About Those Character Defects – 12 Step Addiction Recovery
About those character defects — you know — the ones you identified in your “searching and fearless moral inventory” when you worked Step 4 of a 12 step recovery program, like AA or NA. Those same character defects you were “entirely ready to have God remove” when you did your Step 6.
I’d like to propose a different way of looking at character defects. Instead of thinking of them as something that is an essence of a person, think of them as the way that person behaved when their brain was under siege by the brain disease of addiction.
Why this proposition?
It’s No Longer Addiction, It’s Substance Use Disorder; It’s No Longer Addict/Alcoholic, It’s a Person With a Substance Use Disorder – Perhaps It’s Time To Reframe How We Talk About Character Defects
We hear a lot of different terms when it comes to people talking about alcohol and other drug use problems. To keep this part simple, I’m going to focus on those related to alcohol problems, but the same information applies to other drug use problems, as well.
Terms related to alcohol use problems include alcohol abuse, binge drinking, alcoholism, alcohol dependence, addiction, and alcohol use disorder, to name a few. But there is a book used by psychiatrists and other clinicians to give them a common language for understanding, diagnosing, and talking about a range of mental health conditions. It is called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). And it is developed, updated, and published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA).
Alcohol abuse and alcoholism were two of the mental health conditions included in the DSM-IV (4th edition), which wasn’t updated until 2013. This is why those two terms are still the most commonly used today. In May 2013, the APA released a new edition of this manual, called DSM-5. This revised edition put both alcohol abuse and alcoholism into one classification and called it “alcohol use disorder (AUD).” Within the alcohol use disorder classification are three sub-classifications: mild, moderate, and severe.
What we commonly call alcohol abuse would be considered either a mild or a moderate alcohol use disorder. What we commonly call alcoholism would be considered a severe alcohol use disorder.
Additionally, with the publication of the DSM-V, there’s been a movement to change the “label” given to people with a drinking problem. People with alcohol use disorders are no longer referred to as alcohol abusers or alcoholics, rather as a person with a mild | moderate | or severe alcohol use disorder. This helps make the point that people are not their drinking pattern: alcoholics, alcohol abusers, or binge drinkers, for example. Rather, they are a person, first, and then a person who as an AUD. This is in keeping with how we describe someone with cancer. They are a person with cancer. They are not a canceric.
[Note: I continue to use the terms alcohol abuse, alcoholism, addiction interchangeably with those described above because those are the terms most people know and use.]
Given these changes in how we talk about this particular brain disease (brain disorder) and the people who have it, perhaps it’s time to reframe how we think (and talk) about character defects. These “defects” are so often the outcome of the brain changes a person experiences as a result of the risk factors that contributed to their developing the disease and the characteristics of the disease, itself.
Why Character Defects Are the Outcome of Brain Changes
Thanks to advances in imaging technologies, scientists and medical professionals can observe and study the live, conscious human brain like never before. And the resulting research findings of the recent 10-15 years are revolutionizing our understanding of this three-pound organ. Just a fraction of our total body weight, the brain controls everything we think, feel, say, and do.
If our brain doesn’t work, we can’t feel pain or love or run or drive a car. If our brain doesn’t work, our heart can’t pump, our lungs can’t breathe, and our limbs can’t move. If our brain doesn’t work, we can’t develop addiction. Thanks to this research, then, it is now understood:
NIDA’s image drives home why childhood and adolescent experiences can have a profound and long-lasting impact on brain development.
- how the chemicals in alcohol and other drugs can actually change the chemical and structural makeup of the brain when repeatedly abused
- how these chemical and structural changes can make the brain more vulnerable to the five key risk factors for developing addiction. These risk factors include: genetics, childhood trauma (aka Adverse Childhood Experiences/ACEs), social environment, mental illness, and early use (alcohol or other drug use before 21)
- why childhood trauma (aka ACEs) is so harmful because of its connection to toxic stress
- how brain wiring and mapping is dramatically influenced by these key risk factors and where the brain is at developmentally when they occur
- why a person develops addiction. They are not born with it. And why treating addiction is not a one-size-fits-all. It must be tailored to treat the individual’s underlying risk factors that contributed to their development of the disease, AS WELL AS the characteristics of this particular disease
- why the characteristics of addiction include cravings, tolerance, physical dependence, and loss of control
- and WHY all of the above results in character defects.
Using Brain Research to Reframe Character Defects
Thanks to this brain research, it is now understood how the brain is “built.” In other words, how it develops from in utero through one’s early 20s. It is now understood that what happens or is inherent to the brain as it is being built or comes at it once it is “built” is what determines a person’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. As I reframed Step 4 in my post, “Working the 12 Steps With a Little Help From Brain Science,”
4 – Understand that many of my “character defects” are really the consequence of the brain changes caused by the brain mapping associated with my addiction and the risk factors I have, all of which led to my developing this brain disease. I now understand that these character defects are not the “real” me, but rather the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of a person with the untreated, complex brain disease of addiction.
Thanks to this brain research we also know we can change, rewire our brains. This is how a person recovers from this particular disease. And they can do this rewiring by using any/and all of the tools that can help them, including: 12 step programs, a spiritual practice, therapy, anti-craving medications, mindfulness practices, treating a co-occurring mental disorder, nutrition, sleep, exercise, yoga…to name some examples.
In this manner a person with addiction can rewire their brains and rid themselves of their “character defects.” Meaning the substance, risk factors, and characteristics no longer have control over their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
Articles to Read That Might Help Reframe Conversations About Character Defects
The Developing Brain and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
Drugs, Brains, and Behavior: The Science of Addiction
Pay Particular Attention to Mental Illness and Childhood Trauma (ACEs) When Treating Addiction
And Please Know – All of the Above is Just Food for Thought 🙂
Lisa Frederiksen
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Gives one hope for recovery.
I agree – thanks for your comment, Mark.