Rational Recovery

Rational Recovery (RR) was developed by clinical social worker lack Trimpey and his wife, Lois, as a non-spiritual alternative to the Twelve-Step program of recovery. Trimpey was able to overcome his 21-year addiction to alcohol after his wife demanded that he simply stop drinking altogether. Faced with this challenge, Trimpey quit Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and decided to confront his physical addiction directly. In 1986, Trimpey created a new organization, modeled on AA but emphasizing abstinence through self-reliance and rational thinking. The choice of the name Rational Recovery is a reference to the program's therapeutic foundation in rational emotive therapy (RET; now called rational emotive behavior therapy, REBT), a cognitive behavioral approach developed by Albert Ellis.

RR philosophy agrees with the Twelve-Step approach in the belief that recovery from alcohol dependency requires complete abstinence. However, RR states that calling alcohol dependence a disease absolves people of much of the responsibility for drinking. In RR, drug and alcohol dependence is defined in terms similar to those in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but RR does not take a position on the presence or absence of a genetic predisposition for this condition nor does it define chemical dependence as a disease. RR believes that defining alcoholism as a disease is not based on definitive research data. In fact, RR holds that such a position is ultimately irrelevant since the solution to the problem of addiction is the same whether it is considered a disease or the result of genetic predisposition.

RR begins with the belief in unconditional self-acceptance. An assumption of RR, derived from RET-REBT, is that individuals who are alcohol dependent do not need to achieve sobriety in order to build their self-esteem and feel that they are worthwhile. The RR principle is that people achieve sobriety for their own sake because they are inherently worthwhile. Another [Page 760]important difference between Twelve-Step programs and RR is that the latter involves a process of abstaining from mind-altering substances through the exercise of self-discipline and rational thinking rather than through dependence on a higher power. RR emphasizes personal control versus personal powerlessness. Consistent with the major assumptions of RET-REBT, individuals are encouraged to avoid labeling themselves as alcoholics or drug addicts, as that defines the person's essence. This type of self-labeling indicates that a person has always been and will always be an alcoholic or addict, as that is their nature. According to RR, it is better to view oneself as a person who is currently addicted to alcohol or other drugs but who possesses many positive characteristics, talents, strengths, and limitations and weaknesses. The aspect of being addicted to alcohol or other drugs was not always true and need not be true tomorrow. Therefore, individuals who abstain from alcohol or drugs are considered by RR as recovered as opposed to recovering.

The major task in recovery from addiction is learning to think rationally, as guided by the cognitive behavioral principles of the ABCs of rational thinking. Briefly, the ABCs of RET-REBT are activating events (this includes describing the specific situation); beliefs, attitudes, and ideas (specifying one's wants, desires, demands, or commands); consequences (specifying both rational and irrational emotions and behaviors); dispute (replacing irrational beliefs with rational ones); and finally, effects (comparing emotional responses tied to one's irrational beliefs with more rational alternatives).

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