Why the Phrase "Clean & Sober" Makes Me Crazy

(another plea to Bill W.'s Devout Followers)

There's no end to the teetotaling 12-step camp's lip service about acceptance of individual journeys and harm reduction principles, but when push comes to shove and relapse (virtually inevitably) happens, this community's exile comes swift and sure - and it is fatal for many.  So when I read this article by Harvard Medical School addiction expert John  Kelly, this is what I couldn't help but plead:

While we're at it, pleeeaaaaase stop using "clean" when you mean "abstinent!"

1. it implies non-abstinent folks - or anyone whose recovery path is different than yours - is "dirty."

    

2. it hails back to the hardcore circa 1930's bible-thumping (and not at all coincidentally affluent white male) Bill W.'s religious fanaticism and christianity-driven notions of "purity" (the foundations on which he created, founded and built the peer fellowship Alcoholics Anonymous)

   
   

3. seriously - especially now that everyone's shares are out of the rooms and no longer anonymous and generally splayed all over social media - the prevailing optics are mostly-white folks flaunting various degrees of unchecked privilege under the guise of "recovery" and the self-proclaimed "clean" trophy, and the unrelenting dismissal of any of the literally endless other possible experiences of healing or transformation anyone might experience from addiction. It's an onslaught of "my way or the highway" and it is literally harmful to all the many folks who can't simply "fake it 'til they make it" - many cannot and do not survive your tribe's punitive all or nothing polarities.

   
   

4. seriously - just stop.

Love, someone who has achieved 29 years free of problematic drug/alcohol use, who respects that millions of people around the world value & believe in & have healed through what has evolved into AA's endless "this many days without" contest, but who never joined it, and who has seen enough people actively harmed and/or die by it.

xo #ManyPaths