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AA’s are always asking: “Where did the Twelve Steps come from?” In the last analysis, perhaps nobody knows. Yet some of the events which led to their formulation are as clear to me as though they took place yesterday.

So far as people were concerned, the main channels of inspiration for our Steps were three in number — the Oxford Groups, Dr. William D. Silkworth of Townes Hospital and the famed psychologist William James, called by some the father of modern psychology. The story of how these streams of influence were brought together and how they led to the writing of our Twelve Steps is exciting and in spots downright incredible.

Many of us will remember the Oxford Groups as a modern evangelical movement which flourished in the 1920’s and early 30’s, led by a one-time Lutheran minister, Dr. Frank Buchman. The Oxford Groups of that day threw heavy emphasis on personal work, one member with another. AA’s Twelfth Step had its origin in that vital practice.

The moral backbone of the “O.G.” was absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute unselfishness and absolute love. They also practiced a type of confession, which they called “sharing”; the making of amends for harms done they called “restitution.” They believed deeply in their “quiet time,” a meditation practiced by groups and individuals alike, in which the guidance of God was sought for every detail of living, great or small.

These basic ideas were not new; they could have been found elsewhere. But the saving thing for us first alcoholics who contacted the Oxford Groupers was that they laid great stress on these particular principles. And fortunate for us was the fact that the Groupers took special pains not to interfere with one’s personal religious views. Their society, like ours later on, saw the need to be strictly non-denominational.

In the late summer of 1934, my well-loved alcoholic friend and schoolmate “Ebby” had fallen in with these good folks and had promptly sobered up. Being an alcoholic, and rather on the obstinate side, he hadn’t been able to “buy” all the Oxford Group ideas and attitudes. Nevertheless, he was moved by their deep sincerity and felt mighty grateful for the fact that their ministrations had, for the time being, lifted his obsession to drink.

When he arrived in New York in the late fall of 1934, Ebby thought at once of me. On a bleak November day he rang up. Soon he was looking at me across our kitchen table at 182 Clinton Street, Brooklyn, New York. As I remember that conversation, he constantly used phrases like these: “I found I couldn’t run my own life;” “I had to get honest with myself and somebody else;” “I had to make restitution for the damage I had done;” “I had to pray to God for guidance and strength, even though I wasn’t sure there was any God;” “And after I’d tried hard to do these things I found that my craving for alcohol left.” Then over and over Ebby would say something like this: “Bill, it isn’t a bit like being on the water wagon. You don’t fight the desire to drink — you get released from it. I never had such a feeling before.”

Such was the sum of what Ebby had extracted from his Oxford Group friends and had transmitted to me that day. While these simple ideas were not new, they certainly hit me like tons of brick. Today we understand just why that was…one alcoholic was talking to another as no one else can.

Two or three weeks later, December 11th to be exact, I staggered into the Charles B. Townes Hospital, that famous drying-out emporium on Central Park West, New York City. I’d been there before, so I knew and already loved the doctor in charge — Dr. Silkworth. It was he who was soon to contribute a very great idea without which AA could never had succeeded.

For years he had been proclaiming alcoholism an illness, an obsession of the mind coupled with an allergy of the body. By now I knew this meant me. I also understood what a fatal combination these twin ogres could be. Of course, I’d once hoped to be among the small percentage of victims who now and then escape their vengeance. But this outside hope was now gone. I was about to hit bottom. That verdict of science — the obsession that condemned me to drink and the allergy that condemned me to die — was about to do the trick. That’s where the medical science, personified by this benign little doctor, began to fit it in. Held in the hands of one alcoholic talking to the next, this double-edged truth was a sledgehammer which could shatter the tough alcoholic’s ego at depth and lay him wide open to the grace of God.

In my case it was of course Dr. Silkworth who swung the sledge while my friend Ebby carried to me the spiritual principles and the grace which brought on my sudden spiritual awakening at the hospital three days later. I immediately knew that I was a free man. And with this astonishing experience came a feeling of wonderful certainty that great numbers of alcoholics might one day enjoy the priceless gift which had been bestowed upon me.

Third Influence

At this point a third stream of influence entered my life through the pages of William James’ book, “Varieties of Religious Experience.” Somebody had brought it to my hospital room. Following my sudden experience, Dr. Silkworth had take great pains to convince me that I was not hallucinated. But William James did even more. Not only, he said, could spiritual experiences make people saner, they could transform men and women so that they could do, feel and believe what had hitherto been impossible to them. It mattered little whether these awakenings were sudden or gradual, their variety could be almost infinite. But the biggest payoff of that noted book was this: in most of the cases described, those who had been transformed were hopeless people. In some controlling area of their lives they had met absolute defeat. Well, that was me all right. In complete defeat, with no hope or faith whatever, I had made an appeal to a higher Power. I had taken Step One of today’s AA program — “admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.” I’d also take Step Three — “made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to God as we understood him.” Thus was I set free. It was just as simple, yet just as mysterious, as that.

These realizations were so exciting that I instantly joined up with the Oxford Groups. But to their consternation I insisted on devoting myself exclusively to drunks. This was disturbing to the O.G.’s on two counts. Firstly, they wanted to help save the whole world. Secondly, their luck with drunks had been poor. Just as I joined they had been working over a batch of alcoholics who had proved disappointing indeed.

One of them, it was rumored, had flippantly cast his shoe through a valuable stained glass window of an Episcopal church across the alley from O.G. headquarters. Neither did they take kindly to my repeated declaration that it shouldn’t take long to sober up all the drunks in the world. They rightly declared that my conceit was still immense.

Something Missing

After some six months of violent exertion with scores of alcoholics which I found at a nearby mission and Townes Hospital, it began to look like the Groupers were right. I hadn’t sobered up anybody. In Brooklyn we always had a houseful of drinkers living with us, sometimes as many as five. My valiant wife, Lois, once arrived home from work to find three of them fairly tight. They were whaling each other with two-by-fours. Though events like these slowed me down somewhat, the persistent conviction that a way to sobriety could be found never seemed to leave me. There was, though, one bright spot. My sponsor, Ebby, still clung precariously to his new-found sobriety.

What was the reason for all these fiascoes? If Ebby and I could achieve sobriety, why couldn’t all the rest find it too? Some of those we’d worked on certainly wanted to get well. We speculated day and night why nothing much had happened to them. Maybe they couldn’t stand the spiritual pace of the Oxford Group’s four absolutes of honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love. In fact some of the alcoholics declared that this was the trouble. The aggressive pressure upon them to get good overnight would make them fly high as geese for a few weeks and then flop dismally. They complained, too, about another form of coercion — something the Oxford Groupers called “guidance for others.” A “team” composed of non-alcoholic Groupers would sit down with an alcoholic and after a “quiet time” would come up with precise instructions as to how the alcoholic should run his own life. As grateful as we were to our O.G. friends, this was sometimes tough to take. It obviously had something to do with the wholesale skidding that went on.

But this wasn’t the entire reason for failure. After months I saw the trouble was mainly in me. I had become very aggressive, very cocksure. I talked a lot about my sudden spiritual experience, as though it was something very special. I had been playing the double role of teacher and preacher. In my exhortations I’d forgotten all about the medical side of our malady, and that need for deflation at depth so emphasized by William James had been neglected. We weren’t using that medical sledgehammer that Dr. Silkworth had so providentially given us.

Finally, one day, Dr. Silkworth took me back down to my right size. Said he, “Bill, why don’t you quit talking so much about that bright light experience of yours, it sounds too crazy. Though I’m convinced that nothing but better morals will make alcoholics really well, I do think you have got the cart before the horse. The point is that alcoholics won’t buy all this moral exhortation until they convince themselves that they must. If I were you I’d go after them on the medical basis first. While it is never done any good for me to tell them how fatal their malady is, it might be a very different story if you, a formerly hopeless alcoholic, gave them the bad news. Bemuse of this identification you naturally have with alcoholics, you might be able to penetrate where I can’t. Give them the medical business first, and give it to them hard. This might soften them up so they will accept the principles that will really get them well.”

Then Came Akron

Shortly after this history-making conversation, I found myself in Akron, Ohio, on a business venture which promptly collapsed. Alone in the town, I was scared to death of getting drunk. I was no longer a teacher or a preacher, I was an alcoholic who knew that he needed another alcoholic as much as that one could possibly need me. Driven by that urge, I was soon face to face with Dr. Bob. It was at once evident that Dr. Bob knew more of the spiritual things than I did.

He also had been in touch with the Oxford Groupers at Akron. But somehow he simply couldn’t get sober. Following Dr. Silkworth’s advice, I used the medical sledgehammer. I told him what alcoholism was and just how fatal it could be. Apparently this did something to Dr. Bob. On June 10, 1935, he sobered up, never to drink again. When, in 1939, Dr. Bob’s story first appeared in the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, he put one paragraph of it in italics. Speaking of me, he said:
“Of far more importance was the fact that he was the first living human with whom I had ever talked, who knew what he was talking about in regard to alcoholism from actual experience.”

The Missing Link

Dr. Silkworth had indeed supplied us the missing link without which the chain of principles now forged into our Twelve Steps could never have been complete. Then and there, the spark that was to become Alcoholics Anonymous had been struck.

During the next three years after Dr. Bob’s recovery our growing groups at Akron, New York and Cleveland evolved the so-called word-of-mouth program of our pioneering time. As we commenced to form a society separate from the Oxford Group, we began to state our principles something like this:

1. We admitted that we were powerless over alcohol
2. We got honest with ourselves
3. We got honest with another person, in confidence
4. We made amends for harms done others
5. We worked with other alcoholics without demand for prestige or money
6. We prayed to God to help us to do these things as best we could

Though these principles were advocated according to the whim or liking of each of us, and though in Akron and Cleveland they still stuck by the O.G. absolutes of honesty, purity, unselfishness and love, this was the gist of our message to incoming alcoholics up to 1939, when our present Twelve Steps were put to paper.

I well remember the evening on which the Twelve Steps was written. I was lying in bed quite dejected and suffering from one of my imaginary ulcer attacks. Four chapters of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, had been roughed out and read in meetings at Akron and New York. We quickly found that everybody wanted to be an author. The hassles as to what should go into our new book were terrific. For example, some wanted a purely psychological book which would draw in alcoholics without scaring them. We could tell them about the “God business” afterwards. A few, led by our wonderful southern friend, Fitz M., wanted a fairly religious book infused with some of the dogma we had picked up from the churches and missions which had tried to help us. The louder the arguments, the more I felt in the middle. It appeared that I wasn’t going to be the author at all. I was only going to be an umpire who would decide the contents of the book. This didn’t mean, though, that there wasn’t terrific enthusiasm for the undertaking. Every one of us was wildly excited at the possibility of getting our message before all those countless alcoholics who still didn’t know.

Having arrived at Chapter Five, it seemed high time to state what our program really was. I remember running over in my mind the word-of-mouth phrases then in current use. Jotting these down, they added up to the six named above. Then came the idea that our program ought to be more accurately and clearly stated. Distant readers would have to have a precise set of principles. Knowing the alcoholic’s ability to rationalize, something airtight would have to be written.

We couldn’t let the reader wiggle out anywhere. Besides, a more complete statement would help in the chapters to come where we would need to show exactly how the recovery program ought to be worked.

12 Steps in 30 Minutes:

At length I began to write on a cheap yellow tablet. I split the word-of-mouth program up into smaller pieces, meanwhile enlarging its scope considerably. Uninspired as I felt, I was surprised that in a short time, perhaps half an hour, I had set down certain principles which, on being counted, turned out to be twelve in number. And for some unaccountable reason, I had moved the idea of God into the Second Step, right up front. Besides, I had named God very liberally throughout the other steps. In one of the steps I had even suggested that the newcomer get down on his knees.

When this document was shown to our New York meeting the protests were many and loud. Our agnostic friends didn’t go at all for the idea of kneeling. Others said we were talking altogether too much about God. And anyhow, why should there be twelve steps when we had done fine on six? Let’s keep it simple, they said.

This sort of heated discussion went on for days and nights. But out of it all there came a ten-strike for Alcoholics Anonymous. Our agnostic contingent, speared by Hank P. and Jim B., finally convinced us that we must make it easier for people like themselves by using such terms as “a Higher Power” or “God as we understand Him!” Those expressions, as we so well know today, have proved lifesavers for many an alcoholic. They have enabled thousands of us to make a beginning where none could have been made had we left the steps just as I originally wrote them. Happily for us there were no other changes in the original draft and the number of steps stood at twelve.

Little did we then guess that our Twelve Steps would soon be widely approved by clergymen of all denominations and even by our latter-day friends, the psychiatrists.

Here is bit of info on Chips and Cakes that I put together to answer some questions on the subject.
Jimb

Chips, Medallions and Birthdays

The traditions of chips, medallions and birthdays vary in different parts of the country and I thought it would be interesting to look up some of the history on them.

Sister lgnatia, the nun who helped Dr. Bob get the hospitalization program started at St. Thomas Hospital in Akron was the first person to use medallions in Alcoholics Anonymous. She gave the drunks who were leaving St. Thomas after a five day dry out a Sacred Heart Medallion and instructed
them that the acceptance of the medallion signified a commitment to God, to A.A and to recovery and that if they were going to drink, they had a responsibility to return the medallion to her before drinking.

The sacred heart badges had been used prior to A.A. by the Father Matthew Temperance Movement of the 1840s and the Pioneers an Irish Temperance Movement of the 1890s.

The practice of sobriety chips in A.A. started with a Group in Elmira, N.Y.in 1947 and has grown from there.

The celebration of birthdays came from the Oxford Group where they celebrated the anniversary of their spiritual rebirth. As we have a problem with honesty, A.A. chose the anniversary of the date of our last drink.

Early celebrations of birthdays resulted in people getting drunk and Dr. Harry Tiebout was asked to look at the problem and he commented on this phenomenon in an articled titled “When the Big “I” Becomes Nobody”, (AAGV, Sept. 65)

“Early on in A.A., I was consulted about a serious problem plaguing the local group. The practice of celebrating a year’s sobriety with a birthday cake had resulted in a certain number of the members getting drunk within a short period after the celebration. It seemed apparent that some could not stand prosperity. I was asked to settle between birthday cakes or no birthday
cakes.

Characteristically, I begged off, not from shyness but from ignorance. Some three or four years later, A.A. furnished me the answer. The group no longer had such a problem because, as one member said, “We celebrate still, but a year’s sobriety is now a dime a dozen. No one gets much of a kick out of that anymore.”

The AAGV carried many articles on chips and cakes and the following is a brief summary of some.

Feb. 1948, Why All the Congratulations? “When we start taking bows (even on anniversaries) we bow ourselves right into the cuspidor.”

July, 1948. Group To Give Oscar for Anniversaries.
The Larchmont Group of Larchmont, N.Y. gives a cast bronze camel mounted on a mahogany base to celebrate 1st., 5th and 10th anniversaries.

“The camel is wholly emblematic of the purposes of most sincere A.A.s, i.e., to live for 24 hours without a drink.”

August 1948. The Artesta, N. Mex. Group awards marbles to all members. If you are caught without your marbles, you are fined 25 cents. This money goes into the Foundation Fund.

June 1953, We operate a poker chip club in the Portland Group (Maine). We have poker chips of nine colors of which the white represents the probation period of one month. If he keeps his white chip for one month he is presented with a red chip for one month’s sobriety.

The chips continue with blue for two months, black for three, green for four, transparent blue for five, amber for six, transparent purple for nine months and a transparent clear chip for one year. We have our chips stamped with gold A.A. letters.

Also at the end of the year and each year thereafter, we present them with a group birthday card signed by all members present at the meeting.

January 1955, Charlotte, N.C. “When a man takes ‘The Long Walk’ at the end of a meeting, to pick up a white chip, he is admitting to his fellow men that he has finally accepted the precepts of A.A. and is beginning his sobriety.
At the end of three months he exchanges his white chip for a red one. Later, a handsome, translucent chip of amber indicates that this new member has enjoyed six months of a new way of life. The nine month chip is a clear seagreen and a blue chip is given for the first year of sobriety. In some groups a sponsor will present his friend with an engraved silver chip, at
the end of five years clear thinking and clean living.

March 1956, The One Ton Poker Chip. Alton, Illinois. Author gave friend a chip on his first day eight years ago (1948) and told him to accept it in the spirit of group membership and that if he wanted to drink to throw the chip away before starting drinking.

October 1956, Bangor Washington. Article about a woman who sits in a bar to drink the bartender sees her white chips and asks what it is. She tells him. He throws her out as he does not want an alcoholic in his bar. She calls friend.

April 1957, Cape Cod, Mass. Group recognizes 1st, 5th and 15th anniversaries.
Person celebrating leads meeting. Person is presented with a set of wooden carved plaques with the slogans.

July 1957, New Brunswick, Canada. Birthday Board. Member contributes one dollar for each year of sobriety.

July 1957, Oregon. Person is asked to speak and is introduced by his or her sponsor. The wife, mother, sister or other relative brings up a cake. The Group sings Happy Birthday. The wife gives a two or thee minute talk.

April 1959, Patterson, N.J. People are asked to give “three month pintalks.”

And that’s a little bit of info on chips, cakes and medallions.

The Fantasy: Get sober, and everything will fall neatly into place.
The Reality: Get sober, and watch your stress level explode.

One of the many paradoxes surrounding recovery is that it can bring out the best and the worst in alcoholics and addicts. This is especially true of those who operate under stressful conditions.

Before slipping into recovery, alcoholics and addicts had a sure-fire antidote for stress: Get high. Stressed out? Open a cold beer or pour a stiff drink. Had a hard day? Roll up a joint. Feel beat? Lay out a couple of lines. These solutions didn’t work in the long run, of course, but they sure did offer temporary relief. In other words, they worked.

Then along comes recovery, and “poof”—the temporary relief is gone. What now? The answer is stress management.

Stress management is not the same thing as stress relief. Stress management is a long-term solution to millions of short-term problems. A true stress management “program” focuses more on internal sources of stress (the ones we create for ourselves in our own heads) than it does external sources (the ones we see around us and blame for the way we feel).

In order to understand the true nature of stress and stress management, it helps to conceptualize the issue in terms of 1) The Problem, and 2) The Solution, as follows:

The Problem

There are two primary sources of stress—external sources & internal sources.

External Sources of Stress:
Money
Relationships
Work
Traffic
Change of any kind

Internal Sources of Stress:
Beliefs
Attitudes
Internal dialogue (self-talk)
Old “tapes”
Thinking style
Problem solving style
The Solution

There are two primary methods of dealing with stress—stress reduction & stress management.

Stress Reduction Techniques:
Reducing External Sources of Stress
Relaxation exercises
Physical exercise
Watching TV
Listening to music

Stress Management:
Confronting Internal Sources of Stress
Living in present moment
Healthy diet
Regular exercise
Daily spiritual practice
Balanced lifestyle

The traditional approach to dealing with stress is to blame the external sources of stress for the way we feel and then to rely on stress reduction techniques to deal with them. That approach never has and never will work.

Effective stress management requires two basic things:

Alter our lifestyles to accommodate healthy daily practice.
Go inside of our own heads and confront and change our dysfunctional thinking.
The first task is by far the simplest. It follows common sense. Regular exercise, healthy diet, plenty of rest and sleep, putting first things first, etc. will prepare us to handle the circumstances of our lives with more efficiency and energy.

The second task presents the real challenge. This is especially true for alcoholics and addicts, whether in recovery or not. Alcoholics and addicts are notorious for narrow, close-minded, self-centered, self-righteous thinking. Nevertheless, there are solutions, and they do work.

When I started studying Zen Buddhism some years ago, one of my teachers told me that the first thing I needed to do was to acknowledge and accept the fact that everything I knew “for a fact” was incorrect. He said that I could take a shortcut through the spiritual learning process if I would just discard everything I knew “for a fact” and start over with a fresh, uncluttered mind.

When I resisted his assessment of my knowledge base, he challenged me thusly: “Carefully consider the source of your information.” At that point I had to really stop and think about where and from whom I had learned my beliefs, opinions, and attitudes. The sources were less than reliable. They included my alcoholic parents, the public school system, a judgmental southern protestant church, my alcohol and drug abusing friends, television programs, and so on.

By the time we reach adulthood, our heads are filled with what Albert Ellis, a noted psychologist and researcher, calls “common upsetting beliefs.” And these common upsetting beliefs have everything to do with stress and stress management. Indeed, they are at the heart of the matter.

The following list of statements suggests some of the beliefs that most people carry around in their heads, at least in some form or another:

“I should be competent in most or all respects.”
“Some people are bad and deserve to be punished.”
“Events in my life should always go the way I want them to.”
“Events, circumstances, and other people are what cause my upset feelings.”
“People should mind their own business and leave me alone.”
“I have a right to worry and feel upset about dangerous and unjust situations.”
“It is easier to avoid difficulties and responsibilities than to face them.”
“My early childhood experiences control my feelings and behavior as an adult.”
“I have a right to feel upset over my problems or over other people’s stupid behavior.”
“There is an absolute right and wrong concerning every situation.”
“The world should be fair, and in the end, justice must prevail.”
“There are some things that I know for absolute certain are true.”
“Some people should be different than the way they are.”
“I have the right to seek revenge on people who hurt me.”
Many of the situations that we encounter on a day to day basis threaten our attitudes and beliefs. When this happens, we typically react defensively and/or angrily and/or fearfully. Hence, upset feelings and stress.

Does the following attitude/belief sound familiar? “That idiot cut me off on the highway. He’s stupid and wrong. He’s dangerous; he scared me, and he could have hurt me. I have a right to feel upset and angry. If I ever see him again, I’m going to give him a piece of my mind.” The idea here is that in reality, the driver did not cause me to feel upset. My thinking did.

This conceptualization of internally generated stress makes even more sense when considered in terms of “negative self-talk.” We almost continually “talk” to ourselves, whether we are consciously aware of it or not. A lot—perhaps most—of that talk has a negative twist to it and represents some variation of the common upsetting beliefs listed above.

Consider the following list of negative messages and possible positive counterparts.

Negative Self-Talk Messages
Positive Self-Talk Messages

“I’m such an idiot; I can’t believe I’m so stupid.” “Oops. I made a mistake; I’ll be more conscientious next time.”
“He’s such an idiot; I can’t believe he’s so stupid.” “He made a mistake; we all make mistakes, even me.”
“I hate her. She hurt me, and she’ll be sorry some day.” “I feel hurt. I wonder why I’m taking her attitude and her behavior so personally.”
“This is terrible! This is horrible! I can’t stand this! This is killing me!” “I must be taking this situation too seriously. It’s obviously not the end of the world.”
“He’s rotten to the core. He deserves to burn in hell.” “I don’t like or agree with his behavior, but it’s not my place to judge him.”
“I should be able to handle this; other people can.” “I’m doing the best I can with who I am today, and that’s okay.”
“He makes me so damn mad!” “I don’t have to give him the power over me to make me feel angry.”
“He’s never there when I need him; I just can’t trust him.” “I am responsible for myself and my own feelings. I can choose to rely for support on people who can be there for me.”
“I can’t believe this is happening to me!” “I wonder; how could this situation turn out to be in my best interest?”
“My upbringing prevents me from loving or trusting other people.” “My childhood has interfered with my willingness to trust. I will learn to trust as an adult.”
“I just can’t stand the way some people act.” “I am responsible for my own behavior—and no one else’s.”
“Oh great! She’s mad; what did I do now?” “She must be having a bad day. Maybe I can help, or maybe I can just let her have a bad day.”
“Life’s a bitch, and then you die.” “I will experience whatever quality of life I decide to have.”
“She’s wrong, and I’m right. I know I’m right. I’d bet my life on it.” “She has her opinion and beliefs, and I have mine. She believes hers, and I believe mine.”

The most powerful stress management tool in the world has nothing to do with eliminating stressful situations from our lives. It doesn’t even have anything to do with other people “acting right” or “doing things my way.” Indeed, when stress levels are considered within the framework of “stressful thinking,” it becomes apparent that there is no such thing as an inherently stressful situation. There is only stressful thinking, and stressful thinking is a by-product of our attitudes, opinions, and beliefs. To manage stress, then, we monitor our self-talk and alter its content.

Of course, learning to consciously listen to and confront our common upsetting attitudes and beliefs and our negative self-talk takes practice. One extremely helpful tool is to carry with us at all times one or more questions that we ask ourselves whenever we feel upset, angry, and stressed out.

Examples of good questions include the following:

“What am I telling myself about this situation that is causing me to feel this way?”
“What are my negative thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs about this situation?”
“What are my (unreasonable) expectations about this person or this situation?”
“What are my (unreasonable) expectations about myself in this situation?”
“How am I taking this situation too personally?”
“How am I taking this situation too seriously?”
“How could this situation possibly turn out to be in my best interest?”
“How am I judging myself or someone else?”
“How important it this—really?”
At it’s best, the process works as follows:

I encounter a situation.
I feel stressed out (angry, afraid, etc).
I accept responsibility for those feelings.
I ask myself the intervening question.
I answer the question honestly.
I shed the stress.
Ah, yes…if only it were so easy. Obviously, it’s not. But it is that simple.

The bottom line is that we are responsible for the way we feel. We are responsible for whether or not we feel stressed out. We have the power to choose serenity over stress.

The question is, “Am I willing to walk the walk?”

About two-thirds of this article was taken from The White Paper: Effectiveness of Substance Abuse Treatment, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, February, 1995. The balance was written by Charles N. Roper, PhD, LCDC.

Among the hundreds of myths surrounding addiction and drug rehab treatment, the following are especially relevant to individuals who are beginning to question the true nature of their relationship with addictive substances and are considering the possibility of seeking treatment.

Myth: Addiction is a bad habit, the result of moral weakness and over-indulgence.

Fact: Addiction is a chronic, life-threatening condition, like hypertension, arteriosclerosis, and adult diabetes.

Fact: Addiction has roots in genetic susceptibility, social circumstance, and personal behavior.

Fact: Certain drugs are highly addictive, rapidly causing biochemical and structural changes in the brain. Others can be used for longer periods of time before they begin to cause inescapable cravings and compulsive use.

Myth: Bad, stupid, and crazy people are most susceptible to becoming addicted to alcohol and drugs.

Fact: Addiction is an equal opportunity disease. It does not discriminate in any way against any class of people. It strikes equally among individuals in all ethnic, socio-economic, intelligence, and emotional wellness categories.

Myth: If an addict has enough willpower, he or she can stop abusing alcohol and using drugs.

Fact: Few people addicted to alcohol and other drugs can simply stop using them, no matter how strong their inner resolve. Most need at least one course of structured substance abuse treatment to end their dependence on alcohol and other drugs. Some achieve sobriety through participation in community-based support organizations (e.g., Alcoholics Anonymous), but relapse rates under this condition are very high. The most effective approach is one that combines structured treatment and community-based support.

Myth: Many people relapse, so treatment obviously does not work.

Fact: Like every other medical treatment, addiction treatment centers cannot guarantee lifelong recovery. Relapse is often a part of the recovery process; it is always possible–and treatable. Even if a person never achieves perfect abstinence, addiction treatment can reduce the number and duration of relapses, lower the incidence of related problems such as crime and poor overall health, improve the individual’s ability to function in daily life, and strengthen the individual to better cope with the next temptation or craving. These improvements reduce the social and economic costs of addiction.

Myth: People with alcohol and other drug problems must attend 28-day hospital-based treatment programs, where they dry out and emerge new individuals, cured of their problems.

Fact: Treatment is provided in many different settings, in many different ways, and for different lengths of time. It is provided in hospitals, residential facilities, free-standing clinics, and counselors’ and therapists’ private offices. Treatment often follows a “continuum of care,” within which the individual participates in one or more levels of care. These levels range from highly restrictive and intensive to only slightly restrictive and intensive, as follows:

Medically supervised detoxification;

Intensive residential treatment;

Extended residential care;

Halfway house, or supported living;

Partial hospitalization, or day treatment;

Intensive outpatient treatment;

Supportive outpatient treatment;

Continuing Care; and

Individual counseling and therapy.

Myth: Once sobriety is achieved, whether with or without the benefit of treatment, most individuals can eventually return to social use of alcohol and/or drugs.

Fact: Addiction is a chronic condition that does not disappear, even after extended periods of sobriety. This is true regardless of the individual’s drug of choice, level of self-control, or length of abstinence.

Myth: An individual who is addicted to one drug or family of drugs can undergo treatment for and recover from addiction to that particular drug and still use other drugs with impunity.

Fact: Cross-addiction nearly always occurs when an addict tries to switch drugs, regardless of the reason. Cross-addiction invariably takes the form of one or the other of two possible outcomes: 1) The individual quickly becomes addicted to the second substance, or 2) The individual returns to the original drug while under the influence of the second one.

Myth: We have reached the limits of what we can do to treat addiction.

Fact: The more we learn about addiction, the more effective treatment becomes. Even though current treatment methods are far from perfect, today’s treatment providers are being challenged to stretch their knowledge base and find more effective approaches to prevention, intervention, and treatment.