“Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail. This is our twelfth suggestion: Carry this message to other alcoholics! You can help when no one else can. You can secure their confidence when others fail. Remember they are very ill.
     Life will take on new meaning. To watch people recover, to see them help others, to watch loneliness vanish, to see a fellowship grow up about you, to have a host of friends, this is an experience you must not miss.” – Alcoholics Anonymous, p.89

     If there is one thing in this program that will lift you up and set you straight without fail, it is indeed working intensively with other alcoholics or addicts, and by working intensively, I mean procuring an untreated addict and taking them through the Twelve Steps as they are laid out in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. As the book states above, this is something you do not want to miss.

     Trust me, it is usually a bitter failure to chase people around, but hey, if that’s what you need to do, do it. This is the silver bullet of the Steps. When all else fails, GO WORK WITH OTHERS. It will heal you. It is like injecting spiritual medicine. Let me tell you, you can either inject vivitrol or suboxone or methadone, or you can inject the spiritual medicine of helping others. You can inject science or you can inject God. You can inject poison or you can inject love. The choice is yours.

     If you spend all of your free time taking other addicts through this process, you will not fail. Conversely, if you waste your time getting jammed on methadone, you won’t make it. Nobody has ever truly recovered without giving of themselves, and specifically, without helping other addicts recover.

     Furthermore, if we fail to equip our sponsee with the proper tools and lay down the path to spiritual freedom, there is no point in sponsoring anyone. Today, the millions of AA goers and our communist friends in Hollywood have turned AA into a cliche’ – the meeting room, the sad story, the sobriety chip, and the sponsor who gabs away on the phone and drags his sponsee to a meeting after confidently delivering the only advice he has: “You need a meeting, pal.”

     None of this has anything to do with the original program of spiritual action that is Alcoholics Anonymous. The Twelve Step process is a mind-blowing and life-changing process if done thoroughly and fearlessly, but today sponsorship is a joke. If someone approaches you in AA or NA and they have not taken steps and recovered themselves, they have no business sponsoring anyone and you will be led down a road to nowhere. In fact, they may very well help to facilitate your relapse and possible death, as they have not shown you the solution or enabled you to find God.

God, please bring me the opportunity to help others…

     I must admit that the subtitle, ‘How Science and Kindness Help People Change’ to Beyond Addiction is quite clever, despite the fact that it reeks of PhD arrogance. This is such well-doctored propaganda that it actually hurts my head, and there should be little doubt that this statement has nothing to do with reality and more to do with, who knows, self-promotion, career-promotion, industry-promotion, status quo-promotion (under the guise, of course, of being new and novel, which is amusing to say the least). But before you click off, you wanna hear some propaganda?

     From Beyond Addiction, pp.5-6: “Substance problems are complex and multi-determined (totally false), often determined by underlying psychiatric disorders (false) such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or attention deficit disorders (false) that require specialized attention over and beyond just treating the substance problem (lie). In other words, good treatment often includes psychiatric care (false, but obviously they’d say that to pump meds and because their jobs and salaries are dependent on your belief in the quack science of psychiatry), which has historically been overlooked or even discouraged in some drug and alcohol treatment settings (clear slight towards spiritual programs).
     Science has also given us a better understanding or the brain’s role in substance use and compulsive behaviors (completely false). With that science, there are medications that reduce cravings and compulsivity (false), block drug effects (partially false), ease withdrawal (true), and treat underlying issues (completely false).”

     From The Doctor’s Opinion, Alcoholics Anonymous p. xxix (which every parent or spouse must absolutely read): “Faced with this problem, if a doctor is honest with himself, he must sometimes feel his own inadequacy. Although he gives all that is in him, it often is not enough. One feels that something more than human power is needed to produce the essential psychic change. Though the aggregate of recoveries resulting from psychiatric effort is considerable, we physicians must admit we have made little impression upon the problem as a whole. Many types do not respond to the ordinary psychological approach.”

     Obviously this sort of professional humility is lost on these guys.
   
     I’ll admit that I couldn’t finish the entire book because the nauseousness was becoming unbearable, as the authors seem to be trying to inject a good dose of atheism into the reader. What is clear is that they want God out of the equation entirely, and the obvious rejection of God calls into question the very nature of the their character, let alone the quality of their spiritual health. There doesn’t appear to be a single mention of God or spiritual anything throughout the entire book or index, which is unconscionable when attempting to engage in the education of addiction treatment.

     Yet they are more than willing to pump “pharmacotherapies” (another oxymoron) and cognitive behvaioral therapy, two areas of treatment that are both proven to be abject failures in treating chronic drug addicts or hopeless alcoholics. Sorry, but I just don’t see where these people get off. I wasn’t going to waste my time on this, but it’s too important given the publicity this book has received, especially when you consider how misguided it is. Just the title is almost laughable, if it wasn’t so annoying, given the lack of substance within.

     Does anybody else find it sort of amusing how they try to coin a new and original approach to addiction by calling it the CRAFT method, when said ‘groundbreaking’ method is just being nice to your kid and taking care of yourself, mixed with other common knowledge. The rest of it is just the same old conventional stuff that fails to effect any sort of real and lasting change. Maybe I’m just a dick, but I don’t think telling parents not to scream at an addict is worthy of critical acclaim. My two year-old says that every time I get in the car. “No scream, dadda. No mad, dadda.” I don’t know much, but I do know this is very self-seeking stuff and trust me, these guys love the attention and the recognition.

     I actually find what I do to be considerably more kind than beating around the bush and hurling empty platitudes and frothy emotional appeal at some addict who is clearly ill and is all too willing to tell you EXACTLY what you want to hear in order to keep using the way they want. Real kindness and real love is not allowing an addict to continue lying to themselves… and then showing them a solution that actually works. Make no mistake that the lies an addict tells himself are the primary ingredients of a lethal overdose.

    At any rate, right off the bat the authors are eager to criticize the Twelve Step process, using indirect slights, thus exhibiting a non-existent understanding of the pure wisdom contained within the Big Book.

     “However, you’re probably more familiar with the popular notions of intractable character defects and progressive, chronic disease. There’s widespread pessimism about the possibility of real change.” –Beyond Addiction, p.4 

     If you read this and didn’t know what the Steps really were, you’d be absorbing pompous lies about a program that can elicit miracles. Nowhere in the Big Book does it say that our character defects are intractable. In fact, quite the opposite. The steps are designed to change and rid us of character defects and is ‘beyond’ optimistic about full recovery and the achievement of inner peace, strength and tremendous success in life.

     The progressive, chronic aspect of our illness relates to the physical component of addiction, not mental, as made crystal clear in the Big Book, and is a GOOD thing as it keep addicts from using! Telling an addict that someday he may be able to use moderately again is not only ignorant but it is insane. Abstinence is the only option for any true alcoholic or drug addict. The Big Book also makes it crystal clear that we can indeed recover from what truly ails us mentally and spiritually and live a life of pure freedom, contentment and serenity.

     Guess what? Science and kindness do NOT change addicts. Guess what’s going to happen when you’re cooking us dinner and humming kumbaya as you stir the chicken madeira? We’re going to be in the other room robbing you and patting ourselves on the back for so cleverly manipulating and deceiving the shit out of you, once again.

     Compassion doesn’t work for drug addicts, so don’t waste your time. Addicts need to be shredded and humbled beyond belief… and then built back together one spiritual brick at a time.

     My recovery is built on the foundation of the truth of cause and effect. I’ve tried, though admittedly without much eloquence, to illuminate this truth in previous posts like Karma or Sartre. I should have just sifted through the endless self-help books on my shelf until I found James Allen, author of, As A Man Thinketh. Needless to say, I have a revised version entitled, As You Think, which I strongly recommend. To drive home the fact that cause & effect is a universal law and crosses all realms of life whether physical, mental or spiritual, we must quote Allen extensively.

     Sorry, but the term “miracle drug” is an oxymoron when it comes to treating drug addiction. Drugs, including methadone, suboxone, ibogaine, LSD and other such garbage, are incompatible with miracles, and thus ‘miracle’ shouldn’t be in the same sentence as ‘drug’, as miracles only occur in the absence of drugs. I hate to burst your bubble, but based on the nature of miracles, that is just the truth as we know it. But don’t worry because this is great news!

     Why, Charlie? How could that possibly be great news?! 

     Because if we are forced to look at ourselves scathingly, become accountable, put our spiritual growth above all else, and give everything that we have within us towards changing, maturing, serving, recovering and becoming other-centered, then we are FAR better people than the sober addict who remains lost in self-absorption and depression, unable to stop thinking about himself and his feelings for but a moment. Sober addicts are still drowning in the spiritual poisons of self-seeking, selfishness, dishonesty and fear. They are empty and without purpose.

     As I’ve said before, drugs and alcohol are truly the least of our problems. Achieving physical sobriety is about .01% of the ballgame. As the Big Book teaches us, “We feel that elimination of our drinking is but a beginning. A much more important demonstration of our principles lies before us in our respective homes, occupations and affairs.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, p.19)

     So please, have a look at this older post, Ways of Telling if Your Addict is Recovered, which is brief, and answer these questions for yourself or for your addict. If you get any “no’s”, than you shouldn’t trust anything an addict says or does. We are by far the most manipulative people on earth. In fact, the way in which we can lie and deceive could be considered brilliant if it wasn’t so destructive, and is certainly on par with the just about everyone in the current administration, the congress, the senate, the media, the federal reserve, and their criminal primary dealers.

     At any rate, according to the primary search result on google, a miracle refers to “a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of divine agency.” Taken as such, it isn’t possible for drugs to have any hand in producing a miracle, as miracles are reserved for the work of God. Inducing changes with a drug is an act of self-will whereas miracles are performed by God and God alone.

     So to state the obvious, when it comes to addiction and a loss of power, drugs and drug use of any sort have nothing to do with God or His will. Does this not make sense?

Also see: Courage or Cowardice & Are You Free?

God, please show me Your will for me and give me the power to carry it out…

     First of all, and this may be somewhat irrelevant, but regarding other types of drugs as a solution to drug addiction, more drugs don’t fix a drug problem just like more debt doesn’t fix a debt problem, obviously. Mood-altering drugs, regardless of class, are the antithesis of the spiritual life. Why is common sense is so lost on us when it comes to addiction and recovery? To make an insane drug addict sane again requires quite the opposite of dissociating from reality.

      Analysis:

     It really matters nothing what effect Ibogaine or any other drug may have on your neurochemistry because no drug in history has ever been able to magically restore a man to sanity and lift his obsession to use drugs. Neither has science ever been able to restore a man’s body, enabling him to use normally. Furthermore, psychedelics don’t make you a better person. They cannot restore a person morally and spiritually. Only hard work and consistent right action can do that. And I suspect science and drugs will never solve this one. We are supposed to work for our recovery, especially when you consider how much we have taken.

     Even if you receive some temporary clarity and the novelty of that keeps you sober for a while, trust me, it is only a matter of time before your old self smacks you back in the face. It is like building a house on sand. If your foundation hasn’t been laid solid through hard work and sacrifice, your house of cards will blow over when life challenges you and the going gets rough. Sure ibogaine may detox you properly, but then what? Nothing will stop you from wanting to get high once you’re clean… or rather, nothing will stop the mental obsession from randomly smacking you in the face. The fact is that chemical intervention has never made an insane man sane again. Let’s elaborate.

     Regarding withdrawal. Withdrawal and pain are GOOD for opiate addicts. We do it to ourselves and we should suffer. This is exactly the problem with mainstream treatment. If you make us comfortable, we have nothing to fear by relapsing again. Does anyone not see the moral the moral hazard? Furthermore, is “wiping the receptors” and restoring the tolerance of an opiate addict really what you want to do? Guess what I’m gonna do when I get home? I’m gonna buy a bag and jammed our of my fucking skull. Lol. Kidding aside, detox is good and necessary, but a man also needs to be restored to sanity, and such a task requires hard work and God.

     Another issue I take is this assertion that you somehow discover all the reasons why you started using while you’re touring la-la land. Dead giveaway. Why? Because aside from thinking that a drug-induced hallucination has anything to do with authentic insight and self-awareness, the truth is that there is no reason why alcoholics drink and addicts use. Reasons are just clever excuses to drink and use they way we want to drink and use.

     Another claim I continue to read on various forums and just can’t fathom is that it works for life… a claim that apparently can be made before the life claiming it has been completed. Lol. Trust me, you don’t trip out once on psychedelics to grow up into a responsible adult. Just the sound of that is so absurd and infantile, but hey, I guess stranger things have happened. 

      Easier, softer ways don’t fundamentally change who we are, lift our obsession, restore us to sanity or instill a moral compass. We become better people through consistent right action, day after day, year after year. And since we most certainly have a moral/spiritual problem, the idea of tripping out to change who we are is lost on me, but hey, what the fuck do I know?

     Look, I really don’t know too much about ibogaine, but generally speaking, it sounds like a good thing and helps serious opiate addicts detox properly and perhaps gain some insight. The issue I have with the psychedelic community is the lack of action. Since when does simply tripping out make you a better person?

      Bottom line: I’ve personally never seen psychedelics fix a drug addict, but hey, if for some reason it works, than that’s wonderful and super duper. Just remember to get off the pink cloud and go help your mom. Also remember that if you go down this road, you are no better for it (yet) and still remain in a rather precarious position as you have still done zero work on yourself… so watch out for the mental obsession when it hits you one day like a ton of bricks.

     Finally, the online ibogaine shills and trolls may want to tone it down, as your mentally disturbed demeanor is giving your miracle drug a bad reputation. One of the more ridiculous things I’ve heard is the nonsense I just suffered on some poor mother’s site. Trust me, it would have given you a migraine. These two insane and virtually incoherent ibogaine pumpers just manically accosted this woman’s blog in perfect troll form. They were aggressive, desperate, and abusive.

     Two of the more frightening comments were something like, “I’m not in this for the money, I’m just saving addicts’ lives” and “Fine, let your kid die if you want.” Gee, how humble. That sort of grandiose vitriol should have you running. They were most likely the exact same person trolling the blog, but regardless, both of them should be hospitalized for exhibiting the sort of mania and maladaptive victim-complex that characterizes a psychotic break. I read financial blogs frequently and there are always paid shills incessantly pumping or bashing some stock, and trust me, these two lunatics sounded just like them. They were paid pumpers.