As someone dealing with alcoholism, I find that each individual that I speak with about this addiction responds to particular form of communication variables. Those responses range from the most understanding to the lower registers of negative. The addict does not have the luxury of expectations - aside from expecting the unexpected - so honest communication is paramount.
But what of those that the addict is communicating with? All too often, they are the ones that are more likely to expect something specific from the addict - that is if they feel that they have been wronged in some way.
Before attempting to communicate with those around them, the addict must first learn to communicate honestly and openly with themselves. This was one of the most difficult things for me to accomplish in my own right, as I had become so accustomed to hiding my drinking from those closest to me. I knew that I enjoyed drinking, but didn't realize that that enjoyment was taken one step too far.
In '12 Step Culture', the first "step" reads as such:
We admitted we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable.
This is the only of the alleged "12-steps" that is both honest and understandable within the context of addiction and recovery. It is the starting point for open and honest communication that the addict has with themselves and those around them.
But is the addict truly powerless? Do they have no recourse? Can they not reclaim their life? Of course they can. "12 Step Culture" even says they can - so long as they follow a pre-determined path that removed individuality and sense of self.
When I began to come to terms with my problem with alcohol, I knew that at some point I would have to speak with someone about it. My first experience came during an AA meeting at a local "recovery center" in my community back in the late spring. It didn't go as well as I had planned.
My very first attempt at communicating my feelings and concerns regarding my struggle with alcohol were met with quite judgement - something I never thought would occur at a group meeting that was allegedly designed to aid in the recovery process. One isn't filled with the sense of acceptance and understanding from other addicts struggling with their own demons when it is revealed that they believe that your experience isn't visceral enough.
And this was what stuck with me up until the day that I left for rehab. Even then, I was filled with a sense of dread that what lay ahead of me would be no different, that my inability and my concern would be met with derision and abject rejection. The reality of what I was to experience in rehad was an awakening. It was an awakening to the reality that only I had the power to change my ways, to take control of my own life, and that the program was designed to turn me into a faceless simulacrum - just another person at a 12-Step meeting who's story would likely be ignored by the person next to them that had swallowed whole the same dogma.
When I knew that I would have to, at some point, begin discussing my addiction and doing my best to make ammends for all the wrong I had done, I began to wonder if I would be met with the same skepticism that was tossed at me from the start of my recovery journey. Would I be summarily dismissed like so many testimonials at thousands of AA meeting across the country? Was I to be just another in a long line of excuse mongers that wished their lives could be turned around while wrapped in the cloak of "but I'm going to meetings"?
I refused to be that person. But confessing was not to be so easy with everyone.
What happens when the addict is met with the demand that his language be modified to met the expectations of those that he is attempting to make amends with? What happens if the addict does so and it runs contrary to their belief in not only themselves but in their very recovery? Are they obligated to do so simply because of their misteps and wrong-doings? This is no easy set of questions to answer. But what is paramount is that honesty not be compromised for the sake of pre-arranged syntax by outside forces.
It wasn't as difficult to explain things to my late Grandmother as I had once thought. The same is true for my mother, my brother, and other members of my immediate family. But what is still a continuing struggle is to allow people the opportunity to understand that I cannot and will not abide by "12-Step Culture". And this has caused quite the rift - or exponentially increased an already existing one - among several people that I care deeply for.
I know of only one way to continue my recovery, and that is to be the person that I was before I let the drink dilute my personality. That most certainly includes the way that I communicate.
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I was struggling with a song to place here, but after I quit trying so hard I knew precisely what worked.
Pink Floyd - Keep Talking:
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