Helping Alcoholics Recover

There is a definite system for how to stay clean and sober and most alcoholics will never figure it out.

The system involves creation.

Most people get confused when it comes to quitting drugs and alcohol, because they see it as a process of elimination. They think that the primary focus is on eliminating drug use and then on avoiding all of those triggers and urges that might pop up in our lives that might make us relapse.

If recovery were truly this simple then we would probably see much higher success rates. Unfortunately we do not, because achieving good results in recovery takes an awful lot of effort.

One of the hard truths about recovery is that it takes a monumental effort in the beginning. If you want to achieve a successful life of sobriety then you have to put forth a huge initial effort. Many of us have learned that we can enjoy success in life by taking a more modest approach with most things, but this will not work in recovery. If you approach early sobriety with anything less than a 100 percent effort, you are going to relapse.

Now this can be particularly confusing because we often times will look to the seasoned veterans of recovery who have multiple years of sobriety and try to emulate their life. This will not work for the newcomer and it will cause them to relapse. If your sponsor has 10 years of sobriety and as a newcomer you try to copy his lifestyle exactly then you are going to relapse. Why? Because we change and evolve and grow in our recovery. What got us clean and sober will not keep us clean and sober....we have to keep changing as we go along.

Not only that, but the amount of up-front effort you need as a newcomer to recovery is just huge. Don't think that you can somehow find a shortcut to the serenity and calm demeanor of that ten-year-sober sponsor of yours. That serenity was earned. It is not a magic gift that you can claim without putting in the footwork.

I mentioned that the system for staying clean involves creation and that is exactly what the newcomer must set out to do. They must create a new life for themselves. This is the only way to lasting recovery. The success stories who give credit to 12 step programs are all actively creating a new life for themselves. They might give credit to their higher power or to the 12 steps but their long term success in recovery was paved by their actions. They took action in early recovery and continued to put one foot in front of the other and they stayed sober through the years. Yes, some of the "tools of the program" certainly helped them but not in the way that they originally thought. The secret was in their vision for a new life and the action to pursue it.

Creation is not something that you get better at by reading about it. You have to get out there and live your life and start taking positive action and see what works for you. Recovery is indeed a learning process but not in the way most people think. What you are learning is about what creative efforts work for you in your own life. The people in 12 step fellowships are not learning the program better as they go through the years, instead they are learning about themselves and what works for them in their recovery as they go through the years.

This is not to say that a 12 step program can not help you because it certainly can. But understand that the success rates are lousy for any recovery program, and the real secret lies in the actions and the creative efforts of the individual. Many who fail in working a program say that they failed to grasp the program and apply it in their life, but what really happened is that they failed to create a vision for a new life for themselves and then properly pursue it. There is a difference here and in some ways it is too subtle for most to notice.

The answer is in creation.