find a trivial excuse to drink or drug. It's as predictable as the sun.
Colter, I recognized you said this.....
"and find a trivial excuse to drink or drug. It's as predictable as the sun."
Okay, but are you aware that many individuals leaving 12 step programs aren't doing so for trivial reasons? Yes many find excuses to relapse, but this does not necessarily mean that a person has an issue with 12 step programs only because they want to use again. This should be understood by the more experienced members of any 12 step program, but I sense a degree of cockyness with some who don't understand that people do get better outside these programs. I've found some of the long term members to be snobish or prideful when it comes to those who don't believe what they do. Remember our last conversation? This doesn't apply to all experienced members, but I have seen it enough to know that even those with long term sobriety should always remember to be humble and compassionate. Many of the long term members are humble, but I think a sence of pride comes with some who think they understand too much.
What you call cocky is frank experience, I came to the fellowship of believers when I was 22 years old. I've been to the funerals of a number of people like you who were too smart for the conceptually simple, free program. You should apply pride and snob to yourself, it's you who looks down on fellow believers. What you call compassion is enabling. But sure, you will find others who are "of the world" or genuinely ignorant of the self deceiving mind of the addict, to support your grudge for the fellowship of believers.
I am more concerned about you then I am about your good opinion of me. I'm not one to lather people with false piety or some sort of phony baloney humility. Humility for addicts is the quality of remaining teachable.
In your current frame of mind even if you found a community of saints you would eventually find something wrong with at least one of them.
Addicts suffer from "brief enthusiasms." they go from place to place, people to people, relationship to relationship. Eventually things sour and they become "restless, irritable and discontent." The common denominator is not the people who have tried to help them, it's the spiritually sick addict. In their fevered brains they perceive the good as evil and the evil as good.
Again Colter, your talking about someone you know little about, you've grouped me together with those you view as sick. In other words I'm sick and not much I say will matter but I'll put my two cents in anyway. I've seen death also, and I've seen a type of suffering most people don't experience. I'm not just talking about problems with addiction, I've seen people at their worst for other reasons. As I told you in the other forum, and I'll say it again so you understand, you seem to need things repeated. I don't group people together and have resentments for a group of people, I differentiate between people. In other words, I've aknowladged that 12 steps have been effective for many, I've aknowladged that many long time members are welcoming, and I even have a different opinion of you than some of the other 12 step members I've talked to on this site. Members of any group or belief system are a mixed bag, that's human nature for us all to be different. I encouradge you to understand this about those you've grouped together.
This is part of what I was suggesting in my forum when I wrote it, I wasn't disrespectful.....
http://www.christianforums.com/thre...constructive-criticism-poll-included.7880727/
This forum was so important to me, I wanted to share my experience without being disrespectful to those who had found sucsess in 12 steps. However I did state in honesty what I experienced, I was expecting a little heat from someone for sharing what I did, most of my experience in 12 step groups weren't good, and I don't agree with the approach the groups take, and I know from personal experience that people are getting better without these groups. However In that forum or this one, I never went to the point of suggesting someone should shut up.
So as I said before, these are the 12 step members I have concerns about, or issues with, call it resentment if it makes you feel better, I'll actually quote what I said to you before ...
"The only ones that bother me are the pushy ones, the ones that lie about sobriety, the ones who fail to see that 12 steps dont always work, and the ones who primarily focus on what's bad."
So here's the way I see it Colter, I've talked with Ahermit, and didn't agree with much he had to say but he was respectful so maybe the group had a positive effect on his personality, katerinah1947 was very sweet, I'm not sure she's a dedicated 12 step member but she had good things to say about them. Now I've also run into a lot of 12 step members who remind me of you a bit. I'm not trying to be mean, but I do think it's Christian like to not throw stones unless your slate is clean. Being sober for 30 years doesn't change that, we're all siners. When I think of Jesus I think of a man who was humble despite his accomplishments, someone who had a understanding of things but also didn't gloat about it.
Gloat definition.... "contemplate or dwell on one's own success or another's misfortune with smugness or malignant pleasure."
I'm not trying to find things wrong with you either, you came into the forum I created and started saying things like shut up and don't be pig headed, you were the only one to do that, and I let you know what I thought of it. Colter, I say what I've experienced in 12 step groups because it's the truth, it's my story. I never went 3 weeks sober in a 12 step group, and in years attending these groups I never lied about my sobriety date, so I had to go into these groups and say I've only been sober a couple of days most of the time. I've now been sober 3 weeks, that might not sound like a lot to you, You've stated you've been sober 30 years in almost every post you wright. However what I've done is a lot to me, I'm cutting back my intake of sugar and caffene, and I'm quitting smoking as well. I'll admit I'm getting help to do this, but just not the way you found help. I'll be doing a forum on that soon too because I'm proud of what I'm doing and will need continued support. I've gone from smoking 30 ciggeretts a day to smoking under 10. 7 ciggerets so far today, I plan to be quit by Wednesday, and I haven't drank Kava in just over 3 weeks. Honestly I don't think the amount of time sober matters as much as how the person progresses spiritually, and intellectually. Those sobriety tokens handed out in group were not always an indicator of someones progress.
I'm hopeful, I'm believing now that things can change, and if I'm around the right types of people that things will be okay one way or another. I can make decisions about my addiction that benifet me, such as deciding to get on Chantix to help a bit. That was a choice I made regarding one of the addictions I have, so I think people do have the power of decision making when it comes to the addiction they have, I don't think anybody is powerless, and I think people can make decisions and have God guide them at the same time. That's another thing I said in the forum I did, I think God is here to guide us, not to control us. That's the way I view 12 steps, it can be used as a guide but from my experience most people will part from the program in some respects, and often times reject them all together.
I want to ask you these, you don't seem to like those with critisisms of 12 step groups, but are you aware that people are getting better without these groups? Do you see that they're not for everyone? Do you know that some who are critical of 12 steps are trying to get better?
Answer those one at a time if you want, maybe we can construct a more civil diolouge between the two of us.
* I have worked the 12 steps many times, therefore my sobriety is from God. I don't gloat for myself rather I glorify God and represent the 12 steps.
* The 12 step programs are free and voluntary, they aren't for people who need it, they are for people who want it.
* The meeting is where we talk about working the 12 steps (which is the program). The meeting is not the program.
* Being "in the program" is being in a relationship with God first and in fellowship with others who are also on the path of recovery.
* Therfore the program includes all of life, there is no "outside" of the program. There is the stubborn pride of still trying to do it on your own (which is the sickness) alone in the world, or getting help and then helping others in the fellowship of the spirit 24/7
* It has been my experience that people who are critics of the program have never really surrendered to God by working the 12 steps. They just go to meetings and look for flaws while they havnt solved their own problems.
* "Identifying out" is when an addicted person try's to find fault with the other sick people in recovery groups as an excuse not to go and face their own shortcomings.
* The addicts problems are mostly of his own making, you either need to face them using the 12 step program or face them somewhere else. But no matter where you go you will find people with problems to use as an excuse not to solve your own.
* Of coarse addicts are critical of the 12 steps, they shine light on the darkness. The 12 steps are the opposite of what addicts have been doing all their life.
* The people who you call pushy are probably people who care about you, who have wisdom about sobriety. Sure, some fail, some are still dishonest. Stick with the winners.
* Lastly, a healthy 12 step group would explain that trying to quit drinking and drugging is the first priority, trying to quit caffeine and nicotine all at the same time is unwise.
Big hug friend.
AA does works to free you from addiction the same way that alcohol works to imprison you to an addiction. The principle is the same and you're only replacing one coping mechanism with another, the difference is that some coping mechanisms have positive effects and some have negative. But the key here is to deal with the problem rather than just coping with it.