Background
By anonymous authors who have recovered from a variety of addictions and other compulsive behaviours by using 12-Step programmes of recovery.
The stories in Millions of Miracles highlight the knock-on benefit to their families and societies wherever recovery occurs, and the potential that exists to help the hundreds of millions who still suffer from any of these issues all over the world. Each story is true. The writers share only their personal experience, they do not speak for, or on behalf of the fellowships that helped them achieve sobriety or emotional stability.
Introduction
My name is Jack, and I am a former alcoholic and drug addict. Since I began writing Millions of Miracles five years ago, more than twelve million people have died from alcoholism and drug addiction; many of which should have been prevented.
As a recovered alcoholic and drug addict, I am a passionate advocate of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous’s 12-Step programme that saved my life. Since I got sober in 1985 I have directly witnessed hundreds of thousands of former alcoholics, drug addicts, and sufferers of many forms of emotional disorders in thirty-four countries on five continents who have recovered from their problems by following the principles of this simple programme. Today, this success runs into three and a half million.
My hope, and that of the other writers of this book, is that the message first established by AA in 1935, then NA in 1953, be passed on to as many people as possible around the world who suffer emotional disorders and all forms of addiction. Because, if these programmes had been given the support they deserved by politicians and the medical profession, many of the 150 million plus men, women and children who died from the diseases of drug addiction and alcoholism since 1935 would not have done so.
Each man and woman’s story in Millions of Miracles is fact and based on that individuals experience.
Where opinions are expressed by me, they are based on my past experience as an alcoholic and drug addict, time in recovery using the AA and NA 12-Step programmes, thirty years as a consultant to the pharmaceutical industry and previous occupation as a police officer.
I have never blamed the brewing industry for my alcoholism nor pharmaceutical firms for my addiction to their drugs, though they could do much more to advise the public of the dangers there are to using them. Nor did I blame the doctors and psychiatrists who prescribed the tranquillisers and sleeping pills that led to my descent into drug addiction, because at that time (1960 - 85) little was known about their dangerous side-effects with regard to addiction.
Today, in spite of what is overwhelming evidence to the contrary, prescription drug substitution is still the most commonly used treatment to tackle alcoholism, heroin, cocaine, crack, cannabis, LSD, ecstasy and gambling addictions, food and emotional disorders and depression.
As my experience of addiction and recovery is much the same as that of millions of others all over the world where this policy failed, including the millions prescribed opiates and anti-depressants, many more will die unless radical changes are made to the world’s drug laws and how the medical profession treats addiction; both of which are hugely influenced by the pharmaceutical industry and politics.
As well as preventing the deaths of the many who died, this approach led to their families and societies suffering needlessly, because it was not made clear to the afflicted there was a freely available solution that could save their lives and prevent the social and criminal mayhem this caused.
Early in my recovery I realised I had unwittingly come face to face with the absurdity of the world’s drug laws as they applied to legal and illegal drugs. I spoke about it to my counsellor and the psychiatrists treating me, but because of the fragility of my mind at the time they advised me that it was best if I keep off this subject, just to remember that for addicts like me all addictive drugs are poison and if I was to take any I would be threatening my life.
Since then, far too often I have read about someone famous who died of a drug and/or alcohol overdose. Though this is always sad, and makes headline news about the horrors of addiction, these deaths distort the truth; the millions of others who died the same way are never mentioned except as part of the statistics.
With the facts known today, this should not happen, but it does. It is often because those in the medical profession need to be better informed – especially in non-English-speaking countries. Much of the problem seems to be caused by it not being in the financial interests of Big Pharma to expose the truth about the global success of AA and NA as they promote their products instead.
This has meant neither AA nor NA has become well established in most countries, and in some they do not exist at all, so countless lives are lost unnecessarily. As these may have included your mother or father, son or daughter, husband or wife, brother or sister, it is time everyone knows the truth. Otherwise only you and the statisticians will ever know.
As I came to understand these facts, I knew I had an obligation to share my experience and let the world’s mothers and fathers be the judges and demand changes if they deem it right. After reading Millions of Miracles I hope they reach the same conclusion as me. This could mean that the solution that was freely given to the 3,500,000 who have recovered to date, is made available to every alcoholic and drug addict in the world today.
The chapters of this book tell the recovery stories of former alcoholics and addicts to many classifications of addiction. By doing so, it is hoped the pharmaceutical and brewing firms that make many of the drugs, and the world’s governments that support current drug laws, review their positions and work together to make the changes which are exposed that will save millions of lives.
The aim of writing Millions of Miracles is to:
- Make available to every addict in every country in the world a solution to their disease which, when applied, results in permanent recovery from all mood-altering addictive drugs.
- Put pressure on the World Health Organisation and United Nations to:
- Admit alcoholism, drug addiction and addictions are diseases.
- Admit the established medical facts about recovery from addiction recovery: that overall drug substitution does not work, only permanent abstinence does.
- Advise the medical profession in every country that there are available, proven, free programmes that can provide recovery from addiction.
- Put pressure on governments, law makers, pharmaceutical, alcohol and gambling firms, the WHO and UN to admit the ‘war on drugs’ has caused immense harm to society and families by preventing many addicts’ recovering.
- Inform the public of the truth about addictive drugs, dependency, and addiction, thereby reducing the present stigma attached to alcoholism and drug addiction, which is a major obstacle to recovery, especially in Muslim countries.
- Put pressure on politicians to change the drug laws that compound the problem.
- Put forward a workable solution to rectify the situation.
تحكي الملايين من المعجزات القصص الرائعة للحركات المكونة من 12 خطوة لأشخاص تعافوا من إدمان الكحول والمخدرات والقضايا العاطفية الأخرى.
تمتد هذه القصص من الكهنة والأطباء والسياسيين ومعلمي المدارس وأبطال الرياضة. من نجوم البوب إلى قادة الأعمال والمراهقين والآباء الجدد وكبار السن ، يعد الإدمان مرضًا لا يمكن تمييزه. ستفاجئ القصص التي يرويها هذا الكتاب وأحيانًا الصدمة. لكنك ستندهش أيضًا من كيف يمكن لبرنامج مجاني بسيط أن يساعد ملايين الأشخاص على التعافي والعيش حياة سعيدة ومُرضية.
ما بدأ في عام 1935 مع اثنين من مدمني الكحول يتحدثان مع بعضهما البعض ، أصبح الآن حركة عالمية في 175 دولة تساعد الذين يعانون من خلال الاجتماعات والأدب المتاح للقراءة بالعديد من اللغات. ونتيجة لذلك ، أدى نجاحها إلى بدء العديد من الزمالات المكونة من 12 خطوة للأشخاص الذين يعانون من المخدرات والقمار والجنس والسمنة وإدمان العمل والديون والاعتماد المشترك واضطرابات الأكل وغيرها من المشاكل الأسرية المختلة.
هذا الكتاب ليس فقط سردًا لكيفية عمل هذه الزمالات ، بل إنه يروي أيضًا قصصًا صريحة وصادقة حول الإدمان وإعادة التأهيل من أناس حقيقيين تعافوا. هذه هي معجزات كل منهم.
الآن السؤال الذي يطرح نفسه هل البرنامج مستوحى من الله عز وجل؟ نظرًا لأن تجربة كل شخص يتعافى غالبًا ما تكون هي نفسها ، فأنت تعلم في اللغة المكونة من 12 خطوة أنها مستوحاة من قوة أكبر أو من الله سبحانه وتعالى لأن هذا الفرد يفهم هذه الكلمة.