Meetings

 

Part II.

Before I examine possible quibbles, let's reintroduce the theoretical alcoholic we're discussing. He has complete knowledge of himself, at least pertaining to his thinking concerning alcohol. He is entirely sane in every respect except his alcoholism. In other words, since we're discussing step two of the AA program, we can assume this person has completed step one: he has fully and honestly realized that he is powerless over alcohol and that his life has become unmanageable. He may even have long term sobriety, and is certainly long since through with acute withdrawal and PAWS*. He is a high-functioning member of society, indistinguishable from any “normal” nonalcoholic person other than alcoholic drinking in his past. Yet he relapses again and again. For brevity's sake, let's call him Al.

(By the way, this alcoholic is theoretical here, but there are many real-world examples. If you're in recovery, you either were or are this person yourself or know somebody who is or was this person. The Big Book, when discussing this "self-knowledge" problem, includes the stories of several contemporary (1930s-40s) people, only fictionalizing their names.)

So let's begin with Quibble 1: our quibbler might say that though all these things are true of Al, in the moments before his relapse, he backslides into old thinking--he mentally relapses. He believes that he is "cured" and now can drink normally. He believes that this time will be different. I propose that he cannot truly believe this in any rational way. He has dozens of examples to the contrary in his past. Any logical argument that he tries to make to himself that he can now drink safely is easily defeated by both his past experiences and his new self-knowledge that he is powerless over alcohol and that his life has become unmanageable because of it. He knows what horrible stuff is going to happen if he starts drinking. The backsliding story is usually just him inventing an excuse after the fact. During the relapse, he may not think of it at all, or only faintly. In fact, sometimes there is no backsliding at all and Al drinks anyway, telling himself that he knows it's going to kill him, but he can't imagine life without it.

But wait, our quibbler says. As per the DSM definition, the alcohol use itself has impaired Al's mind. So he isn't thinking clearly enough to apply the ideas that he knows. True and false become confused. To put it more bluntly, AUD has rendered him too dumb not to drink. But remember: Al is in his right mind. He's very logical and intelligent. In the Big Book, there's an example of a man who is sober for thirty years before returning to alcohol. Is that person really still impaired in his judgment after thirty years of sobriety?

That brings us to Quibble 2, which approaches Al from another direction. Okay, we agree that Al is intelligent and high-functioning, our quibbler says, and so the thought that alcohol has made his life unmanageable isn't sophisticated enough for him. What he needs is some higher sense of morality or perhaps even some religious belief. Once he adds that sense of a higher good, in addition to the arguments from logic and experience, there's no way he can drink.

I'm not going to bother laying out this new, augmented rationality-plus-morality argument against drinking here; you can make it anything you want. For the fact is that, a priori** (I'm getting analytic-philosophical here), any thought X that could replace or augment "drinking destroys your life" in Al's mind will still not be sufficient to keep him from drinking. X can't be something that analytic philosophers would call "propositional," a statement or set of statements that can be regarded as true or false. It can't be a morality that you can articulate as a set of propositions that a person can believe or not believe. It can't be a belief in some kind of God. 

Here's where AA may surprise you: though it's often considered a fundamentally religious program, the Big Book actually says that religion or morality are not by themselves sufficient to keep the alcoholic from drinking. The Big Book relates a story about an alcoholic who went to Dr. Jung himself, who tells him that there's nothing he can do for him (nothing Carl Jung can do for him!) unless he has some kind of "vital spiritual experience":

"Our friend was somewhat relieved, for he reflected that, after all, he was a good church member. This hope, however, was destroyed by the doctor's telling him that, while his religious convictions were very good, in his case they did not spell the necessary vital spiritual experience."

You may notice I just gave you a preview of AA's solution to the problem of the insufficiency of self-knowledge. It's something called a "vital spiritual experience," whatever the unholy beans that is. One thing it's certainly not is belief in God or morality. Spirituality and religion, in AA, are not at all the same thing. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Suffice it to say that at this point, Al is completely buggered. Psychology can't by itself keep him from drinking. Morality and religion can't by themselves save him. We need something a psychologist, even one as great as Carl Jung, can't offer, and something you can't get in church alone. What, exactly, is missing? Stay tuned. I'll leave the comparison between twelve-step programs and psychology behind and dive into the realm of the spiritual***.

*post-acute withdrawal syndrome.

**in short, before experience or knowledge (before you sub in your replacement argument), solely through logical reasoning.

***yes, I find that statement as icky as you do.

The break between twelve-step programs and contemporary psychology.

If you participate in outpatient or inpatient treatment programs for alcohol or drug use disorder, you may notice that while they encourage you to participate in twelve-step programs and indeed sometimes make attendance at these programs part of the program itself, there is a difference between the psychological approach your program takes to recovery and the approach the twelve-step programs do*. From a twelve-step perspective, the break first appears in step two:

"2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity."

From a psychological perspective, this simply isn't true: while all kinds of influences may encourage the restoration of sanity, in the end the only power capable of restoring sanity is the sufferer's own mind. Specifically, one of the central ideas of contemporary psychology, articulated in cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy, is that a change in the patient's mind will translate to a change in the patient's behavior. Once a patient is able to monitor their own thinking, remove cognitive distortions, and replace their thoughts with more accurate ones, their behavior will change accordingly.

This idea is not at alien to any layman, or to programs like AA (from now on, I'll use AA to stand in for other similar twelve-step programs). Indeed, one could argue that AA believes, with psychology, that changing the addict's mind is necessary to changing the addict's behavior. Where AA and contemporary psychology differ is in contemporary psychology's belief that it is also sufficient to change the addict's behavior.

Here's where I need to bring in the concepts of "necessary" and "sufficient," as used by analytic philosophy and logic. I'll just quote Wikipedia here, since its summary is as good as any:

"In general, a necessary condition is one (possibly one of several conditions) that must be present in order for another condition to occur, while a sufficient condition is one that produces the said condition."

To give an example, a creature being a mammal is necessary for it to be human. That is, if something is not a mammal, it can't be human. However, it isn't sufficient. Just because a creature is a mammal doesn't mean it's human. There are lots of other things a creature needs to have in order to be considered a human.

On the other hand, today being the fourth of July is both a necessary and sufficient condition for today being Independence Day in the United States. Not only is it necessary for a date to be the fourth of July for it to be Independence Day in the United States, a date being the fourth of July is sufficient for it to be Independence Day, simply by it being that date. It doesn't need to have any other qualities.

Applied to the idea above, psychology believes that it is both necessary and sufficient that an addict change their mind in order to change their behavior. In other words, an addict can't halt their addictive behavior unless they change their mind. Additionally, once an addict changes their mind, their addictive behavior will, by virtue of that fact, change as well. To give a specific example, once an addict knows it's a terrible idea to pick up a drink, once that belief is truly, firmly embedded in their mind, they won't pick up that drink.

AA only goes down this road halfway. In most interpretations, AA believes that it is necessary that the addict change their mind. However, it doesn't believe that it is sufficient. An alcoholic must understand that it's a terrible idea to pick up a drink in order for them not to pick that drink up. However, that belief may or may not cause the addict to abstain from drinking. This is, as AA's "Big Book" states over and over, the problem of self-knowledge. Perfect self-knowledge is no guarantee of sobriety**.

The Big Book also calls this the “subtle insanity which precedes the first drink.” As suggested by the word "subtle," it is not insanity in any traditional sense of the term. An alcoholic might pass any test designed to detect a psychological disorder other than alcohol use disorder (according to the DSM-5, AUD is "a problematic pattern of alcohol use leading to clinically significant impairment or distress.") They might be extremely logical and reasonable in all their thinking. They could solemnly and fervently believe that drinking is killing them. However, they still might pick up a drink***.

Having stated this difference in rough terms, in the next post I'll explain further and consider possible quibbles a critical reader might have, as well as the implications of this idea for the AA and psychological worldviews in general. What do you think so far? Feel free to lambast me below.

*SMART Recovery is not a twelve-step program and has no such conflict with the psychological approach.

**which is frustrating as all hell.

***did I mention that this is fucking intensely frustrating? Even if you are, as mentioned, very sane to begin with, this fact itself might send you over the edge.

A new series about recovery.

It has been forever since I've posted. I hope everyone who hasn't talked to me recently is well; I would love to hear from you. During my blogsence, I've done quite a bit of learning off the grid. It has spurred a lot of new thinking, which I finally feel ready to formalize into at least a few blog posts.

In short, I'm going to be writing about questions that have come up regarding recovery from addiction. I'm not sure what this series will become, but at first I want to make three things clear:

1. From an intellectual point of view, you can view these posts as analytic philosophy.

2. From a theological point of view, they are agnostic.

3. From a personal point of view, they are coming from someone very seriously invested in questions of recovery, namely someone in recovery himself, namely me.

I do hope that these posts will not only be of interest to others in recovery or those in the recovery field. I think the best lessons and issues involving recovery can be applied to many other areas. With that, let's get to it, shall we?

Humorous Wristbands for Sale!

I now have a small amount of wristbands I made which I think are funny. They look like this:

If you think they’re funny, perhaps you’d like to buy one. Venmo or otherwise me $5 and give me your address and I’ll ship one to you! I’m already getting great results wearing mine out.

Photos from Eugene —> Corvallis.

The nicest high school football stadium I’ve ever been to. Also, everyone here seems to be named Caleb.

Eugene on the fancy bus, saying goodbye to Hayward Field.

Oregon Trail country. We have not broken an axle and I am triple-vaxxed so hopefully no malaria.

Clickbait for Toddlers, Part 9.

This is the final piece in the series for now. On to other things starting soon!

Clickbait for Toddlers, Part 8.

 

Clickbait for Toddlers, Part 7.

Clickbait for Toddlers, Part 6.

 

Clickbait for Toddlers, Part 5.

 

Clickbait for Toddlers, Part 4.

Clickbait for Toddlers, Part 3.

 

Clickbait for Toddlers, Part 2.

 

Clickbait for Toddlers, Part 1.

Clickbait reaches nearly everybody, but one large audience remains an enigma. The 0-6 year old market is largely unsaturated. To aid companies in appealing to these crucial Gen Z+1 consumers, I've created ready-made clickbait that toddlers can't resist. Here's the first in my series.

I'm getting really tired

of people interjecting into a conversation, usually while stroking their chin, "you know, the Chinese word for crisis is the same as the one for opportunity." This sententious (and, FYI, very wrong) statement should be followed with something equally vague, profound-sounding, and hard to disprove. Here are, let's say, eight off the top of my head:

1. You know, the Malaysian word for "condom" is the same as the one for "toejam."
2. You know, the Hungarian word for "carrot" is the same as the one for "gallivant."
3. You know, the Welsh word for "self-actualization" is the same as the one for "diabetes."
4. You know, the Danish word for "ocean" is the same as the one for "sausage fest."
5. You know, the Tagalog word for "synergy" is the same as the one for "staph infection."
6. You know, the Swahili word for "cooling breeze" is the same as the one for "accountant."
7. You know, the French word for "cafe" is the same as the one for "coffee shop."
8. You know, the English word for "opportunity" is the same as the one that describes games that are random.

And hello! I know it's been a very long time, but I'm glad to be posting again, and hope you'll read my more frequent posts starting...now.

I'm Ms. Pac-Man, and I have options.

Dear Pac-Man,

I hope this letter finds you well. I’d like to start by saying I wish you nothing but the best. We’ve had some great times together (remember level 58? I thought I’d never be able to eat a strawberry again!). But I have to remind you that I am Ms., not Mrs., Pac-Man, and until you put a ring on it, I have options.

To be honest, I’ve been unhappy in our relationship for a while. You’re cute, but in the end you’re just another yellow cisgender male. Sometimes I feel like I’m dating my father. And I barely ever see you. On the other hand, there are four suitors who are literally chasing me. I play hard-to-get, but I have to admit that when they catch me, I spin head over heels. Instead of being obsessed with the pellet chase, they lead interesting, varied lives. Inky owns an artisanal cupcake shop, and Blinky takes me geocaching. And oh, Pinky—or should I say Kinky? I think he actually likes it when I eat him. When I do, I can’t help but get lost in those big floating eyes.

The ghost that you still ignorantly call “Clyde” is now going by “Sue,” and prefers that we use they/them/their pronouns for them. I’ve had some great times with them, and they have turned me on to a vegan diet. Just cherries, oranges, and bananas for me, instead of those pellets, which you should know are really just calorie bombs.

Finally, our so-called “baby”? I wasn’t pregnant--a stork just dropped it off--and it had no motherfucking eyes. No. Fucking. Eyes. If that wasn’t a desperate plea orchestrated by you to keep us together out of shared care for a disabled orphan, I don’t know what is. At this point, you just seem pathetic.

To sum up, I’m going to be staying in the warp zone for the time being. If you wish to respond, you can talk to Inky, who is proving to be a good sounding board and mediator.

Chomps,

Ms. Pac-Man

I'm now on Reedsy!

A new champion for most annoying abbreviation.

Javascript project for Hack Reactor.

(information will post here)

Click the button below to list all current Republican presidential candidates by name:

Click the button below to group Republican presidential candidates by current scandal status:

Click the button below to group Republican presidential candidates by state:

Click the button below to group Republican presidential candidates by distingruishing characteristics:

Click the button below to find the average age of all Republican presidential candidates:

Click the button below to create a random Republican presidential candidate at Republican Level 1:

Click the button below to create a random Republican presidential candidate at Republican Level 2:

Click the button below to create a random Republican presidential candidate at Republican Level 3 (if you dare):