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The fundamental resistance to any form of
recovery from
addiction is the addiction itself, which
infiltrates the addict's self and
alters his perspective and judgment in a fashion
congenial to itself and hostile
to any form of recovery. Whatever is or may become
a threat to the addiction is
typically targeted, devalued, and when possible,
destroyed. Because this
distortion and subversion of the true self takes
place largely outside the
addict's consciousness he is usually helpless to
resist it. Lacking the ability
to separate himself(his true self) from his
addiction(his addicted self) he
falsely believes that his thinking is free and
unfettered when it fact it is
wholly subservient to the requirements of his
addiction. In a certain sense it
might even be said that it is the addiction that
is doing his thinking for him,
though of course he does not recognize this and
would defiantly deny it if
presented with it. There is a terrible irony in
the characteristic defiant
individualism of the addict - for there is nothing
at all individual about the
stereotyped biological process of addiction, and
the defiance that is commonly
encountered in active addicts has almost nothing
to do with their true selves
and what is good for them but with their false
selves and what is good for the
addiction. "Give me liberty or give me death," for
the active addict,
really means "Give me my addiction or give me
death," - and even, at
times, "Give me my addiction even if it causes my
death!"
Because the active addict sees the world
through the eyes
of his addiction he necessarily notices those
things that are favorable to his
continuance of his addiction and he neglects or
actively negates those that are
not. This psychological fact alone
virtually guarantees that a well-known
recovery method such as AA will one way or another
be found wanting by the
alcoholic to whom it has been recommended. Except
under ideal and unfortunately
exceptional circumstances, i.e. when the alcoholic
has truly and conclusively
had enough and is therefore willing to do whatever
it takes to recover from his
alcoholism, the active alcoholic can be expected
and predicted to dislike and
avoid AA meetings for the simple and obvious
reason that such meetings pose a
formidable threat to the survival and progression
of his addiction. The same
might be and in fact is true of any method of
recovery from alcoholism, e.g.
inpatient or outpatient rehabilitation programs.
The disadvantage under which
all such potential interventions labor in the mind
of the drinking alcoholic is
the fact that they aim to interfere with his
drinking and have some history of
success in doing so for others! Therefore, unless
he is in a desperate and thus
unusually receptive state, he avoids them more
carefully than he sometimes seems
to avoid the risk of his own death from the
complications and accidental
misfortunes of his alcoholism. (One is sometimes
reminded of the old movie
vampires, hissing and shrinking from the Cross, by
the way desperately ill
alcoholics in need or treatment or AA flee in fear
and loathing from the very
things that can help them, even save their lives.
Could it perhaps be not the
person but the disease that has, vampire-like,
overpowered and enslaved him
which fears and thus attempts to hide from
everything that might save the person
by harming the disease?)
This general resistance to anything that
might threaten
the addiction is the foundation upon which more
specific and localized
resistances rest and from which they draw their
strength and, as it were,
"take their orders." Resistance to
recovery from addiction is a
complex and highly adaptive(for the addiction, not
for its host!) dynamic
process that draws upon the complete resources of
the self and engages all of
the ingenuity and creativity of the person to
protect the addiction and to
obstruct recovery. Specific obstacles and
resistance to recovery include fear,
shame, embarrassment, humiliation, ignorance,
grandiosity and denial. All of
these roadblocks to recovery from addiction are
commonly involved in the
remarkably stereotyped aversion to AA attendance
manifested by the typical
alcoholic to whom such attendance is recommended
by friends, family, or medical
professionals.
Simple fear of the unknown is a significant,
often a
principal factor in resistance to AA attendance.
It requires great courage -or
great desperation- for an alcoholic individual to
walk into an AA meeting for
the first time. Many alcoholics have transient or
ongoing anxiety disorders
which add to the natural fear associated with such
a new experience. Although
some people are able to identify and acknowledge
their fear, many are not. Male
alcoholics especially may be ashamed of their fear
and hence deny it, focusing
instead upon any number of largely dishonest
rationalizations or red herrings to
justify their AA avoidance. Shame and
embarrassment are nearly universal
responses of alcoholics to the prospect of
attending an AA meeting. To show up
at an AA meeting, after all, makes a proclamation
to all who are present, but
also and more importantly to oneself that he is or
might be an alcoholic who has
been unable to solve his drinking problem by
himself. There are actually at
least two distinct sources of shame and stigma
here: (1) that there has been a
serious problem with alcohol, and (2) that the
individual needs or that he even
might need AA to deal with the problem.
Although society in general is more enlightened
about and
hence less judgmental towards alcoholics than ever
before, the interesting and
highly significant fact is that drinking
alcoholics themselves are among the
most intolerant and intransigent critics of the
so-called medical model of
alcoholism. The vast majority of drinking
alcoholics view alcohol problems as
matters of will power and moral values.
Alcoholics, in other words, before they
get sober, seldom understand or have any respect
for alcoholics - a Dilemna that
obviously complicates and obstructs their own
chances of recovery from
alcoholism. Thus what ought to be an occasion for
healthy pride and
self-congratulation - being honest with oneself
about an alcohol problem and
taking appropriate action to overcome it - more
often than not feels to the
alcoholic thinking about attending his first AA
meeting like an enormous and
almost unbearable personal failure and something
itself to be ashamed and guilty
about.
Because in the majority of cases the alcoholic's
cup of
shame and guilt runneth over, i.e. becomes too
intense and painful for him to
bear, the psychological defense mechanism of
paranoid projection commonly steps
in to externalize and thus distance his feelings
of self-loathing and
self-condemnation. By projecting his negative
feelings about himself onto others
he at least removes them one step from himself and
can say to himself "It
is not I who despise and condemn myself, it is
those other people who judge or
are about to judge me negatively."
Paranoid projection permits the alcoholic
to gain a sense
of control by engaging in
defiant-oppositional behavior against an imaginary
external adversary and also
to take avoidance precautions by simply staying
away from situations in which
"They" might see and judge him. All of this of
course gravely impairs
and in many instances interdicts entirely the
formation of trusting and
supportive relationships necessary for recovery
from alcoholism. Newcomers to AA
meetings are sometimes so terrified of "running
into somebody they
know" at a meeting that they will travel far
across town or even to another
city to attempt to avoid what is for them the
terrifying prospect of being seen
at a meeting by someone who they fear could
broadcast their awful and shameful
secret to the world. This dread of
detection is a projection onto imaginary
others of their own intense feelings of shame and
self-disgust. Unfortunately
for the alcoholic in need of the help that AA can
provide, the easiest and
simplest way to avoid being seen, talked about and
condemned by "Them"
is to stay as far away as possible from "Them,"
namely from the vicinity of an AA
meeting where "They" are certain to notice and
talk unfavorably about
one. And this
in fact is the usual and customary paranoid
phobic-avoidance defense most shame- and
guilt- ridden alcoholics employ. But what seems to
them the safer and easier
course is in reality the harder and more deadly
one: for by avoiding healthy and
emotionally corrective experiences with other
people who have also struggled
with alcohol problems, the frightened and
self-despising alcoholic is isolated,
cut off from help, and worst of all, shut up
entirely with and within himself
and his disease of alcoholism. The usual result,
of course, is continued
drinking, more guilt, more shame, more paranoid
projection and externalization,
and more phobic-avoidance of those who could be of
the most help.
The exceptional alcoholic who manages to
overcome,
frequently by the pressure of a still greater fear
or force acting upon him from
behind, the
formidable obstacles above and who as a result
actually shows up, often full of
fear and trembling at an AA meeting, faces still
more perils and pitfalls before
he can hope to tie up his weather-beaten ship and
disembark in a safe harbor.
Selective attention and inattention cause
him to pay particular attention to
some things and to neglect or minimize others. The
general focus of attention
will of course be upon maintaining his security
and self-esteem as he ventures
onto new and generally forbidding terrain for the
first time. Guided by the
"fight or flight" response he will be sensitive to
every cue that
suggests a real or perceived threat to his already
threatened self. The mental
defense mechanism of paranoid projection described
above causes him to
experience his environment and the people in it,
including other alcoholics, as
sinister and potentially critical, shaming and
rejecting. This naturally puts
him on "on guard" and on the lookout for danger.
One sometimes hears from alcoholics that as soon
as they
walked into an AA meeting for the first time they
felt safe, secure and accepted
- but a far more common response is precisely
the opposite one, in which the
alcoholic feels, quite unrealistically, less
safe and secure in an AA meeting
than just about any place else in the world. Since
a stereotyped and indeed
highly adaptive response to danger is to flee from
it, and since the typical
alcoholic attending his first AA meeting will, by
the mechanism of paranoid
projection described above, feel himself to be in
danger that comes from outside
him and from which he can at least in theory run
away, a natural response is to
scan and interpret the environment in such a
fashion as to build a compelling
case to justify the common and entirely visceral
or gut level desire to run away
and never come back. Such "case building" is of
course reactionary
propaganda and rationalization, for the primary
"flight response" has
already been activated, may in fact have been
activated before the alcoholic
ever even set foot in the meeting for the first
time. But it is usually
necessary to provide ourselves with a plausible
face-saving excuse for actions
that we suspect may be contrary to common sense or
against our best interest,
especially when they are driven by powerful
emotional and therefore irrational
forces which we do not care to admit openly to
ourselves, much less to others.
Alcoholics are no exception to this universal
human tendency - indeed, they may
represent spectacular exaggerations of it, just as
they sometimes seem to do of
other common human failings and foibles.
In many, perhaps most instances the newcomer
will be
searching by default for signs of differences
and disagreements with others
rather than for evidence of similarity and
agreement. The reason for this is
obvious: the more evidence he can amass to
convince himself and anyone else who
might be interested that he "doesn't really belong
in AA," the faster
and more honorably he can beat the hasty retreat
that both his addiction and his
damaged and threatened ego desire him to make as
soon as possible. Thus if he is
not careful and conscious of the process he may
very swiftly compose a litany of
grievances and differences that will, at least in
his own eyes, fully justify
his own version of Caesar's famous boast: "I came,
I saw, and I decided AA
was not for me."
Further complicating these common psychological
resistances are the direct and indirect
effects of alcohol and often other drugs
on the brain, effects which impair judgment,
attention, information processing,
impulse control and mood regulation. And it should
not be forgotten that the
alcoholic who is only hours, days or weeks away
from his last drink is always in
a state of active alcohol withdrawal
which further disrupts normal central
nervous system functioning and characteristically
results in an anxious,
irritable, negativistic state of mind. On top of
all this, a significant number
of individuals suffering from alcohol
dependence(alcoholism) also exhibit
symptoms of a mood disorder such as
depression or manic-depression(bipolar
disorder) as well as a primary anxiety disorder
such as social phobia(social
anxiety disorder).
Given all of the powerful obstacles and
resistances to AA
attendance and acceptance, the wonder is not that
so many alcoholics refuse to
go to meetings or, if they go, decline to return -
but that any at all do so and
that at least some of these keep going back until
they are able to connect with
the program and begin to receive help from it.
Many, though certainly not all,
of these success stories have simply reached a
point or been placed in
circumstances in which the prospect of AA
attendance, frightening and
distasteful as it may at first be to them, is
nevertheless for them the lesser
of two evils, e.g. incarceration, job loss,
divorce, emotional misery or death
from medical complications of alcoholism.
NEW!
Discussion
Forum - For individuals new to or
considering Alcoholics Anonymous or other 12 Step
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