Author: tearj3rker
Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2012 12:00 am
Yeah qhorse there are some people there for weed. I never really understood it because weed was never a difficult drug to quit for me.
In her case she came from a wealthy middle class family, and her parents sent her to rehab when they found out she was smoking bongs. The rehab just happened to be a 12-step rehab, told her she needed to go to meetings or she would relapse and die … and that’s what she did.
There were some other people in the rooms for weed, and even some who it was rumored never even did drugs and were just lonely.
The thing about NA and Suboxone / methadone treatment, is that in the eyes of NA being on Suboxone is no different to abusing opioids in addiction. We are all still in active addiction in the eyes of the program.
I was going to meetings while I was on Suboxone twice. Both times I felt pressured to reduce my Suboxone when I wasn’t ready. Everyone in the meetings felt obliged to identify as "reducing off drug replacement" because to not be reducing meant you weren’t in recovery. I jumped off high doses of Suboxone twice because I didn’t consider myself clean. I also wanted to be open to the program, and was made to feel that being on Sub blocked me from the miracle of the program.
What’s worse was that I found that attitude extended to other medications as well. I was told that me being prescribed psych meds for my bipolar was treading on "thin ice", that there are "no answers in psychiatry", that if I worked the steps the miracle of the program would cure my need for psych meds (even though when I was 13 months clean doing NA, I went off my medications and got sick while praying, doing a meeting a day and working the steps).
I’ve achieved more and been more stable these last 2 years since leaving the rooms than I had in those 3 years. Despite spending 3/4 of the days of those 3 years completely abstinent, every time I relapsed I lost EVERYTHING. I was so convinced by the program that if I picked up I’d lose all control, that I’d lose everything because I was powerless once I picked up … that when I did eventually slip up and use I felt so hopeless and powerless and a failure that I binged HARD. I even believed (because of the "rock bottom" idea they drum into people) that the ONLY way I’d get clean for life was if I hit my bottom and went to jail. After all I’d done everything short of that! (People in the rooms would say "well maybe that’s what you need") I was doing worse crimes than I ever had because I was convinced it would be good for my recovery. How fucking sick is that?
People joke in the rooms that 12-step fellowships are a "benign cult". Benign my arse.
I can say a lot of negative things about NA, and some positive things as well (not in the mood today though). These are my opinions as a person not as a moderator.
The fact these programs are still dictate these archaic backward recovery philosophies, perpetuate these ideas that we are powerless, that we have to hit a "rock bottom" … that we are shameful humans and that a divine higher power is the only thing that can save us from ourselves … and that doctors and people of science REFER people to this program that reeks of catholicism.
The best way to cure an addict of self-obsession is to let them talk about themselves in front of a room full of people? 
Instead of spending my days hanging around other sick people with the "disease of addiction", I’ve realised that for me the best way to get well is to hang around people who are well. And I tell you those rooms are no well-spring of mental health.
