Thursday, May 1, 2014

A common Bond

A client tries to avoid responsibility when confronted about his behavior. He becomes argumentative. He plays semantic games. He tries to change the subject.

Then why is he here? He's here, he says, because he must complete treatment before he can return to school. As an aside, he reminds everyone in the room that he has a high IQ.

At that statement everyone rolls their eyes. Especially those who have some recovery time. Because what this client said about being intelligent is typical of those not yet fully in recovery.

Probably the most obvious trait of those who aren't serious is they tend to look at the differences between themselves and others. And that can be fatal..

One thing we often hear in the rooms is to not look at the differences between us. Instead, look at what we have in common: i.e. our disease.

This is important because when we look around the rooms we find people from different backgrounds. All economic levels. All ethnic groups. Educated and uneducated. We seem different.  But if we take a closer look what we see is people trying to save their lives. That's the common bond, what holds us together.

Until this client grasps the idea that we’re all in this together, he's going to have a rough time.

He may even have to do more research before he gets the idea.

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