RE: Does anyone belong to a twelve step program?
March 22, 2014 at 6:30 pm
(This post was last modified: March 22, 2014 at 6:31 pm by Phatt Matt s.)
(March 18, 2014 at 8:09 am)OGirly Wrote:(March 14, 2014 at 7:24 pm)futilethewinds Wrote: I just think it is reckless to go about recovery that way. My grandmother who I have posted about on these forums before has joined several support groups including AA, and she just reveled in everyone else's drama and let other people in the groups influence her negatively. It seems more prudent to consult a professional who knows how to get to the root of the problem and actually work to help resolve it.
The groups are what you make of them. If your grandmother isn't going to the groups with her mind truly set on recovery it's not going to happen. The group won't do it for her, but it will make it a lot easier.
I've found a lot of help from 12 step programs. I was addicted to both heroin and alcohol, and I can honestly say without the support groups I don't think I would have been able to initially kick the addiction; and without the added benefit of a lifelong friendship/sponsor I don't know if I would still be clean today. You can totally have a great experience without belief in a God. As SteelCurtain says you have to just find meaning/something 'higher' than yourself elsewhere. For me it was education and medicine, for my sponsor it was his wife and family. Pretty much the whole point is to just find something to give your life meaning.
I found reading Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" to be extremely helpful in my recovery process. It helped me make sense of the 12 steps at the time because my religious faith was faltering (thanks to my anti-psychotic I now believe), and I kept falling off when I tried to use god as my centre.
Yeah. Victor Frankl is an inspiration. He was in a death camp, his friends and family were being murdered, he was abused, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, malnourished, and in danger of dying any moment, yet content with life.
No nazi could rob him of that. I think it was Victor Frankl, if not, some other death camp survivor, who said that they were more free than the guards, and that while locked up, they experienced a greater freedom than before.
Much wisdom and strength can come from suffering
