Cocaine User Helping Hand :: View topic

brennaline · 12 step Recruit

Okay, perhaps you are reading me not so clearly. I am clean and have been for some time. I was just expressing what it took for me to get clean. It is not the path for everyone. I was just expressing how I was freed from my addiction to crack. I am not searching, just sharing. I found this site tonight and was just reading out of interest and common experience. I do not know if you are sitting where I am now. I am sitting at home, recovered, having spent the day at a treatment center working with other women addicts.
There is hope and I live it, share it and love it.
Brenna

Admin · Site Admin

Quote:

Okay, perhaps you are reading me not so clearly. I am clean and have been for some time. I was just expressing what it took for me to get clean. It is not the path for everyone. I was just expressing how I was freed from my addiction to crack. I am not searching, just sharing. I found this site tonight and was just reading out of interest and common experience. I do not know if you are sitting where I am now. I am sitting at home, recovered, having spent the day at a treatment center working with other women addicts.
There is hope and I live it, share it and love it.
Brenna

Hi Brenna, welcome here.
I am glad that 12 step program is helping you. You are lucky enough to be among 5% of people who have been helped by 12 steps mutual help groups.

Also I am glad that you are reading something which is not in 12 steps domain. It used to be big "No-No".

brennaline · 12 step Recruit

Hey there! I have to tell you that the rate of success that you quote is not from the program, but the fellowship. There is a big difference. Few people who attend those fellowship meetings have ever done all 12 steps. I know this because I was one of the majority for some time. I also know this from the rates put out by AA and CA, which state 6-8% success. My knowledge of the success of the fellowship is almost as dismal as yours.
I am part of the "old school" method that the originators of the program intended. Our rates are 50-60% now and we are fighting to raise that. It is part of the "Back to Basics" program started by Wally P.
I do not know about no-no's. It is my understanding that we do not hold a monopoly on recovery or a solution. I am sure that some have gotten well in ways other than what worked for me. According to my limited knowledge, I am just to share what worked for me. I have never been told or taught that I am not to continue to grow or learn. I came here to read and learn. I am recovered, but not cured.
For those that I see weekly in treatment facillities, I can only benefit them by bringing them all the information that I can acquire. It is my intention to share anything that might possibly help another addict to be free.

Have a wonderful day!

Brenna

unforgiven2 · Tenant

Hi Brenaline congrats on your rcovery I agree with your statement

Quote:

I am recovered, but not cured.

I don't think for any addict there is a 100% cure there is always the chance of reverting back into that stage. I would like to lean more about what the old school methods were if you have the time IM me. At some point in recovery to be effective it is going to take just saying no if not the valnurbilty to use would become a downfall leading back and forth. I do see that immediate usuage of the word no might not work for eveyone but flagging I see has been utilyzing steps to get there throwing away the pipe (not irreplaceable but it is the method of giving up something he treasured at one time. A very useful tool crushing it under your feet telling the mind I am in control unlike what AA or NA tells you you aren't in control but seek it through a higher being.

We are all in control of our choice as hard as that concept seems to be. We chose to do something against the odds or against what our mind or body says we need to do. Gathering the tools and putting into practice what stregnths and determinations a person has. But if recovery is so easy why is it still contoling people. I think Without a plan or stradegy or goal in mind one can be like a kite in the wind being pushed back and forth until solid ground and clear vision arises.

Even the best man or woman can fall sometimes life is un free of promises but this I promise everyone you can quit crack and you will live a better, healthier, possitive life. Still life has problems and drug use can not better the problems or make them go away it just makes things worse.

brennaline · 12 step Recruit

I have quit, but for me it took working the 12 steps. I had to do all of them and in order. That is just my story. I tried treatment, church, doctors, counseling, saying no, swearing off the the depths of my soul and so on...
For me I had to work the steps as quickly as possible and for me the obsession was lifted. The promises of the 12 steps have come true for me. My plan or strategy is to share what was given to me and keep in contact with my higher power.
I am a true addict and I have a disease. I keep that in remission by the daily maintenace of my spiritual program. This is what has worked for me.

Brenna

lucyb · Helping Hand I

Brenna-
Thank you for sharing your success with a 12 step program. My son, recently out of rehab, will be doing 90 in 90 as part of his recovery process. He knows the basics of the steps, has not worked them yet, but feels they will be good tool to work with.
As always, help is where you find it.
You sound incredibly strong and confident in yourself, your addiction, and your recovery. Thanks for joining on and sharing, and giving me another example of hope against crack.
Welcome.
Lucy

Admin · Site Admin

"Back to Basics" aka Oxford Group...?
You have great success rate, I would love to see it documented somehow.
Pardon my nihilism, but I don't see much difference between AA and B2B.

brennaline · 12 step Recruit

Lucy,

There is hope. I sit here free with my sanity restored to me. I hope that your son finds a path that works for him.
If he feels that the steps may help him, please encourage him to go to big book study meetings. Those tend to be the meetings where the message of the program is shared.

Brenna

brennaline · 12 step Recruit

Well, most would not as they have not attended. The standard attitude in AA is take it easy. That is crap. This is a disease and you would not take it easy treating cancer. You have to aggressively treat this disease as you would any other life threatening malady. That is where the b2b goes with the program. The first 3 steps are a given if you are ready. I do those with my sponsees in 5 minutes or less. They are either willing and done or they are not. The 4th step is the bravest thing that anyone will ever do. That is the stopping point of most who attend AA. To be totally honest and truly look at yourself is not something that anyone wants to do. For many it is easier to either stay miserable or stay using. The miserable usually leads back to the using.

I dare you to attend a few meetings and see who has really done the steps. There are few. A lot of the meetings are whine sessions for miserable dry drunks. I attend the big book studies, where we are learning how to live and apply the program. We actually work the steps and use them. We are not the coffee crowd that sits and chats about the disease without taking action. It is action that saves us within the program. The difference between AA and b2b is that we are not fellowship. We are not just bored and lonely looking for somewhere to hang out. We are truly looking for a solution to the disease. We are acknowledging and trying to remove our shortcomings. The drugs were merely a symptom and for a time they were the solution...

Brenna

keepitreal · Helping Hand IV

brennaline wrote:

Some of us have a disease called addiction that centers in the mind.

What the mind dwells on, the body acts on.

brennaline wrote:

I would love to tell you that this is easy, but it is not.

Action is the path to freedom...

It's not easy saying no when you don't want to
....even though you think you do

brennaline · 12 step Recruit

I attend AA and CA. It is essentially the same as the steps are the same.

Brenna

brennaline · 12 step Recruit

Are you suggesting that I wanted to leave the kids outside my room knocking? Are you suggesting that I wanted to be left with no money for food? Wow...That is rather presumptuous.

Brenna

Admin · Site Admin

Quote:

I dare you to attend a few meetings and see who has really done the steps. There are few. A lot of the meetings are whine sessions for miserable dry drunks. I attend the big book studies, where we are learning how to live and apply the program. We actually work the steps and use them. We are not the coffee crowd that sits and chats about the disease without taking action. It is action that saves us within the program. The difference between AA and b2b is that we are not fellowship. We are not just bored and lonely looking for somewhere to hang out. We are truly looking for a solution to the disease. We are acknowledging and trying to remove our shortcomings. The drugs were merely a symptom and for a time they were the solution...

If it was directed to me -- I don't have to attend meetings. If you have this sobriety medallions, I would be receiving that 40 years one. I am submissive to my High Power, which is my brain, that fueled by healthy lifestyle, shaped by knowledge I received and receiving.
I do believe that behaivier shape our way of thinking (thought without action is just a bubble, behaivier without a thought is conditional or insanity). I do believe in responsibility, you are the one who makes choices and decisions. So, if you made the wrong one don't blame on somebody else, and don't relay on somebody else to change it. As far as the difference between B2B and AA, I see it as a geopolitics of 12 steps. Same principles, different tractates.

Admin · Site Admin

Quote:

Some of us have a disease called addiction that centers in the mind.

it "centers" in the brain, mind is a result of working brains.

brennaline · 12 step Recruit

Time is not the definer of growth within my circle of AA and CA. As to the resposibility, yes the steps for me were the path to see my part in my life and to live it better. I do not rely on people to change me today. I rely on prayer. We are all human that is a fact. To rely on a human would be to be setting oneself up for trouble.
It is okay that you do not see the difference. You have found what you were looking for elsewhere and I would never begrudge anyone their sobriety no matter the path. To be clean is the blessing here. The path is inconsequential. You are happy? I am certainly. Isn't it wonderful that the addict has choices?

Brenna

brennaline · 12 step Recruit

hmmmm...I was just sharing my truth. I tried by every possible method to stop. I found myself unable. This is just what happened to me. I am grateful to have found a path that worked to relieve my obsession and free me from the addiction. I have never claimed to know what was going on in the mind of anyone else. That is a bit of a stretch. Science has not clearly defined the disease of addiction. There are so many views. Good thing that there are choices in recovery too.

Brenna

brennaline · 12 step Recruit

My addiction needed to be treated as my mother's aneurism. Perhaps I used a bad reference point there. Some aneurisms do not need to be treated either. My addiction did.

Brenna

keepitreal · Helping Hand IV

brennaline wrote:

Are you suggesting that I wanted to leave the kids outside my room knocking? Are you suggesting that I wanted to be left with no money for food? Wow...That is rather presumptuous.

Brenna

LOL..no, I'm not suggesting you wanted
to leave your kids outside your room knocking,
or spend all your food money...

I'm telling you,
you didn't give a sh!t, you wanted to use.

What you didn't want to do,
was spend the food money on crack and cause your kids to....
have to stand outside your room, knocking on the door...
wanting their Mommy, whose locked in her room smoking crack!

You weren't feeling guilty when they were knocking...If anything,
you were paranoid and told them to stop knocking on the door.
You weren't worried about eating or feeding your kids...
when you were handing the dope man his money.

These things bothered you, after the fact...
after the sh!t was gone...and there would be no more,
Then the guilt and disgust take over...

But, that didn't stop you from next time...
because you weren't WILLING to stop....
You didn't want to say no....

And don't try to tell me..you can forget those things

brennaline wrote:

We are simply unable to remember the misery when the thought of the relief of that first hit gets into our heads. That is how I was.

Get real, huh...right...That's how you were...

Simply, not trying to remember,
because all you were thinking about,
was getting that hit.

That's as simple as it gets...WOW

WOW...Maybe you need to recheck your moral inventory Rolling Eyes