AA 12 Steps & AS

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I've been in various 12 step groups for over 15 years now, but since my AS diagnoses recently, I have started to see the 'disorder' & 'defect' orientation that underpins the fellowship, at odds with the rather liberating 'deference' orientation of the Aspie movements and communities.

After years of training myself out of using my 'autistic hands' the process of de-programing and letting go of my obsession with simulating 'normality' seems to have started.

Anyone out there relate to this?

Hi criss, im not sure i follow. Have you been attending 12-step groups for something specifically AS related? I thought they were just to do with addictions?

there is a 12 step group for nearly every problem under the sun and they are not just for people suffering addictions but also for people who are partners of addicts or like Donna Williams grew up in a chronically dysfunctional home.

I am the secretary of 12 step group that helps people with compulsivity around the issues of love and relationships.

There is not a 12 step group for people with AS.

cx

It is liberating. Things have fallen in to place for me. I see why I had so many sex partners, I understand my drinking, to some extent my use of drugs. 12 step programs (AA/NA, NA was pretty new in the sense that they met with AA) and I had a serious falling out. But not before I gleaned what I could that seemed to fit. I'm not the only one here with that experience. The problem I had was they just were not in touch with the 21st century. Didn't understand the trouble I had just being in a group setting, in the environment. I didn't either to be truthful. I lucked out, my probation officer was very open minded and I and a friend worked out and talked out what was needed. No steps to it, but consideration for what fit and what other things we understood to be important. At that time I had no DX of any type. He later went on to have what was judged as one of the best programs in the New York State Prison system. And I helped. But from the outside, who knows how many with AS are on the inside. I boot the 12 stepper programs in the ass every time I can, but peacefully. Doubt it will do one bit of good. Take a look at old Bill W, their founder, the guy was a sexual predator and they are in denial to this day. I learned early if you bring up the word sex, you could shut up a meeting in a hot second. But yet sex is horribly important to bring up. Big change in it after you stop drinking. But bring it up, you'll freak em out. Go to a 12 step program dealing with sex? Why? It was apparent to me, both were related. Now I look back on it and marvel the steppers didn't wreck it completely. Bottom line, it wasn't my fault. I had been set up by nature. I am aspie, I have PTSD, I'm dyslexic and may have a touch of Bipolar. Hard to know anymore. (Maybe more, maybe less I don't know and I don't care. This fits, I'm home.) Where is that listed and how is it dealt with in any 12 step program you have ever seen? It is my roots. Let me repeat that, it is the cause. It is why I did what I did, it was survival. Drinking saved my life. Then I had to save it again by not drinking. Obsessions actually played a huge hand in the stopping of all of it. I let them guide me, get my mind of the other things. In other words, I wasn't in denial of who and what I am, just didn't have a label for it then.

As far as your group goes. I did it because I was looking for a type of love that had been denied me. Everything that was supposed to be love, felt like a whack to me. I was on a road to find "love" that fit me, not them. It was confusing because I didn't understand my root cause. It was a form of the cycle of abuse that to few 12 steppers programs can understand. As a matter of fact show me one that does understand this from AS's point of view and I'll pay em a visit. I want to see how they work it.

You don't have to have a life time of commitment of sitting in a room with people that you wouldn't want to go to bed with to begin with. Same with the AA group. That kind of life is no life at all. What part of no is so hard? They preach powerless? Screw that I need all the power in the world to say the no to start with, afterwards it get's easier. Higher power? I am my own higher power, no one going to do it but me.

Chronically dysfunctional home, it is indeed a cycle. Exceptions to it, such as PTSD. But that PTSD can start a new cycle of its own that can wreck for generations after. That cycle repeats itself for more then one reason. It's the cycle that must be broken. Sometimes just information can do it. It's an underlying tone here at WP.

I was and am surprised at the low ratio of abusers here. But they very well may be out doing the destructive part yet. However, my age group is not well represented. This thing known as AS, just was not well understood. Add in the fact that those of us that have survived, have hiding skills, coping skills which tend to mask what might have been more apparent today. There are a large number (guess) of people that have been misDXed, some are just plain dead, didn't make it and some still don't know why they suffer through life. We will never know the true numbers.

Get me on the subject of 12 steppers and I won't shut up for a year. Little obsessive about it and pissed at them for not waking up and smelling the coffee. We're talking real lives being lost. They're running a revolving door, they claim high rates of success, but every independent study worth a damn has said other wise.

I'm not exactly following you on your stimming. Do you know how many different forms that can take? Some aren't so obvious. My wife had to point them out to me when doing the test. I just thought they were normal things everybody did.

Criss,

Not sure that I exactly follow what kind of question you're asking, but I'll see if I can answer it anyway since it is definitely pertinent with regards to 12-Step participation.

I've been in SAA (Sex Addict's Anonymous) for the past 3 to 4 years. A lot of people who know me and about my group work find it strange that I am in SAA because I'm a 31-year old virgin. They do not understand that I'm a virgin because of my addiction, not despite it. My AS has prevented me from relating to people normally. I could only do so through the Internet, and by going into strip clubs and literally paying for companionship in a seriously messed-up attempt to try and understand how women work. My AS has shown me that my problem is much broader; I just plain don't get people, period. My addiction made me find companionship in the wrong way with the wrong people, and the social immaturity that has already constantly plagued me has become much more self-evident. My 12-Step work in SAA has helped me understand that I'm afraid of what I crave (irony of ironies), and that's intimacy. I just started individual and group therapy with a woman who specializes in sex addiction. Meeting with the group and with her has been enlightening and has helped, but hasn't fully addressed the root of the problem (my AS). That said, I disclosed my condition to members of the 12-Step group I meet with and in group on Monday. Everyone has been very supportive and a few have even asked for information about AS so that they can better understand me (and perhaps even themselves).

I don't know how relevant any of this is to answering your question, but I figured I'd let you know about my background since it might be relevant. I'll see if I can truly decipher what you're trying to ask, and this is the gist that I got from it. In your quest for "normalcy," you find yourself at odds with members of your 12-step group as you try to uncover yourself from the shroud of having an ASD, and you're wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience. Am I right? If that's the case, I would say no, and am surprised that your 12-step group for whatever affliction you're grappling with isn't more supportive. Perhaps it's time for you to find a new 12-Step group, or for you to be more clear about what you hope to gain from the group and how you want people to understand you. That's about all I can tell you. I hope this helps.

Brad

I do not think 12 step groups are at all applicable to people with AS! However, some people may find comfort by being accepted my others in the 12-step community. Nevertheless, AS in itself is not an addiction or a compulsion. But, it could help such addictions and compulsion that come about as a result of having AS!