"We find that we suffer from a disease, not a moral dilemma. We were critically ill, not hopelessly bad."
Basic Text, p. 16
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For many of us, Narcotics Anonymous was the answer to a personal puzzle of long standing. Why did we always feel alone, even in a crowd, we wondered? Why did we do so many crazy, self-destructive things? Why did we feel so badly about ourselves so much of the time? And how had our lives gotten so messed up? We thought we were hopelessly bad, or perhaps hopelessly insane.
Given that, it was a great relief to learn we suffered from a disease. Addiction--that was the source of our problems. A disease, we realized, could be treated. And when we treat our disease, we can begin to recover.
Today, when we see symptoms of our disease resurfacing in our lives, we need not despair. After all, it's a treatable disease we have, not a moral dilemma. We can be grateful we can recover from the disease of addiction through the application of the Twelve Steps of NA.
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Just for today: I am grateful that I have a treatable disease, not a moral dilemma. I will continue applying the treatment for the disease of addiction by practicing the NA program.
-- Edited by Dave R on Thursday 8th of September 2016 06:31:58 AM
I think the phrase moral dilemma is not quite about here. A moral dilemma is a situation in which you have two or more options which seem to be equally good or bad from a moral perspective. My drugs use was not a dilemma, since it was clearly a bad option for me, especially toward the end.
What I was concerned about was that I might have a moral deficiency related to using drugs, i.e. I had weakness of will.
If only I were a morally stronger person I could control my using.
But that was the problem: I could not control my using because I had a disease.
Once I view my drug use as a disease and not simply a moral failing, I can begin to do something about the problem.
The only way I can "control" my using is to not use drugs, one day at a time.
Once I pick up that first drug, I lose control and I wind up in the same pattern of using compulsively and addictively.
Now, as I find out in the 4th step, I do have some moral defects of character which can lead me back to using if I do not address them.
Those defects were there when I was using drugs and they are still with me now.
However, those defects are separate from my addiction: I used because I have a disease, not because I have moral defects. Non-addicts have moral defects but they don't use drugs like a did. Moreover, even if I manage to "fix" my moral defects, I will not be cured.
