Do I Have To Go To AA To Get Sober:"Science Behind 12 step programs work💪

Alright, in this session we're actually going to talk about how it works. If you ever been to a 12 step meeting, in the big book there's a whole section about how it works. So this is the hope for families section of that. You know, I find it just absolutely fascinating how all the things that we've been doing for years and years as far as getting people into recovery and helping people get better, they actually work. Still, the difference is, is that we have the SC now to back up not just the fact that it works, but why it works. So let's look at some of the most old school practices that are around in recovery. Let's start with going to meetings or being in a group. You would be hard pressed to find any recovery program out there that isn't done in some sort of group capacity. So whether you're Talking about a 12 step program like Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous Celebrate Recovery that a lot of the churches have now, or group therapy in a treatment center, it's almost always done in groups. But let's just pull apart. And a lot of these characteristics are pretty similar across the board. But let's just take a look at AA traditions for now. It's been around for like the longest and most have the most familiarity with that. So. So the first thing they do is they say, keep coming back. The most important person is the newcomer. So the idea here is just to keep walking into the room with other people. The AA tradition is built around meetings and around fellowship and around connection. And as soon as they get you going to meetings, then they want you to get a sponsor and they want you to start to connect with your sponsor and they want you to call your sponsor every day. Well, there's a reason for this and maybe they didn't know it at the time, they just knew you needed to do this. It worked. You know, a lot of times you get a sponsor, they want you to call every day. And part of the thinking on that is if you call every day, even if you're not having a bad day or things aren't going wrong and you just talk about stuff, talk about the ball game, talk about the weather, talk about your job or stresses or good things or your kids, then eventually you're going to start to form a connection. And if you've heard the other module that I do, that I've done in this section, talked about serotonin and oxytocin, then you already know how important that connectivity piece is. And then they want you to do volunteer work and there's actually a lot of science behind why I think that works. So remember when I talked about in an earlier session about Simon Sinek and him talking about that chemical serotonin and how it's the leadership chemical because that's released when someone does something that's good for that. They're proud of themselves in relationship to their community or to their group. So it's the tradition in 12 step work to be doing some kind of service work. You need to be involved in doing something outside of yourself. And here's what I think happens there. I think as you do that, you start to build serotonin in your brain and your levels start to rise a little bit and your brain is actually healing when you're doing the service work. So I'm telling you, for me, if I understand why it is, then I'm a lot more likely to do it. I'm a lot more likely to commit in. I used to have this, or actually I still have this friend, he's in recovery and he tells this crazy story about when he first got sober. It was over 20 years ago and he. It was back in the days where everybody smokes cigarettes everywhere, especially in a meeting. I mean, even now, if you're in recovery, everyone smokes cigarettes. So I won't weigh in on that. We'll save that for another lesson. But my friend was telling this story about how his sponsor made him stay after the meetings, every meeting, and clean up all the ashtrays and the cigarette butts because then they smoked right inside the meeting and he would clean them up and his sponsor would say, there's recovery at the bottom of that ashtray. And so it was just part of the process that he had to go around and cle up all the cigarette butts. And you may think, well, what does that have to do with recovery? And I think some people probably think that has to do with this sort of maybe like this idea of tear someone down and get their ego out of it and then build them back up. And maybe there's an element in that. But I really think what starts to happen is you start to take some ownership. I've heard a lot of other stories about people going to AA and they'll say things like, well, it's my job to make the coffee. I can't believe they trust me to make the coffee. I mean, oh my gosh, my family doesn't trust me to do anything. And on more than one occasion, I've heard people talk about early in the recovery being given the keys to the Building wherever the AA meeting's being held, maybe it's in a rec center in a church. And they're like, they gave me the keys and they want me to go open it up and start the meeting in the coffee me. They gave me the keys. And it's like this big deal because they feel like they've been not trusted for so long. It's like, wow, like, I can't believe it. They actually trust me. So it's like a big moment. And it's things like that that really build that serotonin. And then if you look at the 12 step tradition it talks about, and I love this one, it says you can't keep what you have unless you give it away. So in 12 step, you, you need to go out there and help someone else get into recovery. And not only is it sort of that like that saying the best way to learn is to teach, but it also produces that serotonin and oxytocin. Because you not only teaching somebody something, which is helping it get like, you know, really stuck in your head, but it's also helping you feel bonded to that person. It's helping you feel like you've done something really good, which is changing your brain chemistry. You know, for every thought we have, we have a corresponding chemical process in our brain. And when we feel proud of ourselves in that way, we start to build a little sense of self esteem in a good, healthy way. And so there's so many things that are actually happening in the course of one of the meeting. You're being around other people. Other traditions that happen in there are about the handshakes and the hugs. And maybe you've heard me talk about that in the other session. But that physical contact actually produces some brain change, that volunteering produces some brain change, that consistency, that picking up that chip at the end of that meeting, that's so important because you really feel proud of yourself. And these are the little seeds that can grow into eventually feeling like you are a person that can be trusted, that you care about and you respect. You know, I tell my clients all the time that recovery is all about trying to be a kind of person that you can be proud of. And so when my clients feel stuck and they say, I just don't know what to do, I'll say, what's one thing you can do today that you'll actually feel proud of? Like sometimes for me, if I exercise that day, then I feel good about me. If the whole day was crowd, if I didn't get anything else done. But I did that. I'm like, I don't care because I exercise, so I feel good about it. So I asked my client, like, what's one thing you can do today to be proud of who you are as a human being? If it's help somebody, if it's say something nice to your mother in law, if it's help an old lady across the street, do something every single day that you feel proud of. Another tradition in recovery is this idea of gratitude and making a gratitude log. Did you know that science shows that practicing gratitude, actively practicing gratitude, and that means maybe making a list of things every single day that you feel grateful about is just as effective as taking an antidepressant. Imagine that every thought you have has a corresponding chemical response. And you can control the way you feel, feel to a very large degree by controlling the way you think. And so getting yourself in this practice of gratitude can change your brain. There's a reason why you do this. The other thing that's heavily tied to 12 step work particularly is this idea of making amends. So making amends is extremely important, not just for your relationships, but for your brain chemistry. So this is spread out over the course of three or four steps in the 12 steps. And the first part of it is this idea of making an inventory of your wrongs, admitting it to God or your higher power, and then to one other person. And then you have to go about this journey of righting your wrongs. So let's talk a little bit about why that works. And some of this is just sort of Amber's theory and interpretation on the matter. When we are holding something inside that we feel shameful about, or that just a secret that we feel like we're holding back from the rest of the world, then we don't know it, but we subconsciously begin to block ourselves off from the people around us. You don't even know. It can just be a little bitty secret that you're hiding from your family or from your friends, or that one little time you lapsed and didn't tell your sponsor. And now your sponsor thinks you've got 90 days, but you really only have 45. And you're too nervous to tell them. You just. You don't know it. But addiction lives in secrecy. And one of the things that you'll hear in recovery is secrets keep you sick. And I'm a firm believer in that. So a lot of times I can tell that my clients maybe are like backing up for me. You know, one of the ways that I know this is happening is because I'll give my clients, like, a compliment or I'll validate them about something, and they'll just resist me, and they'll push back, and they just don't want to accept that. And I often feel like what's going on there is that they think that I don't know, and they think, oh, if she really knew the whole story, she wouldn't think that about me. And so I can't accept her compliments. So it's like this guilt that I'm giving them a compliment or validation when I don't know the whole story. So I'm kind of weird that way as an addiction counselor, because for the most part, I don't care if they tell me every single terrible, gory detail about it. I don't want them to have any more shame. I probably don't want to hear the story anyway. But sometimes when I sense that this is going on with a client, I will probe them to tell it to me so that they can tell it to me, so that I can say, all right, we're still good. I still feel the same way. I still mean that compliment that I said. I'm not taking it back. It's not different, because that really goes a long way. And that's why that whole step process works. Admit the exact nature of my wrongs. Admit it to my higher power and one other person. Because when you tell it to your counselor or to your sponsor, and they're still like, oh, dude, you should hear what I did that one time. Then the person's like, wow, you mean it? Like, not the worst person on the planet. Then all these walls come down, and they start to actually get better. And because that wall's down now, they can really connect to you. Because before, maybe you had hobbies and interests in common and you could talk about things, but you're still really not connecting to the person because they're thinking that you don't know the whole story. And if you knew the whole story and you knew every bad thing they'd done, you would not feel the same way. So there's this guard that stays up where they're protecting themselves and you or themselves and their sponsor or their group, because secretly, deep down inside, they're thinking, you don't know. Like, I'm the most horrible person on the planet, and I've done terrible, awful things. And sometimes my clients come in, they just crack me up. Because some of my clients, they just. They're like compulsive confessors, and they'll come in. They're like. And eventually be like, towards the end of session. Okay, all right. I wasn't sure if I was going to tell you this, but I got to tell you this. And I'm like, oh, here. Kind of like, it's gonna be big. And then they're like, out something. I'm like, what? Is that it? You haven't worked. Oh, my God. Like, I'm disappointed. You know, like, where's the rest? They're like, oh, I thought you would just really think that was terrible. Or sometimes my clients come in, they'll say, you're gonna kill me. You're not gonna believe what I did this week. I'm like, oh, my God. Like, what did they do? And they tell me. I'm like, what? Are you serious? And once they can say that and they can see that you're still connected to them, you still like them as a person, I'm telling you, big changes start to happen here. So getting the secrets out of the way is the hugest relief and release, and it really allows connection to really start to form. And then not only do you start to feel better, and you start to feel connected to this other person that you finally outed these secrets to. You're like, wow, maybe I'm not the worst person ever, or maybe I did that really bad thing, but maybe I can be forgiven and I can feel better. And then you have to do the really hard thing, which is to go out there and make amends for it to the actual person or persons that you wronged. And this is, like, super scary, right? Let me tell you why this works. Because now, not only do you feel a little better about it because you've admitted it out loud, but now you're going out there and you're fixing it, and you don't have to be held hostage anymore by running into this person in, like, the restaurant or the Target or the Walmart or the mall or the meeting or whatever it is. You don't have to sit there and live in fear and think, oh, my gosh, what if I see this person? I owe them money, or I slept with my best friend's girlfriend or whatever it is. If you've dealt with it, you don't have to be held hostage by those secrets anymore. And when you're not held hostage by those secrets anymore, you can actually start to connect. Now, believe it or not, most of the time when people go out there to make these amends, it really heals that relationship, and they form a better, stronger connection. To that person than they have before now. Not every time. Sometimes you go and you make an amends and the other person doesn't necessarily respond in like the nicest, most forgiving way. But you cleaned up your side of the street and you don't have to keep any shame about it anymore. Because no matter what, if you do this, you've done what you need to do, you're clear, your conscious is clear, and you don't have to be held hostage by those secrets and shame anymore. So the last little story I'm going to tell you is myself and one of the other counselors here. Her name is Kim, she's like, fantastic counselor. We were at this training on addiction and trauma and this lady who's a specialist in trauma, she came out, she was talking about trauma and she was talking about this idea of shame and guilt. And I love Renee Brown's work on shame. I think it's fantastic. I've done, you know, some reading and research and work on this. But I really hadn't heard what this particular doctor said before. She said that when you say something out loud to another person that you feel shameful about that it turns it from shame into guilt. Because the difference is a shame means I don't like me, and guilt means think you don't like me. And when you do that, she's talked about there being like a magical transformation that happens there. And that shame is toxic and corrosive to the soul. And that guilt is actually pretty healing. And so it almost shifts it from one form into the other form. Because if I feel guilty, I can set it right. I can change who I am as a person. I can fix that. Shameful means I don't like me, that I'm not a good person, that I'm unworthy and unlovable. And if we can get that shame out, which is toxic, and turn it into something else, that's fixable. Now we're on the right path to recovery. Hope that helps you understand why we ask you to do the things that we do in the recovery process, in the 12 step process. Why you have to go to those groups, why you got to talk to people, why you got to tell your secrets. If you're anything like me, understanding why will help you make that leap because you'll know it's not just an arbitrary thing that you're having to do to basically pay for your sins. It's actually part of the healing process. And then the last thing I'll mention is that in 12 step work, when you get to, like, let's say the 10th and 11th step. They talk about making an inventory or taking an inventory every night to look at what your wrongs are in a given day. So not only in recovery do we teach you to go in there and just. It's like, if you've let the house get, like, totally trash and it's a mess, you know that step four and five and six, it's about cleaning up the mess initially and just getting it, like, under control. And then the later steps are about how to maintain your life in a way that doesn't get so chaotic and disheveled. So I explain it to my clients by saying it's like learning to put the dishes in the dishwasher and wash them as you go, rather than letting them pile up in the sink and get a whole big, giant mess where it's, like, so scary, and there's pots and pans in there with stuff stuck all over them. And you stop even going in the kitchen because you just know it's in there, and it's, like, totally intimidating to look at, and you think, oh, my gosh, I'm never going to get that cleaned up. So the later steps are just about how do I practice keeping my life clean in such a way that I don't have to hide from things anymore. Addiction lives in secrecy, and the key to recovery is about connection and not feeling like you have to hide anything, not feeling like you have anything to be ashamed of, and becoming a person that you actually are proud of.