Recovery - Twelve Simple Steps to a Life Beyond Addiction (ebook)

Argumento de Recovery - Twelve Simple Steps to a Life Beyond Addiction (ebook)

In England, the public health agency tasked with improving outcomes of addiction treatment concluded that the statutory services had been making insufficient use of the mutual aid recovery community. The agency had seen data showing that an increase in the number of abstinent alcoholics into the social circle of newly treated patients was associated with greater likelihood of being abstinent at 2 years (e.g. Litt et al. , ). Treatment services are now exhorted to incorporate FAMA (?Facilitating Access to Mutual Aid?the 3 key steps of Assertive Linkage?).

Mutual help groups applying cognitive behavioural therapy principles are slowly developing in the UK (e.g. ) but the most widespread mutual aid groups by far are the 12-step fellowships, with thousands of members. Yet addiction workers complain that their clients stumble at the first hurdle?the God word.

Surveys have found that the rate of religious observance is less among AA members than in the wider population; so what, for them, is their God, their ?Higher Power??

It is well known that some individuals personalize for them- selves the language of the 12 steps?for example, emphasizing the group spirit, the honesty, the repository of knowledge, and the sense of acceptance and belonging which after yearsincreasing alienation they discover in the meetings. There?s the jest: God = Group of Drunks. Some re-framing, while faithfully and gratefully attending Meetings, seems to be fairly common in secular Britain.

Dr Finlay takes us through the conceptual journey she made in order to recover from addiction through the 12 step fellow- ship. She has written it for people who, like herself, are ?over analytic people? and ?complicate the Steps to the point of absurdity and then complain it is impossible to understand?.

That AA has continued to grow over 80 years is in part attributable to the wise adherence to its ?Concepts? and ?Traditions?, as well as its determined financial independence and democratic structure. Splintering and sectarianism has been avoided. So Dr Lynden risks criticism from some in the Fellowship for questioning the language of those hallowed 12 Steps. However, I believe that by offering her own interpret- ation of those steps, whose wording many addicts baulk at, she has done a great service. Even if some of what she has written has already been discussed and even spelt out by many in the Fellowship, this book will definitely have a place. She has an easy style of writing and has illustrated many of her points with case histories drawn from her work as a 12 step therapist. Thus, it will assist those beginners in AA who strug- gle with concepts. To take one example, Step 2: ?that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity? might mean more to them when re-framed as ?Seeing other addicts in re- covery, we came to believe that with help we too could recover?. That?s not heresy: for some it?s at the heart of how AA starts to work.

JONATHAN CHICK

Are you sick and tired of being addicted? Do you want to recover but think the 12-Step programme is not for you because you don?t believe in God? This book presents a new version of the Steps which is simple and do-able by everyone, whether they have a particular faith or not. Research now proves beyond doubt that the 12-Step programme is a way to long-term recovery, so if you are suffering from addiction, or are a GP who knows your addicted patient needs more support than you can provide, this book is for you.

Lynden Finlay has over twenty years? experience both in addictions counselling and personally recovering from addictions herself, working closely with the Twelve Steps programme during that time. Over the years she has seen many residents benefit from this version which has at its heart not a focus on God, but on the healing power of one addict helping another.

? At last, a book that provides stepping stones both ways, for the atheist addict and the scientifically trained practitioner. This book lays open the underlying mechanisms of recovery in a clear and simple way. A welcome harnessing of the power of 12 Step without the religious jargon. I am sure that many people will be able to access AA and other 12 step programmes as a result of this myth busting book. Well done!

Trustee and Board Member of AA

Readers will find in its pages lucid, moving and inspiring real-life accounts of the transformative effects of adopting, interpreting and using the Twelve Steps as a framework for recovery. This is at once a text book for professionals and people seeking recovery, and an important intervention into an ongoing debate about the role and place of the Twelve Steps within the burgeoning Recovery Movement.

Dr Wendy Dossett

Director (Research) of the Higher Power Project, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Chester

I welcome Lynden?s book and thoroughly applaud her efforts to construct a meaningful language of experience and overcoming. It is high time for a re-wording of the 12 Steps of AA- for those that want it- as a creative way of reaching out to those who are hard-to-reach. Words are openings to worlds and her book provides an accessible entrée to that all-important world: ?life beyond addiction?.

Consultant Clinical Psychologist/Psychotherapist, Author and ?Non-Alcoholic Trustee? with General Service Board of AA (GB).0