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This is sort of the "best of" section where I'll link to the blog entries people seem to read the most. Perhaps I ought to have a page on "What is PTSD" but lots of others have already done that, so I'll just my favorite, a glossary from the Sidhran Institute [link checked 7/12/20].
Two notes before we begin. First, I am not a professional. I have kept this blog to share my experience with PTSD, but I cannot help you directly if you are suffering from PTSD. I only check in here intermittently and it breaks my heart to see someone plea for help and get no response. Please, if you are in crisis, call 911. If you are looking for treatment or direct help, please contact the Sidran Institute. They are an excellent resource and can help you find appropriate treatment. If you are finding out about PTSD in yourself or another and want to know what my experience has been, read on.
Second, if you make comments that contain negative statements about people at various facilities by name, I will not publish them. Stay general, and even say there are problematic people to avoid, but no names. Probably best to leave out names of people you consider praiseworthy too. Self-promoting comments or links to link farms or anything that is the least bit suspicious will be deleted. I err on the side of caution. That said, there is a wonderful compendium of knowledge and wisdom in the comments, so thank you to all who have shared there over the years, and please feel free to continue commenting as you see fit. They are one of the great rewards of writing this blog!
People in crisis often want to know where they can get help. Grounding exercises for PTSD can help get us through the short term. Here is a way of finding US and global treatment centers that specialize in PTSD. That is of course assuming you are privileged enough to have access to these resources. Not everyone is. And in case I forget next winter, here are some tips on PTSD and the holidays. One of the most disturbing symptoms of PTSD is flashbacks, especially when they result in "non-epilectic seizures" or what a doctor might have called "pseudo-seizures," though there is nothing "pseudo" about them.
If you are looking to help a loved one diagnosed with PTSD, you might want to read my open letter to someone looking to help a loved one with PTSD. My partner, who is a key part of my loving and supportive network of friends, has been absolutely critical to my ongoing recovery, and I share some of the ways she has both helped me when I could not help myself and some of the unfortunate costs she has paid as a result of my PTSD. It is a hard road, but we have come through stronger than ever, so there is hope.
Picking a therapist can be difficult for someone with PTSD, because often times the PTSD itself messes with our pickers. Through necessity and trial and error and generous borrowing of other people's wisdom, I've come up with a brief subjective guide on how to choose a therapist for ptsd. It contains links to some other, less subjective guides too.
Along with getting medical and psychological help, medication helped get me stabilized even though I was really resistant to it because of being a recovering addict. I wasn't resistant to trying Effexor, and kind of wish I had been (see Battle of the Effexor and Joy of Meds: Effexor withdrawal) I have quite a bit to say about PTSD and 12-step programs. While 12-step programs saved my life, I found that their one-size-fits-all model did more harm than good after the initial haze of the drugs and alcohol wore off. There is more than one type of addict (and some more on the subject here). And although it claims not to hew any one denominational line, it is based on Christianity in some ways that were harmful to my recovery. I finally decided to leave 12 step approaches, a difficult decision. In hindsight, however, some of the most exploitative folks I ever met were from the halls of twelve step rooms and the addictions recovery industry. Spiritual and psychological abuse are real and create huge barriers to recovery. Just to be sure, I tried a few alternatives to 12 step approaches that were promising but fizzled out, so I tried again, home group and everything, The results were the same, but magnified in a way that really drove the point home. For the past few years, I have found an Al-Anon home group that takes care to welcome everyone and not get caught up in "my way or the highway thinking. It turns out that my main problem, as long as I don't pick up, is not with substances, but with addicted dysfunctional people, so this Al-Anon has turned into a real home group for me. Might not work for everyone, but it is working for me.
Betrayal bonds form a major part of PTSD as I have experienced it, so I've spent a lot of time writing about them. You might have heard of this as Stockholm syndrome. They take a number of different forms. Fully understanding the nature and effects of betrayal was key to beginning my recovery from PTSD. While the guy who wrote the book on betrayal bonds associates them with sexual addiction, I have found this ain't necessarily so.
If you are interested, I can tell you more about my PTSD. Some days are still rough (skin-crawling, time-wasting, losing time, etc) but I have found a certain amount of recovery, and my life is once again bearable, even enjoyable on good days. And I'm still here, yes still here, and even now, still here. Partly it depends on which dogs I feed. It also helps to have a loving and supportive network of friends. Oh, and to stay far away from toxic relationships.
Sunday, August 13, 2023
One more try with AA. Swing and a miss
I was looking for something in the way of fellowship for addiction recovery. I tried one of the Buddhist approaches and one of the secular approaches, but both fizzled out. I tried AA again, seeing if maybe that would work if I found the right group. I thought I did, right in my own neighborhood even. Things went well enough I declared it my home group and signed up to do coffee and setup. A different person picks the speakers each month and unfortunately for me, my last month in this group was ledd by an AA Christian fundmentalist. Here is my account of what happened in the form of the email I sent the group when I left.
Hi all, just one last thing...Sorry it is a little long. You all never heard my story, so consider this that, and humor me by hearing me out if you wish.
I spoke with a few of you about leaving last night and I want to be clear so there is no misunderstanding...I’m not leaving because of the speaker, or even the Course of Miracles stuff about angels and whatever. And though I give both of those beliefs a wide berth, I have no problem with other people’s beliefs. My reason for leaving comes from the last speaker of the evening and the truth of what he said.
He said that agnostics like me maybe don’t drink but aren’t in recovery like “we” are by which he meant proper, god-fearing AA, which he called “the Truth” in affirmation of the speakers who preached Christianity prior to him that evening. OK, actually still no problem there, even when he wrapped up that little ball of intolerance and disingenuously labeled it “love.” Sorry dude, not feeling the love over here, but ok, principles before personalities. He also gave all of us, but especially me, since I was the person who identified as agnostic (I am pretty sure he has no idea what that word means), an assignment to read the chapter on the agnostic from the big book. So I re-read the chapter for the Nth time, and it is still an argument of the same type and thinking as that of the birther movement or Creationism, both of which I reject. Still no problem. Take what you want and leave the rest. OK, so let’s see what the google-god tells us about what the agnostics are up to in AA and what AA thinks of them.
It turns out that AA officially accepts agnostics and special interest meetings for agnostics, atheists and so forth (see the Oct. 2016 Grapevine for a whole issue on this). Cool, I’m in. Now where are those meetings? Pull up an Oahu schedule, and there you go, and right there at the top it is, an AG/AT symbol to mark the meetings where we are actually welcome, as opposed to the others, where I guess we are still not welcome. Well ok, ctrl-F, lets find all the AG/AT meetings. Zero. People like me are not welcome at any meetings on the Oahu schedule. OK, if I had infinite time and energy, I could go on a crusade and start one. Maybe I’m just copping out.
But here is the rub. AA has also declared that not a word of the first part of the big book can be changed, so that means that the chapter to the agnostic is considered divinely inspired and infallible in practice, which is what it means that AA declares as Gospel Truth a text written by a bunch of newly sober drunks flying blind in 1938 except for the guidance of a book on religion by William James and a Christian group called the Oxford Group (read Pass it on). The chapter on the agnostic does pretty much say I don’t have real recovery until I have a personal deity.
This, and the comically sexist chapters on “Wives” (stand by your Man) and employers (give Him some slack) are officially considered by AA infallible and unchangeable. It is a baked in principle and actually a dogma that my recovery is "less than," which is odd for a book that closes with the statement that it is “merely suggestive. We know only a little.” So it is a bedrock principle of the book, and the book is considered unchangeable truth, and it says I’m a second class citizen unless I have found God as We – not I – understand Him.
This is fundamentalism, which allows people to cherry pick from a text, do whatever hateful thing they want and call it love and God’s Will and “the Truth,” which is exactly what the last speaker did. And he was right to do so by the AA principle that the Big Book is a an unchanging, infallible, fundamentalist text.
I have severe PTSD from fundamentalists (who come in every shape from followers of some brands of Jesus to New Age stuff to the Course of Miracles stuff artfully spouted at Tuesday’s meeting). It has put me out of work for over a year two times in sobriety, caused two trips to mental hospitals, and one for a residential treatment center for PTSD and addictions where they were amazed that I did not pick up after the stuff I have been through sober. And, get this! Since meetings were triggering my PTSD, a rehab after verifying that I had no plans of picking up a drink or a drug, actually recommended I stop going to meetings! LOL, I still wonder how many times that has ever happened. Mind you, I had sixteen years under my belt at that time, and I wouldn’t actually take the advice for another year, being a stubborn alcoholic. Now like anyone, I may pick up a drink tonight or get struck with the drunken lightning for not going to meetings, but I’ll try not to do that today, since every good thing in my life depends on staying clean and sober and picking up would do absolutely nothing to make anything better, no matter how bad things seem. If you want to know how to get through a hard day without picking up a drink I can tell you a few things about it. Despite these challenges, I have carved out a good life, one that was beyond my wildest dreams when I came into the rooms.
I have PTSD from people in the program doing abominable things to me and calling it love and God’s will, because they had a personal God and they like to think everything happens according to His plan, so whatever hateful shit they spout and do is actually God’s Will, part of the Plan, and if you don’t get it, it must be because you are not special and chosen, poor soul. Because of how I was raised, in a generations’ deep swamp of alcoholic dysfunction, it has taken me years to figure out that this was their problems that they were dumping me with, not some flaw in me. And certain types of alcoholics from therapists to car salesmen to lovers to predators to sociopaths (not kidding) and to my family of birth look at me and, probably unconsciously except for a sociopath or two that has found me, see an awesome target for some reason I am still working on figuring out and that I am getting much better at avoiding.
So let me sum up here. AA endorses its own peculiar brand of fundamentalism. Some fundamentalists take shit that and run with it. Fundamentalists like this have caused tremendous harm in my life and I seem to have some kind of blind spot and they seem to be able to pick me out easily. Therefore, it does more harm than good for me to continue in AA.
Please be careful to note, I am not saying that everyone in AA or even AA as a whole, is fundamentalist. Only that it endorses its own peculiar brand of fundamentalism that is available to people who, like the last speaker, do take that and run with it. To me there is little in the world more dangerous than an alcoholic who is not drinking, has his or her wits about them, and Knows The Truth for sure. I saw this in the previous week’s meeting and its homogeneously uniformed and disciplined AA team following a charismatic leader, but I set it aside in the name of tolerance. This last meeting was not my cup of tea, but as I shared at that meeting, I actually think it is great that everyone from a follower of Jesus to someone like me who does not have the dubious luxury of such certainty, can all figure out a way to get sober together, which none of us could do on our own. I did have a major problem with the last speaker’s statement that without a personal deity you are not really sober, but I can do principles over personalities. The problem is that when I explored the principles, that brand of exclusive, intolerant faith is not only encouraged, but considered infallible. At that point, I’m done, and I have a better understanding of why I seem to run into so many people who see me as target practice rather than a fellow human. I'm actually grateful for that last bit, as I understand it a little better now.
I have not met anyone in the group who has been anything other than lovely to me in my short time with the group. I seriously mean that. I think the last guy was a hateful ass, but I didn’t even see who it was. You’ll have that all over the world, not just in AA, so whatever, it is not really more than a passing bit of anger of the everyday sort one has to work through wherever they are anyway.
The principle is the problem. I am not up to fighting against it, and there are other things I can do in my life to be there for the still suffering alcoholic than try to make AA into my image of it. I found this out in my seventeen years away from AA but not recovery: there are plenty of people like me. I am one of the fortunate ones, who like you has been able to get in recovery and build a good life which completely depends on that recovery. Plenty of others – I think one in ten actually sticks around in AA and achieves sobriety that way – still struggle and many of them feel excluded for reasons similar to mine for leaving. Through the gift of anonymity, I have corresponded literally with hundreds of them with lots more behind each person I have been fortunate enough to talk to. They make me understand that I am not alone and that my recovery is just fine, and I am grateful for that, and them, and you all, and fortunate every day. Recovery, I have found out, is not a monopoly enterprise. We do “know only a little,” so it makes no sense to me to declare a solution with a ten-percent success rate to be infallible dogma. Especially when it does tremendous harm in my life and others. But AA does exactly that. That’s why I am leaving. But I am glad it works for you.
So you guys never heard my story but there is a little of it. Anyway, like I said, I live in the neighborhood, so if you see me at the ABC store say hi please, and if a green Subaru sedan honks at you as I drive around the block to my place, it means, “Hi,” Not “get out of the road and quit smoking ya bums. What the hell kind of church is that anyway.”
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