Recovery and the 12 steps

I believe that there are many pathways to recovery from addiction and that we all have to find our own path.  For myself I found I could get off heroin easily enough, but I never found a way to stay off it.  I tried many different ways: rehab, medication, iboga, amino acid supplements, different spiritual pathways, psychology, psychiatry, supposedly less harmful drugs, psychedelics etc. All of these things worked to varying degrees to alleviate my withdrawals, and to help me put down the drugs. But they could not keep me clean.  I am not saying these things don’t work or are ineffective: they can no doubt help in the early phases of recovery. And I have seen them work as long-term solutions for some people. Personally I always found that no matter how badly I tried or wanted to stay away, I always found myself back on heroin. The only thing that helps me stay off it in the long term is participation in the fellowship and the program of the 12 steps.

I do believe that there are certain essential necessary for recovery, whichever path we follow. I think connection is the most important of these. We learn to reconnect with friends, family, life, nature. I believe some kind of spiritual experience and reconnection with a higher power is essential. A change in attitude from blaming others for one’s problems and accepting responsibility for one’s faults. Practising gratitude for what one has. Nurturing the ability to really listen to others and to learn lessons from others experience has been essential in my recovery. I always thought that I could only learn from my own experience. Awareness, honesty, open mindedness, willingness are all essential.  A desire not just to put down the drugs, but to be a better person. Service towards the still suffering addict, and a general willingness to reach out and help other helps overcome the selfishness we learn in active addiction and our morbid obsession with ourselves and our own problems.  Another crucial point for me Is fellowship with like minded people. It reminds me where I come from and I can share my problems with people who truly understand me. Make myself vulnerable, and reaching out to others for help was something I could never to which is why I always felt alone and different.

The 12 step program has many critics and it seems the biggest problems they have with the fellowship is around the concept of powerlessness and the perception of the 12 step program as a religious one. Also there is the idea that NA because teaches abstinence it is against the use of all drugs. All of these stem, I believe,  from misconceptions and misunderstandings. For me powerlessness means firstly the recognition that I cannot use any mind or mood  altering substances with putting myself at risk of relapse. But also it means in a more general sense that I cannot be attached to any particular outcome of any kind. If I engage in any activity with a particular outcome in mind I will always be disappointed. Life or god, call it what you will, always gets in the way, things always turn out differently to the way we expect. I have found that all the fret and worry that come from expectations not being met and situations not turning out as we would like is unhelpful and unnecessary. We can only put in the action and leave the outcome to god/fate/the universe, call it what you will. I have found in most cases when we stop having expectation and leave the outcome to a higher power the results actually exceed anything we can possibly imagine.

The 12 step program also has nothing to do with religion. We encourage people to connect with a higher power of their own understanding. This, as I understand it, draws the individuals focus away from himself as the centre of the universe, and the selfishness of active addiction, with the realization that there is something bigger than oneself. A higher power can be as simple the group consciousness of the fellowship. It does not have to be God. I myself believe in the power of nature and the life energy of the universe. There are atheist and agnostics in the rooms alongside Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Jews. The program itself does not teach religion, but rather a spirituality which focusses on connection.

 The 12 step fellowship does not teach that all drugs are bad, or try and get everyone off drugs. Plenty of people use drugs and have no problem. In fact many in the fellowship, including myself, support the unbanning of all drugs, because it then makes greater regulation possible. What it does teach  is that my life became crazy and unmanageable because of drugs. The problem does not actually lie in the drugs, they were in fact my solution. Initially  drugs do make life more fun, enable us to handle the problems life throws at us, feel less alienated, angry, anxious and frustrated.  Some people are able to continue taking drugs in a moderate way throughout their lives without it becoming a problem.  The problem then, for me, the addict, is that I came to rely on this solution, and that I  needed to keep taking more and more drugs to get the same feeling. The drugs stopped working and I needed to find another solution. For me the program and the fellowship of the 12 steps is that solution. I know from years of trying that if I use any mind or mood altering substance I get reminded of the solution I found in drugs, and I want more.

As for being always being an addict, I believe I was an addict long before I discovered drugs. I always want more of everything, never satisfied with what I have.  Nearly four years  into my recovery I still attend meetings nearly  everyday. Not because I have to but because I want to and because I  owe my life to the fellowship. I give back by giving an hour of my time everyday to meet with other people like me, and to carry the message to those still suffering that, yes,  recovery is possible.  So  I am still a junky, but now I have a healthy addiction, one that is not going to kill me or destroy my life.