The Power of Positive - a Case Study

Susan, a 30-year-old divorced woman with two children, heard about “Beyond Recovery” from a friend at AA.  She was post-recovery and had been sober for several years.

Exploring feelings

Initially Susan was unclear about what prompted her to call me.  After a moment of silence she proceeded to tell me how fortunate she was to have found AA to get clean and that she felt guilty about feeling empty inside, never getting beyond a 3rd date, her nagging fear of relapse and of leaving AA and her friends. She was tired of AA dates and wanted to meet non-addicted people, have a good relationship with her kids, and go to college.

Exploring past experiences

Susan’s predicament was a familiar one. Together we explored what she would want to do if she felt free to choose and how she imagined her life would be different. The desire and guilt around not wanting to attend AA any longer was her first priority. When she explored what the AA community meant to her she thought for awhile and explained that it was like a family, with a difference. AA was strict, structured, and lenient about relapsing until she eventually became sober and, she made many friends. She had to follow rules and work the 12 steps and made many changes; that was very helpful. The constant reminder that once an addict, always an addict and to forget guarantees relapse, was not helpful, made no sense. In her own family she was the golden child, was provided with every comfort, every toy, never had rules, responsibility or consequences, smoked pot with her parents and their friends and thought that she had the perfect childhood. She married young to a man of similar background; they spent money, traveled to exotic places, had fun dabbling in cocaine and had two babies. Suddenly life changed everything when her husband had a fatal accident. At 23 years old, drinking and prescription drugs became her life until she lost control, had blackouts and was arrested for drunk driving.

Exploring family life and gaining strengths from adversity

Susan began to realize that she was the product of two families – her own and AA. One totally hedonistic, the other ultimately too limiting and she came to love both.

Susan became aware of the tremendous strengths she had developed over the years.  She felt empowered discovering that she had perseverance, stamina, creativity, courage and love for her children and two families. She explored the strengths most valuable to her to meet her needs, wants, and realize her dreams.  Susan chose the Growth Process Affirmations (GPAs) for support to learn skills for self-care, synthesize her thoughts and feelings, listen to her body and became responsible for her actions. She learned the art of communicating effectively and gained power knowing that she co-created all interactions.

Susan came to recognize that she could take from AA what was helpful, leave behind what for her was not. Guided by here newly emerged free spirit she explored options and possibilities to grow beyond AA.  Susan and her parents are continuing to get to know each other and liking what they are discovering, perhaps for the first time. She feels gratitude for their good intentions in loving her and for teaching her all the wonderful ways life could be celebrated  – albeit without pot now.