The Program in a Nutshell...

One of my duties as a counselor is to conduct group therapy sessions for newly recovering addicts and alcoholics twice a week. During the first half of a three-hour session, I teach about the 12 Step programs. I am continuously amazed at how difficult this is to do for a number of reasons.

Foremost in amazement is the fact that few of the 20-24 people in attendance each night want to hear anything about the steps of recovery. The sit, blank-faced and bored as I talk about how it is that the steps of recovery can so completely change a person that there is no longer any reason to drink or take drugs. There are usually few questions and virtually nobody initiates their own experience with the steps. In many respects, this part of the work is a tremendous challenge for teaching.

I've tried many different methods of teaching the steps over the years with little change in the results. I've even abandoned the process of trying to teach about them with the hope that people will naturally seek out information about whatever system might be out there to help them overcome the cravings and urges to use drugs. That didn't work either. If one adopts the idea that "When the student is ready, the teacher will arrive," then it's pretty clear to me that I ought not teach about these steps to recovery because the vast bulk of newly recovering people are not ready.

But, there's the rub: There are usually a few in every group who are ready. It is for them that I teach about the steps they can take to emerge from the darkness of addiction. And here's why.

The 12 steps are a program of recovery for people that is analogous to a recipe. It is a method that, step by step, will transform a person from one dependent on drugs of any kind (and this includes the drug alcohol) to one who does not use drugs and lives a happy and productive life. It accomplishes this by outlining the way to make that kind of sweeping change. Here's the abridged form of the steps of recovery...

• In steps 1-3 we are given a gift of the ability to look at ourselves very carefully and come to believe there is hope for recovery
• In steps 4-9 we are given the chance to repair the damage that our lives of chemical abuse has caused, and
• In steps 10-12, we are given a chance to live a new life as people who do not use drugs of any kind and live life on life's terms.

The confounding thing for most of us who no longer use drugs is that many people who do use - and, who also have some remarkable negative consequences as a result of being addicted - do not see the wisdom in making changes in their lives. No, they seem to prefer to suffer. We call this denial, but it seems so much more profound than simply lying to themselves. It's really turning away from the grace that has been bestowed upon us through either God or the serendipity of life simply unfolding. For some inexplicable reason that makes this disease the most challenging of its kind, manu addicted people don't see the need to use this recipe for success in living a healthy, happy and productive life.

I guess that's where people like me come in. Our job seems to be to persevere through the denial, the indifference and the outright loathing most newly recovering people have for the steps of recovery. Our job is to try to make sense for these people that the suffering can end and that through the exercise of a few simple principles these steps are based upon they can change the direction of a damaged life.

All the best, Roger W.