WHERE TO MARK TIME?

Experience is the thing you have left

when everything else is gone.

                                                              ---Anonymous

 When I was new in recovery, I had a disease blowing dragon smoke in my ear. There were lots of drugs I'd never tried, and therefore hadn't gotten into trouble with. And in those days, Cocaine and pot were considered "only psychologically addictive." And a couple beers on a hot day, some wine or a cocktail at dinner —I mean, it was the compulsive use, the overuse of drugs that was the problem, right? Right?

All this NA "is a program of complete abstinence from all drugs" is bullshit, right? Don't some cardiac patients have to take drugs? Diabetics? Those with cancer? So there are exceptions, right?

So . . . maybe I can go use recreationally without triggering off my addiction. Whadya think?

I heard a newcomer say something like that to an old-timer in the program. The old-timer snorted, shrugged and said, "Anything's possible. You might just be the first."

I recently got a message from someone new in recovery to the effect that alcohol might not be a problem for that person. Time to bail out of the program and experiment.

Yeah. This is a mistake. You know the person is an accident going someplace to happen. What you never know is if they will live long enough to make it back into recovery. It's not like that person didn't know. You know that person has heard those lines a hundred times or more at the beginning of every NA meeting:

"Thinking of alcohol as different from other drugs has caused a great many addicts to relapse . . . we cannot afford to be confused about this. Alcohol is a drug. We are people with the disease of addiction who must abstain from all drugs in order to recover." [Narcotics Anonymous, 6th Ed, p.18]

There are NA groups in Maine who make it a practice during that particular reading to shout "duh!" after the word relapse above, and shout period! after the word recover.

Okay, it's not all drugs. You may take your heart medication. It is all mood-altering drugs. Is alcohol a mood altering drug? Yes! The organization that fathered all Twelve Step programs, Alcoholics Anonymous, figured that out in the Nineteen thirties, the medical community getting the message some time later.

A drug is a drug.

Alcohol is a drug.

Picking up and using any mood altering drug sends recovering addicts back into the nightmare.

Duh!

So, what did I do in early recovery trying to decide if I'm really an addict, and if there were any of those mood-altering formulas that might not get me into trouble? Staying clean and in the program struck me as the most sensible place to gather evidence, learn what I could, and then make a decision.

You have doubts about being an addict, reservations about giving up certain drugs, afraid you might be missing out on the good life? Clean and in the program is where to gather evidence and make such decisions. You can take advantage of the experiences of those recovering addicts sitting in the circle. You don't have to lose everything, including your life, to figure out addiction is your problem and safely using mood-altering drugs is not a possibility.

One of the first AA slogans was "Think." Then came, "Think First," and "Think It Through." Another question to ask yourself when contemplating using a drug or substituting one for another, is this:

"What could possibly go wrong?"