"M$Man" <my_email@none_of_your_goddamn_business.org> wrote in message
news:u_0re.27286$J12.2948@newssvr14.news.prodigy.c om...
> I'm a 30 yr old man clean for 98 days. My drug of choice was coke, with a
> screw driver chaser to clean my throat after every line, I started using
> in college 12 years ago and was a daily user for 6 years. I spent 30 days
> in a controlled detox, while there I was forced to attend 12 step
> meetings. I see an addiction therapist weekly, who tells me in every
> session that I am only buying time, and can never maintain my sobriety
> with out a program. I have made several attempts to find a meeting that's
> right for me, but haven't. I am also an agnostic, and have deep issues
> with the theocratic structure of AA. I am a high-bottom addict I'm told,
> in that I have never lost every thing and been forced to live in the
> gutter and sale my ass for a bottle of Absolute. That's part of my issue
> with the program as well, its designed for people that have hit bottom and
> can go no lower, a jail house conversion if you will. While I did reached
> that point, that is, I became so disgusted with the unmanageable downward
> spiral my life was taking, I still managed to keep it together. Never lost
> my job, house, family, friends, and they have all supported me through my
> recovery.
>
> So my question is, are there people out there that have managed to stay
> clean and sober with out the program? Is my desire to stay sober and live
> to see 40 enough to sustain me? I think it is, I mean, I had the
> wherewithal to admit myself, and dry out, and have maintained for 68 days
> since I got out!
>
> Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks - Chris



Chris,

I'm interested in how you have done it thus far. Is it really "just
say 'no'?" Are you doing it entirely on your own or are you working with
anyone like a fellow addict or a therapist? Do you think that you were
simply physically addicted to the coke or did you have any other personality
issues that triggered using?

I never particularly liked pot because it made me tired and interfered
with my drinking, but coke keeps you up so that you can drink more. I was
never a coke addict, though, just a very serious drinker. Were you more
like a coke addict who drank, an alcoholic who used coke or someone who tied
them together?

I generally agree that whatever help one may find, the program or
therapy or whatever; that everyone really has to do their recovery for
themselves. For me, the program has been useful and I still use it. It's
not a magic bullet, however, and doesn't seem to work for everyone. It is,
however, one of the few visible groups dedicated to helping addicts.

Have you found any others? If so, I'd like to know about them.

It seems to me that much of addiction is idiosyncratic. Some people
seem to be just plainly physically addicted. Other seem to have learned to
be dependant on substances to deal with the pain or internal conflict caused
by other personal problems. It only makes sense to me that, just as the
causes are individual, so the solutions must probably be individually
tailored. I was more the guy who was already inclined to drink and had
learned to use it as a drug to deal with pain, who then went over the line
to drinking constantly because of unmanageable (or at least unmanaged)
internal conflicts.

I guess that because I think that the problem is individualized is why
I use as much of the program is useful to me and substitute my own thinking
for the parts that don't work for me. That's one of the reasons that I have
avoided meetings that are, as you say, more "theocratic" than I care for and
tried to find the ones that are more in the nature of mutual support and
assistance. One of the things that I do like about the program is the
commitment to helping people who are still out there poisoning themselves.

Please stick around and help discuss the nature of addiction and the
ways of dealing with it.

Dan