Self-help Groups for Addicts

 Advertisement

This section is dealing with people who can help others on a journey of self-discovery, usually by helping them cope with some problem or disorder that is having an effect on their lives. It may seem like a contradiction in terms, therefore, to mention self-help groups, such groups being a set of people who have the same kind of problem and who meet together to work through this, and to offer advice and support to each other.

These groups are included in this section, simply because, as is the case with counselling, someone has to point the person seeking help in the right direction, and the other members of the group have to give any new member a great deal of support. Only then can he or she learn to begin to cope with the problem involved and begin to contribute effectively within the group.

The first self-help groups began in the United States in the 1930s to help people suffering from alcoholism to cure themselves. Alcoholics Anonymous was the first well-known self-help group, and it is probably still the best known. They hold regular meetings to help members face up to their drink problem, to help them break the habit, and to help them fight the temptation to start again.

The meetings provide a forum where you can share your problem with others, knowing that they too have first-hand experience of the problem. People who are trying to break free of their addiction know that they are in no danger of being patronized by do-gooders or of being in receipt of contempt or condemnation. They are among their own.

A similar group is Gamblers Anonymous, which provides the help for those addicted to gambling that Alcoholics Anonymous does for those addicted to alcohol. The extent of gambling addiction in this country has increased greatly in recent years, partly because the potential for gambling has increased so much.

Formerly it was only betting on horses that was the problem, but there is concern, particularly with reference to the young, about addiction to fruit machines, and now there are worries that the National Lottery, particularly in its scratch-card versions, will add to gambling tendencies, especially in people who are too poor to indulge such tendencies with equanimity.

Those of us who buy the occasional lottery ticket have no idea of the forces that are at work in someone spending the week's housekeeping on scratch-cards. It is all too easy to condemn without appreciating the problem. At Gamblers Anonymous this ready condemnation is unheard of.

Self-help groups for those with some form of addiction are extremely important because they not only help addicts to keep away from their particular form of addiction but they also help them to rebuild their lives and give them back their self-esteem and self-control.

Addicts are never in control of their own lives until they can relinquish their addiction, because to be addicted to something is to be controlled by it. Thus it is that alcohol, gambling, or whatever form the addiction takes, rules the addicts, and they themselves are virtually powerless.

The source of the addiction alienates addicts from their true selves. While they are in its grip they cannot really know themselves, as their true selves have become submerged and subjugated. Coming to terms with addiction and ceasing to be the slave of the addictive substance means that the former addicts can come terms with themselves and embark on what is a very important journey of self-discovery, to find the lost self.

The self-help groups for addicts that have so far been mentioned have been large groups designed either for people suffering from alcohol abuse or from gambling addiction. There are, of course, other addictions-one very obvious and very serious one being that of drug abuse-and there are self-help groups for some of these, some local groups and some branches of larger groups.

Addicts need all the help they can get, although of course they first have to want to break free from the addiction. It is frequently maintained that addicts are never really cured, that the most that they can hope for is that they will stay away from the addictive substance or habit, although that is in fact a major achievement. Being able not actually to involve themselves with the addiction to a large extent puts them in charge of themselves again, although many of them need the support of the self-help group for life.