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Many Roads One Journey: Moving Beyond the 12 Steps |
Author: Charlotte S. Kasl
Published: 1992-06-17 |
List price: $19.95
Our price: $13.57
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As of: November 21st, 2008 12:05:37 AM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 One of the best books for women in recovery
I'm a recovery coach and have been a volunteer moderator of a Women for Sobriety group in San Francisco for eight years. Along with our group's all-time hit, Sober for Good (Fletcher), Turnabout (Kirkpatrick), Happy Hours (Jersild), and anything Anne Lamott has ever written, women in the groups I lead or work with as individual clients find Many Roads helpful. Women recovering in places where they only have access to 12-step groups need this book. It really does help you to take what you need and leave the rest.
Loved this book
I'm in recovery and loved this book. I've been looking for *more* and this book provided it. Recommend it to all my 12-step friends.
 THE WORLD OWES ME A FAVOR, BY CHARLOTTE KASL
I attended my first meeting back in 1991. I hated "the program" then, and I hate it now. I have been cautioned that if I don't get a sponsor and start doing step work NOW, that I will relapse and yet, here I am, still sober. One word: GOD.
What bothers me about meetings is that many of the people who attend them are mentally ill and there is no one with any sort of mental health training overseeing their little gatherings. In that context, exploitation of new members, dominance of the group, inappropriate behavior and contact between members is inevitable, not just an unfortunate occurance. I became so fed up with being hit on during "fellowship breaks" that I just stopped attending meetings.
As a woman, I feel extremely uncomfortable when I hear female members talk about being "of service," as if women have not been trained since the dawn of time to be "of service."
I am also familiar with SOS, Rational Recovery, Moderation Management, Women For Sobriety and a number of other alternatives. Considering my personal history, I was excited to get my hands on Kasl's book, figuring it would be an articulation of all the things that have "bugged" me over the years about 12 Step programs and meetings.
Instead I found myself being subjected to Kasl's seething rage toward white males. Page after page after page, she continues on with her acrimony. "We are all victims," her story goes. "Nothing will ever change," "Look at what they have done to us," whine, whine, whine, as the violins play in the background. She rails away, pounding her readers instead of "patriarchy" (this word must appear 450,000 times in the course of her book). After finishing it, I threw her book in the trash. I wonder if she has begun work on her autobiography -- "Victim of the Universe," by Charlotte Kasl.
I spent some serious time dealing with my own issues regarding "white males" and "patriarchy." Yes, there is a priviledged class in this country and a great number of its members are white males. Yes, there are plenty of rapes and murders and acts of sexual abuse and domestic violence, committed largely by men, some (many? most?) of whom are white. The key to freedom from their "oppression" (another word that appears half a million times in this book) is to realize that NOT ALL OF THEM ARE LIKE THAT. The "patriarchy" of today is nothing like the bleak, Victorian picture Kasl paints.
I got sober so that I could enjoy my life and participate in reality. I did not get sober to immerse myself in cross-dragging martyrdom, or to catalogue all the ways I have been "oppressed" and mistreated by "patriarchal white males."
Kasl writes at length of a life-altering battle she had with caffeine. Apparently, caffeIne ruins lives and destroys families the same way alcohol does, and what we all really need to do is watch less television and eat more lentils.
Her supposed subject matter (recovery from alcoholism) is used to lure in an audience, then trivialized in favor of trite, man-hating diatribes.
Grow up.
 Interesting stuff clouded by prejudice
Kasl does a good job of painting a broad picture which posits the pathway to spiritual enlightenment is broad and that there arwe many roads that can get us there. Unfortuantely, too often she falls back on that pseudo-intellectual - new agey - warrior princess stuff that died out in the early 90s.
Her critique of AA and 12 step methodology is spot on in places, although she fails to acknowledge the diverse ways the 'program' is practiced by its membership. Furthermore, issues of dogma, power and control are just as prevelant in feminist organizations as in AA. One senses she's a bit blinded by her own loyalty to her postion.
Ultimately, its the excess of that 60s-postmodernist-femist tripe that kinda swamps the good parts of her message. Definiately written for a different era. Not sure how relevant it is to recovery/spiritual development these days.
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16 Steps vs 12 Steps For the Spiritually Abused
The 16 Steps help move people who have moved to [Stage 4: Late Adolescence and Early Adulthood, The Critic: Ages sixteen - twenties and thirties] of their faithing (journey of faith) and are no longer dependent on a traditional 12 Step program. They have moved past a dependency level of a Program to one of personal empowerment and one that honours their own wisdom & internal strength. Dependency on an external set of rules or dogma needs to be replaced thusly if one is going to grow & mature into someone with a healthy ego that has an autonomy balanced with interdependency. Such a program of 16 Steps that moves beyond the rigid 12 Step program is necessary to develop a person's God-given potential here and now. Through such a program, people will be empowered to find their own unique place in the Universe. Instead of rigidity to a traditional 12 Step mantra, they will be encouraged to think for themselves and question those things that don't "feel" right.
She says we cannot slide into a dangerous one-size-fits-all mode that is sure to be wrong for many people. If we remember the overall goals are to alleviate people's suffering, we can put our rigid egos aside and ask, "What works? What doesn't work?" Are there ways support groups could be more effective, possibly for different groups of people such as those who have been spiritually abused? Because of my two years in Celebrate Recovery as the Assimilator Coach, CR is NOT the place for the spiritually abused. I became very familiar with how it works and had some difficulty with some of the things in it but couldn't put my finger on what they were and why there were so many triggers there for me.. After reading this book, I came to identify what they were. It's a great read. Although I don't agree with everything she believes, she has identified for me the things I needed to know.
Kasl shows us how we need to find ways to create SAFETY in these 16 Step recovery (uncover/discover) groups so there are fewer instances of CONTROL, ALIENATION & EXPLOITATION. We need to instill in people a sense of internal power that they lack in their "POWERLESSNESS". It is this attitude that fosters a newdependency on their recovery groups. Recovery grounded on fear does not lead to the development of a healthy aware ego (self-image).
To lock them into a similar 12 Step program will present too many triggers that will make them withdraw. While initially it may seem to help them, they will eventually leave because they realize they have to stuff too much to stay connected to the group at the cost of their human development. By staying locked in a rigid box/set of rules and authority like the controlling group/church/cult they left, they will continue to stuff and not advance in their healing. Eventually they will leave when it becomes too unbearable.
Solutions have to "feel" right for each individual if they are truly going to last. They need to be more than "bandage" therapy solutions. If there is little room for questioning, then a certain fear sets in that leads on to believe that the program is unchangeable or the leader/facilitator is too controlling. This is very triggering for the spiritually abused. They do not want to take a backward step in their journey and enter a program at a more mature level of our faithing by being asked to go back to a more childlike state of faith in order to get well. If there isn't room for shades of gray, then there isn't room for the Spiritually Abused.
Kasl says, "Although small groups have an immense capacity for healing, it is important that we not attribute this healing capacity solely to a 12 Step program. We need to have our own internal sense of power and realize, in the end, we are responsible for our own recovery (uncover and discover). We need to honour our own internal compass and respect our own wisdom & internal strength. If it doesn't "feel" right, it probably isn't for us. Our "gut" feelings have often been right in the past and we ignored them only to our own hurt. We cannot afford to do so in the future.
Kasl says, "The 16 Step program needs to lead people to a level of transformation and maturity where they no longer need a 12 Step group identity." They can't go back to a program of dependency because they know too much. We need to move past this in order to grow to the latter stages of faithing and Wisdom in order find our unique place in the Universe.
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