Questions From Newcomers: Why do they suggest 90 meetings in 90 days?
Ninety in Ninety
I never wondered much about this when I was getting started. It seemed perfectly reasonable, if I was supposed to be going “to any length” to get what they had. Of course, I was an extremely spooked — and therefore willing — newcomer, a blessing not always granted to folks early in recovery. I was convinced that if I didn’t “get it” I was going to die, and I had sense enough, barely, to see that my best shot was the program with the best track record.
However, over time I came to understand some of the underlying reasons for this “suggestion,” which in my opinion, is more of a Damn-Well-Better. Mostly, it’s a matter of exposure. To begin with we go to meetings because we’re scared, or because someone told us we had to go. At first they’re confusing, then if we’re at all serious about staying clean and sober, they begin to get interesting. Then sometimes, after a while, they get boring. People seem to be saying the same old things, always whining about the same stuff. The folks who constantly quote from literature instead of sharing about themselves begin to get to us. We haven’t yet learned that the things that annoy us about others are often the things that we dislike about ourselves. Maybe we start developing a resentment about the “God stuff.” Maybe we start looking for excuses not to go to meetings, to take that “easier, softer way.”
It takes a while for us to develop a philosophical attitude: that folks don’t go to meetings because they’re paragons of emotional health, and we shouldn’t expect all of them to sound like recovery gurus. They’re there because they’re scared, hurting, want help, and want to get — or remain — clean and sober, most of them. More or less just like us. When we manage to wrap our heads around that idea, develop a little tolerance (one of the first and most important aspects of that spirituality they talk about), and begin to really listen, we find that hearing folks talk about their problems and how they are handling them begins to help us sort out our own issues, and to absorb ideas that might apply to our own problems.
These things all take time. We don’t change our way of thinking — cemented in place by the insanity of addiction — overnight, nor does it stay straightened out, to begin with. Getting clean and sober is a process, not an event, and we move forward, back a bit, a little bit forward, and so forth. After all, we’re learning to change our entire way of looking at the world. How long can it take, right? Right. It take a good, long time, and it’s essential, if we’re going to make it in sobriety.
So we suggest “ninety in ninety” for a very good reason. The exposure. Having a goal like that makes it much easier to simply buckle down and do what we have to do for ourselves. We may not want to go. We may not like to know. We may want to hide in our little caves, or go out with our friends (not a great idea, BTW, unless it’s to a meeting). But if we have the desire and self-control to do 90 in 90, we may just find we have what it takes to make it the rest of the way, one day at a time.
Safety Margins
I came closer to using drugs last night than I have in over 20 years. My experience — totally unexpected — draws a line under the reasons that we have to keep our heads in the right place, have supports available, and the several other things involved in maintaining our sobriety.
Briefly, some unfinished dental work developed an infection, and over a period of four or five hours went from mild discomfort that was easily controlled by Tylenol to pain that I’d put at about an 8 on a scale of one to ten. When I realized it was increasing I had my dentist call in a prescription for antibiotics, but unfortunately they don’t work all that fast. I’m OK now, but for several hours I went through intermittent periods of pain that could have had me gobbling anything in sight that I knew would make it stop.
But I didn’t, for several reason that I don’t take complete credit for. I decided when I got sober that I would avoid narcotic painkillers whenever possible. I don’t keep them around “just in case,” and I make sure that my physicians know that I don’t want them. But mostly I made sure that the people close to me know how dangerous they are to me, and that they are to be extremely critical of any requests I make.
Now don’t get me wrong; there’s nothing wrong with painkillers when they’re actually needed. Thing is, people in pain aren’t necessarily in a position to decide when they’re actually needed. As a former martial artist I know that I have a high pain threshold, but that’s temporary pain, not pain that threatens to go on for who knows how long, and maybe get worse. While I might be able to tolerate more pain than some people, the fact is that I reached a level last night that I perceived as all I could tolerate. Only the barriers that I put up for myself long ago came between me and taking a potentially addictive drug.
Would I have been throwing away 22 years of sobriety? Of course not — on the face of it. But who knows what temptations to keep enjoying those feelings might have surfaced? What rogue brain chemistry might have been triggered that started up my cravings again? Is my “won’t power” good enough to put the stuff down when I no longer need it? Could it trigger my addiction to alcohol, or benzos?
I don’t know, you see. And I don’t want to find out. If the time comes when I need major pain relief, I trust my medical surrogate(s) to make the right choices at that time. But I’m an addict. My disease is arrested, not cured. I don’t trust me to make those choices, not even after all this time. I need to be certain that I don’t fool myself, and I need to make sure that the people around me aren’t fooled — by me. And last night proved to me what a very good idea that is. It was a shock to learn just how little time it takes to strip away all those layers of recovery.
I would probably have been OK. But what if?
Research on drug use goes down the toilet
Analysis Of Waste Water May Be The Key To
Determining Community Drug Use
Sewers don’t lie. People may be less than forthright about what they put into their bodies, especially if that includes illicit drugs, but a chemical analysis of what comes out of their bodies removes all mystery. According to drug and addiction researchers, analysing wastewater for remnants of illicit substances provides the only truly objective indicator of drug use patterns in a community.
“Whatever you think about drugs, people need to have objective data so they can at least have an informed discussion,” says Caleb Banta-Green, a research scientist at the University of Washington’s Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute in Seattle.
Is it an adjustment for children once you are sober?
Having a family member get sober is an adjustment for everyone. While we are drinking or using other drugs, our behavior and effect on other family members is considerably different than when we get sober. It is sometimes a shock to newly-sober people to discover that when they get back home things are not always sweetness and light.
We have written elsewhere about how unreasonable it is for alcoholics and other addicts to expect to be trusted, simply because they have been clean and sober for a few weeks or months. Children may feel that a parent was not there for them when they needed support. They may remember bouts of anger, even abuse of the other parent or themselves. They probably have their own anger related to missed occasions, sports events, a normal family life, and general absence of a parent whom they love and look to for nurturing.
The same is true of a spouse. In addition to all of the above, he or she may resent having had to single-handedly deal with responsibilities that should have been shared. These things may apply to older children, as well. It may even be that these members will resent the attempts of a formerly-ineffective parent to step up and fill the roles that they have gotten used to.
Some or all of these issues will exist in every family where a parent or sibling has been actively addicted. For that reason, it is critical that families undergo joint therapy, where issues may be aired and adjustments made in the presence of skilled professionals. Individual therapy may be necessary for some or all members as well. Without such help, the likelihood of further family problems is high.
Are there effective online AA groups and sponsors?
Q. Are there effective online AA groups and sponsors?
[The person asking the question is a public figure, concerned about negative publicity and broken anonymity.]
There are good online AA groups. Most, if not all, have provisions for connecting newcomers with online sponsors. Any program of recovery is only as effective as the desire of the individual to work at it. In that respect, an online program is better than no program at all, and no doubt they do the job for some recovering alcoholics and other addicts. Consider, however, that the purpose of a program is not only to keep from drinking. Recovery is about unlearning how to be an addict, and learning how better to function in the world outside of AA, NA or whatever program one has chosen.
During our addictions we learn a great many undesirable habits. We all lie, to ourselves and to others. We are all thieves. We may not take material things, but we steal time from our employers and families. We steal other people’s pleasure in having a clean and sober family member, friend, or business associate. We steal the time and resources of courts, social services, hospitals, insurance companies and law enforcement — things that are desperately needed by society to accomplish other purposes. We steal the health of others by causing them stress, causing accidents, and taking up space in doctors’ offices, emergency rooms and other health facilities.
We also develop dysfunctional ways of dealing with other people, with stress, with personal problems, even efforts to enjoy ourselves. Those of us who continue to function effectively in society still create our own little worlds of quiet chaos — otherwise, why would we be seeking recovery?
When we first get clean, the habits of addiction are still with us. We have to unlearn them, and learn other ways of dealing with people, the world at large — and ourselves. In some cases, we have to relearn skills that we’ve forgotten, or get up to date in our fields of expertise. We have to clean up the wreckage we left behind, and reestablish ourselves in our families and society. We have a lot to accomplish.
The Twelve Steps are a template — an agenda, if you will — for getting these things done. They work exceptionally well, at least as well as any other programs of recovery, and better than the majority. However, they were developed on the basis of face-to-face contact. Some “solos” have managed to stay sober by letters and (now) email, but the great majority of successful recovery comes from the meeting halls where we interact with others who can guide us.
Sure, some of that can be done online. This very article is one of the ways that can occur. But online does not put us in the presence of others. Online can’t hug. Online can’t look at our face and tell that we’re having a crappy day, despite our protestations, and call us on it. Online can’t give us unconditional love — because we need to see that in the face of another human being. Online can’t tell when we’re full of b.s. — nor can we tell that about the people we interact with online. Online can’t go out for coffee and a chat, or to a picnic, or just be companionable. We can’t call online at 3:00 AM, the midnight of the soul. Online can’t phone us to find out how we’re doing if it hasn’t seen us in awhile. Nor can we do those things online for others. In short, it’s a weak substitute for f-2-f meetings.
That’s not to say online meetings can’t be helpful, but in my opinion they should not be substituted for the real thing. Alcoholics and other addicts need contact with people. We avoided real interaction by keeping ourselves high and detached. Now we need to do the reverse. There are meetings for professionals, held privately, to avoid the issues of unethical media who no longer respect our anonymity as they once did. A call to our local Intergroup office will probably turn up at least one in our area.
“Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.” Sitting in front of a monitor, regardless of good intentions, is not being thorough. This is not meant to take anything away from the good people on line, but merely to say that depending on them alone is likely to be a recipe for disaster.
Amateur Night
Sunset 2011
I was outside snapping this photo with my phone, and remembered it was New Year’s Eve, and thus the last sunset of 2011. That got me to thinking about how it would have been, “back in the day.”
I’d have been getting tuned up for the evening by now, slightly tipsy (to the extent that I wasn’t permanently tipsy, there at the end), and making jokes about “amateur night.” That’s what we called New Year’s Eve, referring to all the drunks who couldn’t handle their liquor, and how dangerous it was to be on the road when they were rushing around looking for that last party where they could ring in the new. That didn’t stop us from getting drunk, we just stayed home.
Drinking surrounds celebrations in our Western traditions. I guess other traditions have their own ways of mood-altering to celebrate, and certainly we Westerners have a variety of recreational chemicals to hasten us on our way to “happiness,” but in our society alcohol is overwhelmingly the drug of choice. We take to heart Ben Franklin’s declaration that “beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy,” and on New Year’s Eve we don’t hesitate to travel other roads to happiness as well.
And you know what? That’s OK for most of us. The fact of the matter is that roughly 80% of folks don’t even want to get drunk when they drink. They get the buzz, relax a little, and then just…stop drinking for the evening. Those are the folks who walk away from a half-full glass of wine, an unfinished beer, and leave people like me a bit mystified and just the least bit annoyed. At most any celebration that isn’t held in a bar, eighty out of a hundred of the guests will drink that way, or won’t drink at all.
The rest of us — well, we don’t fare so well. One of the prime indications of a booze problem is getting more intoxicated than we intend to. Another is the ability to drink “amateurs” under the table. Both of those danger signs are well-known. Despite that, I managed to remain happily unaware for about twenty-odd years. But that was then. These days I don’t worry about things like that. I know that as long as I keep my head in the right place and do the things that have helped me stay sober over the years, I’ll be safe and happy this New Year’s Eve.
As long as I stay off the road, that is. It’s Amateur Night, but now it’s the other pros that I worry about.