There are several programs out there that deal with addiction. The 12 Step program is one of them that has incredible value. It works; it has saved people’s lives. In fact, I’ve worked the program myself.
But, for whatever reason, some people just can’t see themselves doing AA. Or they discontinue going to meetings and lose their support network. Or maybe they worked the steps and they are sober but still can’t surrender to a new way of thinking and living.
The Get Unstuck program is for anyone who struggles with addiction — whether to alcohol, drugs, excessive gambling, or anything used to numb out from the experience of life — and for people who are already sober but feel like something inside them is wrong or missing or unfulfilled.
The program borrows from other well-known approaches to self-help, particularly the 12 Steps. But I think my 30+ years of experience in clinical psychology as well as my shared experience with addiction and recovery leave me with something valuable to add.
How the 12 Step Program Works (& Why Sometimes It Doesn’t)
One of 12 Step programs’ biggest values is that the meetings are free, ongoing, and available to you all over the world. They provide a place to land and get support when you need it, and a place to return that support when you’re ready.
As I used the steps myself, I found that it was helpful for people who have a complex internal world that they’ve created to survive. It takes a lot of work to untangle this web of coping mechanisms and get back to your natural self. That’s what the 12 Steps and this program attempt to do.
The reasons some people don’t resonate with the 12 Step program have largely to do with the spiritual aspect. These people often have negative past experiences with religion, or perhaps they aren’t able to open themselves up to something like that without proof.
Another drawback is for people dealing with more than one addiction. The programs keep everyone focused on one drug or one habit so people in the group identify with one another based on common challenges. If you have several addictions to work through, you have to go to a separate program for each one.
Get Unstuck
The Get Unstuck program addresses the core of addiction in such a way that you don’t have to be in multiple programs to experience the benefit, and that doesn’t depend on belief in a traditional type of higher power, like capital-G God.
The format is different, too. You don’t have to go to meetings before you can get any help from the program. You don’t have to work all of the steps in order, and you don’t have to get a sponsor.
The goal is to help people find some inner peace, be comfortable in their own skin, and find a way to be more open to a new way of life. It doesn’t matter what mechanism you use to do that, whether it’s this one, the 12 Steps, or another.
A Focus on Personal Responsibility
This program emphasizes the self. What can I do differently? What can I do, if I put my energy into something else? What follows is that you’ll stop trying to control everything around you and just focus on the next right thing for you.
Resolution of Past Actions
This is an important part of the 12 Steps that remains in Get Unstuck. We’re going to look at the past and the things you’ve done that you feel regret or shame about, and you may have to consider how you can resolve a past situation.
Trauma Work
We’ll give you the psychological tools to confront impressions and emotional states you picked up from your family and carry with you still. You’ll get clear on how we pick up emotions and energy from family members as a way to try to connect, and carry that with us as a burden.
That makes it difficult to trust. People with addictions avoid trusting others at all costs. They don’t want to feel vulnerable. Doing the work to confront your trauma will help you develop the ability to express and be open and learn to trust.
Breathwork and Meditation
If you practice going quiet instead of running around frantically, you can become settled in the place within you. That’s where, from my perspective, we store the wisdom of our larger consciousness, creation, god, if you will.
Most people struggling with addiction have a particular difficulty quieting their racing mind. That’s so often why people drink or do drugs or engage in numbing activities — to quiet their mind, shut the damn thing off and get a break. But with discipline and practice over time, you can learn to quiet your own mind. It’s that ability to go quiet and be open to be guided, where the richness and where the possibilities are, that are beyond your capability at an intellectual level, beyond your own imagining.
Ongoing Support
There are two kinds of transformative experiences: a sudden, white light experience that happens overnight — or an experiential, or educational awakening. The latter experience is mostly noticed in reflection. Gradually, over time, we realize that we haven’t had a drink in months — how did that happen?
But all educational transformations require ongoing reinforcement and support of like minded people. It’s like learning a language. As part of Get Unstuck we offer support and a community of people who speak your language.
Why This Program is For You (Even If You’re Already Sober)
We will help you address your addiction or whatever the multitudes of ways you have developed to numb out from the world. We acknowledge that none of these coping mechanisms are necessarily bad — but in excess, they become problematic.
By working through your trauma and confronting past behaviors, we’ll address the things that underlie your addictive behaviors. Ultimately, we want you to finally be able to see that there was never anything inherently wrong with you. You were valuable and worthwhile from the beginning. You just didn’t know it.