Category Archives: sobriety

The Anthropomorphism of Addiction

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Remember that we deal with alcohol, cunning, baffling, powerful! Without help it is too much for us.  (Alcoholics Anonymous, 1st. Edition,
How It Works, Page 58)(Emphasis added)

As we can see from the quote above, the anthropomorphism of alcoholism comes directly from The Big Book. For centuries man has debated the question of what alcoholism is or is not. Current American Medical Association dogma states that alcoholism is a disease.

The AMA

1. endorses the proposition that drug dependencies, including alcoholism, are diseases and that their treatment is a legitimate part of medical practice (http://www.ama-assn.org/resources/doc/alcohol/alcoholism_treatable.pdf, retrieved 12/24/11)

However, AA itself has never directly endorsed the idea that Alcoholism is a disease. In fact, as late as 1960, Bill Wilson stated,

We have never called alcoholism a disease because, technically speaking, it is not a disease entity For example, there is no such thing as heart disease. Instead there are many separate heart ailments, or combinations of them. It is something like that with alcoholism. Therefore we did not wish to get in wrong with the medical profession by pronouncing alcoholism a disease entity. Therefore we always called it an illness, or a malady—a far safer term for us to use.(Emphasis added). (National  Clergy Conference on Alcoholism, Volume 12, P199, Retrieved from http://www.silkworth.net/religion_clergy/01052.html, 12/30/2011 at 7:55 AM) (Emphasis added)

Entity? Alcoholism is not a “disease entity”? What does that mean exactly? I understand that Bill W’s spoke these words an eternity ago in relation to current thinking on drug and alcohol addiction. By giving life to alcoholism, by referencing it as a cunning, baffling, powerful disease entity we give it an unnerving presence.

How many times have you heard an addict or alcoholic sharing their experience by mentioning that the disease had its claws into them or stole from them or wanted something from them, etc.? I am not sure it is healthy for us to refer to our disease in human or satanic terms.

By giving life to the disease, have we not disassociated our culpability for our actions and the resultant effects on our friends and loved ones? Is that wise? Is it morally or spiritually correct? I don’t pretend to know the answers to any of these questions. I have no clinical training and am trying to remember to take my inventory and leave you, dear reader, to your own.

I have never referred to my disease as being caused by anyone but me. No cunning, baffling disease entity made me do anything. Some of it is genetic (nature) and some of it environment (nurture). The nature vs. nurture argument has long been debated. I believe that we are products of both nature and nurture. But that’s it.

So, devil, get ye gone. I’ll have no part of you nor will you of me. I have faced the facts that I can’t use alcohol or drugs in safety and am man enough to know that it was me in every flawed aspect of myself that wanted and did what I did to me, my family and my friends. Now I have to live with it.

Peace out,
M
In Recovery Blog Facebook Page

Progress, Not Perfection

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Progress, man’s distinctive mark alone,
Not God’s, and not the beasts’: God is, they are,
Man partly is and wholly hopes to be.
- Robert Browning (A Death in the Desert)

 I ran across this quote the other day when I was searching for another Browning quote,

Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,

Or what’s heaven for? (Andrea del Sarto)

and I thought they form an interesting pair in their relationship with each other and in consideration of my ongoing recovery.

They say that if you aren’t working on your recovery, you are working on your relapse and, from previous experience, I believe this is an apt expression. The most important part of the work is to completely stop what you ought not do. No “dalliance” with this step in recovery is acceptable. You’re either in or your out. Perfection, not progress, is the rule.

In every other aspect, recovery is always a work in progress. God and animals need make no progress, they merely are and that is all they ever need be. Man alone attempts progress, as Browning aptly stated. At ten months of sobriety, I have progressed exponentially during my ten months of sobriety. While progress, not perfection is the rule, my sobriety requires perfect progress. Therefore, my grasp must be within my reach or there is no heaven.

Peace out,

M
In Recovery Facebook Page

Romancing the Stone

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In Xanadu did Kublai Khan
A stately Pleasure-Dome decree,
Where Alph, the sacred river ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

 So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers was girdled ’round,
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Kubla Khan)

When my mind goes down to sleep, upon awakening it scares me to learn what thoughts I’ve wrought. Often I find that I have found myself romancing the stone – the drink or the drug – during my slumbers.

My dreams are not as fanciful as Coleridge’s (alleged) opiated opus above. Rather, they are chilling reminders of how my addictive mind can romanticize abuse when unfettered by reason. Often these thoughts occur as my sober mind succumbs to somnolence. With the last vestiges of vigilance, my conscience corrects my thinking for the while.

But then, in sleep, where free thinking occurs, I often fight a nightly battle against the drug and the drink. Sometimes, usually, I pick up what I ought not and waking from these dreams, I am less than refreshed. Throughout the day my body toils as if hung over from something spectral. How could something so essenceless so bleed my soul? I know not.

I have accepted that I can’t drink and drug in safety. However, In some dank dungeon of my mind, this other story plays nightly for an audience of one. Every day, I guard against the darkness. I can; I must; I shall!

Peace out,
M
In Recovery