bluidkiti
Administrator



Age: 44
Joined: 01 Dec 2005
Posts: 7080


Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 9:14 am Post subject: Dually Addicted People


DUALLY ADDICTED PEOPLE

There is a lot of controversy in the United States about dually addicted
people in AA. When I got sober, it was fashionable to demand that nothing
but alcohol be mentioned from the podium. This might have caused me to
leave, if a wise man hadn't pointed out the references to other drugs in the
Big Book--even in "Bill's Story"! He kept telling me that I'd earned my
seat.
I got sober after nine years of drinking and using; for seven of those
years I was a daily drinker. I was drunk when I first tried cocaine, drunk when I
tried heroin, and drunk the first time I put a needle in my arm. I was
shaking with alcohol withdrawal when I went to my first meeting. But I was
twenty-five, on the wrong side of the law, and my drug use was the most
prominent feature of my life to me. It is a rare person who gets sober at
age twenty-five without other chemicals helping them to hit bottom, and
frequently they don't even see at first that alcoholism is the root problem.
The people who defied popular opinion by sharing about their own drug use
saved my life, by helping me to identify as an alcoholic.
I am now in a culture far from my own. AA is the only substance-related
program. The meetings are populated by men, mostly over age fifty. They
are "pure" alcoholics. We stay sober together, we work the same Steps, we
encounter the same difficulties in sobriety. But recently, a long-time
member asked me to talk to a young man who couldn't get sober. The man is
twenty-five and has used drugs other than alcohol. Commented the older
member, "He came to meetings for a while, but he just can't identify with us
older people. He needs someone like you to talk to!" To them, he's just
another drunk, and they recognize the need for someone with similar
experience to help him identify. They clearly see the need for alcoholics
of varied backgrounds to share their stories.
I am at a stage in my sobriety where I don't have a need to tell people
how many drugs I took, or how many beers I drank. I know what I am and where I
belong. But if I leave out half my story by not mentioning that I did more
than drink, I am not being honest about how I got here. And if I share my
honest experience with a new man, I may be saving the life of an alcoholic.
And that, after all, is what this program is about.
I've heard people go through a pitch and never mention alcohol, but
that's an extreme. As far as we who are dually addicted (I believe the old term
was "garbage cans"), I think A As spend far too much time drawing lines in
the sand when we should be focusing on what we ourselves can do to help the
newcomer. Even many of our founders were not "pure" alcoholics
Author unknown


_________________
AA gives us an opportunity to recreate ourselves, with God's help, one day at a time. --Rufus K.
"No matter what you have done up to this moment, you get 24 brand-new hours to spend every single day." --Brian Tracy
God says that each of us is worth loving.
We stay sober together - one day at a time!