12 -Step Groups and other SELF HELP GROUPS

12 - Step History and Foundations ❖ Ideologies spawned from Christian religious sect “Oxford Group” ❖ Temperance movement ideas and concepts ❖ Connection to and between struggling alcoholics (Bill Wilson / Dr. Robert Smith) ❖ Founded June ❖ Conversation with Carl Jung ❖ Bill’s Spiritual Awakening...

Bill W. Reports: Lying there in conflict, I dropped into the blackest depression I had ever known. Momentarily my prideful depression was crushed. I cried out, "Now I am ready to do anything - anything to receive what my friend Ebby has." Though I certainly didn't expect anything, I did make this frantic appeal, "If there be a God, will He show Himself!" The result was instant, electric beyond description. The place seemed to light up, blinding white. I knew only ecstasy and seemed on a mountain. A great wind blew, enveloping and penetrating me. To me, it was not of air but of Spirit. Blazing, there came the tremendous thought, "you are a free man." Then the ecstasy subsided. Still on the bed, I now found myself in a new world of consciousness which was suffused by a Presence. One with the Universe, a great peace came over me.

Bill continues... I thought, "So this is the God of the preachers, this is the great Reality." But soon my so-called reason returned, my modern education took over and I thought I must be crazy and I became terribly frightened. Dr. Silkworth, a medical saint if ever there was one, came in to hear my trembling account of this phenomenon. After questioning me carefully, he assured me that I was not mad and that perhaps I had undergone a psychic experience which might solve my problem. Skeptical man of science though he then was, this was most kind and astute. If he had of said, "hallucination," I might now be dead. To him I shall ever be eternally grateful. Good fortune pursued me. Ebby brought me a book entitled "Varieties of Religious Experience" and I devoured it. Written by William James, the psychologist, it suggests that the conversion experience can have objective reality. Conversion does alter motivation and it does semi-automatically enable a person to be and to do the formerly impossible. Significant it was, that marked conversion experience came mostly to individuals who knew complete defeat in a controlling area of life. The book certainly showed variety but whether these experiences were bright or dim, cataclysmic or gradual, theological or intellectual in bearing, such conversions did have a common denominator - they did change utterly defeated people.

An A.A. Briefing ❖ Most frequently consulted source for help with drinking problems ❖ Approx. 1 in every 10 adults in the US has attended an AA meeting ❖ 2/3 of these have attended ONE meeting because of another person’s drinking ❖ Empirical evidence on 12-steps efficacy is sparse and inconclusive

Membership Stats ❖ Currently there are 97,000 groups spread over 150 countries with a total membership estimated at 2 million ❖ 1.2 million of these are from the U.S. and Canada ❖ As of Jan Canada reportedly had 110,449 members in AA (General Service Office of AA, 2007). ❖ Non for profit group

Anonymity, Open Groups, Closed Groups ❖ Three types of closed meetings (members only) 1. Designated speakers (one member will talk at length) 2. Theme meetings (all members are offered to speak about particular problem / concept) 3. Step Meetings (talk about particular steps, how each person understands that step, how it is being put into practice) Open group - any interested person may attend

Primary Purpose ? ❖ Provide its members with a program for ‘living” without chemicals / behaviours ❖ Carry message to other addicts who still suffer - there is a way to sobriety! ❖ This is done with a language an addict understands ❖ BECAUSE AN ADDICT IS TALKING TO Another ADDICT

How it works? ❖ “Mirroring” break thru defences ❖ See through the preoccupation with the “self” ❖ Spiritual growth includes self - but learn to be apart of... ❖ Seeing the “one as whole” ❖ Offered a choice: New life or Old life

Here’s the Kicker ❖ Requires active participation! ❖ Not passive attendance ❖ You have to work the program ❖ Accept you are powerless and your life has become unmanageable

The Bottom Line ❖ Stop looking for a cause and take responsibility for your actions ❖ Come to see that YOU ARE YOUR PROBLEM - not the drug of choice or behavior ❖ Lifelong process ❖ Research has shown that it might take a member 20 months before admitting to being member and 8 months upon beginning program to stop drinking/using/behaving

How it works (cont.) ❖ Challenges and usurps, ❖ Loneliness ❖ Uniqueness ❖ Provides and offers ❖ Distillation of Hope ❖ Predictability

Narcotics Anonymous ❖ Founded in honors AA - but is somewhat different - ❖ Its foundations are not so tightly bound to a religious group or temperance ideology ❖ Both programs though are ABSTINENCE BASED ❖ Identification of addiction is all inclusive - “disease” called addiction

Narcotics Anonymous (cont.) ❖ Some would say that NA is more spiritually based as opposed to God based (found in AA) ❖ God in NA - good orderly direction ❖ Difference may lie “within group” dynamics

Al-Anon and Alateen ❖ Born (1948) from a wife of one of the founding members of AA (waiting for husband to emerge from his meeting) ❖ Eventually became family support group ❖ Alateen / teenagers of alcoholic parent / alcoholic family ❖ Essentially learn or detach emotionally from parent(s) behavior and learn to love the individual

Support Groups Outside of 12-step Traditions ❖ Emerging in mid 1980’s ❖ A great deal of these group were made of women and or people who were less invested in the idea of god/spirituality or breaking down personality / defects ❖ Some are abstinence based some are not ❖ Some are groups consist of women only / some are mixed ❖ You can belong to 12-Steps if you so chose as an adjunct

Common Traits of other Support Groups ❖ More Psychological in Nature ❖ CBT orientated ❖ Some groups are advised by mental heath professionals ❖ More individually driven - “You have the potential within you to not use” ❖ Challenge marginalization / oppression / depression / guilt / build self-esteem ❖ Encouraged to leave group when you feel you have recovered ❖ Build upon current life strengths / what is positive now

❖ The 12 Steps of ❖ Alcoholics Anonymous

❖ Step 1 - We admitted we powerless over alcohol that our lives had become unmanageable ❖ Step 2 - Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity ❖ ❖ Step 3 - Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him ❖ ❖ Step 4 - Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves ❖ ❖ Step 5 - Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs ❖ ❖ Step 6 - Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character ❖ ❖ Step 7 - Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings ❖ ❖ Step 8 - Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all 12 STEPS OF ALCOHOLIC ANONYMOUS

Step 9 - Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others Step 10 - Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it Step 11 - Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out Step 12 - Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs