You Find What You Look For

Why do we use?

What drove us to drink?

What are we avoiding?

Facing these daunting and indepth questions is facing reality,
and at some point it's a necessity for recovery.

Coping with them is vital to any form of success.

A.A., with its all-or-nothing, one-stop, one- size-fits-all mentality
and expectations is harmful.

"I guess you think that's a revolving door."

"Guess we'll keep letting you back in."
"How's that working out for ya?"
"You can't make it work without this program."

Bitter jabs and persecutory, passive-aggressive attacks on people

coming to the group do real and lasting harm. Over-concentrated,
dogmatic, single-track thinking has always been the bane and the
end of many an addict, and having these harsh detriments glossed
over with 'good intentions' and a pretense of happiness doesn't change
their toxicity.

If you imagine that there is only one path to recovery, you condemn
not only others, but yourself. This militancy is adverse to the new
and open views that people in recovery need to be bringing about.

Only when consciousness is expanded to the point that we see
beyond the already-agreed upon notions and ideas can we find
a new version of life. We don't protect our ideas by building walls
around them; we prevent ourselves from growing.

What you see as real is what will become a reality for you;
every time you speak of powerlessness, you bring it into being.

Every time you speak ill of another's chances, you bring that dark
possibility closer to existence.

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