Ex-Addict Launches Addicts NOT Anonymous as an Alternative to AA and NA

April 7, 2012 - PRLog -- As a ex-addict and ex-con himself, Tom Retterbush hopes to build the support network of Addicts NOT Anonymous based on tolerance, acceptance and understanding around shared experiences, rather than the rigid traditional program of rituals, traditions and secrecy normally associated with 12 Step Programs.

With more and more people speaking out against the anonymous concept associated with AA, NA and other similar 12 Step Programs, the timing of Tom's program launch couldn't have been better. The Anonymous Factor may have been useful at one time, back when addiction was still seen as a humiliating weakness of character, but today addiction is seen more as for what it is, a very common disease..

Many people in AA or NA will do anything but break their anonymity, still identifying themselves only as “recovering alcoholics” or "recovering addicts", but what if the many movers and shakers of the world who are in AA or NA - the senators and congressmen, ministers, doctors and lawyers and Fortune 500 businessmen—stood up and were counted as recovering addicts or alcoholics? It would go a long way toward clearing away the misunderstandings that still surround addiction.

Tom never liked AA and NA's conventional, immovable, indisposed, inflexible , intractable, fearful fuddy-duddy ritualistic programs, with no room for tolerance, compromise, compassion or good will.

With  Addicts NOT Anonymous, Tom has founded a program of acceptance, patience, sensitivity, sympathy, toleration and understanding. ANA is about accepting that an addict may still used drugs occasionally, than an alcoholic may have a beer now and then, but that disqualify him or her from the program as it would with AA or NA.

"Everybody is different. Just because a former addict uses occasionally doesn't meant they are hopelessly lost and need to be banned from the program," Tom said, "and just because a heroin addict now smokes pot, doesn't mean he needs treatment, either."

Because everyone is different, the world needs more alternatives to 12-step groups so that those in recovery can have more choices. That is why Tom founded Addicts NOT Anonymous.

For more on Tom's reasoning and rationalization behind Addicts NOT Anonymous, check out his article, Are Addicts Ready to Shed their Anonymity and Face Society with their Names?, at http://www.addictsnotanonymous.com/2011/09/are-addicts-re..., as well as the About Page on the Addicts NOT Anonymous blog.

Tom believes recovering addicts need to face up to their problems and quit hiding behind anonymity, making excuses, instead being accountable with their names, faces and actions.

If you would like to get involved with Addicts NOT Anonymous, no matter if you would like to write a story about your drug use, treatment or recovery, or if you would like to help with an advice article, check out the Addicts NOT Anonymous blog, at http://www.addictsnotanonymous.com.

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Addiction, treatment and recovery articles by recovering and using addicts who do NOT wish to be anonymous, nameless, faceless statistics who want to put their name on stories, articles, tips and techniques to help them overcome or cope with addiction.