Working the steps

It works if you work it

~ AA slogan

The best way out is through

~Robert Frost~

The Twelve Steps of Recovery aren't a discipline.  They're a path. And working them isn't a workout.  It's a way out!
Unlike Rehabilitation ("to make fit"), Recovery comes from the word for Recuperate, "to get back" (as in to get back something lost, stolen or corrupted), and has its roots in the Latin for "receive."
With every step you take, you receive... a little more lightness, a little more joy, a little more freedom.
You don't need to be strong. The experience of progressive liberation will give you all the strength you need.
Dependencies, obsessions, defects and shortcomings- psychological and physical burdens- will then melt away like burned fat...
You just need to be willing to drop a load.

taking down and restoring walls

Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity
~Step 2, 12 Steps

The first obstacle to recovery is defensive denial. It's like a wall. Life is being smashed by a wrecking ball but the addict refuses to see any evidence of crumbling.  As he keeps using, the wrecking ball keeps pounding. Eventually, the addict can no longer deny the health issues, unpaid bills, and lost relationships. The debts he owes are mounting.  Still he refuses to quit.  Instead he begins to bargain, vowing to use less or only "recreationally", trying to trick himself into believing that he and the addiction can find a way to cohabit even though little holes in his wall are showing up everywhere. Progressively, without his consent, the wall between him and the truth breaks down. As in the third stage of grief, now there is rage at the undeniable reality that he cannot continue in this way without severe consequences. Something's gotta give.

As the wall collapses and the addict is exposed, if he hasn't died or ended up in jail, he is forced to surrender.  By accepting the reality of his demise, and with a true willingness to reclaim his life and integrity, the addict begins the process of recovery.  He seeks to be restored, if not to the exact person he was prior to his addiction, then to sanity.  He begins to walk away, free.

Those around the addict have their own recovery to undergo.  It is similar to his process, and equally hard, but goes sort of in reverse; reversing the 5 Stages of Grief.  They entered into relationship taking the addict at face value, as a real person, expecting availability and reciprocity; unprotected.  But, like Pinocchio, his promises were wooden and his heart hard. They tolerated unacceptable behaviour, and ended up a mere shadow of their former selves, a puddle of emotions.  Whereas the addict's wall hid the truth, they lacked one. They were vulnerable and exposed. What now lies in store for them, in their process of recovery, is rebuilding that wall, unbreaking the cup that held them, to restore their integrity and sanity. It is the reverse of the addict's process and begins with non-acceptance, moving through sadness and anger to ripen into the courage to make an ultimatum: they will partner again with the addict on only one condition, that he "proves himself brave, truthful and unselfish... and becomes a real boy."*.  The co-addict detaches by building a wall. This is their freedom.

*Blue Fairy; Pinocchio

ambivalence and recovery

A lot of people think addiction has to do with choice.  A lot of people think it's a matter of will. That has not been my experience.  I don't find it has anything to do with strength.
~Matthew Perry

I was relieved on the weekend to be at a conference that made room for ambivalence in recovery.  The conference was on eating disorders but what the speaker said could just as easily have applied to addictions. In fact, he used an addiction treatment model to present the stages of preparedness for recovery, and relapse was part of that model.

You see, recovery is not a straight line.  It's not a matter of will and people do not decide to get better.  They may hit a "rock bottom" where they say "enough" and decide to do something about it, and this is surely a defining moment in their lives; but getting better (recovery) progresses in stages over time, often two steps forward one step back, hand-in-hand with... ambivalence.

I know when I quit smoking I was a totally unwilling candidate.  I not only didn't want to quit, I didn't believe I could.  If it hadn't been for the support of my children on day two (!), urging me to keep going, I would have thrown in the towel.  I did not quit for me, like all the books say you're supposed to.  I quit for them.  Only later, much later in fact, when I had got enough distance from the self-defeating patterns of my addiction, did I stay quit for me.

So what does this have to do with ambivalence?

I think that we need something outside of ourselves to hold us to our path, kind of like the cable holding a streetcar to a power line.  I don't mean an external authority or judge forcing us against our wills ("failure is the enemy of success"!), but something stronger than my runaway urges.  And that something stronger, I think, is compassion, the very compassion I am lacking for myself when in the grips of my addiction or other self-defeating behaviour.

There is a scene I love from Nashville where Rayna sings a song to her alcoholic lover on his birthday.  Various other people in the show are struggling with runaway addictions.  Here is the song.  The lyrics are amazing: