How Mainstream Recovery Nearly Killed Me!
Why the middle-of-the-road approach doesn’t work for the hopeless addict, but the ‘Big Book’ does.
After chronically relapsing for years in mainstream recovery, one night, in a packed 12-step meeting, it all came to a head.
Back from another catastrophic relapse, I had just finished sharing my hopelessness and desperation with the room when someone loudly called out, ‘Fuck You!’
They didn’t quite say those words. In fact, what they said was far worse.
What they said was, ‘Keep coming back.’
And just like that, the meeting moved on as if I hadn’t spoken.
I sat there feeling more alone than ever as those words burned deep to the core.
Keep. Coming. Back.
After all, I’d already finished the twelve steps in their entirety multiple times: three times in a drug fellowship and twice in a sex & love fellowship.
Yet here I was, still totally helpless and seemingly more hopeless than addicts that had been in and out of the rooms for twenty years.
I was beyond desperate.
After the meeting, a fellow 12-step member came running up to me, convinced he could help, ‘Have…
