Meet Ibby A. who has been sober since November 30, 1996, and shares her story of recovery from trauma and addiction, and how she views her recovery through a secular lens.
Key points discussed
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- Childhood trauma.
- Geographical cures.
- Impact of defective relationships on addiction.
- The benefit of a self-appraisal.
- Repairing relationships with family.
- Early experiences with AA and white-knuckling it in the early days.
- Problems with the Big book and dogma of AA.
- How she learned to make the program work for her.
- Relationship with her sponsor.
- Using Al-Anon along with AA.
Memorable quotes
You can’t act this way and be a funtioning part of our society. You have to look outward and be caring of other people.
The trauma compounded with this layer of alcohol and drug use kept me in a lot of triggered moments which led to a lot of failures in relationships.
I always knew there was some problem that I could not identify that I needed personal help.
I don’t need alcohol. I don’t think about it at all, but I don’t need people in the Fellowship telling me that I need to do it their way.
I spend time in Al-Anon and have for fifteen years because I don’t want to give people advice, and if I want advice I’ll ask for it, but otherwise, we need to assume the competence of other people around us. That is a respect that I have come to believe is critical.
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