A few of the more emotive, touching letters here on the bright, competent and transformative incoming administration got me thinking about Family and particularly about the strength, homeostasis, and defenses in American families. I’m not sure why, maybe partly because I hear all about families on a regular basis, from the experiences of children who later become both chemically dependent and seriously mentally ill:

“He’s ‘papa’ to me. He’s a wonderful, sweet man. Only four or five times. Once in the mouth. With his fist. Another time he ripped my robe off, I ended up out in a field. The police got called, but mom and dad kept them out of it. She lied, she hid it. She needed him. He always provided for us. He lies to me. I love my Dad.”

Family is so important. They need each other, protect each other, lie for each other, blind themselves to lies, violence, and abuse in order to stick together, bonded out of fear and out of deficits in testing reality, in coping with reality, and in making real changes, afraid to grow up and let go.

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There is a big Family in Washington D.C. Our big American Family.

There’s gonna be change this time. Mom and Dad keep saying so. They reach out to work with each other, to forgive and make compromises. They need each other. He’s a bright man. Dad keeps the Law out of it, that could tear our family apart. We can all be civil. We don’t talk about the lies and violence. Give him a chance. Those lies and betrayals, Dad running with those war-makers, criminal guys and thieves? That doesn’t mean anything. You’ll see. Dad giving the green light to all those people being killed over there in the Middle East somewhere? That’s not the Dad we know. He just wants to protect us. Just wait, you’ll see.

Dad’s smart as can be, that’s what we all say. When Mom talks about how smart Dad is and I picture his strong, handsome face, I get a shiver. I forget all about his broken promises and the criminal friends and war-makers he cuts deals with. He’s going to stop fighting and gambling with our money. He’s telling the truth now. He just needs another chance. He’s smart and hardly misses a Sunday taking us to church. We need to work together, stick together. That’s practical and we hear it from pastor Rick in our church. I believe them all and trust them. We need each other. We’re a big American Family.

in Israel and Gaza: link at sig

it cedes deeper understanding by accepting the false frame of a “dilemma” posed by a question of “treating” addictive behaviors psychopharmacologically versus by the traditional 12-Step, AA/NA model. In fact neither is a type of treatment for addiction.

Psychotropic medications are not treatment for behavioral disorders or mental illness. They are used to mask or dampen symptoms; they bring symptomatic relief. That dampening can be useful in bringing individuals into functional spaces in which they can take advantage of therapeutic interventions that can lead to long-term gains by addressing maladaptive behaviors, internal models, early experiences, environmental stressors, and other factors. Such relief can be critical in acute care for dangerously disordered behavior, e.g. as associated with psychosis. Addictive behaviors are maladaptive attempts to lessen inner distress, and are almost certain to recur until the source of that inner distress is addressed in therapy.

The 12-Step/AA/NA system is not intended to provide treatment for addictive behaviors, which is why it has no therapeutic value. Its principles and beliefs run directly counter to factors known to have therapeutic value in clinical treatment of mental health disorders. Its actual purpose, transparently so, is to keep addicted individuals comfortably addicted and to avoid the discomfort of emotional and behavioral change. It’s participants are encouraged to remain addicted by substituting addictive use of food or especially nicotine, one of the most lethal and addictive substances known (also a gateway drug), while being patted on the back for being “clean and sober”. As such, it constitutes a well-developed system of denial and other ego defenses used to maintain addiction. About 90 percent relapse. Those who stay clean do so in spite of the countertherapeutic factors they are exposed to in AA/NA.

It’s a symbiosis. The relapsing addict coming into AA receives praise, supported denial, and encouragement for doing what the addict wants more than anything to do - staying addicted and avoiding the distress of change and of inner growth. There is a huge payoff for the “old-timers” in meetings and for treatment providers (almost always individuals “in recovery”) in the 12-Step-run treatment industry – by focusing attention on the rapidly turning-over and relapsing newcomers and aggressively labeling them “addicts”, “in denial”, etc., they utilize the ego defense of projection - projecting away their own continuing addictive behaviors. The worldwide organization creates an illusion of legitimacy by claiming “millions” of adherents, “millions helped”. In that way, some sheen of legitimacy is provided the medical “disease” model of addiction and the religion-based precepts embedded in 12-Step, both representations of patriarchal control. Turf is protected, addicts kept addicted. The alliance of medicine, religion, and 12-Step gains the illusion of legitimacy by providing for continued addiction, remarkably under the constructed guise of “treatment”. With those kinds of payoffs, change is an uphill battle.