It's a Health Crisis

It's helping me a lot to view alcoholism as a health crisis. Nothing less. And nothing more. When I went through treatment in 1988 I was provided a good education on the physical consequences of alcohol and drug abuse. I was 27 years old and despite many years of heavy cocaine and alcohol abuse, I was still in good health and my desire to live was strong. I had been attending some 12 step meetings prior to treatment, but I remember finding the program very confusing and as they say, I just didn't "get it". However, after going through treatment I got that alcoholism and drug addiction were killers and that I was quick headed to an early grave if I didn't stop. I became extremely motivated to stay sober in order to live a healthier happier life and I became willing to do whatever it took to ensure my sobriety.

In the six years that I remained sober following treatment, I fully regained my physical health. But there's a catch. My mental, spiritual and emotional health did not follow suit. It wasn't anything you could actually see from the outside; I wasn't batshit crazy or anything, but I ignored many an inner urging regarding the program that had been promoted to me as the cure for my problem. News Flash! Quick way to acting batshit crazy on the outside: ignore inner urgings. To be perfectly honest, it didn't bother me enough at the time to make a big deal of it. I was sober and I knew I was doing all the right things to stay that way.

But it brings up the AA concept of "attraction vs. promotion". What AA means by this is that they will be available if you have want of their help, but they will not promote themselves. It's a great organizational tradition. Here is the long form:

11.) Our relations with the general public should be characterized by personal anonymity. We think A.A. ought to avoid sensational advertising. Our names and pictures as A.A. members ought not be broadcast, filmed, or publicly printed. Our public relations should be guided by the principle of attraction rather than promotion. There is never need to praise ourselves. We feel it better to let our friends recommend us.

However, my experience was that AA was heavily promoted to me and I think that's not entirely AA's fault - the treatment industry became AA's new best friend and found a way to make a lot of money with a ready-made program. It was easy; a no-brainer. Send everyone to AA; if they don't grasp the program, well, it's probably their fault.

The tradition above seems in stark contrast to the one below, which states:

5.) Each group has but one primary purpose-to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.

I just saw a television advertisement for AA not two days ago. I could possibly see this as "attraction vs. promotion" if it weren't for the fact that virtually everyone on the planet knows what and who AA is and how to find them. So I have to wonder why expensive televison adverstising would be considered "attraction." Carrying a message sounds distinctly like promotion and I certainly felt it had been promoted to me at the treatment facility in 1988.

It's the same type of discrepancy that bugs me about the steps as a solution. Even if you don't want to call alcoholism a disease, no one can deny that it constitutes a major health crisis. I think for some the crisis may be primarily mental, for others physical and still for others spiritual. But every aspect of life is involved in the manifestation of the problem. AA focuses fully and entirely on the spiritual aspect. Maybe for those people whose primary manifestation is spiritual, AA works very well and for others the primary manifestation is physical, or mental (depression/anxiety) and the focus on overcoming resentment and anger, identifying character defects and making amends, is not all that helpful to a person who doesn't feel extreme resentment or anger and who is all too aware of her "defects of character". I don't want it to sound like I've never dealt with these emotions. Of course, we all have. But they just weren't my primary, or even secondary, emotions. The negative emotions that plague me are guilt and self-recrimination; much more inner than outer directed emotions. I suppose it could be argued that they are flip sides of the same coin, but it seems an important distinction in my own epxerience.

This all makes perfect sense to me. Which could mean a number of things, from I'm on to something here to I'm completely delusional. I guess we'll all just have to stay tuned.

Cupid's Shadow

For many years, Valentine’s Day and the week surrounding it was just a week of intense work in the family flower shop. And don’t think your small hometown florist likes it. It’s hard, brutal physical labor. It’s rose thorns and 5-gallon buckets of slimy water and last minute men desperate to have something in their hands when they get home. It’s commercial and frivolous and ridiculous. It’s anxiety producing, guilt-ridden and fake.

Working in a flower shop you pretty much get to see it all. Flowers are bought for celebration at birthdays, births and weddings; for remembrance when someone passes on or is ill; and for good old getting out of the doghouse every day of the week. But I always think of those Valentine red roses as our own collective sexual/love/romantic shadow. Maybe because I was privy early on to the commercialization of Valentine’s Day, because I saw how men reluctantly did what they were “supposed” to do that day, and how women measured their men by whether they did the right thing or not, I am not sentimental about Valentine’s Day. You know how some people hate Christmas? Well, I hate Valentine’s Day.

In 1991, I received 7 dozen roses for Valentine’s Day. A few months later I married that man. A few months later I left in fear for my life. But, those roses – well, that and the 1 carat solitaire hooked me good. And even recently I have been seduced by pretty gifts and compliments and the promise of a little romance. But none of that is the real, real thing. Sometimes the real thing comes without nicely wrapped packages and sparkly diamonds or compliments you don't know whether to believe or not. Sometimes it comes very plainly, at the foot of a snow-covered mountain, and with the truth – no matter how unattractive it may be.