On not liking asparagus

A large part of group therapy in a substance use treatment center is “psychoeducation,” which typically covers topics like the science of addiction, medication information, and models of addiction. Absent from these typical topics are those that students would find in a college or university environment. That absence has been made on purpose. Social scientists tend to disqualify certain topics from the treatment programs in substance abuse facilities because they (appear to) have no bearing on the problem of addiction and the practice of recovery. One example of an excluded topic is epistemology, the study of how we know or come to know anything at all. I have not encountered any research discussing this specific topic within the realm of substance abuse treatment, but I would not be surprised to find comments suggesting that clients either aren’t able to fully “get” epistemological issues (because of withdrawal symptoms, assumed levels of intelligence, or lack of formal educational experience), or, if they “get it,” then the topic itself is too boring and/or disconnected from the real world of substance abuse. People who know me will anticipate that both possible objections hold no water with me, and they may even be able to hear me thinking, “Let me give it a shot. Let me see if I can make this interesting.” 
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And that’s what I recently did in a group therapy session titled, “On not liking asparagus.” I was not going entirely rogue with my decision. The National Philosophical Counseling Association stakes its theory of change on the value of shifting epistemological frameworks in order to see oneself and the world anew. To interest clients in the task at hand, which, admittedly, has nothing to do with addiction, I introduced them to this imaginary child-like statement I first encountered in Slavoj Žižek’s The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989):

I’m so glad I don’t like asparagus because if I did then I’d eat a lot of asparagus, and that would be terrible because I hate asparagus.

And then I transposed the same logic to a more familiar topic:

I’m so glad I don’t go to NA/AA meetings because if I did, and if I started liking the meetings, then I’d be at meetings all the time.

The clients laughed and looked puzzled as they encountered the apparent contradiction at the heart of the statements. I asked if the statement seemed illogical or if, to the contrary, they could see a certain logic at work. We collaborated on answering the question and came up with this general epistemological framework that allows the asparagus statement to make sense to the kid who utters it.

• What I know is permanent. That which I know, the truths I know, will remain truths. Thus, I don’t like asparagus and I never will. And: Not like asparagus = neither eating nor enjoying asparagus.
• New experiences will only present a challenge to my certainty, and for that reason the challenge will fail straight away. What about trying some asparagus to see if things have changed since the last time you tried it? No. Why bother? A new asparagus is an old asparagus. A new taste of that asparagus is the old taste of that asparagus.
• This same principle operates in certain other non-asparagus situations. There will be other “new” iterations of “old” experiences to which I will object straightaway because of the same belief.
• Given all of that, when I experience new things, especially asparagus, I’ll run the experience through my pre-existing way of thinking instead of letting the experience change how I think. This may not be what I choose to do, but it will likely happen automatically because the way of knowing is a certainty.

If we make a few adjustments, we can see the same logic at work in the statement about the NA/AA meetings. I often here, "I don't like these meetings because they are like church. They're too religious." One client recently said to me, "I didn't put down the bottle to join a cult." And there's a legitimate and valid emotion tucked inside that statement, for sure. But the logic at work smells like asparagus. Church = Bad. AA = Church. AA = Bad. At no point has the experience of an AA meeting overcoded the original equation, and so AA and Church and Bad all live together in the same mental schema. Of course, the clients who think in this way often have very little experience with AA meetings, and so the general tone of their resistance is that old experiences function like prescription lenses with out-dated prescriptions. All things viewed through the lenses are blurry and for that reason unattractice.
 
​Clearly, however, some kids grow out of the anti-asparagus logic. By extension, we can imagine that adults can also learn to move beyond the same logic. But how does that change happen? How do we grow out of a way of thinking and knowing grounded in the seeming safety of certainty? How do we change? How are we changed? Again, the clients and I collaborated to create answers to those questions:

• First, everyone was ready to admit that some people don’t grow out of it. Some people don't change. 
• For those who do change and grow, change seems to require letting a new experience change the fundamental structure of thought that pre-exists the experience. In this way, new experiences will precede the change in the sense of coming first in the change process. Old certainties come to acquire meaning retroactively, which further allows for the possibility that the meaning of an old certainty is that the old way was impermanent. Where change and meaning are concerned, new experiences are necessary steps required to know anything.

What now can we outline in an easy-to-understand manner?

• “Eating asparagus” is something like “Not abusing drugs”
• While in treatment, you are eating asparagus, but the relevant question emerges as this: Once out of treatment, will you prepare asparagus for yourself? (Lots of doubtful faces)
• The real “change” we’re seeking here, then, can’t actually happen in treatment. The change will come outside of treatment when you hear others say, “How’s cooking and eating that asparagus going?” (Doubtful faces turn to nodding heads and expressions that suggest, ah, yes, I see).

Of the many important take-away messages from this group, I would like to underscore one in particular. If a treatment facility (or any therapist for that matter) tells you that a stay in treatment or a series of sessions will create lasting change, they are promising something they cannot possibly promise. Change will only take place after the possibility of change becomes thinkable and palpable. Therapy sessions are the places where this new way of thinking/seeing/knowing/feeling arises. Life outside the therapy room is where the change takes place.