The first stage of recovery is Abstinence. People often confuse Abstinence with recovery. Actually Abstinence is only the first stage of recovery. Abstinence is the foundation upon which recovery is built. Abstinence is not easy. People in recovery have all the same needs as everyone else, all the needs on Maslows Hierarchy of Needs. In addition to those needs people in recovery have recovery needs which are peculiar to them and not to ordinary people (here ordinary means people unaffected by addiction).
At the bottom of Maslows Pyramid are the Physical Needs (food, water, oxygen). The Physical Need at the bottom of the Recovery Pyramid is Abstinence. If a person is starving he needs food, if he is dieing of thirst he needs water. The answer to meeting his needs per Maslows Hierarchy is to fulfill them. But what if the person is an alcoholic and his thirst is for another drink of liquor? What if he's an addict and hungers for his next fix? What then? This is where the Hierarchy of Recovery starkly contrasts with Maslows Hierarchy of Needs. The Hierarchy of Recovery instead instructs the alcoholic to ignore her thirst to let it go unquenched. It tells the addict to starve herself of drugs. This is a tall order to meet!
Abstinence is so difficult that recovery programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous encourage their members to take it "one day at a time." Sometimes they encourage newcomers to abstain for just an hour even five minutes at a time! Whatever it takes to lay a foundation for recovery is what must be done. Abstinence alone is not likely to be sustainable. Next time we will look at Support the next level of the Recovery Pyramid.
Russell P. Mai, LCDC, AAC
No comments:
Post a Comment