So you made it to your first 12 step meeting…yeah you.
Should you be there?
When people walk through the door of a 12 step meeting, the assumption is that she needs to be there. The assumption is fraught with error. It could be flat out wrong.
Let’s face it, people locate a 12 step meeting then muster the courage to walk in the first time because their life is a chocolate mess. Their life is imploding and they’re in crisis mode. Does that mean 12 step is the best thing for them?
Many attend their first 12 step meeting because someone delivered an ultimatum. The message went something like, go to 12 step or I’m out. So person X walks through the door of her first 12 step meeting.
Should she be in the program? Is she even seeking out the right 12 step program? I’ll address the second question in another essay, but for now, lets’ focus on the first question.
People who attempt to enter a 12 step program (of any kind) make many mistakes. Here are 4 of the most common:
1. This program will put out the fire and get my significant other off my case.
The thing that will put out the fire is to thoroughly change your life. But that thought is too big, too intimidating for many addicts/compulsives to wrap their heads around.
As for getting your significant other off of your case, 12 step won’t do that either, not in all the ways that will ultimately matter; not in all the ways your relationship is wounded, dysfunctional, and broken.
Thinking 12 step will improve your relationship just because you are sitting in the room is what we in 12 step call “insanity.”
2. Because I sought out 12 step, it’s the place I need to be.
In 1939, when Bill Wilson penned the program we know as 12 step, he pulled from the state of art of that time. While much of 12 step remains unchanged; addiction science changes daily.
Addiction science informs us 80+ years after 12 step’s founding that 12 step is a tool in the sobriety/recovery portfolio. 12 step is not the portfolio.
The best recovery stories feature people who locate a therapist with appropriate addiction experience, get into the right 12 step program (and remain) and get a good Sponsor. Not one. Not two. All three. Together.
Addiction is complicated, sobriety is terrifying, recovery is hard. All of it is do-able.
3. 12 step will help me control my unmanageable life.
At the root of this mistake is a hidden error not widely discussed outside 12 step circles: people can, and do arrive too early. I’m not talking about meeting punctuality.
Embedded in 12 step is the concept of “rock bottom.” Here’s where it matters. People whose will and ego are not yet exhausted will continue to seek control over others, themselves, and their addiction while all three resist control.
Hitting rock bottom is the moment when you surrender. It’s tantamount to being in the worst car crash of all the car crashes that are your life to that moment.
As the wreckage, with you wrapped within comes to a sliding halt, comes the realization: next time I may not survive.
While this is the moment of maximum danger, it’s also when the truth lands on addicts: their lives and everything about them are unmanageable.
4. 12 step is a DIY program…”I got this.”
When it began, 12 step was a DIY program; there was no program infrastructure to stand on. This explains why it took so long to form only a handful of groups with people established in long term sobriety.
A decade after its slow start, AA eventually hit its stride. However, 12 step’s genesis story has not recovered a single addict. Here’s what has: surrender of control.
Simply put, you have to recognize that you’ve driven the bus that metaphorically speaking is your life, into the ditch. Moreover, the judgement and decision-making that put the bus into the ditch dictates that you are 100% unqualified to continue to operate that bus.
Once the bus gets hauled out of the ditch (stabilized sobriety), the addict relinquishes control (for real) and takes a seat — in back. With rest of the bozos.
If he was a good bus driver, he would not be here. Yet here he is. He don’t “got this.” He don’t get it. Yet.
In closing, 12 step is many things. In a single sentence, 12 step is a homicide prevention program. Paradoxically, you can arrive too early. Foolishly, you can believe 12 step will solve your problems. It won’t…it can’t. Reassuringly, 12 step can allow you to see your problems and some of the underlying issues. Absolutely, you are the only person who can fix your life — with good help.
If you’re still here, welcome to the group.
I’m Mig. I live in recovery. Eventually, it gets better.
Got a question, or comment? Email me at: the.recovered.life@gmail.com
