AODC Analogies

I am starting to collect stories to help explain addiction counseling to people. Here's one I told the other day.
You look in the freezer and see some ice cubes. Hard cases. So you put them on top of the refrigerator for treatment. Sure enough, when you check back the next day you see that treatment worked. So, now that these cubes have been treated you pop them back in the freezer. But the tragedy is that those ice cubes relapse every time. Then we blame them instead of blaming a world that is too cold and uncaring.

And that, my love, is why I am working so hard to change me while you are changing you. I cannot change the whole world, but I am going to do all I can to make sure that you come back to a place that is designed to help your recovery. Some place where you will be warm and soft and protected.

A "normie" is just an addict that has not yet found their drug of choice.
If you come outside and the sunlight bothers your eyes you may put on sunglasses. Sunglasses filter and block the glare. Sunglasses help you deal with the glare.

Life itself has a lot of stuff that comes at us and causes pain. We all find ways to block that pain. Addiction is one way of blocking pain.

Treatment is a lot like taking the sunglasses off. Suddenly all that stuff you had been filtering out is right there in front of you. So, we either search for our sunglasses or we need to do something else.

I think that treatment is really good at taking our sunglasses away from us. I am not sure how good treatment is at helping us learn how to stare at life and see the ugly stuff that we have to deal with. And I am skeptical that treatment is doing much about teaching us how to solve the problems that cause all that ugly stuff. For example, how many teach an addict how to balance a checkbook? How many treatment programs help prepare the addict for a job? How many treatment programs prepare the addict to go solve the problems that the addiction was masking?

Treatment without social services is like taking my sunglasses away from me and then telling me to stare at the sun until I get used to it. If that is what we do, then it is no wonder that the relapse rate is so high.

You take some steaks out of the refrigerator and set them out on the table while you slice up some vegetables. Your dog sees the steaks and takes one. Do you then put the dog in prison? Do you beat the dog? Or do you accept the fact that a dog is going to eat whatever meat you set out because dogs eat meat?

A homeless person takes a small item from your home. Do you then put the person in prison? Do you beat the person? Or do you accept the fact that a person who is hungry is going do what they need to do to stay alive?

Leo Tolstoy in "The Kingdom of God is Within You' says "A single fortune gained by trading in goods necessary to the people or in goods pernicious in their effects, or by financial speculations, or by acquiring land at a low price the value of which is increased by the needs of the population, or by an industry ruinous to the health and life of those employed in it, or by military or civil service of the state, or by any employment which trades on men's evil instincts--a single fortune acquired in any of these ways, not only with the sanction, but even with the approbation of the leading men in society, and masked with an ostentation of philanthropy, corrupts men incomparably more than millions of thefts and robberies committed against the recognized forms of law and punishable as crimes."
Here is a parable for you.

You invite some friends over for dinner. You spend the day working and you prepare a salad, roast beef, mashed potatoes, green beans and three pies. When it is time for your guests to arrive you look at the beautiful table and admire the feast you have for your friends.

The first couple arrives, looks at the feast, picks up the roast beef and green beans and leaves explaining that they are very busy today. The second couple arrives, looks at the table and complains that there is no meat. They explain that they are very busy, pickup the salad and pies and they leave.

And you and your spouse look at the beautiful table. So you sit and enjoy a dinner of mashed potatoes and you wonder about those people who say they are your friends.

And every day the rich get richer and the poor become poorer.

And every day the courts collect millions from people who have nothing.

And every day there is plenty for all and yet 100,000 people die from starvation each and every day. That is over 3,000,000 people a year who die because they have too little to eat while entire nations suffer from gluttony.

When I came home my neighbor from upstairs stopped by to introduce herself. She is cute. She says her name is Darlene and she is 3 and she likes to bounce her ball. She wanted to know my name and what I was doing and then she took off. I think she has just figured out how to do the stairs on her own by sitting down and just taking one step at a time. So watch out world, Darlene is ready to start exploring the neighborhood.

Now why is it that at 3 years old we know that we have to take life one step at a time, but by 13 we think we can skip them all? Maybe Darlene should start teaching classes. She has it figured out pretty good. If you don't sit on your behind then you will fall on your face. If you try to take two steps at once you will fall all the way to the bottom. But if you take life one step at a time you can do almost anything you want.