I have always wondered about programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous. Well not really about them, but how they work for so many people with serious addiction. I have never had any dealings with them, but I was a smoker many years ago, so I have some insight to the issues at hand for someone who does have need of such a program.
What I do not understand is it appears the program is based on something outside of a person. The idea that addiction is not something I do, but something I can not control and need help with, is the way I understand the program foundation. I am sure I am not the first person to question this concept, but it does seem odd to me. If there were a smoker’s anonymous I would not have shown up at the first meeting and told the group that I can not control my smoking addiction? If I could not control my smoking then logic makes me think I would still be smoking today?
After all how can I not control something, and yet be able to quit when it becomes less important than something else? If I was helplessly addicted to smoking, then I would still be a smoker, or be an almost dead smoker from one of the many smoking diseases. In my case I replaced smoking with something more important to me. That something was not becoming one of the people almost dead from a smoking disease.
If there had been a smokers anonymous, I fail to see what I would have gained joining the group? What kind of mind trick is it to be addicted to something that I can not stop on my own and expect someone else to do it for me? Perhaps it is a need that an Anonymous program solves to mend the reason that causes the abuse? Perhaps the real need is to have another person(s) intervene in someone’s behalf that helps them change their behavior?
I really do not know, and I am projecting possibilities of how these programs work. For myself, it seems I continue a behavior until that behavior is no longer important. I relate it to being young, and lonely. How lonely does a person have to be before they accept that maybe they are responsible for their loneliness? If no one knows you are alive, you can not expect someone to find you, and want to hang out with you, or you with them.
My greatest respect to you if you are in one of these programs and it is working for you. More respect for the people who keep the meetings going who were once walking through the doors for the first time themselves. I know I could not spend several hours a week hanging around with smokers, and not take up smoking again myself and become addicted again. It takes some special internal fortitude. How does one be intimate and distant at the same time in these meetings? Perhaps in the anonymous process people find a new kind of courage, or determination that helps them maintain distance while at the same time being close, and able to make real change in helping someone with their addiction.
I have found in my life that bad habits I had were only around until they were replaced by something that I wanted more. Maybe that is the key to why the programs work? People wake up one day so desperate that they want release more than anything else? They look around and the only hand being held out for them is an Anonymous hand, and they take it, because they can’t go through another day living like they are. Then perhaps through the strength of that anonymous hand they conquer their addiction.
Good people all of them. If these good people did not exist, we would have one less measure of how truly wonderful our lives are. Because we can use these people as a measuring stick of how good our lives truly are, we can also see the amazing miracle the people running anonymous meetings really are. I hope I measure up, at least to the length their shadows on a noon day.
