Of Tantamount Importance!! (you'll never guess) Pt 1

You might not guess what one of the most important things is, when considering 'cleaning up' and maintaining clean recovery...

Nope - it's not the sponsor. A sponsor is important...but what do you do when your sponsor is temporarily unavailable...?

Nope - it's not meetings. Meetings are important...but what do you do when you're in trouble during REAL LIFE SITUATIONS and you can't dash out from a 'business engagement,' school, a family situat, road trip, etc., and run off to a meeting...?

Nope - it's not "Do the work" or "Write it out like 'The Book' says or most OTHER 12-Step-driven suggestions. All of those are important, too...but what do you do if, while you're 'working through,' or 'writing it out,' you encounter SERIOUS emotional reactions (very likely to occur, but this will help you understand YOUR ADDICTION in order to combat it)...and you're taking into consideration what you learned at your last 12-step meeting, all your sponsor's suggestions, etc., and YOU STILL FEEL like you're in trouble...?


THE ANSWER:

Go ahead and go the scientific route!

And that will lead to HUMOUR!!

HUMOUR is TOTALLY USEFUL in recovery!

Seriously!! Humour is really, really really important in recovery.

But first - we need to understand about how substance abuse actually impairs 'humour' in recovering addicts.

A respected Journal simply called, 'Addiction' recently aired a the results of a recent German study that indicated that problem drinkers can't really take a joke as well as some people.

The research subjects were 29 patients in Bochum Germany known to be in recovery because they were - well....... they were in a west-German treatment facility. The control group by which the 'recovery group' was compared were 29 people considered healthy by the researchers' standards. The 29 addicts/alcoholics and the 29 healthy people were all given the same tests.

Part of the testing involved a section where all participants read JOKES! The addicts didn't get some of the jokes, even though some of the punchlines could be realized through logic if one so choose to be 'dead serious' rather than use their propensity for humour! Still - through tools of LOGIC PLUS HUMOUR, the addict group didn't see the humour where they should, as compared with the 29 healthy people. (So - SMARTS plus Humour were lower in addicts than they were in healthy people).

There was more involved in the research other than just measuring responses to jokes. The other things measured helped to uncover WHY addicts might not 'get the jokes.'

Mood was measured
Intellectual ability was measured
Memory abilities were measured
Psychomotor skills were measured
Mentalizing ability (perception and 'other-people-awareness') was measured - aptitude for predicting and understanding other peoples' behaviors.

And, of course, 'capacity to appreciate jokes' was measured.

(Interjection.....)
I read a sample joke from the Addiction Journal article - which was used in the research. I had to read the joke TWICE...and my opinion forever is that it is a really BAD JOKE! I will offer it near the end, after I give you all of the information about the study - PLUS - it's such a total groaner that I don't want to lose readers...I definitely had to USE LOGIC instead of real 'haha-ability' in order to get the right answer, believe it or not.

My 'opinion,' believe it or not - actually SUPPORTS the findings of this study. I'm kinda P-O-ed about this, because I consider myself to have a really broad and open sense of humour! After reading the full article about the study, however, I feel kind of fortunate to have been able to get the right answer...because now I know, from a certain scientific standpoint - that there is a definite 'block' to my funny-bone, so-to-speak, and that I should work harder on seeing things differently. I know now that I may have to use logic along with open-ness to 'humour' - for the rest of my life - in order to understand jokes (humour, intricate uses of language, subtle variations of word-play, and determination of OTHER PEOPLES' behavior etc...) that come easily to healthier people.
(End of interjection...)

Back to the study...

92 percent of the 'healthier' people but LESS THAN 68 percent of the addict group were able to select the correct punchline. As I said before - the joke will follow closer to the end - if I type it in now, you'll GROAN SO BAD - if you're a recovering addict - that you may not even finish reading. Apparently, if you're a 'healthy' person, you'll appreciate and 'get' the joke but I'm worried that you will laugh so hysterically, enjoying the joke - that you'll fall over and not finish reading about the study.

*LOL* ??

The recovery/addict group also fared worse in the mood, intellect, memory, psychomotor skill and 'mentalizing' parts of the testing.

The fact that recovering addicts didn't do so well, especially in the 'mentalizing' parts of the testing, is a pretty clear reinforcement of what is known about an addict's lessened ability to 'socialize' well like more healthy people do.

Jokes occur primarily in social settings. Naturally, there are other ways to put jokes forth, such as through comics, books, forwarded emails, etc., which leave the 'reader' alone with the joke - to interpret the joke in whatever way necessary - however this research concentrated largely on the form of jokes that would occur in a social situation (where the 'receiver' of the joke might gain information from SOMEONE ELSE about how to properly receive the joke).

Because addicts did poorly in other areas tested, we can make a general assumption that addicts really DO HAVE A PROBLEM in the 'HUMOUR' area!

Okay - this post is too long already...and contains some information that recovering addicts might not like at all (I Don't Like It! I can 'appreciate it' but I am still pretty ticked off to find out that I AM ONE WHO DOES NOT INTERPRET JOKES WELL, when before, I thought I ROCKED in the 'getting jokes' area). Actually, I am going for a walk to cool off before I post the BAD JOKE - I am having a 'Drama Queen attack of Can't-Stand-It-itis' over all this! I'll include the *cough*(hiding the 'j' word) , final comments about the German study, and how this all relates to why HUMOUR IS OF TANTAMOUNT IMPORTANCE TO RECOVERING ADDICTS in the next post!

The Twelve Steps In My Own Words.

In order to understand ANYTHING, I usually have to define what the Twelve Steps mean to me and use my own words and phrasing to make my head believe that these Twelve Steps are going to work for me.

My words will be in bold.

The Twelve Steps:


1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.
[I admit to having no control over alcohol - that alcohol controls me. I admit that my life has become CHAOS and that I can no longer live with alcohol present in my life.]
2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
[If I trust in the Creator that I believe in, my life can be recovered and the insanity of active-addiction can stop.]
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
[I am not supposed to be in control of everything in the world, much less EVERY single facet of my life. I can stop being a control freak, let the Creator take care of things beyond my control, and show me how to live.]
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
[Search internally for my flaws, my past bad actions, my present flaws, mistakes, and know my true perceptions of the world right up to today.]
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
[Admit my past mistakes, decisions and actions, my past perceptions, understand how I created my own problems or if I did not create some of them - and share this information with someone in order to stay away from 'keeping secrets' and harbouring bad thoughts.]
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
[Be ready for change, make the decisions to MAKE THE CHANGES necessary to become a better person - and - prepare for THE LOSS of things I grew comfortable with even though they were bad for me.]
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
[Know that I can't do all the removal myself where my faults are concerned - ask for help and more importantly, ACCEPT help when it arrives - even if this is uncomfortable at first and comes from unexpected sources.]
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
[Make the list, be honest about who I hurt, and gather the strength to make amends.]
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
[Correct mistakes where possible, and if this is not accepted by some people, make the effort, anyway, to the best of my ability.]
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
[Evaluate self for strengths as well as returning old bad habits and where old habits or new mistakes occur, 'Say Sorry' and mean it - and also resolve to correct.]
11. Sought though prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
[Allow the Creator and those with more knowledge in spiritual matters to help me grow spiritually. This means dedicating time specifically to spiritual matters - and also - responding to new and different spiritual instruction.]
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
[Be visible in matters regarding my recovery - and be helpful wherever 12 Step programs are present in my life - whether it's meetings, talking to other recovering addicts or merely taking care of myself properly so that I can be a good example.]