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Recovery in the News

Addiction series: A foundation for recovery

Cindy Votruba
The Independent
May 7, 2007

For Joyce, the guilt was probably the worst part about being addicted to alcohol.

Joyce said the feeling was that she didn’t want to drink, but she did.

“You go into it with the intention of ‘oh, I’ll just have one or two drinks and stop,’” Joyce said. “Once you start, you can’t.”

According to the Alcoholics Anonymous Web site, there are more than 100,000 AA groups with more than 2 million members in 150 countries.

AA was started in 1935 by a New York stockbroker and an Ohio surgeon who had been alcoholics.

Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of AA, according to the Alcoholics Anonymous Web site. “It disciplines the fellowship to govern itself by principles rather than personalities.

Joyce said she’s been with AA on and off for the last five years.

“I had relapsed a couple times,” Joyce said. “ A lot of the reason was not attending AA and working the program.”

A lot of people will say that you should have the willpower and be able to stay away from alcohol, Joyce said, and you want to so you didn’t get into trouble with work and relationships with family.

Despite what’s going to happen there’s just an urge to drink, Joyce said.

“Willpower doesn’t have anything to do with it,” Joyce said.

Joyce went for treatment in Granite Falls.

“I felt like I had fallen in this deep, dark hole and felt I was never going to come out,” Joyce said.

Joyce said she was very angry at herself and at God, thinking it was his fault for letting this happen.

But Joyce realized that she needed help.

“I just didn’t want to live like that anymore,” Joyce said.

Joyce said she felt like she lost her family, her children, her brothers and her mother.

“The hardest part being in recovery is trying to gain back the trust and respect of your family,” Joyce said. “I really hurt my family.”

Alcoholism affects your daily work, relationships, your daily life, Joyce said.

Joyce said the AA program is the whole foundation for recovery.

“Just working the steps, being with those who are at the same level and being able to talk with them and communicate with them how we feel, and how our stories can be the same as everybody else’s,” Joyce said.

A big part of AA’s 12 steps is being of service, Joyce said, even starting out small, such as making coffee or cleaning up at the meetings.

Joyce said it’s been the service aspect of AA that’s helped with her recovery.

When you get to that point where you want to die is the worst, Joyce said.

“The guilt and the share are really so overwhelming that you don’t see at the time a way out,” Joyce said.

Joyce said a lot of the women, because of the shame, guilt and stigma, don’t really come forward as often.

“They find it difficult in recovery because they drank at home, it was their bar,” Joyce said. “Going back into that environment makes it hard.”

AA helps you with spirituality, Joyce said, it’s a big part of the program.

“It helps bring you back to your spirituality,” Joyce said.

Part of the AA program is learning to turn alcoholism over to an AA higher power, whoevers is your higher power, Joyce said.

Joyce said she’s part of a women’s AA group that started in the last six months, and it’s a group trying to bring women together who have problems with drugs or alcohol to feel comfortable.

Joyce said AA is an amazing group, and no matter where you attend a meeting, you’re made to feel welcome.

One of the things Joyce has learned from AA is that you can’t have control of what other people say and do.

“You can’t hold onto resentments, the Big Book tells us resentment is the No. 1 reason why people drink,” Joyce said.

Following AA’s “Big Book” really tells you how to deal with alcoholism, Joyce said.

“It is day to day, one day at a time, sometimes a minute to one hour at a time,” Joyce said.

Copyright 2007— The Marshall Independent