9. Labels can be helpful in addiction recovery

By Tom O'Connell

We ordinarily don't like labels to be attached to us. Not unless they're complimentary ones like "general" and "doctor." And we are apt to resist disease labels like "alcoholic" and "addict."

However, an esteemed psychologist made a case for using labels about a century ago, and I think it's interesting to look back at this bit of medical history.

By the way, William James has been called by many "the father of modern psychology, " and he was also highly respected by Carl Jung, one of the outstanding psychologists of the 20th century. The thinking of both men had an influence on the formation of the 12 Step Programs of addiction recovery.

In his basic text, Principles of Psychology, William James talks about the curing effect that happens when he, or a patient, dares to use the right name for his problem. "The effort by which he succeeds in keeping the right name unwaveringly present to his mind proves to be his saving moral act."

So in AA, each member willingly says, "I am an alcoholic" and adopts the label as a protective device which triggers memories of past behavior that, if repeated, could lead to total self-destruction.

William James says that if the alcoholic can accept the label that applies to his  behavior "and through thick and thin he holds to it that this is being a drunkard and nothing else, he is not likely to remain one long."

James also discusses the idea of "tapering off" unhealthy habits and asserts, "Abrupt acquisition of the new habit is the best way, if there be a real possibility of carrying it out...provided one can stand it, a sharp period of suffering, and then a free time, is the best thing to aim at, whether  in giving up a habit like that of opium, or in simply changing  one's  hours of rising or work. It is surprising how soon a desire will die if it be never fed."

In acquiring a new habit, or leaving off an old one, James stresses the need to "launch ourselves with as strong and decided an initiative as possible, " and says, "every day during which breakdown is postponed adds to the chance of its not occurring at all."

The key is "continuity of the training," and this explains why those who join AA and other addiction recovery programs and stick with the program have a much better chance of success than those who hang around for a while and then think they don't need help anymore. They raise their risk of drifting back into the same old habits.

One day at a time, recovering people gather what James described as "a series of uninterrupted successes" through ongoing repetition of the good behavior that offsets the harmful one. The good behavior in alcoholism is abstinence. In some other addictions, like overeating, it's limited abstinence.

James also says, "Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day. And he suggests an approach that appears in Al-Anon literature with very similar wording: "Do every day or two something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it. " He describes this as "insurance" so that the person will be able to "stand like a tower when everything rocks around him."

Discussing character development, and character deterioration, he says, "As we become permanent drunkards by so many separate drinks, so we become saints in the moral, and authorities and experts in the practical and scientific spheres, by so many acts and hours of work." Each action has great value, and one day at a time the actions pile up and become months and years of recovery. 

The wisdom of William James, who thought deep thoughts about addictive habits a hundred years ago, was injected into the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous and related programs of recovery, and has helped millions of people improve their characters and go on to live meaningful and very useful lives.

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