The empirical evidence is rather daunting. Notwithstanding the various therapeutic modalities employed, alcohol and drug recidivism rates hover over 90 percent. This is true across the healing spectrum from traditional psychoanalysis to CBT to Transpersonal modalities. Depressingly, it also includes lesser known approaches like EFT, TFT, NLP, EMDR and the guided use of hallucinogens.
Although more is known today than in the past about the unholy tentacles of addiction there remains scant peer reviewed evidence of any efficacious approach to dealing with addiction. This includes the underwhelming “success rate” of traditional 12 step programs. I’m neither special nor can I withstand icy waters like Wim Hof. I was your garden variety addict – yet I’ve been able to stay sober for over three decades and in the process helped hundreds of ordinary warmer-water addicts like me stay sober too.
How? I follow the precepts of the 12 steps and work that program but so do many others who regrettably relapse. After over 10,000 meetings I’ve seen many people stop using only to go back out again. Why? The number one reason people go out is sobriety. Their sober lives are miserable. Having put the cork in the bottle they continue to struggle with life on life’s terms. Few achieve what Bill Wilson termed ‘emotional sobriety’. As I have written elsewhere the journey of sustained recovery is serious but need not be grim. Grim begets failure; humor, lightness, laughter and joy have proven far more reliable. I subscribe to no particular spiritual or religious dogma (although there is much jargon thrown about in many a meeting room). I remind every client that he or she can believe or not believe as they deem fit. It is their journey.
So there is more to sobriety than merely stopping. The alcoholic/addict needs what has been called a psychic realignment and this can and does occur provided one is open to having it. However, that openness needs to be carefully cultivated under the very intensive and watchful eye of another who has successfully learned to live happily and meaningfully in sobriety. New habits need to be formed and reinforced. Daily practice and daily reflection and writing is required. “If it’s worth doing its worth putting down on paper”.
This early stage of recovery – when the client is open to change (usually out of desperation or the last nudge from the judge) is the time to guide the client toward a new life- one far richer and more rewarding than their best high. This has been my guiding principle for 33 years through all the ups and downs, setbacks, struggles and curveballs that have come my way. If I can assist any of your clients/ patients please let me know. I’m here to help. Andy
For Jews suffering from addiction or alcoholism there is a double barrier to surmount. First, the predictable denial that every addict/alcoholic manifests avoiding the tragic truth of his or her situation. Nearly every addict/ alcoholic will deny that they have a problem until the bitter end and in many cases the bitter end is exactly what they get. Years and decades, institutions and hospitals, divorces and bankruptcies, probation and jail sentences (either singularly or in the aggregate) are often insufficient to break through the addict/alcoholic’s fog. Fueled by all manner of shame and guilt the addict/ alcoholic continues to abuse substances, himself, and others.
For the Jew, the second hurdle is the widely held belief that “Jews are not alcoholics” and that some are immune and that addiction only plagues Gentiles. While there is statistical validity to support the claim on a macro level, it misses the 1 percent of Jews who have fallen through the cracks. Thus, the shame and denial is always greater for the Jewish addict/alcoholic and sadly confirms the truth of British Rabbi Lionel Blue’s maxim that “Jews are like everyone else just more so”.
This “more so” hinders Jews suffering from addiction and alcoholism for reaching out for help resulting in greater ostracization and isolation. See, L.Weiss,, Sh’ma , A Journal of Jewish Ideas).
Worse , organizations like AA are thought to be too “Christian” and while AA’ s founders borrowed language from their Christian experience, the tent of AA was left wide and tall enough to allow anyone of faith or no faith to enter and recover.
For the past 33 years I have seen many Jews recover, atone and prosper in AA. I am one of them. I have found absolutely no conflict between my religious upbringing or my thoroughly east coast Jewish culture (that runs like chicken fat though my veins) and any of the tenants of AA. On the contrary they compliment one another and whether it’s a wine club or a “kiddush Club” an alcoholic is an alcoholic and the principles of AA apply universally.
After a successful career as a headhunter, I have chosen in my remaining years to help fellow Jews suffering from the shame, guilt and embarrassment of addiction and alcoholism.
The special situation of the Jewish addict/alcoholic can be demystified and brought into the light and squarely addressed head on. Jewish recovery – with one Jewish Alcoholic helping another – is a particularly helpful and productive road to travel.
There has been much talk in the the recovery community for years about folks who are addicted and who struggle financially, the so called “Down & Outers." What about the help required for so called “Up & Outers," those addicts who are highly successful “high functioning” drunks and dope fiends, that in spite of their success are “burning down the house”.
The founder of the Oxford Group, Sam Shoemaker, was instrumental in working with Bill Wilson( one of the two founders of AA) on the foundational principles of12 step recovery. Shoemaker was a Protestant clergyman whose ministry was to help "Up & Outers” find a spiritual remedy to to their spiritual malady (drug and alcohol addiction).
I have found the level of denial, pride, arrogance, ego and hubris to be extant in this part of the alcoholic/addict population. The requisite humility needed for lasting recovery is virtually nonexistent in this group. The ability to "paper over” problems with money, property and prestige keeps this class continually addicted with no apparent remedy, making jails, institutions or death look like viable alternatives.
As a Recovery Coach for over 33 years, I have been fortunate in working with all types of addicts/alcoholics from all strata of society. "Up & Outers” have a particularly vexing dilemma, as their success in the temporal world has blinded them to a spiritual solution sufficient to overcome their addiction.
The “lower” self has these individuals in a death grip so tight that their ability to see the forest for the trees is non existent. One must smash the ego and reach out to our higher self if there is any hope of a solution to their life damaging behaviors.
So what to do? The need to concede to his/her innermost self that there is a fundamental problem must be addressed if there is to be any hope of a permanent release from the chains of addiction. This is the first step on the road to recovery. I have been there
Success Leaves Clues. I have successfully navigated a well recovered life for over 3 decades.
My process is based on 3 tangible facts that I have employed: Shrinking of the ego, emotional sobriety and taking the focus off yourself by being of service to others in the community.
Let me show you how 100's of clients have benefited from my plan of action.
Yours in Sobriety, Andy Lewis
No alcoholic/addict would continue to remain sober if sobriety was unrelentingly grim and joyless.
Irreverence helps the client alter perspective and let go of rigidly held views and can address the non-fragile aspects of a clients addictions.
Adopting a matter of fact tone on an important issue may grab the client by stopping catastrophizing and focus on solving the problem of his/her addictive behaviors. Re-framing a client’s communication in an unorthodox manner, eg. being “off beat”or humorous by telling anecdotal stories, can help the addict get a new perspective on his/her addiction. Getting the client to shift from an entrenched position and become more flexible in his/her outlook is an achievable outcome.
Using “verbal shock therapy” to get the addict off guard by doing or saying something totally unexpected can also shift the paradigm. Employing logic to weave a web of surprise to eliminate”poor baby” syndrome may also be employed.
If there is no joy in recovery, very few addict/alcoholics achieve long term sobriety. My experience strongly suggest that it is unsustainable. Using humor, irreverence and logic can be techniques employed to break the “ bondage of self” and denial. After all, we are just trying to save your life!
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