It’s safe to say I’m not the same person who crawled into his first AA meeting in a smoky church basement in Detroit, Michigan in 1982. I’m more than just sober, and much more than just a person in recovery, or one who has recovered from an addiction. Look at the lives of people who have committed themselves to honest and diligent application of the principles of the program, and you’ll find people of high moral and ethical character – people who have transcended many of life’s problems and seem to have a ‘design for living’ that helps them navigate hardships with alacrity. There’s almost an ease and calmness – some might say, ‘that person is extremely well adjusted’, or ‘nothing seems to rattle them – they seem unflappable in the face of some very difficult turns’.
Beyond simple storytelling, I’ve explored what else might be going on as people ‘work the steps’ and “practice the principles in all our affairs”. Seen now through the lens of my practice as an addiction psychologist, following is what I think is really going on behind the simple surface structure of steps and meetings.
If I look very closely at the behavioral changes which transpired throughout the course of my recovery, I find very interesting overlaps with practices and interventions used by clinicians. More, if I ask a clinician what steps they’d take to effect changes in the life of a hardened addict, especially given numerous different scenarios, as each case can be subtly different requiring different approaches, and I get a laundry list of behavioral modifications common to typical treatment modalities – all variations on a theme addressing cognitive distortion, faulty beliefs and self-narratives, and radical externalization and blaming (victim mentality). As a recovered addict with extensive experience (>4 decades) working to help others recover, I recognize and relate to all of that. Here’s where I see overlap and commonalities. Click Here or click the image below to access the PDF.
