The Threefold Illness and the Threefold Solution

Most people think addiction is about the drink or the drug. If that were true, nobody would ever relapse.

Addiction damages three things: the body, the mind and the spirit. Stopping repairs only the first of them. That is why somebody can be physically well, genuinely want to stay stopped, and still find themselves back where they started six months later.

This guide and workbook sets the three-part illness against the three-part solution that Alcoholics Anonymous has been using for decades. Recovery works on the mind, through the Twelve Steps. Unity holds the body, through the fellowship and the Traditions. Service rebuilds the spirit, through carrying the message. Three sides of one triangle, and it will not hold if one of them is missing.

What you get

Part One is the reading. It explains how addiction attacks each part of you and how each of the Three Legacies answers it, with two short examples of what happens when somebody works two sides and neglects the third.

Part Two is the workbook, ten exercises that take you from what addiction actually took from you, through an honest score of each side of your own triangle, to a seven day tracker and a commitment you sign.

Inside the workbook

• What did it take. Sorting your own losses into body, mind and spirit
• Separate exercises on your body, your mind and your spirit
• Score your own triangle out of ten on each side
• The side you are avoiding, and the real reason why
• Three realistic actions, one for each side
• A seven day tracker and an end of week review
• A commitment page to sign

Who it is for

Anyone in recovery who has stopped and can feel that something is still missing. Also written to be usable by counsellors, key workers and treatment services running group work, where it can be printed and worked through session by session.

Format

23 pages. A4. PDF, ready to print or to complete on screen.

Written by Soraya McLellan, BSc (Hons) Psychotherapeutic Counselling, MBACP. Integrative therapist and substance misuse therapist in residential rehabilitation.

This material is not affiliated with, approved by or endorsed by Alcoholics Anonymous.