More AA stuff.

[masque12]

Here is the original AA 12 steps. Below is my redaction of them, from a Left Hand Path perspective. Take them as you will.

1. Admit you have a problem, but realize that you have the power to overcome it.

2. Know that you have to do the work yourself, no force outside yourself can do it for you.

3. Make a decision to take control of your life, become the master of your own destiny.

4. Make an accurate assessment of yourself, recognizing your weaknesses AND strengths, and decide what you want to change about yourself.

5. Acknowledge what mistakes you have made in the past, and move past them, realize that dwelling on the past won't get you anywhere.

6. Ready yourself to change your life for the better, to repair whatever defects of character you think you have.

7. Work towards correcting your shortcomings, have the confidence to know you can change yourself if you desire.

8. Take responsibility for your actions, and make amends for those in the past where necessary.

9. Make direct amends to people you have wronged, and hold those responsible who have wronged you.

10. Maintain an accurate assessment of your progress. When you make mistakes, make amends, and when you do something right, reward yourself.

11. Seek through meditation and reflection to gain an understanding of your will, and to KNOW that your life is under your control. You have the power to change yourself, and no one and nothing can take that away from you.

12. Decide for yourself if you want to help other people to learn how to regain control of their lives as you have.

Comments

[masque12.livejournal.com]

Using is a choice. Addiction is not. Someone might choose to use, not knowing that they are predisposed to addiction.

Where is the transition? How does one determine if one is pre-disposed to it or not? I haven't seen any research that says there is any kind of evidence that addiction is genetic. About all you can say is that a family environment can contribute to it. Even still, there is a difference between using moderately, and using heavily, and if a person "is" predisposed to it, they most likely became a heavy user before becoming an addict. Once someone's an addict, yes, they have no choice, but they had to make certain choices before they bacame an addict.

Realizing an addiction is a problem and deciding to do something about it doesn't guarantee recovery. An addict is not powerless in general- but the very nature of addiction is that you don't have control over it. Gaining power greater than that of the addiction is the goal of recovery. You don't get that power just by deciding to recover.

First, I'm not saying deciding to quit guarantees recovery, but I view that decision as the first step towards taking control of one's life. They have to start with that. Whereas you seem to be saying that the person has power once they've recovered, I view the person's struggle to overcome their addiction as an example of developing power, and that sense of personal power is something that should be cultivated, instead of discouraged.

You're equating "powerless in the face of addition" to "powerless in general" and they aren't the same thing. There are plenty of functional addicts who have jobs, houses, families, etc, and also maintain their addiction for decades. These people are not powerless, but they are powerless in the face of their addiction. Often, it is turning to something perceived as "outside" themselves that turns the tide.

I'm not making that equation, that's how I perceive AA's position. The third stap says, "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him." (emphasis added) The various mentions of God, of praying to God to remove their obstacles, and other things like that in the 12 steps (http://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org/default/en_services_aa_sub.cfm?subpageid=44&pageid=34) seems to bear this out, as well as other things in the AA literature. I've read numerous accounts from AA members where the people are told to "Let go and let God," even when the issue under discussion doesn't pertain to their addiction, but to other problems in their lives. The Big Book tells them to apply the 12 steps to their whole life, not just their addiction.

This is not true at all. AA recognizes the individual's accomplishment and they even have little ceremonies to honor that accomplishment at various increments of time. The accomplishment is NOT attributed to god, and in fact, no belief in "god" is required in AA. The term "higher power" is frequently used, and every AA member defines their "higher power" on their own.

Higher Power, God (both appear in the AA literature), it comes down to the same thing, a force outside oneself that is keeping the person sober. It's ubiquitous in the literature, and it's all I hear about from AA members. The little ceremonies may award the individual, I'll grant that, but the sobriety of the members overall is credited to something other than the individual, and that's the problem I have with it.

I'm going too long, I'll continue this in another comment.