From Dragonfly: Conversations I Don't Enjoy

In the RDAP program through the Feds, which is the residential drug and alcohol program and includes a couple hours of programming every day. People who qualify for the program can receive up to 9 months off their time in prison (they receive extra halfway house time). Their "out date" is changed as soon as they start the program. If they finish it, and don't quit or get into trouble, they are guaranteed that new out date. For those who come into prison with a history of drug or alcohol abuse, it's a great way to change your thinking, yourself, and hope for a different future.

My struggle with the program is that they discount the beliefs of 12-step programs. They focus on changing thoughts and behaviors, but not on the emotional illness that underlies the addiction. They tell the people in the program that addiction is not a disease and they have articles from some journals to back up their ideas.

I have a friend in RDAP who calls the 12-step programs "extreme." She doesn't believe that you can never participate in the behavior again. Based on her program in RDAP, she can drink again, she just would need to make a different choice about driving while drunk. I struggle greatly with this, because once you are drinking, how rational a choice are you able to make? In my program, we believe that the minute you go back to what was your addiction, you start right where you left off, even if you've worked on changing yourself. A first gamble, a first drink, a first pill, what ever the addiction may be, will lead you right back to stinking thinking and irrational behavior you had that brought you into the 12-step program.

At breakfast today, there was no room for conversation about why 12-step programs do work and that addiction is an illness. My friend was entirely closed off to that idea. She's closed off to the idea that she should never engage in the behavior again. Her addiction-recovery program is telling her that she can.

I became frustrated. I said, "my 12-step program saved my life." Then there was the "differences" of well, I must have crossed a different line. "Some people can be functional alcoholics," she said, "functional alcoholics would not need a 12-step program."

These ideas lead me to think about cross-addiction. If we don't really change ourselves and get to the heart of why we are addicts, we can just cross addict. I've seen so many people go from alcoholics to compulsive gamblers, or the other way around. From drug addicts to money addicts. We are unable to stop our addictive behaviors (the actual type of addiction is a symptom) because we are not getting to the root of the problems. The 12-steps, worked honestly, can help make the change. I'm not saying that any program is for everyone, but discounting a program is just plain closed-minded and harmful to those that have relied on the programs for decades.

I said, "can we go from 'either-or' to 'both-and'?" Meaning - can we accept that different programs can work, but neither program is bad in itself. Anyone can say they are "different" than the people in the 12-step rooms, in fact all of us usually start by doing that. It's once we are open and start to see the similarities and understand the "well, I didn't do that 'yet'" that we truly can understand the program. It can take a good 3 months of working a program for the changes to start. At first, our fog that brought us into the rooms needs to lift.

If you, or someone you know, is going to RDAP, I think that's wonderful. It will help you. However, don't discount the programs that have been working for hundreds of thousands of people for decades. There's a reason they help us not continue our irrational, baffling, addiction and I for one know it works if you work it!