Breaking Free from the 12-Step Mold Part I: Recovery Dogma Is Driving Us to Drink

It was 2008 when I first admitted to myself that drinking might be taking more from my life than it was giving.

I woke up out of a blackout with no idea how I had gotten home. The only evidence I could find about the last hours of my night were multiple calls and text messages to and from my boyfriend at the time time. And the messages weren’t pretty.

Fuck. 

That very day, I did what I thought was the responsible thing to do: I got an evaluation at a local treatment center. After reviewing my paperwork and asking me some questions, the counselor informed me that I needed to check myself into residential treatment. No outpatient, no groups, no therapy. It was either move into their facility or there was nothing they would do to help me.

Never mind the fact that I was preparing to defend my master’s thesis and that there was zero chance I could afford residential treatment. The checklist had spoken.

It probably won’t surprise you that I did not go to treatment that day. I was literally only hours into the phase of my life where I acknowledged having a problem at all; I certainly wasn’t ready to hand over my shoelaces and sign on the dotted line.

Instead, I continued to try and fail and try and fail to quit drinking by myself—for the next ten years.

Not Just Whether But How to Get Sober 

I tell you this story because it is a perfect example of how the decision to quit drinking is so much more complicated than removing alcohol from our lives. 

We all know getting sober will be a steep hill to climb; imagining life without alcohol feels impossible and lonely and boring and sad.  

But what we don’t always realize is that, once we decide to invest our time, energy, and attention into our recoveries, another giant hill immediately pops up in front of us. 

Because we’re not just trudging toward a joyless (in our minds at the time) booze-less future; we must also decide which path to follow toward that future. And the messages surrounding that decision are confusing and toxic enough to drive many of us back into the arms of our drink of choice (also toxic, but so blessedly simple and easy…intoxicating, you might say). 

The Suffocating Dogma of Recovery

My experience in the counselor’s office was one version of a conversation that has happened many thousands of times of times: There is one way and only one way to quit drinking, and if you don’t submit to the one way, you’ll never succeed. 

In my case, the “one way” was residential treatment (12-Step based). For many people I’ve known, and students I’ve worked with, the “one way” they were confronted with was AA (the origin of the 12-Step model). 

Setting aside the suspicious fact that there are multiple “one ways,” can we talk about the self-fulfilling prophecy of saying that if someone doesn’t subscribe to the one way, they won’t get sober? 

If you give someone only one choice and they don’t take it, they are left with nothing—no information, no support, no encouragement, no direction. So, yeah, they probably won’t be successful (I certainly wasn’t), but not because there is no better alternative. It’s because you have given them no alternative at all. 

Powerless Over Alcohol v. Ready to Choose Ourselves

The other rationale for why not jumping on the 12-step train dooms you to failure is that it indicates a flaw in your character: You have yet to admit your powerlessness over alcohol and are still being ruled by your ego. 

I actually agree with the notion that most people won’t successfully quit until they are ready, and that being ready means acknowledging that our bodies and minds respond to alcohol in unhealthy and unpredictable ways beyond our control. That being said, there are ways to talk about this realization without using the language of “submission” and “powerlessness”—hardcore turnoffs for many people, especially those who move through the world in a marginalized body.

For people of color, people with disabilities, queer and trans people, and many women, feeling powerless may very well be a factor in why we drink in the first place. Signing up for a program that requires us to suppress an ego that the world has been asking us to suppress since we were born? No thanks. 

Rather than saying I am “powerless over alcohol,” a phrase I like to use is “not drinking is the only way I can consistently choose myself.” To me, this feels so much more empowering by emphasizing the value proposition of staying sober rather than casting alcohol as a threat perpetually looming over me, ready to snatch me into a downward spiral at any moment. 

I’ve already given too much of my power and energy away to alcohol. I don’t need to position that bad relationship at the front of my psyche to keep me from going back to it. 

Alternatives to the 12 Steps

Part of why I feel so passionate about breaking the 12-Step mold is that I truly feel the dogma surrounding it prevented me from finding support when I really needed it. 

Some may argue that I am making excuses, blaming others for my own weakness, and that if I were really committed to quitting, I would have put my misgivings aside and trusted the program. I don’t believe that now, but there were moments when I did. Those are the kinds of rigid, uncritical beliefs 12-Step dogma perpetuates. 

But what if that alcohol counselor had listened to me back in 2008? Met me where I was? Focused on helping me reduce my risky behaviors? Connected me with a counselor who specialized in Alcohol Use Disorder or even just invited me to check out one of their outpatient groups to see if it might be a good fit?

What if, what if, what if. There’s no point in dwelling on the past, but I do want to turn that negative experience into a positive message.

There are lots of ways to get and stay sober! You may have to try a few to find what works and what works for you might not work for somebody else. But you deserve to listen to yourself and to be listened to. What you know about yourself matters. Your identity matters. You do not have to outsource your decision-making to someone else just because you have a drinking problem. 

In part II, I’ll go into more detail about what eventually worked for me and discuss some alternatives to 12-Step models that, thank god, are gaining in popularity and accessibility.

Until then, I invite you to think of ways that you can choose yourself—things you care about, that help you feel connected to your community, light you up, make you proud of yourself, make you smile. 

Go toward those things. Give them time and attention. Give them your Big Sober Energy.