Many self-help groups employ the 12 steps originated in the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, 74 years ago. The group named after the book, AA, remains the most successful organization in handling the disease of alcoholism today. The only membership requirement: A desire to stop drinking.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in 2008 reported an annual average of five million people 12 and older attended a group self-help meeting in the prior 12 months. One third also went for one-to-one counseling or group therapy. Because 12-step groups are so widespread, most one-to-one counseling and group therapy is based on the 12-steps and those counselors encourage participating in 12-step group self-help to boost sobriety. In fact, the National Treatment Center Study Summary Report from the University of Georgia found 90 percent of 450 treatment centers are based on the 12 steps, while 10 percent rely on “Behavior Therapy.”
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) seems to endorse the 12-step approach in group therapy as well. In 2008, it found Behavioral Therapy less successful than 12-step methods. “Individuals in 12-step oriented therapy have increased subsequent Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) participation and it is the AA involvement that leads to better outcomes by buffering the effects of social pressures to drink. AA exposes a person to a network of people who have a goal of sobriety and support one another in achieving that goal.”
Group therapy requires signing up and showing up. Group self-help like AA requires only showing up. One thing to note though, if it is confidentiality you seek, one-to-one counseling is the only route 100 percent confidential. Anonymous is not a synonym for confidential. Ask yourself, though, does recovery really need to be confidential? Far too many get ticklish about talking “publicly” about their shame and other stressors. The alternative is not talking. And that leads to relapse. A twelve-step meeting is not the town newspaper. Even if it was, some alcoholics’ under-the-influence feats were more public than anything they’d say in a group self-help meeting ever would be.
These are safe venues in which to communicate. They consist of people who share the exact same struggles. Talking things out among them is cathartic. You don’t need to talk about every confession you have. You don’t get style points for deeper traumas. You do get style points for creating a climate of trust by putting on the table the things that are giving you challenges in sobriety.
Alcoholics risk reaching out because they need a new label, a new place to belong, and there is safety among others who are also trying to shed old labels and stressors. If You’re Not Normal is the three-word death sentence to recovery, Me Too is the two-word pardon alcoholics get at 12-step meetings.
Even if an alcoholic does not ever buy into the 12 steps as a design for living, they are suggested, not required, for membership. “The only requirement is a desire to stop drinking,” the literature says. Twelve-step meetings are places to be among others who feel the same, wore the same masks, suffer the same struggles and have a desire to communicate rather than drink over them. “The most desperate need of mankind today is not a new vaccine for any disease or a new religion or a new way of life,” wrote Taylor Caldwell in the novel The Listener. “His real need, his most terrible need, is for someone to listen to him, not as a patient but as a human soul.”
Everyone, no matter how gifted, healthy or wealthy, encounters an issue that baffles them or breaks the spirit. Twelve-step groups are where alcoholics can communicate the baffling and the spirit-breaking. What all are trying to do together is acquire back self-esteem.
There are alternatives to 12-step groups, such as Women for Sobriety (WFS) and Self-Management and Recovery Training (SMART), however none have the track record of success AA boasts, and none are as widely available. Other 12-step groups are available for a number of addictions, from gambling to narcotics to overeating.
The Higher Power thing is tough for some people to swallow. Some people stay away from 12-step meetings because they don’t see themselves in the people around the tables or hear their stories told in the tragic stories of others. That is the point in going: To make sure you’re communicating what is stressing you before you go back to the drinking and become those tragic stories.
From a strictly medical standpoint, alcoholism is remarkably easy to arrest. It’s a lot less complicated than arresting cancer or diabetes. Abandon the bottle long enough and detox and biological functioning returns to something close to normal in a few weeks or months. From that point on, it is a matter of not going backward. That’s the drawback to having a disease that can be arrested but not cured: While it is under control it’s all too easy to forget what life was like when it wasn’t. Twelve-step groups remind alcoholics what it was like. Without the stigma.
One of the most treasured AA stories in print says, “Above all, AA taught me how to handle sobriety. I have learned how to relate to people… deal with disappointments and problems that once would have sent me right to the bottle. How do we do it? By sharing at meetings.”
-- Adapted from the recovery book, Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud. Photo credit: Marcus, Free Digital Photos
(See full article here)
www.alcohologist.com
Details on the third literary award for Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud, plus the new radio interview replay is available at alcohologist.com... and please read the new interview with Scott Stevens at Christoph Fisher Books. Mr. Fisher is an acclaimed international historical fiction novelist from the UK.
Alcoholism and health news on which journalist Scott Stevens has reported, with additional commentary from the award-winning international self-help author.
Showing posts with label shame. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shame. Show all posts
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Sunday, December 8, 2013
SUNDAY SNIPPET: December 8
Shame is one of the four stressors related to relapse emphasized in Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud: Relapse and the Symptoms of Sobriety. The book leans heavily toward the neuroscience and endocrinology fields in parts of the first chapter of the book. However, our disease is more than biochemical and the majority of the book looks at other happenings in the eight inches between the right ear and the left that sabotage recovery . In addition to being bluntly personal, I turn to many of the established pros in addictions and psychology... men and women who know the stigma the word "alcoholism" carries.
"...That’s just one example of stigma or ignorance leading to the insensitivity behind shame other people bring to our doorsteps or the shame we find when we stand on their doorsteps. In a lot of ways the shame is as pain-provoking as the disease itself, especially when we’re treated this way by People Who Should Know Better. I once thought I had a huge fund of tolerance for people, but realized it could be quickly drained once I began dealing with otherwise smart people who say dumb things about Alcoholism.
The shamer may not want me to go to heaven because I’ve got this thing, but I want to go anyway, so who’s the one with the problem? The Person Who Should Know Better.
You do not expect them to build a shrine to your sobriety, but it isn’t too much to expect them to let you try to succeed. They are simply not strong enough to accept that negative things can happen in life randomly. It is a part of nature they have chosen to deny. They have a “conflict of visions of reality” to steal from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. (Robert M. Pirsig, HarperCollins, New York 1974) It’s the way people choose to see the world regardless of scientific discoveries.
Stigma is the shadow cast by ignorance, and ignorance about Alcoholism remains very strong in society. A poll cited in HBO’s 2007 series, Addiction: Why Can’t They Just Quit? reported that one half of the public believes Alcoholism is a “personal weakness.” In the face of 56 years passing since the American Medical Association deemed Alcoholism a disease, HALF the population still refuses to believe it is one, and are wed to a 3,000-year-old notion that it is a bad person rather than a bad medical condition. Call it lack of training or education to be more diplomatic, but it isn’t going to change by the time you finish this book. According to a truly common way of thinking called the “just world philosophy,” you’ve gotten what you deserved. In a just world, if you are careful, smart and moral you can avoid misfortune; and if you don’t avoid misfortune, you are misfortune. Shame on you.
In 1957 Dr. Jellinek’s disease model of Alcoholism authoritatively ended centuries of false conclusions about Alcoholism being tied to careful, smart and moral. People still have a hard time giving up the idea that it is some sort of problem that can be stopped by just walking in a different direction. They don’t isolate the science from the myth and rhetoric. The prevalence of shaming is a natural human tendency to be subjective rather than objective and that the untrained and closed mind will follow the path of least resistance. The American society shames the Alcoholic, so too must they.”
Details on the third literary award for Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud, plus the new radio interview replay is available at alcohologist.com... and please read the new interview with Scott Stevens at Christoph Fisher Books. Mr. Fisher is an acclaimed international historical fiction novelist from the UK.
"...That’s just one example of stigma or ignorance leading to the insensitivity behind shame other people bring to our doorsteps or the shame we find when we stand on their doorsteps. In a lot of ways the shame is as pain-provoking as the disease itself, especially when we’re treated this way by People Who Should Know Better. I once thought I had a huge fund of tolerance for people, but realized it could be quickly drained once I began dealing with otherwise smart people who say dumb things about Alcoholism.
The shamer may not want me to go to heaven because I’ve got this thing, but I want to go anyway, so who’s the one with the problem? The Person Who Should Know Better.
You do not expect them to build a shrine to your sobriety, but it isn’t too much to expect them to let you try to succeed. They are simply not strong enough to accept that negative things can happen in life randomly. It is a part of nature they have chosen to deny. They have a “conflict of visions of reality” to steal from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. (Robert M. Pirsig, HarperCollins, New York 1974) It’s the way people choose to see the world regardless of scientific discoveries.
Stigma is the shadow cast by ignorance, and ignorance about Alcoholism remains very strong in society. A poll cited in HBO’s 2007 series, Addiction: Why Can’t They Just Quit? reported that one half of the public believes Alcoholism is a “personal weakness.” In the face of 56 years passing since the American Medical Association deemed Alcoholism a disease, HALF the population still refuses to believe it is one, and are wed to a 3,000-year-old notion that it is a bad person rather than a bad medical condition. Call it lack of training or education to be more diplomatic, but it isn’t going to change by the time you finish this book. According to a truly common way of thinking called the “just world philosophy,” you’ve gotten what you deserved. In a just world, if you are careful, smart and moral you can avoid misfortune; and if you don’t avoid misfortune, you are misfortune. Shame on you.
In 1957 Dr. Jellinek’s disease model of Alcoholism authoritatively ended centuries of false conclusions about Alcoholism being tied to careful, smart and moral. People still have a hard time giving up the idea that it is some sort of problem that can be stopped by just walking in a different direction. They don’t isolate the science from the myth and rhetoric. The prevalence of shaming is a natural human tendency to be subjective rather than objective and that the untrained and closed mind will follow the path of least resistance. The American society shames the Alcoholic, so too must they.”
--- condensed from Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud: Relapse and the Symptoms of Sobriety, pages 53-54
It's unicorns-and-rainbows thinking for those in recovery to try to single-handedly overturn the stigma that is rooted so deeply in our culture. We can work with others to fight stigma... the best first step toward that end is learning to live, live well and live sober around shame. When we drink over the shamers' dumb ideas, we prove them right.
Details on the third literary award for Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud, plus the new radio interview replay is available at alcohologist.com... and please read the new interview with Scott Stevens at Christoph Fisher Books. Mr. Fisher is an acclaimed international historical fiction novelist from the UK.
Saturday, November 30, 2013
SATURDAY REWIND: Shaming leads to poor outcomes, relapse
Shaming someone with the disease of alcoholism or another substance abuse problem is a centuries-old practice that does nobody any good (except maybe the shamer, in a warped sort of way). Science backs that up now, too, as this piece from the alcohol research news archive points out.
To predict whether an alcohol abuser or someone with the disease of alcoholism will hit the bottle again, ignore what they say and watch their body language for displays of shame, a University of British Columbia study finds. The University introduced its research in a news release February 4 in advance of publication in Clinical Psychological Science journal.
The study, which explored drinking and health outcomes in newly sober recovering alcoholics, is the first lab work to show that physical manifestations of shame – from slumped shoulders to narrow chests – can directly predict a relapse in people who struggle with substances.
“Our study finds that how much shame people display can strongly predict not only whether they will go on to relapse, but how bad that relapse will be – that is, how many drinks they will consume,” says UBC Psychology Prof. Jessica Tracy, who conducted the study with graduate student Daniel Randles.
Forty-six drinkers completed questionnaires about their physical and mental health while Tandy and Randles assessed their body language — finding unconscious physical mannerisms are a powerful sign of future relapse, while the written expressions of shame offer almost no clues. Tracy says the amount of shame displayed was directly tied to the number of drinks an alcoholic will have on that first binge after giving up sobriety.
The issue of shame is one of the four largest emotional situations tied to relapse. This may be the first scientific study to empirically link shame and drinking, however the concept has been around a long time, dating back to the work of psychologist John Bradshaw in the 1980s in his Healing the Shame that Binds You. According to the new relapse book, Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud, “The inability of an alcoholic to deal with the social stigma attached to the disease of alcoholism can be countered by group counseling and group self-help, e.g. Self-Management and Recovery Training (SMART) or 12-step groups, such as Alcoholics Anonymous. In any of those group environments, those attempting recovery see and accept they are not alone, that others feel the shame, too, and by talking through the emotional stressor they can stay sober.”
The UBC findings have important implications for people struggling with addictions, their friends and families, and researchers and clinicians who study emotion and addiction, the researchers say. “The research is also important in light of the fact that some policymakers and judges have argued for the use of public shaming as a punitive measure, or treatment, against crime. Our research suggests that shaming people for difficult-to-curb behaviors may be exactly the wrong approach to take,” Tracy and Randles argue. “Rather than prevent future occurrences of such behaviors, shaming may lead to an increase in these behaviors.”
-- from examiner.com (see full article)
www.alcohologist.com
Details on the third literary award for Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud, plus the new radio interview replay is available at alcohologist.com... and please read the new interview with Scott Stevens at Christoph Fisher Books. Mr. Fisher is an acclaimed international historical fiction novelist from the UK.
To predict whether an alcohol abuser or someone with the disease of alcoholism will hit the bottle again, ignore what they say and watch their body language for displays of shame, a University of British Columbia study finds. The University introduced its research in a news release February 4 in advance of publication in Clinical Psychological Science journal.
The study, which explored drinking and health outcomes in newly sober recovering alcoholics, is the first lab work to show that physical manifestations of shame – from slumped shoulders to narrow chests – can directly predict a relapse in people who struggle with substances.
“Our study finds that how much shame people display can strongly predict not only whether they will go on to relapse, but how bad that relapse will be – that is, how many drinks they will consume,” says UBC Psychology Prof. Jessica Tracy, who conducted the study with graduate student Daniel Randles.
Forty-six drinkers completed questionnaires about their physical and mental health while Tandy and Randles assessed their body language — finding unconscious physical mannerisms are a powerful sign of future relapse, while the written expressions of shame offer almost no clues. Tracy says the amount of shame displayed was directly tied to the number of drinks an alcoholic will have on that first binge after giving up sobriety.
The issue of shame is one of the four largest emotional situations tied to relapse. This may be the first scientific study to empirically link shame and drinking, however the concept has been around a long time, dating back to the work of psychologist John Bradshaw in the 1980s in his Healing the Shame that Binds You. According to the new relapse book, Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud, “The inability of an alcoholic to deal with the social stigma attached to the disease of alcoholism can be countered by group counseling and group self-help, e.g. Self-Management and Recovery Training (SMART) or 12-step groups, such as Alcoholics Anonymous. In any of those group environments, those attempting recovery see and accept they are not alone, that others feel the shame, too, and by talking through the emotional stressor they can stay sober.”
The UBC findings have important implications for people struggling with addictions, their friends and families, and researchers and clinicians who study emotion and addiction, the researchers say. “The research is also important in light of the fact that some policymakers and judges have argued for the use of public shaming as a punitive measure, or treatment, against crime. Our research suggests that shaming people for difficult-to-curb behaviors may be exactly the wrong approach to take,” Tracy and Randles argue. “Rather than prevent future occurrences of such behaviors, shaming may lead to an increase in these behaviors.”
-- from examiner.com (see full article)
www.alcohologist.com
Details on the third literary award for Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud, plus the new radio interview replay is available at alcohologist.com... and please read the new interview with Scott Stevens at Christoph Fisher Books. Mr. Fisher is an acclaimed international historical fiction novelist from the UK.
Sunday, October 20, 2013
SUNDAY SNIPPET: October 20
This Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud excerpt looks a group therapy approach that sometimes is employed with alcohol abusers with success, but may be counterproductive in treating Alcoholism.
"Watch out for group therapy that emphasizes a “hot seat” approach: Break-them-down confrontational techniques have not been proven clinically. Sometimes the public view of the Alcoholic person only as a fun-loving, thrill-seeking, irresponsible and childish person who is into the immediate gratification of every impulse is interpreted in group-therapy circles are a need to punish it out of him. Humiliate him. Teach him a lesson. That’s where this obnoxious hot-seat idea originated. However, the self-willed jerk just described is the alcohol abuser, not the Alcoholic. Behavioral approaches can work for alcohol abusers because lapse, in their world, is based on how they want to behave, not how they are feeling. For Alcoholics, it is a different matter. For Alcoholics, “Cognitive [Behavioral] treatment is not adequate for recovery,” says Wilson-Schaef. “To deal only with the analytical, rational and logical is to perpetuate the disease.”
No one can knock Behavioral Therapy in general because it works very well for a lot of behavioral problems, like alcohol abuse, overeating or kleptomania. No one can knock its founder, Albert Ellis: Only the Gideons and the phone company have their names on more books. Ellis is to psychology what Lawrence Tribe is to law. But Alcoholism is not a behavior.
When you hear Behavioral Therapy in conjunction with group therapy, think of conditioning, like B.F. Skinner’s strategies training pigeons or Ivan Pavlov’s dogs trained to drool at the sound of a dinner bell. Behavioral Therapy uses the theory on people. (Here’s a funny thought to ponder: Did Pavlov condition his dogs? Or did the dogs condition Pavlov to feed them?) There is no room for emotion. “This myopia,” says William Lewis, “May stem from a standpoint which originated in a laboratory where experimental animals were to be manipulated, not loved.” (“Why People Change,” in The Psychology of Influence, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., New York 1972)
-- Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud: Relapse and the Symptoms of Sobriety, pgs. 100-101
Also, please check out the author interview with Scott Stevens on "All That's Written" 10/11/13
www.alcohologist.com
"Watch out for group therapy that emphasizes a “hot seat” approach: Break-them-down confrontational techniques have not been proven clinically. Sometimes the public view of the Alcoholic person only as a fun-loving, thrill-seeking, irresponsible and childish person who is into the immediate gratification of every impulse is interpreted in group-therapy circles are a need to punish it out of him. Humiliate him. Teach him a lesson. That’s where this obnoxious hot-seat idea originated. However, the self-willed jerk just described is the alcohol abuser, not the Alcoholic. Behavioral approaches can work for alcohol abusers because lapse, in their world, is based on how they want to behave, not how they are feeling. For Alcoholics, it is a different matter. For Alcoholics, “Cognitive [Behavioral] treatment is not adequate for recovery,” says Wilson-Schaef. “To deal only with the analytical, rational and logical is to perpetuate the disease.”
No one can knock Behavioral Therapy in general because it works very well for a lot of behavioral problems, like alcohol abuse, overeating or kleptomania. No one can knock its founder, Albert Ellis: Only the Gideons and the phone company have their names on more books. Ellis is to psychology what Lawrence Tribe is to law. But Alcoholism is not a behavior.
When you hear Behavioral Therapy in conjunction with group therapy, think of conditioning, like B.F. Skinner’s strategies training pigeons or Ivan Pavlov’s dogs trained to drool at the sound of a dinner bell. Behavioral Therapy uses the theory on people. (Here’s a funny thought to ponder: Did Pavlov condition his dogs? Or did the dogs condition Pavlov to feed them?) There is no room for emotion. “This myopia,” says William Lewis, “May stem from a standpoint which originated in a laboratory where experimental animals were to be manipulated, not loved.” (“Why People Change,” in The Psychology of Influence, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., New York 1972)
-- Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud: Relapse and the Symptoms of Sobriety, pgs. 100-101
Also, please check out the author interview with Scott Stevens on "All That's Written" 10/11/13
www.alcohologist.com
Sunday, October 13, 2013
SUNDAY SNIPPET: October 13
As a friendly heads-up, the paperback version of Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud: Relapse and the Symptoms of Sobriety is now discounted on amazon. The price is $14.89 USD, $5.10 off the cover price. Not sure if other retailers will follow suit.
After posting a mock-up of the cover for my 2014 work in progress on the Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud Facebook page, I had a few people ask what it's about. Adding Fire to the Fuel is on the stigma society clips on the word and the diagnosis of Alcoholism. Here is an excerpt from Adding Fire to the Fuel: The Stigma of Alcoholism -- likely the only snippet from the forthcoming book posted until fall 2014.
“When they begin casting for “Real Housewives of Phoenix,” no doubt Trish would make the short list of any TV producer. The former Indiana University cheerleader still had her college figure in her early 40’s, even after two children. The planes of her face, the delicate nose and well-chiseled cheekbones spoke of a decade and a half of modeling work. Her blue eyes were flecked with gold. And she had freckles – even they had sexiness about them.
After posting a mock-up of the cover for my 2014 work in progress on the Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud Facebook page, I had a few people ask what it's about. Adding Fire to the Fuel is on the stigma society clips on the word and the diagnosis of Alcoholism. Here is an excerpt from Adding Fire to the Fuel: The Stigma of Alcoholism -- likely the only snippet from the forthcoming book posted until fall 2014.
“When they begin casting for “Real Housewives of Phoenix,” no doubt Trish would make the short list of any TV producer. The former Indiana University cheerleader still had her college figure in her early 40’s, even after two children. The planes of her face, the delicate nose and well-chiseled cheekbones spoke of a decade and a half of modeling work. Her blue eyes were flecked with gold. And she had freckles – even they had sexiness about them.
She was blonde and bold, both came
from bottles: Clairol and Jim Beam respectively.
The stormy marriage and
two trips to rehab (where I met her) only sweeten what the sweet Midwesterner brings to
her gossipy neighborhood and the intrigue-hungry reality show.
She’s a dream. Her job’s a dream. Her kids are a dream. Her home,
all 3,500 square feet of stucco in the desert, is a dream.
The Mercedes is parked under the beams
of the carport. A hummingbird feeder dangled from one end of a
crossbeam. Trish, on that October morning, dangled from the other end
by her graceful neck. That’s how the police found her. Here’s the
story of how she got there.
She died sober. This was only her tragically extreme, unnecessary and self-serving answer to the tragically extreme, unnecessary and self-serving stigma she faced as a result of being a not-so-anonymous alcoholic. Neither Trish's suicide nor the societal stigma is acceptable."
Sunday, September 29, 2013
SUNDAY SNIPPET: September 29
Alcoholism is the only disease where successfully getting it into remission relies heavily on paraprofessionals outside the medical community. When those resources come from within the criminal justice system, the results are statistically below average, as this excerpt from my previous book What the Early Worm Gets begins to point out.
"The professionals and paraprofessionals handling the treatment are critical to the success. And to build that success you need credibility, especially because there are so many paraprofessionals affiliated with recovery. It’s their duty to adhere to a code of ethics simply not embraced in a correctional environment. Knowledge and competence—not necessarily a degree—are required, and trust. Where do those with alcohol problems place their trust? Others who have walked a mile in their shoes. Because you really don't know how it feels to be alcoholic unless you are alcoholic. A mechanic isn’t a metallurgist even though the material with which he works with is metal. You still need a multi-disciplinary team including medical doctors or psychotherapists, however having someone who is in recovery helping facilitate the recovery process gets better results.
The most important facet of good treatment is alleviating guilt, shame and grief. We look through life’s window which can get coated with a grime of guilt and shame and grief. Those are precisely the three features the criminal justice system uses in its programs to make sure you’re sorry, make sure you know you’re sorry and won’t do it again. Positivity and attitude are the window cleaner that can clean the window of the grimy shame. The criminal justice system doesn't do windows. They put bars on them. They will work to make sure you don’t forget your shame.
Recovery can be spontaneous. It does happen. However, true rehabilitation is based on Opus Contra Naturam—working against what comes easily— and few people are successful working against what comes easily without help. Few people are successful for long when that help comes from a corrections environment designed to warehouse people, not provide meaningful treatment."
--from What the Early Worm Gets, pg. 73
--from What the Early Worm Gets, pg. 73
Sunday, September 15, 2013
SUNDAY SNIPPET: September 15
Guilt and shame are two of the four stressors behind the Symptoms of Sobriety. Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud, compares the two in the segue between chapters dedicated to each. Here's a brief excerpt.
"One of the first TV newsrooms in which I worked had an old-school assignment editor who had above his desk a framed photo from his reporter days. He was on the Patty Hearst story in California. In the 1970s, the newspaper heiress was kidnapped by a violent left-wing activist group that forced the 19-year-old into a role in a series of crimes for which she was put on trial in ’79. The photo shows her outside the court in a t-shirt that read, “Being kidnapped is always having to say you’re sorry.” Drop kidnapped and insert Alcoholic and that shirt could communicate how it sometimes feels when you’re working toward recovery. First, a violent abduction from your day-to-day life makes you a hostage, then your guilt and shame subject you to years of feeling as though you won’t ever be able to atone for it.
Guilt and shame are different. Psychiatrist Helen Block Lewis points out, “Shame and guilt often occur together. They’re frequently fused and therefore confused with each other.” (The Role of Shame in Symptom Formation, Lawrence Erlbaum Inc., Hillside, NJ 1987) Shame is the feeling we get from others that we are wrong . . . guilt is the feeling we give ourselves when we do wrong. In guilt, you’re reviewing your own irrational beliefs and telling yourself you didn’t do enough and you punish yourself for it . . . in shame, someone else is saying you didn’t do enough based on their own irrational beliefs. The former is caused by your values . . . the latter is caused by others imposing their values on you. The gap between your performance and your expectations of yourself is guilt . . . the gap between your performance and others’ expectations of you is shame. When you feel guilt over being Alcoholic, you feel the disease has made you a monster . . . when you feel shame, other people behave as if you are a monster.
As for their impact on cortisol, guilt and shame have the same outcome even though their origins are so different. The cortisol doesn’t make a distinction between whether others are judging you or you are judging yourself. The judgment is that Alcoholism is not “normal.”
These words that can derail sobriety more than any others are: You’re Not Normal. Shame carries that kind of whallop."
--from Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud: Relapse and the Symptoms of Sobriety, pgs. 49-50
"One of the first TV newsrooms in which I worked had an old-school assignment editor who had above his desk a framed photo from his reporter days. He was on the Patty Hearst story in California. In the 1970s, the newspaper heiress was kidnapped by a violent left-wing activist group that forced the 19-year-old into a role in a series of crimes for which she was put on trial in ’79. The photo shows her outside the court in a t-shirt that read, “Being kidnapped is always having to say you’re sorry.” Drop kidnapped and insert Alcoholic and that shirt could communicate how it sometimes feels when you’re working toward recovery. First, a violent abduction from your day-to-day life makes you a hostage, then your guilt and shame subject you to years of feeling as though you won’t ever be able to atone for it.
Guilt and shame are different. Psychiatrist Helen Block Lewis points out, “Shame and guilt often occur together. They’re frequently fused and therefore confused with each other.” (The Role of Shame in Symptom Formation, Lawrence Erlbaum Inc., Hillside, NJ 1987) Shame is the feeling we get from others that we are wrong . . . guilt is the feeling we give ourselves when we do wrong. In guilt, you’re reviewing your own irrational beliefs and telling yourself you didn’t do enough and you punish yourself for it . . . in shame, someone else is saying you didn’t do enough based on their own irrational beliefs. The former is caused by your values . . . the latter is caused by others imposing their values on you. The gap between your performance and your expectations of yourself is guilt . . . the gap between your performance and others’ expectations of you is shame. When you feel guilt over being Alcoholic, you feel the disease has made you a monster . . . when you feel shame, other people behave as if you are a monster.
As for their impact on cortisol, guilt and shame have the same outcome even though their origins are so different. The cortisol doesn’t make a distinction between whether others are judging you or you are judging yourself. The judgment is that Alcoholism is not “normal.”
These words that can derail sobriety more than any others are: You’re Not Normal. Shame carries that kind of whallop."
--from Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud: Relapse and the Symptoms of Sobriety, pgs. 49-50
Sunday, April 21, 2013
SUNDAY SNIPPET, April 21
For this week's excerpt, I'm introducing one of the four stressors related to relapse emphasized in Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud: Relapse and the Symptoms of Sobriety. Shame. The book leans heavily toward the neuroscience and endocrinology fields in parts of the first portion of the book. In this middle section, in addition to being bluntly personal, I turn to many of the established pros in addictions and psychology... men and women who know the stigma the word "alcoholism" carries.
"...That’s just one example of stigma or ignorance leading to the insensitivity behind shame other people bring to our doorsteps or the shame we find when we stand on their doorsteps. In a lot of ways the shame is as pain-provoking as the disease itself, especially when we’re treated this way by People Who Should Know Better. I once thought I had a huge fund of tolerance for people but realized it could be quickly drained once I began dealing with otherwise smart people who say dumb things about Alcoholism.
The shamer may not want me to go to heaven because I’ve got this thing, but I want to go anyway, so who’s the one with the problem? The Person Who Should Know Better. You do not expect them to build a shrine to your sobriety, but it isn’t too much to expect them to let you try to succeed. They are simply not strong enough to accept that negative things can happen in life randomly. It is a part of nature they have chosen to deny. They have a “conflict of visions of reality” to steal from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. (Robert M. Pirsig, HarperCollins, New York 1974) It’s the way people choose to see the world regardless of scientific discoveries.
Stigma is the shadow cast by ignorance, and ignorance about Alcoholism remains very strong in society. A poll cited in HBO’s 2007 series, Addiction: Why Can’t They Just Quit? reported that one half of the public believes Alcoholism is a “personal weakness.” In the face of 56 years passing since the American Medical Association deemed Alcoholism a disease, HALF the population still refuses to believe it is one, and are wed to a 3000-year-old notion that it is a bad person rather than a bad medical condition. Call it lack of training or education to be more diplomatic, but it isn’t going to change by the time you finish this book. According to a truly common way of thinking called the “just world philosophy,” you’ve gotten what you deserved. In a just world, if you are careful, smart and moral you can avoid misfortune; and if you don’t avoid misfortune, you are misfortune. Shame on you.
In 1957 Dr. Jellinek’s disease model of Alcoholism authoritatively ended centuries of false conclusions about Alcoholism being tied to careful, smart and moral. People still have a hard time giving up the idea that it is some sort of problem that can be stopped by just walking in a different direction. They don’t isolate the science from the myth and rhetoric. The prevalence of shaming is a natural human tendency to be subjective rather than objective and that the untrained and closed mind will follow the path of least resistance. The American society shames the Alcoholic, so too must they.”
---
condensed from Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud,
pages
53-54,
FIVE STARS on amazon.com
It's
unicorns-and-rainbows thinking for those in recovery to try to
overturn the stigma that is rooted so deeply in our culture. What we
can do is learn to live, live well and live sober around it. It's a
key to long-term recovery.
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