Rational Recovery: The New Cure for Substance Addiction

First, I must say that this book is very appropriately titled. This really IS a very rational approach to recovery. I had been clean and sober in AA for a year and a half or so and, while I was staying sober and was definitely feeling better than when I started, had become increasingly frustrated with the program and couldn't accept many of its basic tenants anymore. In particular, the idea that there was some physical disease basis for alcoholism is central to AA, and yet it was highly speculative at best even at the time that the Big Book was written; to my knowledge there has yet to be any solid evidence for this. I also struggled with the idea that alcoholism is necessarily a lifelong disease requiring constant maintenance if you want to have any hope of remaining sober (again, there's little proof that this is true; in fact, this book conclusively proves that this is false). (To hear old timers, if you're not sitting in 3 - 4 meetings a week or if you quit through any means other than AA you're just a dry drunk who's probably miserable and is just waiting to go on a terrific bender).One other philosophical oddity in AA and the Big Book: any "Higher Power" is acceptable and is a source of actual spiritual power, but one has to wonder where that spiritual power is coming from. My "Higher Power" is just as good as your "Higher Power" as far as it goes, so you end up with a very odd form of religious subjectivism. If I believe that Jesus is God and that's where my spiritual power is coming from, and a Muslim believes that Jesus is definitely NOT God, he's deriving spiritual power from Allah, we can't both be right. Heck, someone could believe that they're deriving spiritual power from Moloch and it would be "true" within AA. Sorry, can't buy it. Unless you want to start believing that Zeus or Moloch or a doorknob actually exist as sources of real spiritual power, AA is completely intellectually bankrupt, as the author points out.This book showed that much of what I learned in AA was wrong. Mental health, general life issues, spirituality, etc. are completely separate from - and irrelevant to - recovery from alcoholism. A lot of times alcohol treatment - and, specifically, most of what AA teaches - ironically focuses on everything but actually quitting drinking. This book showed me that I do NOT have to feel better, get rid of character defects, work on my self-esteem, improve my communication skills, write a fourth step, do a 90 in 90, or call a sponsor every day in order to get (and stay) clean and sober. In fact, to think I need these things is to "play into" and excuse the addiction. Of course, I'm perfectly free to work on my self-esteem, spirituality, communication skills, and character defects after I get sober (and the author freely acknowledges that these are all worthy goals) - as long as I don't think I have to have them to say sober. (It's a lot easier to work on my self-esteem sober though!)The surprising thing here is his explanation of why people drink. I'll leave that for the book to explain the details, but suffice it to explain that what I was taught in AA has very little to do with the real reason. It's a lot simpler than I expected. (Basically, it boils down to "because I really like to"). I was always told that alcohol isn't the real problem and that as long as I thought that it was I'd die drunk. He shows me here that alcohol IS the problem behind addiction by definition. (For the purposes of the book, an alcoholic is anyone who continues to drink against their better judgment, which is a pretty good definition; even in more formal clinical definitions, the problem is alcohol - no alcohol, no alcoholism).This book is NOT about therapy or spirituality. Don't come here looking for advice on how to improve your marriage, finances, or parenting skills. All it will tell you is how to quit drugs and alcohol for good. Yep, that's all; nothing more, sorry. Obviously quitting will avoid the problems that alcohol abuse was causing you (you can't get a DUI if you don't drink, for example), but it won't make your life instantly perfect. Once you're sober you're perfectly free to read Dave Ramsey or go to marriage counseling - it's up to you. This program makes you fully responsible for quitting alcohol - and your life after quitting. (If you're in AA now, that may be an alarming prospect).Some people complain about how critical this book is of AA, but I think that this is necessary. This was actually helpful for me because I was coming out of AA and had been taught half-truths and downright lies for so long. The simple fact is that the vast majority of people who go to AA never get sober (at least not there), and the people who do get stuck in their addictions because AA prevents them from fully committing to recovery. For example, the author shows that the idea of "day-at-a-time" recovery is a perfect example of addictive thinking; if you're not in a place where you can commit to staying sober for even, say, a week at a time, it hardly bodes well for the quality of your recovery. He gives the example of a woman who had repeatedly "relapsed" (I put that in quotes because it's just a euphemism for "getting drunk") in spite of having been in two well-regarded treatment centers and diligently attending AA meetings. In the course of talking to her, it soon came out that no one in her expensive treatment centers had ever suggested that she actually quit drinking and that she had even been taught that it was a disease of relapse. This actually squares with my experience with local treatment centers; a newcomer to AA once complained that people in his IOP program regularly drank on days that they didn't have programming, and that therapists would just cheer them up and encourage them to do better in the future. As he said, the only thing he learned in IOP was that it's OK to drink (that's almost an exact quote). Point being, there's so much confusion out there about how you actually recover (much of it perpetuated by AA and even many professionals) that it's necessary to completely refute these ideas before teaching the truth.In the spirit of this book, if you're drinking in a way that you know is harmful to you, you might choose to quit. This book gives you information on how to do that. You won't walk away with the answers to all of life's mysteries but you'll walk away with enough information to quit for good.

I'm finally sober after 37 years of hard drinking! The number of therapists and psychiatrists I've seen, exceed the number of my fingers, and the number of hospitalizations are about the same. I tried AA, NA, men's addiction discussion groups, religious groups, dual diagnosis groups, ECT treatments, sponsors, did my 12 steps, tons of different medications; guess what, I continued to "relapse".....because, as Trimpe explains, all these so called treatment programs tell us that we are "sick" and will never REALLY recover, and most likely continue to relapse. By all accounts, my blood alcohol levels were so high on more than one occasion, I should have died. "Hitting the bottom", what ever that is, sure didn't mean anything; I once "saw" little people behind my house and called the sheriff (who brought 5 or 6 squad cars), and I went out wielding a pistol in case they needed help. Fortunately, I knew several of the officers and did not get shot, although I remember pistols being lowered on me!While some of the above groups DO help some people, I'd read and knew as much as most of the therapists and groups........and was told by a recovering therapist, that I "intellectualized" too much.......well, I just couldn't un-know, what I knew, or get dumb.This book is simply logical and rational! For years, I blamed 2 alcoholic parents, sexual abuse at age 3, and one recovering "therapist" asked what role I had in it. At 3 I was hardly sexy, but was a sex object, to someone very close in the household.......there were a thousand reasons to justify my choice to drink; which was that I was an "alcoholic, suffered from the disease", so I just as well accept my fate, and have a drink! I always made sure I had a 1/2 gallon, and usually I carried it to bed, would wake up at some point, drink, go to sleep, and before my feet hit the floor, I would reach over, find the bottle and have several drinks, straight from the bottle, as I was getting my day together. That always had predictable results!So, for anyone who has tried everything, and made every excuse known to mankind, AND are serious, and don't want to die as both of my parents did, this book may help. Being totally honest, it is necessary to rethink everything we've been programed to believe about alcohol (and I obviously am including any drugs). My collection of "recovery" books, if stacked, would double my height.I can't undo the past, but do have the CHOICE to try to make the rest of my life better than it has been in years. Fortunately, I am blessed; my body escaped the ravages of the years of self abuse. I am reasonably intelligent, worked in HR for a Fortune 100 Corp. in their world HQ, so I never did end up under a bridge, or shelter, by the grace of God.I have issues and problems, just like anyone else.....I just don't drink over them. I'm not a holier than thou, and have friends who are still struggling. They have my support, but don't cram anything down them.......it's all a personal choice, one of 2 choices, and it's almost that simple.If this sounds familiar, it is worth the read, and recommend being sober. If you have not gone as far as I did, be patient; enough alcohol/drugs, will do it to you, and I would not want to wish it on anyone. I would say "good luck", but luck has nothing to do with it; you do! Bob McAdams