ACCSA Lecture Notes Flashcards

Flashcards about Addiction Counselor Certifications South Africa (ACCSA) lecture notes focusing on twelve step treatments and Alcoholics Anonymous.

ACCSA

Addiction Counselor Certifications South Africa Pty (Ltd)

M13 Twelve Step Treatment

Consistent with active involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous or other 12 Step Meetings.

Alcoholism

A progressive illness that affects the body, mind, and spirit for which the only effective remedy is abstinence from the use of alcohol.

Active Involvement in 12 Step Fellowships

The primary factor responsible for sustained sobriety (“recovery”) and therefore as the desired outcome of participation in this program is active involvement in 12 Step Fellowships.

Alcoholism Characteristic

Loss of the ability to control (limit) the use of alcohol.

Denial of Alcoholism

Resistance to accepting the reality of loss of control over drinking.

Spirituality in AA

Belief in a “Higher Power,” which is defined by the individual and which represents faith and hope for recovery.

Pragmatism in AA

Belief in doing “whatever works” for the individual, meaning doing whatever it takes in order to avoid taking the first drink.

Recovery (in AA)

The process by which alcoholics become abstinent and undergo the self-help/mutual aid journey to heal the self, relations with others, one’s higher power, and the larger world.

Recovery Components

Includes the belief system and program of action, groups and their meetings, the Twelve Steps, and helping others within the context of a network of recovering peers.

AA's Definition of Alcoholism

An illness, a progressive illness, which can never be cured but which, like some other diseases, can be arrested.

Loss of Choice

Free will is not involved, because the sufferer has lost the power of choice over alcohol.

Alcoholism Definition

A spiritual, mental, and physical illness and recovery requires healing all aspects of the illness.

Transition/Beginning Phase of Recovery

Stopping drinking and giving up the illusion that one can control his/her drinking.

Hitting Bottom (in AA)

Surrendering or admitting defeat in self-controlling one’s drinking.

Simple Instructions to Newcomers

Go to meetings, don’t drink, stay away from “slippery” places, say your prayers (i.e., ask for help from an external higher power).

First Step Toward Recovery

Abstinence from alcohol is the first and necessary step toward recovery.

Surrendering Control

The paradox of how to stop drinking for any length of time is to surrender control over your drinking.

Core of Recovery

The acceptance of loss of control and [assuming] the identity as an alcoholic form the core of the continuum of recovery.

Positive Alcoholic Identity

the shift from trying to control one’s drinking to the positive alcoholic identity which offers hope for developing a constructive and useful life and for being “happy, joyous, and free.

Doubling Back on the Self

Examines himself/herself, listens to his/her self-talk and locates himself/herself within a structure of experience in which he/she is both object and subject to himself/herself.

Doubling

an individual examines himself/herself, listens to his/her self-talk and locates himself/herself within a structure of experience in which he/she is both object and subject to himself/herself.

Social Identity Theory

identity is socially bestowed, socially sustained, and socially transformed. People sustain and change their identity in interaction with others.

Abstinence vs. Sobriety

Becoming abstinent is necessary but insufficient to maintain sobriety.

Practicing the Program Involves

going to meetings, helping other alcoholics, “working” the steps, using the tools in daily living, and asking for help and guidance from one’s sponsor and from other seasoned members.

House as Design for Living

the design for living as one’s core place, safe from the elements, where one sleeps, eats, and plays but from which one ventures forth to one’s job, family activities, friends and leisure time pursuits, and community activities.

AA Program

uniquely combines the once-in-a-lifetime experience of total identity change with practical tools for dealing with the every-day minutiae of life.

Practical Tools: Slogans

One day at a time; HALT; Easy does it but do it; Utilize, don’t analyze; Progress, not perfection.

Sponsor

a seasoned member having maintained sobriety and worked the steps for some time, acts as a guide to a newcomer or to someone with less experience in staying sober and working the AA program.

Character Change

Unless an alcoholic becomes less self-centred, less wilful, and more concerned with others, his/her character traits will result in him/her picking up a drink.

First Three Steps of AA

involved in becoming abstinent through relinquishing self-will to a self-defined higher power.

Steps 4-9

deal with character change—dealing with one’s shame and remorse for the havoc caused by drinking, the wrongs done to others, one’s awful secrets, prideful self-centred behaviour that alienates one from others, and the like.

Steps 10-12

Are often referred to as the maintenance steps.

Helper Therapy Principle

Helping other alcoholics is the “helper therapy” principle (Riessman, 1965), the idea that helping others benefits the helper, not just the recipient.

Service

Taking a turn at a meeting, sharing with others before, during, or after meetings, sponsoring, assisting with maintenance of a group or the larger organization or twelfth step work.

AA Group

An AA group has a name, meets in a specific (rented) location, elects members to fill its various positions on a rotating basis, hosts meetings, and takes responsibility for refreshments, financial matters, affiliating with the larger AA organization.

Meetings

Meetings are the primary place where the ritualized aspects of AA are practiced, where members learn the belief system, observe how seasoned members behave, learn how to tell their stories, and through listening, observing, and taking their turn talking, gain new identities, and the “experience, strength, and hope” to resolve their drinking and living problems.

Open and Closed Meetings

for those who self-identify as an AA member while open meetings welcome AA members, their families and friends, or any interested person (such as a college student doing a paper on AA).

Fellowship

refers to the network of relationships among AA attendees, members, families, and friends.

One Day at a Time

Recovery is best thought of as a journey that is undertaken one step at a time. The goal is to avoid taking the first drink and to stay sober a day at a time.

First Things First

If alcoholics do not stay sober, nothing else will matter, since they may end up in an institution, in jail, or prematurely dead; meanwhile, alcoholism will undermine their body, mind, spirit, and relationships, making the overall quality of life progressively worse.

Fake It Till You Make It

Not everything in the AA fellowship will appeal or make sense to the recovering person. The slogan asks the alcoholic to be humble: to follow advice on faith in the belief that it will prove beneficial in the long run.

Easy Does It

The recovering person needs to avoid excess stress, which will invite relapse. The serenity prayer is relevant here, as it urges the recovering person to accept what cannot be changed.

Turn It Over

A Statement of faith, this slogan encourages acceptance of what cannot be changed in the belief that all will work out for the best in the end.

Role of the Therapist

Facilitator of patients’ acceptance of their alcoholism and of a commitment to the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous as the preferred path to recovery.

Cognitive Restructuring

challenges the client to find a new way of seeing his or her situation and to begin to effect positive change.

Henman and Henman (1990) discussed their model of counselling alcoholics

an approach to treatment that encourages 12-step program participation with a therapy based on cognitive- behavioural modification and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) called, Cognitive-Perceptual Reconstruction (CPR).

basic cognitive distortions that are held by active alcoholics

They deny that they cannot control drinking; (b) they believe they drink abnormally because of pain and that drinking relieves pain, they do not see that drinking becomes the source of pain; and (c) they are ignorant and hopeless about solving this problem.

best introduced at AA meetings

they challenge the cognitive distortions of grandiosity, defiance, and isolation by admitting powerlessness together with other alcoholics, “we admitted we were powerless…” Step 2restructures this powerlessness into reliance and hope through belief in a higher power.

Step 2 Reliance on a Higher Power

Reliance on a higher power offers alcoholics a continual challenge to that “alcoholic thinking” of omnipotence, grandiosity, and defiance

Steps 1 - 3

1. We Admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable;
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity;
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.