Celebrating Something Else, Part 1

Sometime in the late 90’s, I suppose, when I was staff counselor at a nearby church, the pastor asked me to involve myself with a nationwide recovery program. Well, to be fair he wanted me to create an addictions group from the ground up. Plan it. Appoint and train leaders. Conduct group work. The “whole ball of wax.”

Celebrate Recovery is, perhaps, the largest Christian-based addictions program in this country, and it was decided that what they had to offer suited our local needs perfectly.

Well, I did the necessary “leg work,” including attending a “How to Bring a Celebrate Recovery to Your Own Church” meeting in Atlanta. And, ultimately, we advertised, and our local group ceased to be theory, and “took on flesh.”

I suppose there are different ways to measure “success.” If success was about numbers, well, we had the numbers. At the height of our two year run, 40 or more men and women attended on a weekly basis. If success was about abstinence and sobriety, well now, that was “a horse of a different color.”

Too many, I think most of our group members were full-blown addicts in a program which, as I understood its philosophy, was more about maintaining sobriety. And for the life of me, I never found anything in the group literature about bringing a full-blown addict back from oblivion. (At this juncture, I’m convinced that the best society has to offer is long-term residential treatment).

And when I asked Joe, or Stanley, or Susie why he or she didn’t call their sponsor before choosing to imbibe, or use, he or she would respond,

“Well, I didn’t call my sponsor

… because I wanted to do what I wanted to do.”

(How does one respond to an answer like that)?

It was like a “big Duh.”

When I was 17 and full of “wild oats” I took a curve too fast in the rain, and rolled my car. That’s the closest I ever got to being drunk;

… except at the time, I was drunk, not on liquid refreshment, but on Stupid, with a capital “S”.

I mean, if you poured all the alcohol I have ever consumed into a glass, there would still be room for a cup of some other miscellaneous liquid. And I have never used any of the myriad of legal and illegal substances available on our city streets.

As a result, the inability of my group members to “get clean” and “stay free” only made me angry. I had absolutely no compassion for them. While as a rule, I am mild and mannered, and quite the gentleman, the weekly antics of these poor, demented folks drove me to distraction.

Among the thousands of clients I ever counseled, I recall a singular session in which I “blew it all to the wind.”

“Billy” was a member of our Celebrate Recovery group, and tended to run to the altar on Sunday, and “use” throughout the week. Like clockwork. I eventually influenced him to enroll in a year-long recovery program in south Florida where he seemed to make excellent progress.

But as everyone who knows anything about addiction is all too familiar, the proof in the pudding is when those gates open wide, and you step back out into the real world. Well, Billy made it work exactly 2 weeks, at which point he fell off the proverbial wagon. A few days later I received a call from “Marjorie,” Billy’s wife.

“Uh, Dr. Bill, would you be willing to begin a new counseling process with Billy and me?”

(Cont., See Part 2)

By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 19. Copyright pending

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