Guest guest Posted July 20, 2001 Report Share Posted July 20, 2001 This slogan, " Stay away from people, places and things " did seem to make its appearance as more and more young cross-addicts from White Deer Rehab came to meetings. It's an example of the " one size fits all " sort of thinking. This slogan was applied to everyone. To the old bar drunks it meant stay out of bars and away from the bar crowd. To the young cross-addicts it meant to stay away from the drug users and dealers, away from where those people hang out, and away from things that would remind them of the old drug-using days. It implied that they all went elsewhere to drink and use. But I had a problem with that slogan. The place I did most of my drinking was in my own kitchen, at the table. The people I associated with were my own family. The things were the familiar things in my house. While the bar drunk could stay out of bars and the young cross-addict could stay away from various places and people, I wasn't about to leave my own house. And I didn't. And I got sober anyway. So there! ;-) Cheers, nz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 20, 2001 Report Share Posted July 20, 2001 At 05:51 PM 7/20/01 -0400, you wrote: >This slogan, " Stay away from people, places and things " did seem to make >its appearance as >more and more young cross-addicts from White Deer Rehab came to meetings. [snip] >But I had a problem with that slogan. The place I did most of my drinking >was in my own >kitchen, at the table. The people I associated with were my own >family. The things were >the familiar things in my house. > >While the bar drunk could stay out of bars and the young cross-addict >could stay away from >various places and people, I wasn't about to leave my own house. > >And I didn't. And I got sober anyway. So there! ;-) Go ! :-) I know what ya mean. During my " treatment, " the counsellor kept insisting that I had to avoid my friends. I pointed out to her repeatedly that my friends were not heavy drinkers, and so it made no sense to avoid them. But she simply wasn't able to comprehend that, and continued to insist that I must avoid all my friends. Steppers think in stereotypes, and can't understand anything outside the stereotype. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 20, 2001 Report Share Posted July 20, 2001 wrote: There is logic in avoiding people who use and drink. But I always found it illogical that one Must not be around slippery people. Were not all the sober addicts once in slippery places? And how is AA supposed to work step 12 if they are not around addicts/alcoholics? I feel that preaching to a friend about their addiction is useless but rather they may learn something by example. wrote: > This slogan, " Stay away from people, places and things " did seem to make its appearance as > more and more young cross-addicts from White Deer Rehab came to meetings. > > It's an example of the " one size fits all " sort of thinking. This slogan was applied to > everyone. To the old bar drunks it meant stay out of bars and away from the bar crowd. > To the young cross-addicts it meant to stay away from the drug users and dealers, away > from where those people hang out, and away from things that would remind them of the old > drug-using days. > > It implied that they all went elsewhere to drink and use. > > But I had a problem with that slogan. The place I did most of my drinking was in my own > kitchen, at the table. The people I associated with were my own family. The things were > the familiar things in my house. > > While the bar drunk could stay out of bars and the young cross-addict could stay away from > various places and people, I wasn't about to leave my own house. > > And I didn't. And I got sober anyway. So there! ;-) > > Cheers, > > nz > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 20, 2001 Report Share Posted July 20, 2001 > >This slogan, " Stay away from people, places and things " did seem to make > >its appearance as > >more and more young cross-addicts from White Deer Rehab came to meetings. > > I know what ya mean. During my " treatment, " the counsellor kept > insisting that I had to avoid my friends. I pointed out to her > repeatedly that my friends were not heavy drinkers, and so it > made no sense to avoid them. But she simply wasn't able to > comprehend that, and continued to insist that I must avoid all > my friends. In ohter words doing the very opposite of what the most effective approach to overdrinking is, community reinforcement. Strong bonds with non-overdrinking friends is exactly the kind of thing that can help a person get out of the problem. One of the compensations for having Shirk lurk here is that one can report truthfully the exchanges one has had with him knowing he will be reading them and he is powerless to misrepresent them back. Jim is (or was) of course a professional stepper, paid to do 12 step work, in conttreavention of his own fellowship's traditions. He insisted that he wasnt bewcause alcohol counselling uses more than just the steps. This is a nn sequitir, since if a professional Freudian analyst also teaches cookery at the same time to his clients, he us still a professional analyst all the same. What was most hilarious of all though, was that Jim said that counselling was *also* about teaching ppl their powerlessness over ppl, places, and things, i.e. he used a phrase right out of 12-step culture in an attempt to say that his counselling was more than just steppism! This phrase is big in CoDA I think. Since Codependnency has been expanded to mean addiction to anything and everything, this is hardly surprising - I was quite surprised to hear that it was forst coined in NA - it sounds like an Al Anon/CoDA thing. P. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 20, 2001 Report Share Posted July 20, 2001 At 03:56 AM 7/21/01 -0000, watts_pete@... wrote: > >> I know what ya mean. During my " treatment, " the counsellor kept >> insisting that I had to avoid my friends. I pointed out to her >> repeatedly that my friends were not heavy drinkers, and so it >> made no sense to avoid them. But she simply wasn't able to >> comprehend that, and continued to insist that I must avoid all >> my friends. > >In ohter words doing the very opposite of what the most effective >approach to overdrinking is, community reinforcement. Strong bonds >with non-overdrinking friends is exactly the kind of thing that can >help a person get out of the problem. One of the compensations for >having Shirk lurk here is that one can report truthfully the >exchanges one has had with him knowing he will be reading them and he >is powerless to misrepresent them back. Jim is (or was) of course a >professional stepper, paid to do 12 step work, in conttreavention of >his own fellowship's traditions. He insisted that he wasnt bewcause >alcohol counselling uses more than just the steps. This is a nn >sequitir, since if a professional Freudian analyst also teaches >cookery at the same time to his clients, he us still a professional >analyst all the same. What was most hilarious of all though, was >that Jim said that counselling was *also* about teaching ppl their >powerlessness over ppl, places, and things, i.e. he used a phrase >right out of 12-step culture in an attempt to say that his >counselling was more than just steppism! Oh, geez, one can 'reason' one's way right out of any charge of violating the traditions - when one is counseling others on being powerless over people places and things, there's no violation of AA's traditions. When one is counseling others on alcoholism, there's no violation of the CoDA traditions. See? Not violating traditions. >This phrase is big in CoDA I think. Since Codependnency has been >expanded to mean addiction to anything and everything, this is hardly >surprising - I was quite surprised to hear that it was forst coined >in NA - it sounds like an Al Anon/CoDA thing. Perhaps it was because some of the AA meetings I attended were Al-Anon influenced (some Al-Anons attended and shared at open AA meetings, and almost no one complained or believed that this was a violation of the third tradition, and that only alcoholics should speak in AA meetings), but I heard " I'm powerless over [not just alcohol, but] people, places and things " many times in AA meetings. >P. > > > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 21, 2001 Report Share Posted July 21, 2001 <big fat sigh> Now I'm going to be a little bit of a devil's advocate. I think there are certain circumstances in which it is important to get the hell away from certain people and the stuph they do. Right now I am thinking of the people my partner was hanging out with in Ithaca NY. I was scared shitless of many of those people. He had gravitated to the worst kind of junkie and crackhead thugs - and no insult intended to the former heroin users on this list. There are some very nice people who use heroin, I believe. But my partner's buddies were really scary, nasty, vicious people. He finally moved because even he wanted to get away from them. So instead he hung out with drunks and out-of-control potheads - and no insult intended to marijuana users on this list. His own life was spinning out of control, and finally he bailed out. At this point he appears to be hanging out with more constructive and interesting people. Of course I don't know if there are other people I'm not being told about. But he's no longer wallowing in the mess. And here's my gripe with the steppers. As I'd said, they apply that slogan to everybody. and I both got that slogan thrown at us even though we weren't hanging out with active drunks and troublemakers. I am irritated at the overuse of the slogan, and the one-size-fits-all mentality. There are certain people who would do well to get out of a bad situation; but it cheapens the slogan to use it for just anybody and everybody without looking at the person's actual life. Cheers, nz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 21, 2001 Report Share Posted July 21, 2001 At 07:59 AM 7/21/01 -0400, wrote: ><big fat sigh> >And here's my gripe with the steppers. As I'd said, they apply that slogan to everybody. > and I both got that slogan thrown at us even though we weren't hanging out with >active drunks and troublemakers. I am irritated at the overuse of the slogan, and the >one-size-fits-all mentality. There are certain people who would do well to get out of a >bad situation; but it cheapens the slogan to use it for just anybody and everybody without >looking at the person's actual life. Well, slogans ARE cheap; developing a course of action that is appropriate to the circumstances requires at least a little bit of thought, something that steppers " cannot or will not " do. There are slogans about thinking: " your best thinking got you here. " " The most dangerous thing an alcoholic can say is I've been thinking. " >Cheers, > >nz > > > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 22, 2001 Report Share Posted July 22, 2001 Hey Group, I don't care to argue about slogans, just want to relate a particular experience. My rehab program was Ontario Govt - Donwood in Toronto; nothing to do with 12-step. Cocaine was my worst problem, 7 years ago. It couldn't be said that this program uses slogans per se, but on occasion catchy phrases would come up. I'm sure some liked them, and others ignored them. In the context that I totally bought into the program; staked my life on it if you will, I myself did find a couple of slogans to be *essential* to my *early* recovery. The slogans happened to be " stay away from the people, places and things that lead you to use " , and H.A.L.T. (watch yourself if you get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired). These were very profound for me in the first weeks of recovery. They helped back up a kind of steely, robotic commitment to being clean. I often found myself going through a clunky self-check process using the slogans. Later in recovery, I rarely thought of them; I think they have become part of my unconscious competency; some fundamentals that I presume many people think obvious and take for granted. When I did some NA (and AA), I was put off their slogans by their apparent dependance on them, and the " big brother " style delivery of them. So I'm saying for me, slogans had their place, regardless of their association with the 12-step cult. Best wishes, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 23, 2001 Report Share Posted July 23, 2001 > Oh, geez, one can 'reason' one's way right out of any charge of > violating the traditions - when one is counseling others on being > powerless over people places and things, there's no violation of > AA's traditions. When one is counseling others on alcoholism, > there's no violation of the CoDA traditions. See? Not violating > traditions. Needless to say I got an email from Jim Bob on this subject. Cant get others to see it tho, can you? hehe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 23, 2001 Report Share Posted July 23, 2001 Is this an AA site? watts_pete@... wrote: > > > > Oh, geez, one can 'reason' one's way right out of any charge of > > violating the traditions - when one is counseling others on being > > powerless over people places and things, there's no violation of > > AA's traditions. When one is counseling others on alcoholism, > > there's no violation of the CoDA traditions. See? Not violating > > traditions. > > Needless to say I got an email from Jim Bob on this subject. Cant > get others to see it tho, can you? hehe > > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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