January 15, 2008
Chuck Buttrey
Sundown M Ranch
Dear Chuck,
My name is John Francis, and
as a grateful recent graduate of your program, I am writing to you for two
reasons. First, to thank you for
overseeing and guiding such a competent, compassionate, and dedicated staff
without whose efforts I would be much worse off than I am right now. My other purpose in contacting you is to make
a suggestion regarding the comprehensiveness of your program. After spending a great deal of time talking to
people both in and out of “Recovery”, I have come to believe that there is a
need for a new approach towards so-called non-Alcoholics who would nonetheless
benefit greatly from a 12-step program.
Their benefit is also, of course, society’s benefit.
Before I expound on my recent
inspiration though, I feel obliged to extend me deepest and most humble thanks
to you, to the staff of Sundown, and to the entire 12-Step community.
I thought I was
different. I’ve known for a long time
that my patterns of substance abuse took things to much higher levels and
limits than the average happy-go-lucky partier.
I reveled in this knowledge.
There was a time, not long ago, when I felt a glow of nearly parent-like
pride in my cultivated ability to drink more, snort more, and smoke more than
anyone else in the room. Or the state,
for that matter. I believed that, given
the right reason, I would have minimal trouble tempering my intake. Of course, ruined relationships, finances,
jobs, and health did not ever seem to qualify as reasons enough. I know now, of course, that my own mind was
working against me. I heard it first in
your fine facility, and I have heard it said many times since, that addiction
is the only disease that actively tries to convince you that you don’t have it.
During fifteen years of
active and dedicated addiction to altering my mind by any means necessary, I
still somehow managed to hold certain things together. Largely in spite of myself, I did get a
four-year degree from a pretty decent university, I had some great
relationships with some great people, and had a couple of employers who were
patient enough with me to let me put together a few years of good experience in
my field. That I didn’t manage to throw
all of that away can be attributed to the grace of that higher power whom I
chose call God, and who I was never able to completely distance myself from,
despite my sometimes inhuman efforts. I
mention this because this knowledge made it easier, down the line, to take
certain steps that were suggested to me.
Now these steps, as you of
course know, form the foundational core of your facility’s approach towards
treatment. They are the 12 Steps of
Alcoholics Anonymous, and they have been called, among other things, “
Plainly put, the 12 Steps are
a recipe for spiritual conversion. For
metanoia. For radical life change. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous makes no
bones about it: if you make an honest effort
to practice the outlined principles in all of your affairs, you will be rocketed into a 4th
dimension of existence. This is not
simply a cessation of the desire to drink; this is a profound new existential
orientation, centered upon selflessness, gratitude, and humility. It is a wild claim, and yet the testimony and
living example of millions confirms it to be true!
Because of the widespread and
well-documented success of the 12 Steps in the treatment of chemical addiction,
we have seen them adapted to suit the needs of people afflicted with myriad
other addictions: Overeaters Anonymous, Sexaholics Anonymous, Workaholics
Anonymous, etc. These various attempts
meet with varying degrees of success.
Hard numbers about such success rates are notoriously difficult to come
by, because as you know “success” is a highly subjective term in this field. It is with regard to the adaptation of the
steps that I felt compelled to write you this letter.
As you and I both know, the
12 Steps are a formula for total life change who’s power finds its source in
the 2nd and 3rd steps.
First, we came to believe in a power greater than ourselves, and then we
asked that power for help. Here we find
surrender, willingness, humility, and ultimately, dissolution of ego. That is
the secret, and that secret has far greater reach than simply to those who have
a problem with cocaine or bacon.
But therein lies the
problem. Knowing the danger of
over-generalizing, I believe the problem with so many overeaters, so many of
the oversexed, so many who are addicted to control, so many who live in
constant fear, is that they never hit
bottom. It never gets bad
enough. The alcoholic or methamphetamine
addict has the advantage of a society
that is screaming at them to get help or
die. Not so with the business
executive who works 70 hours a week, 70 lbs. overweight, well into his
60s. Not so with the wife who
micromanages her husband’s and children’s every move and decision, obsessing
every waking moment over events completely out of her realm of influence. Not so either with any of the millions and
millions and millions of others who suffer from what can most accurately be
called self-addiction. The consequences of any these behavior
patterns are much the same as those of the alcoholic: ruined relationship,
depression, health problems, and great pain.
It is for these people, so
afflicted, that I propose a new approach towards initiation into the 12
Steps. In a culture obsessed with
material success, the workaholic will never view his problems as stemming from
spiritual deprivation. In an environment
where we obsessively chart every breath and utterance of Britney Spears and
Jessica Simpson, the narcissist is hard-wired not to associate her sadness with
a profound estrangement from a Higher Power.
Their problems remain, but the source of those problems remains a
mystery. I suggest radical therapy. 180 degree therapy. Life altering therapy. Addiction therapy.
What if, in a semi-controlled
setting, we induced chemical
dependency? The benefits would be
manifold. These millions of people,
unable to deduce the real source of their fear and anxiety in a culture that
encourages so many of its causes, would finally know the experience of a real bottom. Broken and heartbroken, soul-shattered,
desperate, emotionally bankrupt, with all human-contrived options attempted and
found lacking. Here, in this liminal
space, transformation and transfiguration become possible. And so, unable to arrive in this space by
themselves, we will take them there.
With the advent of
super-miniaturized modern surveillance equipment, a person who agreed to such
an experience would be able to live it under the constant watch of a trained
team of addiction therapy professionals.
Think reality-TV, but broadcast to no one. Every move, every utterance, every inevitable
step in their descent recorded for their own benefit. Such a person, at the end of the line, would
have no problem making a real 1st Step!
Drug of choice will be an
issue here, but it is one I don’t find to be insurmountable. Because of its legal and cultural status,
alcohol is an obvious choice. That very
cultural status and acceptability however, prevents many alcoholics from taking
a 1st step until much later than is possible. Additionally, as you know alcohol is one of
only two drug classes where death is a possibility during the eventual detoxification. For that reason, I suggest that we look into
government (read: DEA) support for induced opiate addiction, where
death-by-withdrawal isn’t a possibility.
Opiates have the added benefits of rapid onset of addiction, easy
ingestion in pill form, and nightmarish withdrawal sickness that provides
strong incentive against relapse. Also,
existing government-sanctioned methadone programs provide precedent for the
inevitable legal hurdles we will need to jump to get the ball rolling.
Chuck, I realize you are only
one director of an excellent Chemical Dependency Treatment Facility. I also know though, that many on your staff
have expressed to me their heartfelt belief that people suffering from all manner of problems would profoundly
benefit from the application of the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous in their
lives. What we are talking about here is
giving all of these people the opportunity to have that experience of direct,
conscious contact with God that they so desire, whether they realize it or
not. While I know this idea sounds
radical, I pray you don’t dismiss it out of hand. I write not just for everyone else, but for
myself. For I am surrounded by people
for whom I have great love. And so many
of these people, comfortable in the external trappings of the religions in
which they were raised, have no idea what
they are missing. So I ask for your
help and your connections in the recovery community to make this happen. There are a thousand other logistical and
administrative details that will need to be worked out, but I am confident that
the Holy Spirit will be our guide through them.
Thank you again for
everything you and your staff helped me with those three magical weeks in
October. I hope we have a chance to talk
about this face-to-face sooner rather than later, because there are a lot of
people who need our help. Many of them
don’t have a drug problem.
Respectfully yours,
John Francis