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dearmrsbitch · 5 years

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March 29, 2019 - Did you know AA doesn’t work like they want you to think it does???

Q. Therapist at work and home: My live-in partner and I have been going through a rough patch recently. I recently found out that he kissed someone else a few months ago and lied to me repeatedly about it. We are trying to patch things up and have identified his drinking and drug use as a major source of some of our issues in our relationship and his problems individually.

I’ve done everything I can to try to support him while also trying to heal myself from his betrayal, including going to the first AA meeting with him as a supporter and helping him get connected with a therapist through my work insurance. He went to the therapist once and hasn’t gone back to AA since I went with him. He has been drinking much less, but last weekend when we got into an argument, he slipped up.

I know I can’t be his only source of support while trying to make these changes; I work as a therapist for adolescents with suicidality, and when I come home, I feel completely burnt out. I’m hesitant to give him an ultimatum that if he doesn’t go to AA and therapy then we will have to end our relationship because I’m not really comfortable with ultimatums, but I feel way too much pressure to help him while I’m also in a lot of pain from his indiscretion with this other woman.

I love my partner a lot and I don’t want to abandon him while he’s trying to work on things, but everything is feeling like too much for me. Do I insist on AA and therapy for him in order to move forward in our relationship? Cut my losses, break up, and uproot the life I’ve created with him? Leave it up to him to figure out his drinking and drug use? We just started to see a couples therapist upon my insistence and he has been willing to engage in that, but the therapist took us on with limited availability and there have been weeks between appointments, so we haven’t been able to gain much momentum. The therapist was coordinated through my work insurance in which I have limited options, so switching isn’t really possible, and I don’t have the funds to pay someone else out of pocket.

Dear Therapist,

You two need to split and tell him to seek treatment at an in-patient facility.

1. You can’t have a good relationship with a drug. Anytime a partner is taking substances, regularly like that, you’re dealing more with the drug than them. They need to know you’re not going to enable their shit anymore.

2. It’s a big myth that you need to hit rock bottom before treatment. You don’t need to put him on the street, but he would be better off in a sober living facility than at home or else he will relapse more easily.

3. Ultimatums don’t work. You cannot recover in treatment if you are forced to be there, that’s why it doesn’t work - the person needs to make the call on if they want to recover. So what you really need to say is, “If you can’t get sober and don’t want to be sober, we are done.” But if he can go to AA and walk through the steps and he knows you’re at home to catch him, well... honey bun, it might be another enabling factor. You need to accept that you might be at the end of this relationship and you can only serve the ultimatum to yourself that if he doesn’t want to get clean, you will leave to save yourself.

4. AA is such bullshit, I can’t stand it, I hate it, I hate that a lot of fucking therapists think it’s the only option and god, I want to scream!

Let me break this down for those who don’t know.

4.1. The guys who founded it made it up. They didn’t know anything, they just tried something and managed to weasel into government consideration for programs for money for themselves, okay?

4.2. According to their own stats, they are no more effective than going cold turkey by yourself. Their highest reported success rate was .... 5%. For a program that nearly 100% of people are referred to? That is a shit number.

4.3. They are religious in nature. Not only is it a violation of your rights to be forced into an inherently Christian religious treatment, they lie to people when they say you can do it secular. I know a few atheists who were forced to recite prayers, etc., as part of their treatment when they were promised otherwise.

4.4. They have no exit plan. AA people are always the ones who are like, “I can’t be around beer, ever again!” Real treatment includes reintegration into situations that may have alcohol and having strategies to avoid the temptation. If you can’t be in a room with beer, you’re not recovered.

4.5 They deny human agency. Part of the insidious nature of the “God help me to get through shit,” is that that idea is what causes a lot of relapse. If you “give your recovery to a god” then you are not taking agency in what you are doing and in recovering. You are being taught that an outside force can help you, and it can’t, and it also leads a lot to those who have faith - having a crisis of faith which causes more FUCKING RELAPSES!

4.6. They substitute addictions. The community is cult-like. Pick a number of other shit they have been exposed for over the years and my goddamn tax dollars are still going to them... *grumble*

Look... The Bitch family knows rehab, we work in it. It’s a fucking hell of a road to walk down, and there will be relapses, etc., but if you take a secular, cognitive behavior therapeutic approach, you might have fewer walks down it than with AA. If you’re going to get him help, get him real help!

Drug treatment, for those who don’t know, can be a mixed bag. A lot of places simply use ex-addicts because the absolutely stupid idea of “You can’t help if you haven’t been addicted,” is still around. Which is not true at all, in fact, counselors who have never been addicts tend to be better than those who are. You want to seek out programs that are in-patient, (ideally) that are run by people who have graduate degrees or higher ONLY. They should not be methadone or suboxone adverse, they should not require statements of faith, they should be self-reflective, they should have proper discipline for those who transgress that does not include shit like public shaming, they should have trained nurses and narcan on hand, and they should be accountable to the state or a board that is not run on any principle except getting people better. They should also be willing to take back people who have fallen off the wagon at least a few times because that is very normal.

That is what you must get your partner to do and agree to. Proper treatment and it’s going to take awhile. Remember, his brain has been rewired in a bad way, detoxing him is the easy part!

Mrs. Bitch,

Sorry, I just really can’t stand AA’s bullshit. If nothing else is available first, then fine, but goddamn, we have got to stop funding them. They’re the Myers-Briggs of addiction treatment...

#dear prudie #dearmrsbitch #AA #addiction #addict partner

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