Drug Rehab Options Blog

I started drinking at the ripe young age of 9 or 10 years old,i cannot really remember when exactly but i remember loving it and even being aware that there were people in my family most of us actually who already had a problem with alcohol so i remember making a concious decision to grow up and become an alcoholic,i thought it would make me cool. like most other folks in alcoholics anonymous,i was never comfortable in my own skin and always wanted nothing more than to be accepted. i even went so far as to get a little bit older and become a gang member,thats how much i needed acceptance from my fellows. alcohol among many other things allowed me to wear someone elses skin other than my own,i had developed a strong social coping mechanism, and i was not prepared to throw it away anytime soon. little did i know that alcohol and other things would rob me of everything i held near and dear to my heart, and as time went on my family wanted no part of me, i had lost countless jobs, good friends who cared about me and even a place to rest my head at night oh and it got even worse, i lost my freedom on several occasions. then i found alcoholics anonymous after a few trips behind bars and a whole lot of suffering. i went to countless rehabilitation centers and i finally realized that i did not want to go on to the bitter ends, more jails and institutions and even death. since i have been sober (06/29/2007), i have gone to quite a few funerals already and god willing i wasnt the one taking a dirt nap. my life today is better than it has ever been and i thank god on a daily basis for that. today i have good friends and my family back in my life. i even have a wonderful woman in my life and a couple part time jobs. i am also going to school to become an alcohol and drug counselor. what more could a seemingly hopeless alcoholic ask for? God, thank you for alcoholics anonymous!!!:praying

I was taught that any time the Big Book speaks of new insight, prosperity or spiritual growth that it is a "Promise". By that standard there is supposed to be over 300 Promise in the 4th Edition including the stories in the back. I have found that there at least 4 places where cluster of promises can be found;

- 2nd Step Promises (Page 50)
They flatly declare that since they have come to believe in a Power greater than themselves, to take a certain attitude toward that Power, and to do certain simple things. There has been a revolutionary change in their way of living and thinking. In the face of collapse and despair, in the face of the total failure of their human resources, they found that a new power, peace, happiness, and sense of direction flowed into them.

- 5th Step Promises (Page 75)
Once we have taken this step, withholding nothing, we are delighted. We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us. We begin to feel the nearness of our Creator.
We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly. We feel we are on the Broad Highway, walking hand in hand with the Spirit of the Universe.

- 9th Step Promises (Page83)
If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

- 10th Step Promises (Page 84)
And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone â??even alcohol.
For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutralityâ??safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.

I need some advice from you guys.

I smoke pot for pain, it helps me tremendously. Its much better than the pain killers they give me which mess up my stomach a lot.

Even though I use pot for pain, I feel that it has slowly moved into my life and now it is a big part of my life.

I definitely don't want it to be that big in life. I also cannot stop the use completely, due to my back problem.

I have tried to find alternatives for my pain. My L5S1 is totally slipped onto my sciatic nerve. I have already had one surgery, but they didnt completely remove the disk so its still there.

If I loose weight my back pain gets better, but its hard to loose weight when I am in pain, because I am smoking and taking some medication for which I need to eat a good meal not get an upset stomach.

Anyhow I am feeling extremely trapped in this cycle. I just want to break it and start fresh.

I do take 100mg zoloft daily for anxiety issues.


Thank you so much in advance. MUCH LOVE AND RESPECT for ALL YOU GOOD PEOPLE

Concerning Depression
Bill W's Letter to a Member Concerning Depression
The following excerpts from a letter of Bill Wilson's was quoted in the
memoirs of Tom Pike, and early California AA member. Tom did not use the
name of the person addressed -- perhaps because he was still living.
Tom said:
Here in part is what Bill Wilson wrote in 1958 to a close friend who
shared his problem with depression, describing how Bill himself used St.
Francis's prayer as a steppingstone toward recovery:
Dear ...
I think that many oldsters who have put our AA "booze cure" to severe but
successful tests still find they often lack emotional sobriety. Perhaps
they will be the spearhead for the next major development in AA ... the
development of much more real maturity and balance (which is to say,
humility) in our relations with ourselves, with our fellows, and with God.
How to translate a right mental conviction into a right emotional result
and so into easy, happy, and good living ... well, that's not only the
neurotic's problem, it's the problem of life itself for all of us who
have got to the point of real willingness to hew to right principles in
all our affairs.
Even then, as we hew away, peace and joy may still elude us. That's the
place so many of us AA oldsters have come to. And it's a hell of a spot,
literally.
Last autumn, depression, having no really rational cause at all, almost
took me to the cleaners. I began to be scared that I was in for another
long chronic spell. Considering the grief I've had with depressions, it
wasn't a bright prospect.
I kept asking myself, "Why can't the Twelve Steps work to release
depression?" By the hour, I stared at the St. Francis prayer ... "It is
better to comfort than to be comforted." Here was the formula, all right,
but why didn't it work?
Suddenly I realized what the matter was ... My basic flaw had always been
dependence, almost absolute dependence on people or circumstances to
supply me with prestige, security, and the like. Failing to get these
things according to my perfectionist dreams and specifications, I had
fought for them. And when defeat came so did my depression.
There wasn't a chance of making the outgoing love of St. Francis a
workable and joyous way of life until these fatal and almost absolute
dependencies were cut away.
Reinforced by what grace I could secure in prayer, I found I had to exert
every ounce of will and action to cut off these faulty emotional
dependencies upon people, upon AA, indeed upon any set of circumstances
whatsoever.
Then only could I be free to love as Francis had. Emotional and
institutional satisfactions, I saw, were really the extra dividends of
having love, offering love, and expressing a love appropriate to each
relation of life.
Plainly, I could not avail myself of God's love until I was able to offer
it back to Him by loving others as He would have me. And I couldn't
possibly do that as long as I was victimized by false dependencies.
For my dependency meant demand ... a demand for the possession and
control of the people and the conditions surrounding me.
This seems to be the primary healing circuit, an outgoing love of God's
creation and His people, by means of which we avail ourselves of His love
for us. It is most clear that the real current can't flow until our
paralyzing dependencies are broken, and broken at depth. Only then can we
possibly have a glimmer of what adult love really is.
If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find at
the root of it some unhealthy dependency and its consequent demand. Let
us, with God's help, continually surrender these hobbling demands. Then
we can be set free to live and love; we may then be able to gain
emotional sobriety.
Of course, I haven't offered you a really new idea ... only a gimmick
that has started to unhook several of my own "hexes" at depth. Nowadays
my brain no longer races compulsively in either elation, grandiosity or
depression. I have been given a quiet place in bright sunshine.
Tom said "Bill's word's of wisdom helped and inspired me and many others.
To those who have never been there, it is hard to describe the gratitude
that overflows in men and women who are delivered from the black depths
of depression into the light. As with delivery from the bondage to
alcohol, it is a hosanna of the heart that never ends."
1944 BILL GETS DEPRESSED
In Bill's struggle with depression, he looks for help outside of the
Twelve Steps. What he finds in psychotherapy and his relationship with
Father Ed Dowling will change his perspective on the Steps.
After returning from a three month tour of the States, during which he
and Lois visited most existing AA groups, Bill collapses into depression
and remains depressed for two years. He suffers from such episodes until
1953. Bill's depression is troubling to many AA's, some of whom accuse
Bill of not working the program. Bill himself also wonders if he hasn't
failed to practice the Steps. According to the official AA biography of
Bill:
Bill believed that his depressions were perpetuated by his own failure to
work the AA steps..."I used to be rather guilt ridden about this...I
blamed myself for inability to practice the program in certain areas of
my life.
From: Pass It On
Bill may see his depression as a result of his failure to work the Twelve
Steps, but he does not turn to Stepwork to get him back on his feet. This
may be due in part to the influence of Father Ed Dowling.
Bill meets Dowling when the man came knocking at his door in 1940. At the
time Bill is down and out, but still four years from serious depression.
Dowling announces that he has sought Bill out to discuss the similarities
between the Exercises of St. Ignatius and the Twelve Steps. During their
conversation, Bill confesses his personal struggles. Dowling, author of
the article, "How to Enjoy Being Miserable," gives Bill a new perspective
on depression.
Father Ed quoted to him, "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst."
When Bill asked whether there was ever to be any satisfaction, the older
man snapped back, "Never. Never any." Bill was to be a person who would
keep on reaching. In his reaching he would find Gods goals, hidden in his
own heart.
The Soul of Sponsorship
by Robert Fitzgerald, S.J
Therefore Bill's growing despondency is not a result of his failure to
apply spiritual principles, but a sign of his spiritual depth and
giftedness. According to Dowling, God has blessed Bill with an ambition
and a desperation that cause his suffering, but will also lead Bill to
great things. The solution for Bill, then, is not to search deeper for
moral lapses and confess them, but to press on and accept the suffering
as an inevitable fact. Bill does exactly that for four years until his
depression becomes intolerable and he seeks help in psychotherapy.
In 1943, Bill enters therapy with Henry Tiebout, who specialized in the
treatment of alcoholics and introduced Marty M. to AA. Tiebout's
diagnosis of Bill was that:
both in his active alcoholism and his current sobriety he had been trying
to live out the infantilely grandiose demands of "His Majesty the Baby."
Not-God
by Ernest Kurtz
The next year, Bill switches therapists, and begins seeing Frances Weeks,
a Jungian. Week's opinion of Bill is that his position in AA is causing
him to neglect his personal needs. Says Bill in a letter to a friend
regarding this insight:
Highly satisfactory to live one's life for others, it cannot be anything
but disastrous to live one's life for others as those others think it
should be lived...The extent to which the AA movement and the individual
in it determine my choices is really astonishing. Things which are
primary to me (even for the good of AA) are unfulfilled...So we have the
person of Mr. Anonymous in conflict with Bill Wilson.
The Soul of Sponsorship
by Robert Fitzgerald, S.J
Bill continues treatment with Weeks until at least 1949.
Bill's experience in psychotherapy has an impact on his understanding of
recovery and Stepwork. In two letters written in 1956, Bill suggests a
means for the application of psychotherapy to AA principles.
It may be that someday we shall devise some common denominator of
psychiatry...which neurotics could use on each other. The idea would be
to extend the moral inventory of AA to a deeper level, making it an
inventory of psychic damages...I suppose someday a Neurotics Anonymous
will be formed and will actually do all this.
In the second letter Bill suggests:
an inventory of psychic damages, actual episodes: inferiority, shame,
guilt, anger and relive (them) in our minds to reduce them.
both letters from
The Soul of Sponsorship
by Robert Fitzgerald, S.J
The end result of Bill's relationship with Father Ed Dowling and
psychoanalytic treatment is that Bill moves away from a Religious
Conversion View of recovery and adopts a Psychological View of recovery
instead. Bill's Psychological View will greatly influence his thinking as
he writes Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions , and so it will also affect
the future practice of the Twelve Steps.

Am I a real alcoholic? Can I always maintain control of my liquor consumption once I have started drinking? These last three paragraphs are here to help us decide for ourselves if we are in fact alcoholic. This definition of an alcoholic does nto include any of our stereotypical thinking of what an alcoholic is. This definition does not rest on "living on skid row" or "drinking all the time." It bases its definition solely on one's ability to always control one's consumption and one's ability to stop drinking altogether if a good reason exists.


Does this depiction roughly identify us? Of course, we don't fit this description exactly. Perhaps we don't expect we will ever exhibit some of these symptoms. Though, we never expected to be exhibiting the symptoms that we are suffering right now. If some of this description is too accurate to deny that it describes us and if we are having these things happen to us, perhaps we are alcoholic also.


These are not rhetorical questions. They are placed here so that we will ask them of ourselves. Our lack of an adequate answer to these questions, that ring so soundly of the truth, shines a bright light on our predicament.


Have we reached the point where little can be done for us? Have we reached the point where there is little hope for our recovery? Having arrived at the point where there is little that can be done for us, where is it that we can turn for a solution? Admitting that we have arrived at this point is the first step in recovery.

"So our fellow worker will soon have friends galore. Some of them may sink and perhaps never get up, but if our experience is a criterion, more than half of those approached will become Fellows of Alcoholics Anonymous. When a few men in this city have found themselves, and have discovered the joy of helping others to face life again, there will be no stopping until everyone in that town has has~ his opportunity to recover - if he can and will."

hello eveyone, would appreciate feedback on the following,the treaturer in one of our homegroups took the money of the 7 th tradition and went to use herione with it, he is now in a relapse, and started manipulations, and excuses that he is out of town, we spoke to him that we need the money to pay rent for the room but in vain. i met him yesterday while i was on the pool in my club, he had justed came out of the mens room, loaded, wasted, and he was in no state of mind.for me to open the issue with him he is an agressive character, and i see no reaosn to get into a fist fight, or try to force the money out of him... should we talk to his sponsor, while on the other hand,one of the fellows talked to him and said this is god's money, and not his to do as he pleases.and still no money back.
thanks for the feedback. i guess this is dealing with lifes terms.do we put the blame on the room secretary......
n.b the room will be closed due to not paying the rent, we announced that we neede fellows to attend that specific meeting, and put extra money to cover the loss, but still the response was low....

thankyou and god bless

Found this on UK site but the person who posted it, didn't say where it comes from.

*I guess you can substitute undereating/starve for compulsive overeating


The 12 promises of compulsively overeating:
1. If we are casual with this phase of our development, we will binge before we are halfway through.
2. We are going to know a new imprisonment and a new misery.
3. We will relive the past and won't be able to shut the door on it.
4. We will comprehend the word CONFLICT and we will know PAIN.
5. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we'll sink even lower.
6. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will deepen.
7. We will gain interest in selfish things and lose interest in our fellows.
8. Self-esteem will slip away.
9. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will SUCK.
10. Fear of people, and of economic insecurity will multiply.
11. We will intuitively know how to run from situations, which never used
to bother us.
12. We will suddenly realise that God would never have done to us what we are doing to ourselves.
Are these extravagant promises?
We think not!
They are being fulfilled among those of us who are still compulsively overeating - - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will ALWAYS materialise, IF WE OVEREAT FOR THEM