When AA doesn’t feel right
please note: This is not about disparaging AA or rehab centres. Both of those recovery options have helped countless people. This is about e x p a n d i n g the conversation around ways to recover.
When we don’t talk about the spectrum of drinking behaviours or the multiple ways to recover, we leave people out who could really benefit from support.
When they can’t shake the knowing that sounds like: I don’t like this. This doesn’t feel good anymore. I’m not comfortable with the role alcohol is playing in my life. but when that’s met with: well, time to get to a 12 step meeting or time to check into rehab (as the two most well-known options for recovery), it leaves people in a very precarious situation.
Many people have very strong resistance to those forms of recovery. That doesn’t mean either is bad or wrong. It just means that there are not enough options out there for people. And so what do they do? Nothing. They keep drinking.
When we start talking about new and different ways to recover, it opens up the door of possibilty for many. It creates space to finally confront what they’ve known for a long time, because now there’s more accessible and less scary ways for them to get help.
The last thing we want people thinking is that there is only one way to recover. Because if that way doesn’t feel aligned for them, then guess what? - the chances of recovery are much, much lower.
Here’s a non-exhaustive list of sober support resources. You can learn more about each one by doing a simple google search:
intensive outpatient programs (IOPs)
addiction counsellors
harm reduction
peer support specialists
quit lit + sober IG
smart recovery
recovery dharma
faith-based recovery programs
medication assisted recovery
recovery coaches
Let’s normalize making a patchwork of recovery. Patch your quilt with any recovery methods feel that congruent to you. Let’s normalize using different and multiple kinds of supports.
I’m gonna be honest - the idea of having to go to AA felt like a full body ‘no!’ to me AND at the same time, I needed support for developing more emotional maturity and regulation, so I could withstand life without wine.
This push/pull absolutely kept me drinking longer than I wanted. It was my default behaviour and stress-reliever (even if that stress was about my frequency of drinking.)
I, like countless others, lived in that hazy zone of ‘not being *that* bad’ but also really struggling to string together 7 days in a row. That is grey-area drinking.
Where is the help for those who feel like AA or rehab just aren’t the appropriate or congruent resources for them?
The drinking population is wildly over-served in the bars and under-served when it comes to support. This is exactly why I became a recovery coach…to become the person I really needed when I quit 4 years ago…and to help those who are now taking the leap.
This is not to drag AA or rehab. I get that people are very loyal to their recovery supports, and that’s so understandable. I’m loyal to the things that have helped me, too. This is about expanding conversation + awareness on recovery supports.