Acceptance

Dear Jeff and Debra,

It’s been six weeks since I’ve had a drink. I went to treatment for a month, and I’ve learned a lot at meetings, but I still have a hard time with “surrender” and “powerless” and “acceptance.” I’m a highly functional person and these ideas are hard to swallow.

                                                               Inquiring Mind

Dear Inquiring,

 “Easy does it,” is a favorite slogan in AA, so let’s take the easiest term first: Acceptance. For those of us in recovery, this refers to accepting reality: 1) I have a disease, and 2) I need to keep it in remission.

Many of us hoped we could learn how to drink safely or use other substances like THC, but experience shows that people suffering from the disease of addiction can’t do that. It may be hard, but we need to accept the facts as they are.

To keep our disease in remission, we need to stop fighting the facts. We don’t have a willpower problem or a character problem, we have a medical problem. We need to quit struggling and acknowledge my situation. In other words, we need to surrender. Humans have struggled with alcoholism and other addictions for centuries. We’re lucky to live in a time when effective treatment is available.

Dr. Robert DuPont, one of the foremost addiction researchers in the country, once made a powerful statement to us. He said he was proud to be an American for many reasons, but he was most proud because America had given the world Alcoholics Anonymous and the Twelve Steps. He went on to point out that nothing has proven more effective in the fight against addiction.

Acceptance isn’t resignation. Instead, it serves as a starting point for transformation and healing. It involves embracing the truth and recognizing the need for help, support, and a different way of living.

The first step in AA states: “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.”

No one wants to admit they are powerless over anything. But let’s look at it from another angle. Sometimes busy people get a very bad flu. They may try to work through it, but if the flu is bad enough, they may have to surrender, admit their powerlessness over the flu, and just go to bed. It’s the smart thing to do.

When it comes to addiction, at some point we have to admit that we can’t control it. In fact, it’s controlling us. We need to acknowledge that we can’t win this battle alone. Without help, we are simply powerless to overcome it. We may quit for a day or a week or a month, but we always get pulled back into our addiction.

The great benefit of admitting our powerlessness is that it clears the way to treatment and recovery. Only when we stop rationalizing, surrender to the facts, and admit our powerlessness to beat it alone, can we really start to recover. Otherwise, we’re secretly holding out hope that we can somehow control our drinking, and this leads to relapse.

You’ll notice the language of the first step says “we,” instead of “I.” Recovery is a team sport, like football, not an individual sport, like tennis. You can be the greatest football player of all time, but if you don’t have a team, you will never win.

The winners in recovery are those who have stopped fighting the problem and started embracing the solution. Winners have an AA home group, an AA sponsor, and they’re attending meetings on a regular basis. Winners aren’t spectators. They’re actively engaged in their program and working through the twelve steps with their sponsor.

Since its founding on June 10, 1935, AA has been helping people beat their addictions and live a life that is “happy, joyous and free.” It sounds like an unrealistic promise, given the damage done by the disease, but the program works for almost everyone. It’s true that there are other paths to recovery, but we’ve never seen results like we’ve seen in AA.

Congratulations on your decision to get treatment and begin your journey of recovery. We think you’ll find new doors opening to a life far beyond your expectations.