lokola13's blog: " I AM ADDITED"

About the 12 Step Program

Twelve Step programs are well known for use in recovery from addictive or dysfunctional behaviors. The first 12 step program began with Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) in the 1930s. The 12 Step approach has since grown to be the most widely used approach in dealing with not only alcoholism, but also drug abuse and various other addictive or dysfunctional behaviors.

The first book written to cover the 12 step program was titled "Alcoholics Anonymous", affectionately known as the Big Book by program members. Following the subsequent extensive growth of twelve step programs, numerous books and other media were created to cover the steps in more detail and for different addictive and dysfunctional behaviors. An extensive chronology and background about the history of A.A. has been put together at Dick B.'s website.

The twelve steps of the program are listed above in generic form. Other groups who have adopted the 12 steps to address their own particular addictive or dysfunctional behavior have similar ideas with some variations. These steps are meant to be worked sequentially as a process of getting rid of addictive behaviors and growing in freedom and happiness, as laid out in the Twelve Promises. The general governing approach for A.A. groups was originally laid out in the Twelve Traditions, which remain the guiding principles still in use today.

There is a wealth of further information about 12 Step programs in the Wikipedia, including a list of 12 step groups, or from the over 250 links in our list of websites.

Who is a  Cocaine Addict?

Some of us can answer without hesitation, "I am!" Others aren't so sure. Cocaine Anonymous believes that no one can decide for another whether he or she is addicted. One thing is sure, though; every single one of us has denied being an addict. For months, for years, we who now freely admit that we are cocaine addicts thought that we could control cocaine, when in fact it was controlling us.

"I only use on weekends,"

or:

"It hardly ever interferes with work,"

or

"I can quit, it's only psychologically addicting, right?"

or

"I only snort, I don't base or shoot,"

or

"It's this relationship that's messing me up."

Many of us are still perplexed to realize how long we went on, never getting the same high we got at the beginning, yet still insisting, and believing -- so distorted was our reality -- that we were getting from cocaine what actually always eluded us.

We went to any lengths to get away from being ourselves. The lines got fatter; the grams went faster; the week's stash was all used up today. We found ourselves scraping envelopes and baggies with razor blades, scratching the last flakes from the corners of brown bottles, snorting or smoking any white speck from the floor when we ran out. We, who prided ourselves on our fine-tuned state of mind!

Nothing mattered more to us than the straw, the pipe, the needle. Even if it made us feel miserable, we had to have it.

Some of us mixed cocaine with alcohol or other drugs, and found temporary relief in the change, but in the end it only compounded our problems. We tried quitting by ourselves, finally, and sometimes managed to do so for periods of time. After a month we imagined we were in control. We thought our system was cleaned out and we could get the old high again, using half as much. This time, we'd be careful not to go overboard. But we only found ourselves back where we were before, and worse.

We never left the house without using first. We didn't make love without using. We didn't talk on the phone without coke. We couldn't fall asleep, sometimes it seemed we couldn't even breathe without cocaine. We tried changing jobs, apartments, cities, lovers -- believing that our lives were being screwed up by circumstances, places, people. Perhaps we saw a cocaine friend die of  respiratory arrest, and still we went on using! But eventually we had to face facts. We had to admit that cocaine was a serious problem in our lives, that we were addicts.

What Brought us to Cocaine Anonymous?

Some of us hit a physical bottom.  It may have been anything from a nosebleed which frightened us, to sexual impotence, to loss of sensation in or temporary paralysis of a limb, to a loss of consciousness and a trip to an emergency room, to a cocaine-induced stroke that left us disabled.  Maybe it was finally our gaunt reflection in the mirror.

Others of us hit an emotional or spiritual bottom.  The good times were gone, the coke life was over.  No matter how much we used, we never again achieved elation, only a temporary release from the depression of coming down, and often, not even that.  We suffered violent mood swings.  Perhaps we awoke to our predicament after threatening or actually harming a loved one, desperately demanding imagined hidden money.  We were overcome by feelings of alienation from friends, loved ones, parents, children, society, from the sky, from everything wholesome.  Even the dealer we thought was our friend turned into a stranger when we went to him without money.  Perhaps we awoke in dread of the isolation we had created for ourselves; using alone, suffocated by our self-centered fear and our paranoia.  We were spiritually and emotionally deadened.  Perhaps we thought of suicide, or tried it.

Stilt others of us reached a different sort of bottom when our spending and lying cost us our jobs, credit, and possessions.  Some of us reached the point that we couldn't even deal; we consumed everything we touched before we could sell it.

We simply could no longer afford to use.  Sometimes the law intervened.

Most of us were brought down by a medley of financial physical, social, and spiritual problems.

When we found Cocaine Anonymous, we learned that cocaine addiction is a progressive disease, chronic and potentially fatal.  It fit our own experience when we heard that, contrary to popular myths about cocaine, it is possibly the most addictive substance known to man.  We were relieved to be told that addiction is not simply a moral problem, that it is a true disease over which the will alone is usually powerless.  All the same, each of us must take responsibility for our own recovery.  There is no secret, no magic.  We each have to quit and stay sober; but we don't have to do it alone!