I have heard positive things about CR from friends (both reformed and nonreformed) and think it is definitely a good start to Christian accountability in addiction recovery. Like you said, it could use some reforming, but I think it is a lot better than the 12-Step Programs.
Yeah. It was the, respectfully implied, condition of my joining the church. I made some lasting friendships but everybody moved on, so it kinda died out. The pastor who started it had left to go to another church.
But what I liked about it was the core group, we all knew the tricks about making excuses to keep doing whatever addiction someone had. So we would gently and lovingly hold one another accountable.
There has been research done that this type of messaging actually has the opposite intended effect because people tune it out for various reasons, one of which is that lack of respect like you mentioned.
Yeah, I can only speak from my experience. But when your friends are doing drugs and their lives are not that way, that's a hard sell to a kid. We just felt like we're being lied to. No one said that of course, but it was the general consensus.
It's not realistic.
You take people who have no substance addiction and let them brainstorm on what the best treatment should be. The Devil is craftier than that. It made no sense whatsoever.
I don't know if I mentioned my younger brother before but he's practically homeless and addicted to fentanyl. He refuses to go to rehab. The family we're just waiting for the phonecall. I'm the oldest of 5 boys, all a year and nine months apart, and yes we drove our parents crazy. Not to get too personal but our Dad committed suicide 10-12 years ago. He had like a Michael Jackson doctor who gave him whatever drug he wanted. He was so high towards the end that he lost it.
He was a big time builder locally and when the housing market crashed he was going to lose the business. He couldn't take that I guess.
Then my brother right below me had schizophrenia, that was highly aggravated by drugs and alcohol, die trying to jump on a train down south, after "escaping" the rehab facility just last year.
The fentanyl using brother is right below him in age and our momma and her husband just left out of town yesterday. She had the talk with my two youngest brothers, both of whom don't do drugs and have very cute little families, and I that her phone will be off. So if they find him dead, God forbid, she won't be able to know about it until she gets back. So we have to handle it.
A year doesn't go by without someone I used to hangout with dying in some drug related way (OD, suicide, drug related homicide, etc). All of this came years and years after I first started smoking weed as a young teenager.
I don't say all of this for sympathy but pointing out that it didn't all happen in a day. How do you teach young people that lesson? I care very deeply about the young people I work with and try to tailor my experiences to convey to them how crafty the Devil is in ensnaring us and you don't realize it until you're in a bad situation.
Thanks be to God for His neverending mercy and grace to sinner's. Thankfully all I hear about is weed. I know so many functioning adults who smoke but I don't advocate it's use. I only say after the fact that if they're gonna smoke fine but leave it at smoking. They're not my kids so I can't really say anything, just warn them about how dark that lifestyle can get.
I try to be realistic about it. Hopefully my story doesn't bum anyone's day out. God bless.