Pills Anonymous
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Pills Anonymous (PA) is a twelve-step program for people who seek recovery from prescription drug addiction. PA is patterned very closely after Alcoholics Anonymous, although the two groups are not affiliated.
PA uses the book Alcoholics Anonymous[1] as its basic text. Complementing this will be the PA Workbook[2], and the AA book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions[3]
As of 2009, there are several thousand PA members in the United States, Canada and other countries. On-line meetings exist as well.[4]
Table of Contents
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The Pills Anonymous program
The only requirement for membership is "a desire to stop using Pills," and members "meet regularly to help each other stay clean and sober," where "clean" is defined as complete abstinence from all mood and mind altering substances (including alcohol). Membership in P.A. is free, and there are no dues or fees. The foundation of the Pills Anonymous program is the twelve steps and twelve traditions.
Pills Anonymous "has no opinion on outside issues," including those of politics, science, or medicine, and does not endorse any outside organization or institution. The fellowship does not promote itself, but rather attracts new members through public information and outreach. P.A. groups and P.A. World Service supply outside organizations with factual information regarding the P.A. program, and individual members may carry the P.A. message to hospitals and institutions, such as treatment centers.
The nature of addiction
P.A. describes addiction as a progressive disease with no known cure, which affects every area of a pill addict's life: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. P.A. suggests that the disease of addiction can be arrested, and recovery is possible through the P.A. twelve-step program. The steps never mention drugs or drug use, rather they refer only to addiction to pills, to indicate that pill addicts have a disease of which pill use is one symptom. Other symptoms include obsession, compulsion, denial, and self-centered fear.
Pill addicts often first enter P.A. after reaching a "bottom" in their life, a point at which life feels completely unmanageable, sometimes characterized by "unemployability, dereliction and destruction" and centered around the getting and using and finding ways and means to get more Pills. Every P.A. member reaches a different bottom, which can be wherever the pill addict chooses to stop using. In practice, it is pill use and the extreme consequences associated with its abuse that bring most pill addicts to their bottom many of them sliding along 'this bottom' for many years often never finding a way out.
Meetings
Regular meetings, hosted by P.A. groups, are the basic unit of the P.A. Fellowship. Meetings are held in a variety of places such as church meeting rooms, libraries, hospitals, community centers, parks, or any other place that can accommodate a meeting.
Members who attend the same meeting on a regular basis to establish a recovery network and reliable routine understand this to be their "Home Group". Group members are able to participate in the group's business, and play an important role in deciding how the group's meetings should be conducted.
Formats
There are two basic types of meetings, "open" and "closed". Anyone is welcome to attend an open meeting, while closed meetings are limited to pill addicts and to people who think they may have a problem with drugs.
Meeting formats vary, but often include time devoted to the reading aloud of P.A. literature regarding the issues involved in living life clean and sober which is written by and for members of P.A. Many meetings also include an "open sharing" component, where anyone attending has the opportunity to share. There is usually no direct feedback during the 'share', thus only one person ever speaks at any given time during this portion of the meeting. Some groups choose to host a single speaker (such meetings are usually denoted "speaker meetings") to share for the majority of the meeting time.
Other meeting formats include round robin (sharing goes around in a circle or each speaker picks the next person to share). Some meetings focus on reading, writing, and/or sharing about one of the Twelve Steps or some other portion of P.A. literature. Some meetings are "common needs" (a.k.a. special interest) meetings, supporting a particular group of people based on gender, sexual identity, age, language or other characteristic. These meetings are not exclusionary, as any pill addict is welcome at any P.A. meeting. PA Communities will often make an effort to have an open meeting run at the same time for members who don't identify with the common needs meeting.
During the meeting, some groups allot time for P.A. related announcements, and many meetings set aside time to recognize "anniversaries" or "birthdays" of clean and sober time. Individuals are sometimes given an opportunity to announce their clean and sober time to the group. In some meetings, and for certain anniversaries, medallions, which denote various amounts of clean and sober time, are distributed to those who have achieved those milestones. In some areas, the pill addict who is celebrating a "aniversary" will be able to read the readings for the meeting and he or she will be the speaker carry the P.A. message. Then the pill addict celebrating will have his or her sponsor or a friend or family member, give them a medallion at which time the friend will share some of the celebrating pill addict's achievements during the last year, or from during the entire course of his or her recovery. Then the pill addict celebrating can share his or her experience, strength, and hope with the group on how they did it.
"Each group has but one primary purpose--to carry the message to the addict who still suffers" (Pills Anonymous' Fifth Tradition). Therefore, the newcomer is considered to be the most important person in any meeting. The message of Pills Anonymous is hope: that there is another way to live.
Service
P.A. literature suggests that service work is an essential part of a program of recovery. Service is "doing the next right thing" and is the best example of "good will", which is the basis for the freedom promised by the P.A. program. Service work is usually chairing a meeting but may be as simple as cleaning up after the meeting, putting away chairs, or answering a phone. Additionally, there are basic, formalized service positions at the group level to help the group perform its function: examples include treasurer, secretary and World Service Delegate who represents the group in the larger service structure.
Spirituality
Pills Anonymous calls itself a spiritual program of recovery from the disease of pill addiction. The P.A. program places importance on developing a working relationship with a "higher power". The literature suggests that members formulate their own personal understanding of a higher power. The only suggested guidelines are that this power be "loving, caring, and greater than one's self." Members are given freedom in coming to an understanding of a higher power that works for them. Individuals from various spiritual and religious backgrounds, as well as many atheists and agnostics, have developed a relationship with their own higher power. P.A. also makes frequent use of the word "God" and some members who have difficulty with this term substitute "higher power" or read it as an acronym for "Good Orderly Direction."
The twelve steps of the P.A. program are based upon spiritual principles, three of which are honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness, embodied in the first three steps. According to PA members these principles, when followed to the best of one's ability, allow for a new way of life.
P.A. meetings often close with the Third Step Prayer ("Take my will and my life. Guide me in my recovery. Show me how to live.") or the "Serenity Prayer."
Sponsorship
One pill addict helping another is an essential part of the P.A. program. It is therefore highly recommended that members of Pills Anonymous find a sponsor. A sponsor is a member of P.A. who helps another member of the fellowship by sharing their experience, strength and hope in recovery and serves as guide through the Twelve Steps. In doing so, P.A. members often choose a sponsor with experience in applying the Twelve Steps of Pills Anonymous. For stronger identification, many P.A. members have sponsors of the same sex although members are free to choose any other member as a sponsor. It is also suggested that one should find a sponsor who has not only worked the 12 steps of Pills Anonymous, but that person also have a sponsor who has understanding of the 12 traditions of Pills Anonymous. The continuity of the message that Pills Anonymous works, has worked for others for many years, and continues to work.
Anonymity
"Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities." (12th Tradition)
Many P.A. members identify themselves in meetings by their first name only. The spirit of anonymity is about placing "principles before personalities" and recognizing that no individual pill addict is superior to another, and that individual pill addicts do not recover without the fellowship or its spiritual principles.
The Eleventh Tradition states that P.A. members "need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films."
History
PA’s beginnings are not really known, although there is a group in New York that dates back to 1972. Dr. Paul O., a well known AA speaker also talks about starting a meeting in the 70s. There are several references to Pills Anonymous in books such as The Recovery Book [5] and Young, sober & free: experience, strength, and hope for young adults [6]
Pills Anonymous World Service, a 501 (c) 3 charitable organization was incorporated October 1, 2008 in the state of Arizona, as a result of two conferences held earlier that year. One in Las Vegas, Nevada in March and the other in Tempe, Arizona in September.
During the Tempe Conference the Delegates voted to Incorporate Pills Anonymous World Service, voted to accept the Pills Anonymous World Service Manual[7] as its guide for moving forward. The Pills Anonymous World Service Manual contains the Twelve Steps of Pills Anonymous,[8] the Twelve Traditions of Pills Anonymous[9] as will as many suggestions as how the group should be run.
In Ontario, California, June 2009 the Pills Anonymous Local Service Manual[10] was introduced and voted to be conference approved. This guide is to help individual Groups form meetings, an important part of the PA program.
See also
- Addiction recovery groups
- Drug addiction
- List of drug-related deaths
- List of twelve-step groups
- Twelve-step program
References
- ↑ Alcoholics Anonymous (1976-06-01). Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous World Services. ISBN 0916856593. OCLC 32014950.
- ↑ http://www.pillsanonymous.org/the-book/ The PA Workbook, not yet published
- ↑ Alcoholics Anonymous (2002-02-10). Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. Hazelden. ISBN 0916856011. OCLC 13572433.
- ↑ http://pillsanonymous.ning.com/
- ↑ The Recovery Book by Al J. Mooney, Arlene Eisenberg, Howard Eisenberg (January, 1992) ISBN 1563050846
- ↑ Young, sober & free: experience, strength, and hope for young adults By Shelly Marshall ISBN 1568389868
- ↑ Pills Anonymous World Service Manual
- ↑ The Twelve Steps of Pills Anonymous
- ↑ the Twelve Traditions of Pills Anonymous
- ↑ Pills Anonymous Local Service Manual
Further reading
- Crits-Christoph, P., Gibbons, M. B. C., Barber, J. P., Gallop, R., Beck, A. T., Mercer, D., et al. (October 2003). "Mediators of outcome of psychosocial treatments for cocaine dependence". Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 71 (5): 918–925. doi:10.1037/0022-006X.71.5.918.
- Weiss, R. D., Griffin, M. L., Gallop, R. J., Najavits, L. M., Frank, A., Crits-Christoph, P., et al. (Feb 2005). "The effect of 12-step self-help group attendance and participation on drug use outcomes among cocaine-dependent patients". Drug and Alcohol Dependence 77 (2): 177–184. doi:10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2004.08.012.