The 13th step does not concern social media, but centers on an issue paramount to an addict’s chance at lasting recovery.

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As an alcoholic who is probably an “old-timer” in my 12-step recovery group, a recent feature in one of the many online news groups to which I subscribe caught my eye with a headline to the effect that recovering addicts are finding social media to be the 13th step.

“OMG! Someone’s actually using the Internet to 13th-step?” I thought as I clicked the link to read what I hoped against hope would be a discussion of the notorious 13th Step and not an expose of what sometimes happens after the meetings. Alas, the article was nothing more than how some addicts are taking their recovery program public on social media presumably to find new sources of support and to “carry the message” to addicts who aren’t in recovery.

Most of us in recovery remember being warned when we were newcomers to our home groups about the unwritten and infamous 13th Step — the only step we don’t want to take.

Most of us in recovery remember being warned when we were newcomers to our home groups about the unwritten and infamous 13th Step – the only step we don’t want to take. It’s the one that warns against someone sleeping with his group sponsor and vice versa, and why members warming up bedsheets with a roll in the hay is a threat to their sobriety. Or, as I was warned way back when by my very first sponsor who never got rid of his “character defect” of being part truck driver: “F**k a member and you f**k getting sober.”

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No one knows the origin of the colloquial term – 13th Step – given to the practice of someone with more than a year of sobriety getting it on sexually with someone who has less than a year of clean time. But most everyone is warned at some point of its threat to sobriety. And while recovery literature does not use the term 13th Step specifically, most motivational and inspirational readings that virtually every 12-step program has speak to the need for addicts to overhaul their sexual lives in recovery. Some programs advise against commitments to “major” life changes other than getting sober without at least a year of sobriety, including sexual relationships.

The risk of 13th-stepping to sobriety is that a newcomer is vulnerable and open to suggestion, even exploitation, by the addict who’s been around the program longer and has racked up a lengthier period of sobriety. And it’s the inevitable guilt and stepping outside the boundaries of sponsorship and mutual respect of group members that threaten sobriety.

A newcomer still in an alcoholic or drug fog and with a totally crushed ego and self-image could be flattered that he or she can still be attractive to anyone.

But why is a newcomer vulnerable or susceptible to the sexual advances of another addict? Melody Anderson, a former program director at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, one of the country’s leading rehabilitation centers, explained it in terms of power distribution (The Fix, April 15, 2011). A newcomer still in an alcoholic or drug fog and with a totally crushed ego and self-image could be flattered that he or she can still be attractive to anyone. The newcomer then is less likely and might even welcome any kind of “positive” attention from anyone. More importantly, the newcomer may be even less likely to refuse the advances of someone he or she sees as trying to help him especially if the other person has the “power” of being sober longer.

The risk of collateral damage to partners or spouses is also very real. And in more extreme incidences that border the criminal, one or both participants could find themselves being blackmailed by the other, or by another member demanding to be paid for silence. The risk of exploitation may be especially heightened in gay and lesbian encounters: the 13th Step is gender blind.

In one case, a male and female member left a meeting and went directly to a motel afterward for sex…they ended up in jail overnight for DUI and public intoxication.

In my own experience in recovery, I’ve known of two episodes of 13th stepping, neither of which turned out good for anyone. In one case, a male and female member left a meeting and went directly to a motel afterward for sex. From there, they zipped into a bar and promptly got drunk and ended up in jail overnight for DUI and public intoxication. They never again went to the same meetings much less saw each other afterward.

The second case involved a man in recovery with a wife in the equivalent support program for spouses and partners. He began a gay sexual relationship with another member in the group. The sex lasted a number of months until the married man’s wife learned about it after her husband’s partner confessed. A divorce followed, the married man fell off the wagon and died in an alcohol-related traffic accident in which he was the driver. He also took with him the driver of the car he rammed, a 28-year-old father with a 4-month-old daughter.

This is not the 13th Step I read about in the story about addicts using social media as an extension of the other 12 steps. Thus, a suggestion to writers who aren’t in recovery but write about it: know the program!

“God grant me the serenity …”

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