Leaving AA and other 12 step organizations is the first "step" in healing from trauma.
Is drug abuse self-destructive or is it a desperate attempt at self-healing? This is important because if the answer is self-healing, primary prevention is far more difficult than anticipated -- possibly because incomplete understanding of the benefits of so-called health risk behaviors causes these behaviors to be viewed as irrational acts that have only negative consequences. Does this incomplete view of drug abuse leave us mouthing cautionary platitudes instead of understanding the cause of our intractable health problems?
Dr. Vincent Felitt
My response follows:
Often troublesome drug or alcohol use is is a form of healing from trauma an thus not addiction nor alcoholism, whatever meaning you give those terms, at all. They are often a self destructive form of self healing trauma.
In this culture we call it drug abuse and thus stigmatize the only available therapy for many trauma survivors.
12 step cults offer fellowship in return for increased stigmatization and abuse. Nothing is ever really free. There is a price for membership in the 12 step cult religions. The trauma survivor , willing to do anything for love, and conditioned to accept stigmatization and abuse as the price of existence, is a natural prey for these cults.
The cults themselves need what they call chronic relapsers to look down on, and strange as this may sound, justify the cult's existence by re-traumatizing these victims. The re-traumatization of the so called "chronic relapser" causes them to experience an endless downword spiral, which the cult members call "recovery" while inviting the trauma survivor to "keep coming back".
But what are these fanatical religious cult members really saying to the trauma survivor? It is as if they are saying keep coming back one day you'll get it and that proves our cult is effective "treatment". However, this invitation amounts to the cult's own definition of insanity, i.e., doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.
The only and the most difficult healing "step" for the turama survivor is to dig deep for that last bit of autonomy and walk away from the damning and damaging cult. Doing this is victory. In fact it is the only service or healing provided to the truama survivor by the cult.
Finding their autonomy and walking away from toxic people is the beginning of healing for the trauma survivor.
Contrast this to the posting yesterday in psychology today on Sobriety v. Recovery -- a nonsensical waste of ink. One must remember that psychology today is a popular magazine posing as a scientific journal. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-high-functioning-alcoholic/201005/being-sober-versus-being-in-recovery
Copyright 2017 Fred Celio
Very well put. Thank you!
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