“Escaping consequence is no privilege or blessing.”
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| “Sorry Mom, sorry Dad, I have a disease!” |
To go from a physically sober nightmare to a recovered person, an addict must absolutely deal with their shit and give back a bit, or perhaps alot. The last ten years have necessarily been non-stop WORK. It was imperative that I try to repair relationships and broken hearts, get out of debt, finish school, work my ass off, take other addicts through the Big Book, run groups, write, educate, etc.
Recovery = Dealing with my shit.
Trust me, the worst thing you could possibly tell an addict is that his addiction has nothing to do with the selfishness ingrained in his personality or his willingness to do the wrong thing to others (and subsequent indifference). This MUST be considered a real part of the problem.
If all we do is tell addicts they have an innate, involuntary disease and that all associated behaviors are but symptoms, they will happily excuse themselves of any and all accountability when it comes to the wrongs they have committed, and if we do this, we are perpetuating the very sickness which haunts them and causes pain to so many.
By explaining (excusing) all aspects of addiction to brain chemistry (a brain which, by the way, we destroyed ourselves, as the process of losing choice is very much a choice) we are simply biding time until the next relapse, allowing addicts to immaturely glorify the SELF while continuing to hurt people. I truly doubt you are looking forward to more of the same.
Clearly, the progressive and morally relative implications and assumptions made by the modern disease model are ruining treatment in America and it is pushing addicts to repel all sense of moral responsibility and any connection to God as radical and inappropriate. Sorry, folks, but that’s what you get when you allow the pendulum to swing this far towards collectivism and away from freedom and personal responsibility. Just sayin’…
“I don’t need no 12-Step, do-the-right-thing bullshit, Ma! I just need my freakin’ suboxone and seroquel, biotch… and have someone pay for it, son! Now gimme that shit, bake me some cookies, and shut the fuck up, dukes! Oh, and please don’t say Merry Christmas or none of that shit to me ’cause that’s a really offensive micro-aggression yo.”
Bye-bye free speech, hello tyranny… under the guise of tolerance and intellectual consciousness, of course. Welcome to 2016 and beyond.
P.S. Merry Christmas.
Yup. (Merry Christmas, Charlie.)
Right the f on!. Keep at it….an LED in the midst of a load of crap, you are. (Yoda speak..get it?) No, really, this progressive view does provide an easy excuse to avoid the truth of what ails us. And by the way, you have me laughing my ass off with the stuff in quotations up there. Oh my gosh!!! So funny, not cause it's actually funny, my cracked but kickin' heaart knows its not, but that's exactly what IT sounds like!! That's IT, and the arrogance of IT in the face of such grace we are actually allotted every day, to start with for having been given the gift of just breathing and being, is so ludicrous, it's comical. I mean, who the hell do we think we are, exactly? Thank you you for a huuuuge belly laugh. You're hilarious. Appreciate your work to no end. Thank you. Some truth, comfort and peace be found here by your readers, and….A Merry and Quietly or Boistrously Blessed Christ's Mass to you, yours and all the earth! Yo. 🙂
Oh my gosh, I know it's not funny, so my ripped up heart knows, but yet it is, and thank God I can still laugh in the face of addiction. That's a grace; to be able to laugh at the devil. It's the part in quotes up there. You just had me buckled over…so funny….crying ….cause that's EXACTLY what IT sounds like. That's IT in a nutshell. The “biotch” part killed me, I swear I've heard those exact words. It's just ludicrously, such arrogance which can't or won't see the grace that is ours to just breath every day. I was one of those, so I know. It's so hugely, cosmically ridiculous that it's funny. Beautiful! Thank you. Thanks for taking the time and trouble to do this work; you are a light, and…..a very Merry and Blessed Christ's Mass to you, your readers (may they find truth, comfort, power and peace here) and yours…yo. Gretch in MI
Merry Christmas, Lor. Thank you for reading tonight and God bless you.
Gretch, Thank you so much writing and God bless you. It is funny… and also not funny. When it comes to this urgent matter of life and death, and when it comes to the gut-wrenching pain we cause our parents, there are no rules, and we must never sugar-coat it or tip toe around the truth 😉
Oh, and a blessed Christ's Mass to you, too, Gretch. I love that. Thank you.
There is so much truth here. I hear people at my meetings excusing their adult children's behavior because they have a disease. For example someone said to a newcomer that their addict will steal from them etc., but that he knew his child only did that because of his disease. Okay, I've been stolen from and I didn't take that position, I was OUTRAGED about it, I'm sorry there is still a CHOICE not to do the wrong thing. My son once shared with me that he was taking a drug friend to a pawn shop as his friend wanted to hock some jewelry he stole from his parents. My son told me he knew the jewelry looked really expensive and he said to the kid are you really sure you want to do this, that looks really valuable. Okay, so if they had no conscious, that thought would never even had occurred to my son. I agree that the pendelum has swung way to far in the direction of the addicts not taking any responibility for their actions. I'm all for supporting my son in his efforts towards sobriety but I refuse to excuse some of the things he has done because “his disease made him do it.”
Charlie, I've just recently started reading your blog, and I have to say, if this isn't one of the most important blogsites on the internet, I don't know what is!! I am so glad you have the freedom to take the gloves off here, and say things that have previously been unaddressed in 'recovery circles', and, for a variety of other unacceptable reasons, are left unresolved. I am committed to doing whatever it takes to invite those who need it most, to come and benefit from your powerful and compelling story, and your accompanying recovery dialogue.
Granted, this is pretty graphic and brutal stuff, but you know what? It's exactly what some of us need to escape the grasp of addiction. I don't think one of us ever thought about the consequences of our behaviors. If we did, it was never at this level. If this information doesn't shake us, rock our world, and motivate one so affected to change, or at least to seek out the resources for treatment, you might be dealing with something far deeper, like ASPD.
Thank you Sir, for all you continue do !! And a Very Peace-filled Christmas to you & yours'.
I just reread your (this) post, Charlie, the comments, and your replies. First of all, blessing received, thank you very much. Cool thing to say/pass on. Secondly, yes, it is serious business, this. Oh my, yes. Thirdly, real astute and solid blog as well as the comments.to this one. Appreciated both. Fourthly, glad you liked the Christ's Mass. I do, too. It “unmucks” that particular word and celebration a tad in the same way you are workiing to unmuddy this subject matter.
Will continue to check in ond read, maybe contribute on occasion. I encourage you to keep at it. Plan on buying your book to support the effort.
Finally, apologies on my double posted first comments. Wasn't trying to beat everyone over the head with the same stuff, it just disappeared from the comment box, so thought it was gone, and I wrote a new one and posted, and the first showed up as well. Oh well. Oooops.
Thank you so much for reading and for reaching out and writing about this. I can't for the life of me see why we have to excuse anything when it comes to our behavior, especially when we see things clearly and understand that no child just wakes up one day and is suddenly a full blown addict outside of their control, or a full blown alcoholic after trying beer for the first time. Ridiculous.
To lose control requires multiple, successive acts of selfishness, and let alone the fact that most parents have sacrificed so much and worked so hard to love and raise their children. Only in the current environment do we deserve to be coddled with hot tubs, beef tenderloin, free health care, free diplomas (like the recovery school I worked for) etc. and treated just like others who suffer from horrific diseases beyond their control.
Many blessings to you.
Charrah, God bless you. I really can't tell you how much this means to me. Right before you wrote and submitted this, I got panned by someone else on some old post, so perfect timing 😉
And what you say about having the freedom to take the gloves off is, first of all, beautifully said, but it is also reflective of a much larger issue facing us all. How fortunate we are to have this freedom, a necessary freedom, yet one that more and more seem all too willing to cede, though I cannot for the life of me explain why.
A very peace-filled Christmas to you as well.
Thank you, Gretch. Despite the seriousness of the subject, I sometimes sit there thinking about things I've heard or said myself and just start laughing. So ridiculous. Read “Excuses of an Addict” if you want another laugh. I'll leave the link below, although I can't seem to activate links in the comment box. And hey, no problem re the posts. I thought that might have happened, but they were a little different so I just published them both, and also because I like them both 😉
Thanks again for reading and Happy New Year.
http://privilegedaddictwriter.blogspot.com/2015/09/excuses-of-addict.html