A message came in last week from a mom who is, in her own words, “desperate for a good resource” for help for her son who struggles with addiction. He’s been to treatment numerous times in multiple states but hasn’t found a path that has worked for him yet.
There are so many families in this situation.
We often tell people that the very first goal is helping a loved one stay alive. If that’s all they do, that’s a huge win with the overdose crisis from contaminated drugs still raging. But if a person is alive and open to help, what’s next? It might be medication, Neuro-Electric Therapy, psychedelic therapy, or just a free mutual aid group.
About mutual aid groups...
When people hear “mutual aid group,” most assume that means Alcoholics Anonymous. That’s understandable because they’re celebrating their 90th anniversary this year! But AA is actually just one of many free mutual aid groups available. Here are a few others:
Women for Sobriety – Only open to women, focused on helping them overcome addiction by becoming the 4 Cs – Capable, Competent, Caring, and Compassionate.
SMART Recovery – A secular option based on principles from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT), and founded on the belief that individuals have the power within themselves to change.
LifeRing Secular Recovery – It doesn’t include any component of higher power or faith, instead using a 3-S model, which stands for Sobriety, Secularity, and Self-help.
A long-term study was done comparing success rates for AA as well as the 3 mutual aid groups above. What did it find?
All four groups had comparable outcomes.
It wasn’t important which group a person chose. It didn’t matter if it was secular or faith-based, single-gender or co-ed, 12-step or not.
Faith can certainly be an important part of a person’s recovery journey, but it’s crucial that access to health and recovery support isn’t dependent on it. People can find recovery in a secular context just like they can in a faith-based one.
Why does this matter?
Because people struggling with addiction are real people, with personalities, belief systems, past experiences, and preferences.
If someone is not interested in faith but thinks their only option is faith-based recovery, then letting them know about SMART or LifeRing could be the difference between sobriety and death.
If they’re a woman who feels crushed by introducing themselves in a group meeting as “an addict,” they might find a path to healing through Women for Sobriety, where attendees introduce themselves instead as “a competent woman.”
A healthy community is not built with just one tool for recovery. We need a full toolkit and people like you and me sharing all the options so that more people can find the one that works for them.
We need less focus on which tools people use and more encouragement for them to try what might help them the most.
Where we've been...
A few weeks ago at the Pro-Life Mississippi Summit, Christina Dent led a session on helping pregnant women struggling with addiction. She shared about multiple pathways to recovery and how offering more tools and less fear around medical care is far more likely to help moms and babies be healthy.
Be part of the solution…
If you’re curious about other ways to support someone you love who’s struggling, check out our latest episode of the End It For Good podcast with author and national recovery advocate Caroline Beidler. She turns the idea of “tough love” on its head, replacing it with “extravagant love” shown in ways you might not expect.
It’s unclear whether the woman who reached out last week has a strong support network where she lives, but she got connected to Pattie Vargas, who lives in the same state as her son and was on a recent podcast episode of ours.
This is the beauty of getting to see some of the outcomes of this work. As people are connected to each other and new ideas, resources are shared. Tools spread. Hope grows.
If you know someone who needs to know about more free options for recovery groups, send them this blog post.