AA requires surrender and willingness, but suppose you are not able or capable of surrender? Suppose you are oppositional, defiant and rebellious? Are you doomed or are there other paths? I propose that many people get clean and sober, then get high again and state they have relapsed; but I believe that most people that relapse have never really relapsed due to their never having recovered! My reasoning goes like this, “Addicts by their nature or just by habit, do what they want to do, when they want to do it, with who they want to do it with, anytime they want to do it.” This means that most addicts that believe they relapsed never relapsed because when they did not want to do drugs or drink they stopped and stayed stopped till they no longer wanted to do “recovery” and wanted to get “high” again. This means that there was no qualitative change in their thoughts or behaviors, for they wanted to use drugs and then they wanted to stop and stayed stopped till they gave into the wants again to get high and then they got high. This means they are just doing what they want whether it is to use or not to use -it is all the same psychic pattern.
An addict has to change this psychic pattern by learning to resist their own impulse to not do something and then they will have changed, meaning: when they learn to force themselves to attend meetings or go to church, (or what have you,) then that person has changed. But any person who has never learned to resist his own impulses has never recovered and therefore could never have relapsed.
A person who loves recovery and going to those meetings and making coffee or calling their sponsor is someone doing what they want to do and nothing, more or less, has changed in any spectacular way. But the person WHO FORCES HIMSELF TO TAKE RECOVERY ACTIONS is developing strong resistance to acting on impulse and they are in RECOVERY. For as long as they DO what they DON’T WANT TO DO, they will be working to resist the temptation or opportunity to get high. The more we practice forcing ourselves to take recovery actions that we really don’t want to do, the stronger we become. We are taking the Rebellious-Defiant-Oppositional behavior and making it an asset instead of a liability.
Gerard J. Egan, LMHC, CAP
Program Director
http://palmpartners.com/training-education-addiction-trauma-treatment.html
