Are you a Recovery Robot?
Recovery robot? What’s that? Do you find yourself saying all the things you hear in recovery? Have the words “How does that make you feel” or “What was your part in it,” or “Did you pray about it”, ever cross your lips? At work or in a meeting are you a lion or a mouse?
In recovery, most people are in a deep state of 12 step, one day getting high behind a dumpster with a running buddy/girlfriend, the next minute they’re in a group judging others and saying “not very spiritual dude”.
After you’ve been sober a while, you won’t even want to hear the voice of the pseudo-spiritual-cool dude with the Leviticus tattoos who was hitting on the newcomer girls in that beginners meeting. Every single one of them I know relapsed and took others out, or became a marketer and cashed in on the sick and suffering.
Recovery Clichés suggestions. He only speaks from his personal experience or tells me to get a suggestion from someone else about something he doesn’t have experience about. He’s told me suggestions that I thought were purely crazy or way out of the ballpark of normality. But he has peace and serenity and he doesn’t involve himself in drama. I want what he has, so I eventually go against my own “best” thinking and try to do what he suggests. It usually works out but it doesn’t always work out for the best. But the decision is mine. We’re both not responsible for the results, just responsible to do the next right thing.
Hearing vs. Listening
So, I suggest to you all. Just listen to the next guy. And when you’re done listening, ask a question and listen some more. When you’re done doing that pause. Then think out of the box and offer a suggestion based on your experience. Don’t use any dogma, any rhetoric any canned response. Be a human being relating to another human being. There’s a difference between hearing and listening. If you’re just hearing someone express a struggle, and your immediate response is to hit them with a “pray about it”, you haven’t been listening. Let your responses be organic, don’t be hearing what someone is saying while preparing your response simultaneously.
Answer from your heart. Why? Because that’s all the other person really wants anyway. They want the connection to another human being. They want to be listened to and understood. To feel heard (yes, that’s a cliché, I know).
The question and the answer aren’t really the point of the exercise. The point is to connect with another person on a basic human level and try to help.
Stop being the robot, be a human being.
Reach Out
If you or someone you know is struggling with an addiction, please reach out to us at 877-RECOVER or 877-732-6837. Our team of addiction specialists will take your call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We want to help. Because We Care.
