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Originally Posted by Rasczak  Have you had any direct experience with 12 step programs? Where are you getting your information about them being a crutch and all? |
1. Yes, as direct as it gets. I decided after a fair trial of 12 steps it was not for me (for the reasons stated) and dealt with the issue myself.
2. a.) See number 1
b.) Through various friends direct experiences
c.) Years working in Drug and Alcohol field with direct contact with many users in every stage of addiction and post-addiction
To me, quitting an addiction is a matter of truly making the decision to do so, out of a genuine desire to do so. Treating the addiction as a lifelong disease you have to resign yourself to and deal with daily forever is not a psychologically helpful approach. Put simply, you are telling yourself that while there is an option to succeed each day, there is also an option to fail each day - which is a constant temptation and potential rationalization, and to my mind often leads to what they like to call relapse (the very thing it is trying to prevent).
Doing it because you feel "you have to" (and therefore reevaluating that decision constantly on at least the sub-conscious level) is not the same thing as truly making the decision to do it, then just doing it.
Exactly the same principle applies to quitting smoking from my experience. Attempts to quit because you *should* generally lead to failure. Truly deciding you no longer want to smoke enable you to 'just do it'. "Cravings" become an internal conflict of "I want it ... oh then again, No I don't want it, I just forgot that momentarily", rather than one of "I want it, but I shouldn't". The former is much more powerful position to be in than the latter. And after a time the cravings disappear. But if you are going to meetings and/or considering and addressing your permanently 'diseased' condition for the rest of your life, you are directly enabling yourself to fail.
All of which does not take away the fact that 12 steps work great for some people. One can't dismiss crutches as a therapeutic tool simply because some people using them may actually, without their awareness, not need them at all. And indeed there are some people, like Sherri by the sounds of it, who use it as a tool and eventually 'walk on their own'.