Narcotics Anonymous and Athiesm

[Jami]

I just recently started my path to sobriety by joining Narcotics Anonymous. The only thing that irks me is the religious stuff they are always talking about. They do group prayers and talk about God. I feel rather alone when I attend these meeting because of that. I understand why people cling to religion and how it helps them. 

 

.....Let me get to point without rambling on.....

 

Deep breathe.

 

Okay.

 

Is there a such thing as an atheist narcotics anonymous? Or is that just a pipe dream?

 

 

I really would love to hear some kind and encouraging words. Getting clean has got to be the hardest thing I have ever had to do.

 

Thank you for your time,

Jami

[Wesley]

I know there are therapists who specialize in treating patients with drug abuse problems. You could continue going to Narcotics Anonymous while shopping around for a therapist that might be more atheist or agnostic. 

 

Even then, your therapist may recommend you to continue going, but you will be able to establish a much better relationship with a rational therapist at least.

[dsayers]

As far as I understand it, the model for "______ Anonymous" is religion based. Nevermind the 5% success rate they share with people trying to quit substance abuse without such a program.

 

Have you pursued self-knowledge at all? Understanding the nature of addiction can be a phenomenal first step. Stef did a video recently talking about this that I found very helpful. You can find it  

.

[_LiveFree_]

Stef posted something like this a few days back.

 

 

Sometimes it's better, especially in the beginning, to just be around people who are different than those you've hung around before. I can tell you that the feeling of alone-ness wouldn't go away even in an atheist meeting. Each step forward, no matter how minuscule, takes you further from where you've been and closer to where you want to be. This is your path, and you're a mother fucking Goddess. So walk that bitch. It won't be easy, but honestly, that's why you've chosen it. Make friends with that feeling of being alone. That uneasy gut twisting chest hardening sensation is not telling you you're completely alone. It's saying, "Look! I'm here! Talk with me! Walk with me! Be strong with me!" That sensation you get when being alone is like the Cosmic Background Radiation. It's everywhere, and until you really listen to what it has to say it just appears as static. That feeling you get when you think you're alone is the Big Bang that is your beautiful soul. 

 

I can't even begin to imagine what the last month has been like for you. All I know is, if there is anybody on this planet that can not only survive what you've survived, but thrive and live the most fulfilling loving life, it's you. 

 

Keep up those deep breaths. Be gentle with the Goddess. 

 

And message me anytime you need a friend. 

 

 

Edit: something else you may want to try is to have 21 y/o Jami ask 31 y/o Jami what she wants 21 y/o Jami to do. Then, once a course has been set, have 21 y/o Jami gently inform 11 y/o Jami what you're going to do and how it's going to help, and that you'll be with her the whole way.

[weeb]

Why don't you call into the show about this?  I too have had the issue of religion being served up in support groups dealing with a chronic medical condition.  However, it is especially troubling that this is happening in a setting with addicts; whereby, they replace one addiction with another.  Religion is just another barrier to erect to keep from knowing yourself.  It fills the void you feel from withdrawal with yet another detachment from reality.  In the end, you are the one pulling the strings. 

 

It's never going to be easy, but you have to make sensible decisions about how to avoid relapse; like staying away from old sources, maybe leaving extra money with a trusted friend, keeping in touch with sponsors, exercising, starting up a hobby, etc.  Just remember that there are folks in the FDR community that wish you well!

[Jami]

Thank you for that. I start my therapy this week with a therapist. I'll keep that in mind finding a therapist that leans towards agnostic or atheism. I appreciate your comment.

I know there are therapists who specialize in treating patients with drug abuse problems. You could continue going to Narcotics Anonymous while shopping around for a therapist that might be more atheist or agnostic. 

 

Even then, your therapist may recommend you to continue going, but you will be able to establish a much better relationship with a rational therapist at least.

I have been on the path of self knowledge since I started listening to stef in august or september. I'm very aware of my addiction. I hope your aware that addiction is a disease. There is no 5% success rate. Everyday is battle. Once you are an addict you are always an addict. Theres a thin line between reality and being high. It runs so deep that I feel like I'm drowning on a daily basis I don't mean this comment to sound offputting. I'm just trying to talk. I appreciate your comment.. 

As far as I understand it, the model for "______ Anonymous" is religion based. Nevermind the 5% success rate they share with people trying to quit substance abuse without such a program.

 

Have you pursued self-knowledge at all? Understanding the nature of addiction can be a phenomenal first step. Stef did a video recently talking about this that I found very helpful. You can find it  

.

Stef posted something like this a few days back.

 

 

Sometimes it's better, especially in the beginning, to just be around people who are different than those you've hung around before. I can tell you that the feeling of alone-ness wouldn't go away even in an atheist meeting. Each step forward, no matter how minuscule, takes you further from where you've been and closer to where you want to be. This is your path, and you're a mother fucking Goddess. So walk that bitch. It won't be easy, but honestly, that's why you've chosen it. Make friends with that feeling of being alone. That uneasy gut twisting chest hardening sensation is not telling you you're completely alone. It's saying, "Look! I'm here! Talk with me! Walk with me! Be strong with me!" That sensation you get when being alone is like the Cosmic Background Radiation. It's everywhere, and until you really listen to what it has to say it just appears as static. That feeling you get when you think you're alone is the Big Bang that is your beautiful soul. 

 

I can't even begin to imagine what the last month has been like for you. All I know is, if there is anybody on this planet that can not only survive what you've survived, but thrive and live the most fulfilling loving life, it's you. 

 

Keep up those deep breaths. Be gentle with the Goddess. 

 

And message me anytime you need a friend. 

 

 

Edit: something else you may want to try is to have 21 y/o Jami ask 31 y/o Jami what she wants 21 y/o Jami to do. Then, once a course has been set, have 21 y/o Jami gently inform 11 y/o Jami what you're going to do and how it's going to help, and that you'll be with her the whole way.

This brought me to tears Nathan. I miss you so much. I..I just want you to be happy. I'm going to send you a message.

Why don't you call into the show about this?  I too have had the issue of religion being served up in support groups dealing with a chronic medical condition.  However, it is especially troubling that this is happening in a setting with addicts; whereby, they replace one addiction with another.  Religion is just another barrier to erect to keep from knowing yourself.  It fills the void you feel from withdrawal with yet another detachment from reality.  In the end, you are the one pulling the strings. 

 

It's never going to be easy, but you have to make sensible decisions about how to avoid relapse; like staying away from old sources, maybe leaving extra money with a trusted friend, keeping in touch with sponsors, exercising, starting up a hobby, etc.  Just remember that there are folks in the FDR community that wish you well!

You are very kind. Thank you. I will keep in mind a few of the statements you have made.

[dsayers]

I'm very aware of my addiction. I hope your aware that addiction is a disease.

 

*cringe* What you are experiencing is the result of being victimized, this is true. But not by some microbial. People who say things like this are securing their failure. You cannot fix a problem you don't understand the nature of. Please, I urge you once more to watch the first half of that video I linked. The reason I found it so helpful was that it explained the physiology of addiction.

[Mishelle]

wow, y'all are amazing!

 

A link that I will re-share that has much on addiction and nothing, so far that I have seen, on God, thank god, is the free self-help course at sfhelp.org

 

It's quite structured, so might be helpful in addition to all of Stef's great stuff on MEcosystem, self-knowledge, the hours of calls--there are lots of us out here, you've got choices dear, and good luck

[LanceD]

As a recovered addict myself I believe I may be able to offer you some assistance on this matter. I apologize in advance for the length of my post but it's a topic that is important to me and I believe I can offer some real help to you.

 

First a little background on me (I'll try and be short and to the point).

 

I was a child born to narcissistic parents. They divorced when I was 8 and from then on led lives focused on themselves and neglected to finish raising me.

 

This led to me being a very unhappy teenager. I dropped out of high school and spent my time trying to get laid and doing drugs as an attempt to fill the emptiness and achieve some kind of superficial happiness.

 

This led to me developing an addiction to sex, video games and methamphetamines. Eventually I hit my bottom.

 

One day I was wallowing in depression and thinking of sad things that happened in my life. I thought back to when I was much younger and one of my cousins was murdered. This event and his funeral were significant events in my life but I was so fucked up on drugs and lack of sleep I couldn't recall the name of my cousin who was killed. This disgusted me and caused me to feel an overwhelming hatred for the person I had become.

 

I then decided I would stop. The first addiction to go was the meth, but due to the sex and video games not being quite so destructive they took much longer to address and this leads me to my point about your question.

 

NA and AA still operate under a paradigm of non responsibility. They are based on the idea that chemicals and activities are addictive. This has been proven to not be true through scientific research and that these problems are symptoms of improper brain development caused by bad childhoods but this fact is inconvenient to the people involved.

 

This leads to a philosophy based around treating individual addictions, rather then the causes of addictive personalities. That is why the idea that you are always an addict in recovery is so common, because after all you are only treating symptoms and not the actual disease so usually a very destructive addiction is simply replaced with less destructive ones.

 

Religion ties into this very well. If you have a treatment philosophy based around not holding people responsible, particularly holding your parents responsible for screwing you up, you are limiting your power to fix yourself. This makes it necessary to hand things off to a higher power that can do the fixing for you.

 

Additionally many addicts come from religious families and acknowledging a religious upbringing as a potential cause for the addiction is very inconvenient to everyone involved. So programs have incentives to be friendly towards the religious parents who often play a significant role in choosing where an addict will go to "recover".

 

So while giving up your power to a magical man in the sky is appealing to some it is not the way to get truly better.

 

My suggestions to you are to first extract yourself from your fellow addicts and everyone around you who is involved in or supportive of the lifestyle you chose. While talking out issues with experienced people has obvious value, how is spending time with addicts going to fix you? Spend as much time as possible with people who are actual examples of the life you want!

 

When I decided to start down the road to recovery I moved from Southern California where I grew up to Iowa, about 1700 miles away. This separated me not only from the people I got the drugs from and did them with but also removed me from the people who neglected and abused me. This allowed me to gain perspective and a clearer picture of myself and the decisions I had made in the past and begin the process of healing.

 

Then I would suggest therapy. You are an addict because when you are not pursuing your addiction you are unhappy. This is the root cause of your addiction and the most efficient way to address this is to pursue self knowledge through therapy so you can process and understand why this is.

 

Part of this is fully accepting that people are responsible for what they do. You are responsible for fixing yourself and your parents are responsible for fucking you up. Without this acknowledgement you will never have the power to do anything about your situation and will always have to rely on woo woo spiritual nonsense to patch the holes in your perpetually sinking ship.

 

I'm feeling scatter brained at the moment so my thoughts probably didn't come out quite as concise and well thought out as I had wanted. But I hope my post is of some value to you and if you need anything don't hesitate to send me a pm. It's a long road out of the darkness but the feeling of being in the light is well worth it.

[Jer]

Once you are an addict you are always an addict.

Is there evidence to back up this statement? I've heard it a lot and it never really seemed rational to me.

 

Best wishes in your recovery.

[LanceD]

Is there evidence to back up this statement? I've heard it a lot and it never really seemed rational to me.Best wishes in your recovery.

This statement is only true so long as you only treat your addictions and do not deal with the issues that make you an addict. Really this attitude is incredibly dangerous because it leads to people who either fail to recover from addictions or simply replace one addiction with another.

[mick_towe]

Is there evidence to back up this statement? I've heard it a lot and it never really seemed rational to me.

 

Best wishes in your recovery.

 

This statement is only true so long as you only treat your addictions and do not deal with the issues that make you an addict.Really this attitude is incredibly dangerous because it leads to people who either fail to recover from addictions or simply replace one addiction with another.

 

I myself am an alcoholic. I have not had a drink since 2006, but I know that if I were to have one, it would start up again, just like before, and in a matter of weeks my life would start to fall apart. This is what people mean by "once an addict, always an addict".

 

In my opinion it is dangerous and naive to suggest an addict think otherwise.

 

And as far as "dealing with the issues that make you an addict", for a lot of people that is not enough. True alcoholism (not be confused with problem drinking) has a physiological (as well as psycological) cause that has to do with the enzymes the individual has in their liver. In an alcoholic the body actually breaks down alcohol in a different way than "a normal person", resulting in addiction.

 

I do not know if this is the case with other narcotics, but this has been shown to be the case with alcoholics.

 

http://www.robertalonso.net/2009/05/07/under-the-influence-james-r-milan-ph-d-katherine-ketcham/

[dsayers]

Mick, have you checked out the video I linked above? It addresses the physiological impact on the brain. I don't know if what you said about the liver is true, but unless it leads to the inability to live (literally) without alcohol, then it would be meaningless compared to the physiological impact in the brain.

 

I myself am an alcoholic. I have not had a drink since 2006, but I know that if I were to have one, it would start up again, just like before, and in a matter of weeks my life would start to fall apart. This is what people mean by "once an addict, always an addict".

 

If no effort has been made towards self-knowledge beyond drinking alone, this would be true. Self-knowledge, including the processing of unresolved trauma, would likely not play out as you describe. It certainly wouldn't be involuntary. Taking these steps, one cannot be somebody who was never broken, but it would be a misnomer to refer to them as broken in the present.

 

The distinction is important because understanding the cause for addiction helps those afflicted in the present and helps to prevent new victims in the future. "Once an addict always an addict" does nothing to help prevent new victims and paralyzes those who have been inflicted by telling them they can never touch the stuff again. Which is essentially letting it run your life still.

[mick_towe]

I will watch the video, maybe I will learn something new.

 

I am not saying there is not a psychological aspect to addiction and that it should not be treated. I was just pointing out that with alcoholism there is a hereditary physiological difference that has been found in alcoholics compared to "normal people". They have been able to discover this by autopsy. In other words, you are born with the potential to be an alcoholic or not, and it is genetic.

 

So regardless of how much "self knowledge" I attain, I still have the body of an alcoholic. It is somewhat like diabetes in that before you consume alcohol there isn't a problem, but once you tip past "activating" it you have the disease. The alcoholics body actually metabolizes alcohol in a different way than most people, and begins to look for it as an energy source prioritizing it before food. Once this change is activated there is no known way to go back. Approximately 10% of the population has this condition.  High tolerance and blackouts are the symptoms. It is most common in Asian and Native American populations. This has been known since the 70's. The book I linked to goes into all of this. It is a cross spectrum analysis of alcoholism and the psychological effects AND the physiological effects.

 

Did I have problems that sent me seeking refuge in drink? For sure. But that is not the whole story.

 

For example, a few years ago I was unknowingly given a probiotic drink that contained a small amount of alcohol in it. It was one of those weird drinks people grow in jars on top of their fridges. After the first drink I said out loud "This is the best tasting drink I have ever had!". It is interesting that I said that. It is almost as if my body recognized the alcohol immediately. The second drink was a gulp, and so was the third. I started to feel a rush and then my friend was like "Oh my god I am so sorry I think there might be alcohol in that!". I then put it down and felt funny for a few hours. Point is, my body responded to it immediately and was affecting my conscious thought. Without me realizing it.

 

"Not touching the stuff ever again" is EXACTLY what an addict should do. If that is letting the drug run your life, then what is continuing to do it?

 

I feel bad for hijacking the thread. I just felt as an addict I felt it was dangerous to tell another addict that "this will be over someday". It will be better some day for sure, better than you could ever imagine, but not over. Maybe this is not true for other drugs? I couldn't know.

 

I will watch the video. It's been awhile since I have done any "work" in that area.

Oops, I have seen that video. I don't totally agree with Stef on  this one. There is a point where the substance takes over, and the cause is irrelevant.