The 12-step world is a man’s world. When you read the newspapers, you get the feeling that there is no other way to get sober.
The Finnish drug treatment scene is first and foremost a man’s world.
Since the male perspective is very much a part of substance abuse policy, let it be said that the previous sentence was said by a man, Docent Pekka Saarnio. This might give it some weight.
In the last six months it has become extraordinarily clear that even in the media – in Finland’s biggest daily newspaper and a few other dailies – men have a say on the subject.
Pettynyt ( a middle-aged, highly educated, well-managed woman who wants help for her alcohol addiction) wrote in the Helsingin Sanomat opinion column on 9.2. about their experiences of mental health and substance abuse services in their city. He felt that he was not treated as a whole person, but as a stereotypical alcoholic.
This article was answered in the same column by representatives of the Myllyhoitoyassociation. The Mill Management Association represents the 12 Steps of Minnesota’s 12 Steps of the Minnesota Idea. The association’s board includes several owners of “Minnesota” companies.
In their response, they quite rightly pointed out the shortcomings of our national drug treatment system. They also highlighted the Twelve Step Recovery Programs they represent and Minnesota Treatment as recognised and effective treatment methods.
Hesari repeats the AA narrative
I also wrote a response yesterday, but it was not published (the response comes at the end of this column).
Instead, a response was published, written by a woman sober under the pseudonym AA, or Twelve Step and Peer Support.
The same magazine also features an interview with Marko Jantunen, Account Manager at Avominne Oy.
Juntunen, a 12-step sober person, says: “The most important thing would be to understand that it (addiction) is a chronic disease. Lack of information can, in the worst case, enable the disease to progress.
Background for the reader: your Avominne – like AA – are 12-step operators. This tendency is now being allowed to express its views in the mainstream media – there is hardly an adult in this world who has not heard the phrase: “alcoholism is a disease for life.”
The lack of information is mainly about alternative views. The rules of journalism and news criteria obviously do not apply to drug treatment methods.
Since 2016, I have also tried to bring a new, female perspective on substance abuse and treatment methods to the mainstream media. You’d think it would be interesting, but it’s not.
Finland’s largest daily newspaper prefers to publish articles that support the AA narrative: alcoholism is a chronic disease and the 12-step method is the only way to recover from alcoholism.
Almost without exception, the experts interviewed are men who have been to the bottom of the ditch, humbled and sobered by AA and the Minnesota model.
I’ve been wondering what this is all about.
- Do you have to be the head doctor of an A-clinic to be an addiction specialist?
- Do you have to be a representative of a Twelve Step Association/Foundation to be an “official” actor?
- Do you have to be a 12-step sober man to be a knowledgeable expert?
However, these so-called. official actors also represent limited companies, business, although they also have foundations and associations – as do many large companies.
Or are there people in the top echelons of the newspaper for whom this is a matter of the heart, not of reason?
Are my ideas too revolutionary, too scary?
After writing to Free from wine -(Wise Life 2016), in which I describe my own sobering process and question traditional beliefs about alcohol, alcohol problems and substance abuse treatment, I have found many soul sisters around the world who have written their own Free From Wine books and come to the same conclusions.
Many of them have first tried the 12-step programme, and then found a method that suited them better, sobriety with joy.
This is going on, this is already a big story, but the Finnish mainstream media will follow. A big ship is notoriously slow to turn.
Women addicted to drugs are bystanders
Be that as it may, my article was not published (even this time) and the nickname Pettynyt was offered more of the same in Hesar: what he had already written his opinion about. Diagnosis of an alcoholic.
And now: here is my response to Hesar, which was not published:
“Pettynyt wrote in the Helsingin Sanomat opinion column on 9.2. about their experiences of mental health and substance abuse services in their city. He felt that he was not treated as a whole person, but as a stereotypical alcoholic.
Disappointed represented the group that is the middle ground in the field of substance abuse treatment: an educated woman who does her job well and does not identify as an alcoholic.
The experiences of the women I interviewed show that the field of substance abuse treatment does not recognise this specific group of people with substance abuse problems. Some of those interviewed had sought help from the A-Clinic, where their problem was not taken seriously. Some had tried AA, but did not feel they were at a low enough level to identify with the programme.
The Finnish substance abuse treatment field is plagued by a lack of cooperation and stale, stale attitudes and ideas about the problem of alcohol and recovery that date back more than 80 years. Those ideas are based on a time when women did not drink alcohol, and those few exceptions: women with alcohol problems, were the lowest caste in society and not welcome in AA groups.
The world’s most famous drug treatment method, the 12 steps, was developed in 1935 on the day when Bill Wilson, a stockbroker sobered up by hallucinogen and God, managed to sober up a Dr Robert Smith. They both represented the upper caste of society in 1930s America. Therefore, the method is based on the idea that the alcoholic has an inflated ego and thinks he is God. You have to break your ego to recover.
The 12 steps have not changed one iota over the years, but the world has. Women use alcohol nowadays, a lot. Alcohol consumption among Finnish women has increased almost sixfold in 40 years and the age group that consumes the most alcohol, 15-29 year olds, now consumes the same amount of alcohol as the average male in 1968.
Although gender equality has improved since the 1930s and women are now allowed to join AA groups, few women who are addicted to alcohol consider themselves God. On the contrary, the vast majority of them feel ashamed and guilty about their drinking. And they don’t have to “learn humility” with a cup of coffee (in AA groups), because that’s what they’ve been doing all their lives.
Most of them go to the last minute to fulfil their obligations, forgetting themselves. They do not need humility, but self-compassion, peer support and the recognition and setting of boundaries.
The Finnish debate on substance abuse is stagnating because the various parties blindly believe only in their own method.
Lumping all alcohol-dependent people together as alcoholics can be a barrier to seeking treatment. You can be addicted to alcohol even if you are not an alcoholic.
There is no one medicine that works for everyone. It is therefore important that we welcome new ideas and methods with an open mind.
Fortunately, there is now help for the group of women who fall between: the Soberist method, based on researched knowledge and experience.
I sincerely hope that Disappointed will find Soberist and join the ranks of the happy, corked women.
Ira Koivu, PhD,
Free from wine author
Founder of Soberist, change coach “
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I sincerely hope that this text will be shared enough to reach Disappointed AND all women in the same situation <3
Ira
