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God Bless Those who Protect our Liberty
Past, Present and Future.
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Posted on 10/12/2003 8:08:10 PM PDT by Prospero
Addiction
Apparently from ancient Greek, the Greek of Saul of Tarsus and the other writers of the New Testament: Addika, perhaps best translated into idiomatic American English as ‘wrongful use.’
When Bill Wilson, the original author of the book Alcoholics Anonymous, outlying the suggested steps to recovery discovered by The Dayton Group in the 1930’s the modern concept of addiction, as a disease or otherwise, was nonexistent. There were no rehabilitation centers, and a diagnosis of alcoholism was a death sentence.
Better poets and better minds have heaped praise on the founders of the Ohio fellowship that soon became known by the name of their book, and better histories have documented the phenomenal growth and success of that fellowship and the millions upon millions who survived, thrived, and ultimately exceeded all their expectations of life without their drug of choice.
Alcohol is the granddaddy of all addictive chemicals. It’s interesting to note that the founders of AA began their dangerous drinking during prohibition.
(And another side question: Why was it necessary to amend the Constitution to allow Congress to prohibit Alcohol with the Volsted Act?)
Regardless, misunderstandings of Alcoholism and addictions in general have followed after efforts to diagnose and facilitate recovery. The emotional content is understandable, with the affect of families leading to the implementation of AlAnon. The suggested steps to recovery have aided the survival and recovery of people suffering from an incredible variety of addictive, self-destructive behaviors.
Many have become True Believers, drifting into orthodoxy and ignoring the admonishment by Bill Wilson never to criticize alternative efforts to arrest these behaviors. And there are no end to the critics from outside these programs who refuse to accept “the disease concept" or that anything less than will power can arrest the progression.
Popular misunderstanding of addicts ebbs and flows, but one watershed moment in increased awareness has to have been the admission of First Lady Betty Ford that she was addicted to Alcohol and prescription medicine in the middle 1970’s. Later, there followed those who risked the reputation of the AA program by publicly admitting they were ‘recovering alcoholics’ like Buzz Aldrin and Dick Van Dyke.
(Many do not know that the anonymity component of AA and its offshoots is as important to the reputation of the program as it to the protection of individual reputations.)
Those very public recoveries came at a time when AA alone had an estimated membership of more than 10 million in the United States alone. That membership has continued to swell, and the admission of a need for help has come increasingly before lives were already destroyed. Betty Ford can also be credited with popularizing the concept of ‘poly-addiction,’ the addiction to substances other than alcohol.
It became, for a very few and for a very brief time, almost fashionable to attend rehab and to flirt with recovery. But, even the activities of ‘tourists’ often bring many to eventual recovery or to the end of real anti-social behaviors. As some ‘old timers’ will tell you, exposure to healthy sobriety can sure spoil your drinking.
As the years since Betty Ford began her recovery and her subsequent remarkable work on behalf of so many others, public awareness has, it seems to me, slacked off in many ways. AA certainly does not toot its horn, and neither do the other programs based on the original suggested steps. There are a variety of reasons for this, too many to mention in this essay. The success of ‘one drunk helping another’ is still marching on, counting success in individuals reclaiming responsibility and lives ‘one day at a time.’
Perhaps the admission by Rush Limbaugh of his addiction to pain medication is a new watershed moment. With millions of listeners, some of whom are as challenged by the stubborn unreasonable nature of addiction as Rush Limbaugh must certainly be.
My father was an Alcoholic. When he died in 1988 he had been sober for 13 years, through the grace of God and the power of the simple AA fellowship. I miss him everyday, but I’m grateful beyond my ability to express for those years of his recovery. During his last years of heavy drinking I longed for his death.
After five trips of rehabilitation hospitals, his moment of clarity finally arrived and, while we in his family waited on pins and needles expecting him to fall, he did not.
One chief characteristic of my father’s addictions is more than common among alcoholics. He would often say he had never confronted an enemy in his life that would not eventually be defeated through persistence and strength of will. In alcohol, he would often testify, he finally confronted an influence stronger than his will. That simple truth puzzled him even well into his sobriety. He accepted it, but it remained very difficult to understand that something so simple, so common could so corrupt his natural instincts for survival.
The disease was the subversion of his unconscious, he believed, and he marveled at the power of that natural part of himself that continually found ways to sneak its way into his thinking. One channel could be closed by reason only to discover a rationalization for that next drink surfacing in some other way, requiring a constant exposure to the fellowship to keep on the honest track to recovery.
The power of the human mind to rationalize, he thought, was incredible and infinite, requiring constant vigilance.
What is addiction? Science continues a progressing but woefully incomplete quest for answers, and those in recovery search for clues in their experiences. There seems to be some relationship between the physically addictive power of a substance and its fat solubility, the latter being a marker for that substance’s ability to transpose the blood-brain barrier. High on the list of such things are diazepam and its many family members, as are the opiates and nicotine. Such things seem to build homes for themselves in the receptor sights of the brain itself. The connection to the process of rationalization is less clear. Some things are physically addictive enough to cause fatal or near-fatal symptoms in withdrawal. What is clear is that the instinct for survival, and subversion of the basic instincts outlined by the Dayton Group: for Sex, Society, and Shelter, become twisted. Somehow the whole human being is driven by an association made between with these otherwise normal instincts and the substance.
An odor, a hit of memory, like the smells that evoke pleasant memories of a childhood breakfast prepared by a loving parent, triggers a hunger. It becomes as real a hunger as one might have after a day of fasting.
Where does ‘denial’ come from? Aside from an inability to accept and pass through the incredible astonishment at one’s own mind having perverted an instinct for survival into a drive to self-destruction, the natural human trait that kept hunters on the move long after their natural strength should have given way to weakness might account for out ability to twist out instincts.
But, more likely, it is healthy self-respect which, ironically, simply can’t believe that something so small as a chemical bond that is as common as dirt could possibly be more powerful than ourselves. Some say it’s ego and ‘false pride,’ which as a substitute for real self-respect, is very often as much at the root of an inability to begin and to continue recovery as is being “constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.”
Far from being what Ben Stein calls “a journey into self-obsession,” the suggested steps offered by the Dayton Group can be grasped even by those whose ‘bottoming out’ has been aided by having their bottom raised.
The shame of this mental illness, or disease, or a condition which might be as simple as any metabolic disorder akin to diabetes or lactose intolerance should be tossed aside. Those interested in recovery, forgiveness, the power of group support and the manifestation of the power of God in the lives of good people should be reminded once again that the strength for recovery is available.
As Bill Wilson wrote, “willingness is the key.” To the willing, the door opens almost of itself.” And willingness is nearly always of necessity.
God bless Rush Limbaugh, and God aid his recovery.
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God Bless Those who Protect our Liberty
Past, Present and Future.
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Joel's dad helped start a morning meeting on the Hill that may still be meeting.
There are a few 'room temperature' members whose anonymity he'd like to out... some surprising libs... but, alas. One should keep faith with one's friends, even if they're dead. Joel's dad's anonymity was freely given while he lived, in accord with the traditions of that fellowship.
My guess is that Rusty, if his rehabilitation involves one of these Dayton Group fellowships, will keep his anonymity out of respect for the traditions and to protect the fellowship, since the possibility of relapse might reflect unfairly on the 'program.'
Yes, I agree. "Ditto"
Nothing more unfair, therefore human, than addiction. Everyone is addicted. Some are more addicted than others.
Praying for you and standing by, certain you will emerge healthy and whole. Time passes. This, too, shall. You can do it. You are not alone.
Nice talk?
He was trying, however difficult to communicate, to get folks who can't understand to relate to the 'hunger,' to imagine how even great will power is undermined, often to the astonishment of great minds
I've 'been there, done that,' and far from needing 'will power,' I needed a whole lot of 'won't power.'
Book learnin' won't do it. I know. But a new generation of people need to understand addiction, and especially the subversion of the will.
One good thing about this whole incident, the crowd here that says alcoholic are immoral, weak people hace a dilemma. They can't say this about Rush. He is obviously not a weak immoral person. Yet this disease caused him to subvert his morals, engage in illegal drug buys, risk his freedom, risk his standing in the community, risk his family (Marta obviously was not onboard with the pill use), and he continued using after he possibly lost his hearing to this disease. All this by Rush Limbaugh, one of the strongest personalities this country has seen for years. Good bless Rush. May he surrender this disease and his life to God, clean house, and become a force against this scourge.
Better writers have pointed out that 'addiction,' perhaps even alcoholism, despite its obvious chemical, nutritional and metabolic components, can, in the end, be described as 'an exaggerated case of the human condition.'
You said it better than Joel, with less verbage
The mystery, the astonishment, for so many is how a great mind can be subverted in this way. How rationalization can even 'justify' self-destruction.
I see you've got a birthday coming up. Congratultions!
Amen to that. Sending up prayers for all who struggle with addiction, including many of my close friends and family.
Do you mean the Oxford Groups (from whence came, among other things, Ebby's question to Bill - "Why don't you choose your own conception of God?". Both Bill & Dr. Bob had been active in them, but their focus wasn't on alcoholism.
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