AA

AA drives the addict. The challenge and visiblity of the steps, taking it one day at a time, is the only way to achieve acceptance (and then achieve serenity)of this new life without their best friend. Admitting powerlessness and saying that life is now unmanageable, that first step, is a surrender. My client right now is conflicted with the idea of surrender; she sees it as defeat, and she will not be defeated. However, I believe that surrender is part of acceptance. It's strong. It's action. It's saying, "My addiction HAS defeated me." She's not defeated, she says. I could absolutely challenge her on this. What to her is true defeat? Is it death? Because she isn't dead yet. However, she's been in prison, she's lived in a meth-fueled hell, she's lost her loved ones, and her only child. A judge doesn't want her in that county anymore! I'd say that her addiction has defeated her. Yet, she still won't surrender. This could become a problem. The truest way to a final and lasting recovery is accepting this surrender, accepting your powerlessness. Her life is UNMANAGEABLE and everyone sees the drugs at war with her body and mind, yet she keeps fighting and losing, time and again. Four rehabs in one year, each time she's planning her relapse. That addiction is winning. When will she finally say, "I give in," and come to God, not rolling over on her side in bed at night, while saying her prayers-- come to God, down on her knees, begging and finally making amends with Him. The Steps have an order. First, you find God. Next, you find yourself, and then you go to others, in Him. Many addicts have not had the chance to ever know who they are. So many, appear in front of you, asking, "Who am I?" They've either been the Care-Takers or the perpetually Taken-Care-Of. Either way, what escapes, flies right out the window and into the night, is their idenity, a sense of themselves,...even the simplest question: What do you like to do? It's baffling. "What do you like to do for fun?" They answer: Get high. They know no other way to be. One gentlemen at the AA meeting talked about the idea of "wanting what you have" instead of "always wanting what you can't have." He has reached a point in his life where he has everything he could really want. His family, his job, his life is good. There may not be alcohol, but he wants everything he has. Every item, every person, every interaction--he's content in this. He wants his life. He values everything in it.