12-Step Nation but Many Paths to Recovery

My name is Morgan and I am not an addict.

I prefer the term “formerly addicted.” Or “in recovery from heroin addiction.” Or even, “recovered,” as controversial as it may be.

When I was actively addicted I attended plenty of 12-step meetings, mostly Narcotics Anonymous. Throughout all of those meetings I could never get past the first step, where you must admit “powerlessness” over your addiction. I felt like I habitually made poor decisions but that I still had the power to correct my behavior.

The problem was more that I didn’t exactly want to be alive. My adolescent suicidal ideation had morphed into opioid use disorder by my early 20s. The goal was the same: oblivion. I needed mental health treatment and frequent sessions with a psychologist. Instead I got 12-step meetings, which was then as it is now culturally regarded as “treatment” for substance-use disorders, as if my use was the cause and not a symptom. First encouraged (read: shamed) into attendance by family and friends, then at a treatment center when I was 21 years old, and later court-mandated, 12-step meetings became a regular, albeit involuntary, facet of my life.

I couldn’t find comfort (or recovery) in those meetings and I was not alone. One of my best friends, Justin, shared my perspective. We had both attended our fair share of meetings through varying levels of compulsion and found them resoundingly unhelpful and off-putting. We felt no less inclined to use heroin nor did we feel inclined to…