Carole Bennett and Recovery Talk

One of the major problems with the recovery and addiction industry is the constant stream of bad advice and misinformation that is espoused from its members. This misinformation and bad advice takes the form of recovery talk. Recovery talk is a form of psychobabble in which individuals engage platitudes and cliché thinking which is often contradictory and counterproductive to helping addicts and alcoholics.

Most of us have heard recovery talk espoused in a variety of forms. For instance, it is common to hear people in the recovery community repeat or state things such as, "Live one day at a time" or "Don't drink, don't think and go to meetings." This form of talk is expansive but generally follows a pattern of thinking that is founded on the core concepts of alcoholics anonymous and the twelve steps.

The main issue is that twelve step methodology is an absolute a failure for treating addiction and alcoholism (VanNoir, 2009). Thus the basis for treatment, the twelve steps, is ineffective and the recovery talk which is derived from this program is also ineffective. A prime example of this faulty thinking can be seen through addiction experts such as Carole Bennett, blogger for the Huffington Post.

In Bennett's article, " 4 New Year's Resolutions for Supporting Your Alcoholic/Addict Loved One " Bennet outlines her advice for supporting an alcoholic and addict loved one in four new year's resolutions. Her resolutions are designed to give an individual supporting advice for dealing with an alcoholic and addict. However, Bennett's advice falls miserably short from being anything original or productive as it is based entirely on Twelve Step concepts.

Her first resolution, "Stay Neutral " is explained by Bennett as " Staying neutral with your loved one means offering no opinion one way or the other. It means finding a middle ground that neither validates nor challenges what he or she is communicating to you... When you stay neutral, you turn decisions over to the alcoholic/addict to make independently; you are empowering this person with the capacity to make choices...That decision may or may not garner positive results, but either way, the alcoholic/addict will be in charge of the outcome, not you (Bennet, 2010). "

While this type of thinking sounds good, it provides no substantive conflict resolution and simply is unrealistic. The idea of staying neutral typifies Twelve Step thinking in which individuals are indoctrinated with the idea that anger and conflict are unhealthy forms of emotion. This belief is derived from the Alcoholics Anonymous literature, " It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us. If somebody hurts us and we are sore, we are in the wrong also. But are there no exceptions to this rule? What about "justifiable" anger? If somebody cheats us, aren't we entitled to be mad? Can't we be properly angry with self-righteous folk? For us of A.A. these are dangerous exceptions. We have found that justified anger ought to be left to those better qualified to handle it." (Twelve Steps Twelve Traditions pg90)

What is very interesting about this thinking is that it is applied to individuals who are dealing with loved ones who are alcoholics and addicts. Somehow the recovery industry and community has arrived at the conclusion that the same treatment for alcoholics and addicts is also the cure for individuals dealing with alcoholics and addicts. Al-Anon specifically states this on their website, " Al-Anon's program of recovery is based on the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous. The Steps are the foundation for personal recovery in Al-Anon..."(Al-Anon, 2010)

Essentially the advice that Bennett is giving to her readers is to remain neutral, meaning do not take a position on an issue. Bennett tells the reader that they "are empowering this person with the capacity to make choices...(Bennett, 2010)" This advice is unrealistic for the reason that it has the potential to create terrible outcomes. For instance, if the alcoholic decides they want to drink on New Year's Eve, then are the family members suppose to remain neutral, knowing that this could have severe ramifications for the family and for the individual? On its face, this advice is terrible because it lacks any sense of realistic thinking. As a member of a family or relationship, individuals are expected to act within certain rules of behavior which benefit the family or relationship as a whole; otherwise there would be no cohesion in families or relationships.

This leads into Bennett's second resolution, " Refuse to engage". Bennett defines this as " To engage means to participate. Oftentimes, engaging with the alcoholic/addict means paying attention to him or her and possibly responding with frustration, anger or negativity(Bennett, 2010). " From Bennett's article one can derive that Bennett desires for the reader to basically disengage from dealing with the alcoholic or addict because of the negative emotion and frustration that might occur. The way that this reads, in her article, it sounds like Bennett is simply telling the individual to ignore the person. This is again terrible advice because by ignoring the alcoholic, the person is also ignoring the issue and as a result there is no resolution. Here is an excerpt from an Al-Anon story where the wife keeps finding the bottles in the trash from her husband's drinking, " Today is Wednesday: trash day. I never realized I hated Wednesdays. When I empty the wastebasket in the garage, I hear bottles clanging together -lots of them. I find new hiding places and more empty bottles. My eyes fill with tears. Then, there's that car. It is a racecar. It is fast and loud. The whole neighborhood can hear it when he starts it. And that smell! Not regular gasoline, but racing fuel-what a stink! The agreement was that the car could stay only if there were no more alcohol (Al-Anon, 2010)."

The woman in this story goes on to praise Al-Anon for helping her to deal with this situation by not engaging the person. This is typical in recovery to be told to not express anger or to confront the alcoholic or addict for fear of creating a relapse for the person. This idea is taken directly from AA literature, " The first principle of success is that you should never be angry. Even though your husband becomes unbearable, and you have to leave him temporarily, you should, if you can, go without rancor. Patience and good temper are vitally necessary.

The next rule is that you should never tell him what to do about his drinking. If he gets the idea that you are a nag or a killjoy, your chance of accomplishing anything useful will be zero. He will use that as an excuse to drink some more. He will tell you he is misunderstood. This may lead to lonely evenings for you. He may seek someone to console him - not always another man (Big Book, 2001)."

This is perhaps some of the worst advice that can be given to individuals dealing with alcoholics and addicts. The idea of disengaging is completely unrealistic. Families and relationships have problems and these issues must be dealt with or the issues will persist. Individuals need to learn to manage their conflict in a manner that is productive and not immaturely walking around ignoring loved ones until they decide to conform to some notion of calm or serene communication. Conflict management is a skill derived from practice and from study of communication not from trying to ignore anger or frustration. Often in cases of addiction conflict needs to be managed by professional counselors and therapists.

Bennett's final two resolutions are " Allow the Alcoholic/Addict to Rebuild Their Life " and "Don't Quiz or Monitor the Alcoholic/Addict's Progress or Lack of It" In summation of these two resolutions, Bennett continues her recovery talk by telling people they should not try to help or push the alcoholic loved one too hard and to not be critical of the alcoholic's progress in their recovery. Again the issue of realistic application is in question. Bennett's basis for her thinking is couched in the twelve step belief that alcoholics and addicts are these fragile powerless people who if unsettled could explode into a drinking or drugging frenzy. Bennett's advice lacks critical understanding of alcoholism and drug addiction. In fact, by following Bennett's advice people could possibly make their situations worse by applying faulty logic. For instance, if a woman is dealing with an alcoholic husband who cannot support the family and is creating financial hardship than perhaps the best advice for the wife is not to ignore the situation an allow it to go into crisis. Here is a novel idea, (leave him!) If a child is involved in drugs and alcohol than perhaps the family should send the child to therapy. Logic would dictate that having a child with a drug problem would require imposing some forms of expectation and not allowing the child to discover their own recovery. This is contrary to Bennett's thinking," Whether they fail or succeed, they need to map out their plans their way, not your way. Anyway, unless you are with the alcoholic/addict 24/7, you have no way of knowing how their recovery is going, or the honest effort they may or may not be putting into it. Family members and friends must be in the cheering section in the bleachers, not the coaches running the playbooks on the field (Bennett, 2010). "

So according to Bennett we are to trust a teenager who has a drug problem to map out their plans. How does that work? This type of thinking could lead to individuals ruining their lives, legal ramifications, and even possible self harm. This is the problem with so called experts like Bennett, in which they talk out both sides of their head with their recovery talk. On the one hand we are suppose to believe that alcoholics and addicts are these fragile helpless people who are powerless over their urges and at the same time we are suppose to give them space to discover their own recovery. If an individual is powerless over their problem then why on earth would we believe that they could control their own recovery process without intervention? This is the reason that individuals like Carol Bennett and their use of recovery talk/psychobabble is often counterproductive to aiding alcoholics and addicts.

References
Al-Anon. (2010). Garbage day: finding hope at the bottom of the barrel by maddy p. . Retrieved from http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/sharings/forum2010/dec_11.html

Bennett, C. (2010, December 28). 4 new year's resolutions for supporting your alcoholic/addict loved one . Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carole-bennett/4-new-years-resolutions-f_b_800072.html

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions http://www.guardureyes.com/GUE/PDFs/The%2012-Steps%20and%2012%20traditions.pdf

Wilson, W (2001). Alcoholics anonymous. New York, NY: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services.

Van Noir, V (2009) The Ineffectiveness of Alcoholics Anonymous: Unconstitutional Treatment http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2280635/the_ineffectiveness_of_alcoholics_anonymous.html?cat=5