Why Non 12 Step Recovery?

Why is Centered a non 12 step drug rehab?

There are many different rehab facilities for the treatment for alcohol and substance addictions, and many programs can be beneficial for those who are struggling. However, most programs in the United States are based on the 12 steps of AA. There are few programs in the country which provide a non 12 step recovery program. This means that if you are a person struggling with addiction issues and the 12 steps did not work for you, you may be left with little options, and perhaps even feeling like you have failed at recovery.

A Brief History of AA

Rehab facilities based on the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, also known as AA, HA, or NA, dominate the addiction recovery industry in the US, primarily due to the successful lobbying of a few devout believers in its efficacy. In the early 1900s, alcoholics were regarded as “degenerates” who were mostly overlooked by society and medical doctors. One doctor theorized that alcoholism must be a disease, and passed this on to his own patient, Bill Wilson, the famous co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Mr. Wilson, a failed stock speculator, was undergoing treatment for delirium tremens due to alcohol consumption and was given a hallucinogenic called belladonna. While hallucinating, he reported seeing a “white light” which for him, signified a religious experience which he believed cured him of his disease. When the urge to drink reappeared, he decided that in order to remain sober, he must help another alcoholic. After cold calling church members, he found another man struggling with alcohol named Bob Smith, and explained to him the theories he was developing. Together, the two created a fellowship group of people whose purpose was “to pursue a spiritual remedy” for alcoholism, and Mr. Wilson penned a list of suggested activities for this purpose. This list of activities became known as the Twelve Steps.

It is worth noting that neither Mr. Wilson nor Mr. Smith, co-founders of AA, completed the 12 steps in order to stop drinking, and that Mr. Wilson participated in experiments with other drugs such as LSD in order to have a “spiritual experience.” However, the theories of AA and the 12 step quickly caught on, largely because there was no other treatment or medical interventions for people struggling with addiction issues at the time. While AA has helped many people over the decades, careful analysis published in The Handbook of Alcoholism Treatment Approaches ranks AA in 38th place out of 48 methods studied.

Prevalence of AA

So, with dubious origins and little medical evidence to support its efficacy, why do an overwhelming number of treatment facilities still use AA and the 12 steps for treatment of addiction issues? It appears that it is partly due to the religiosity of the United States, as other countries around the world readily accepted new treatment modalities as science’s understanding of psychology, addiction, and the brain progressed. It also owes its popularity in large part due to the scarcity of other options for so many years–there simply weren’t other treatments being developed for decades. When you are the only option for a problem, you quickly become synonymous with the problem, regardless of how well it actually works. The 12 steps themselves include some solid practical exercises which could be beneficial for anyone, such as taking an honest personal inventory, and righting wrongs where possible.

The issue at hand is that a by-product of being seen as the only path for addiction recovery means that a great number of people for whom the 12 steps do not work suffer unnecessarily in their belief that they must have failed, rather than understanding that there are simply other treatment options which may work perfectly for them. The machine that is the recovery industry does little to stop this unnecessary and erroneous belief by continuing to use and advertise for a program that likely has a less than 10% success rate. There are few industries where a client would spend tens of thousands of dollars on a treatment with an 80-90% failure rate. “Nowhere in the field of medicine is treatment less grounded in modern science.” -The Atlantic

Treatment backed by  Evidence

Despite all of this, the team at Centered knows that the 12 steps certainly do work for some people, and we never discourage anyone from accessing something that may help them, or even save their life. But we feel strongly that people in the Atlanta area, and everywhere, ought to have more options than facilities based on the 12 steps alone. Our aim is to provide meaningful treatment backed by modern science that our patients can use as a standalone program for lasting success in addiction recovery, or in conjunction with anti-craving medications, peer support groups like AA, SMART, Celebrate, or even Moderation Management programs, based on their own unique needs.

One of our core philosophies is that we don’t focus on the concept of addiction is an incurable disease.  What truly matters is that people can and do have the ability to fully recover – and that should be the focus. We have found that people can still recover whether they believe in the disease model or not.

We help our clients understand their own psychological and mental health and how those systems work so that they can move forward from addiction issues without continuing to work against their own internal systems. Many programs focus on what is wrong in an effort to fix what is considered “broken.” This is an outdated paradigm with roots in medical science known as “sick care” rather than focusing on cultivating and strengthening “health care”. Centered Recovery encourages our clients to identify their strengths to help build on these, as well as focus on creating habits that encourage and support overall health.

As more time, energy, and attention are spent towards boosting physical and mental health, our clients effortlessly begin to neglect habits that had been previously formed over time which threaten that health. Knowing that people rarely ever set out to become unhealthily addicted to any substance, we expose the deeper problems upstream from addiction, as the addiction was simply an attempted solution to another problem. While it may sound complicated, this is easily done through exploring the neuropsychology of addiction and behavior, and understanding and cultivating true mindful awareness in our intensive Skills Building Groups.

Mindfulness as a non 12 step option

Mindfulness is all about being fully present and being non-judgmental, and when a person learns to live more mindfully, they cease to live reactionary, thought-driven lives that create trouble and instead move toward a much happier future overall that is derived from inner stability. We carefully chose mindfulness as the foundation for our non 12 step addiction recovery program because of the strong evidence of its efficacy, which is growing daily.