It’s really a sad state of affairs when we see how infectious our appetite can be to watch someone self-destruct.  It’s like bees to honey—we can’t seem to get enough. It’s crazy that within a 24 hour period of Charlie Sheen opening up his first twitter account, he had the fastest following, thus far, of one million people.  What does that say about our society? If people really cared about Charlie, as his dad does, then people would stop buying into the self-destructive rants of Charlie Sheen. This isn’t fun to watch, it’s disturbing. What is most disturbing is hearing Charlie Sheen talk so negatively about the recovery community. In an interview, Charlie Sheen described 12-step organizations as “bootleg cults” and also went on to say, “I am special, and will never be one of you.” As a person in a 12-step fellowship,recovery is about taking responsibility and being accountable for our actions. Recovery as experienced through our twelve steps is our goal, not mere physical abstinence.  We learn that we are not the center of the universe. While using, we thought that we had fun and that non-users were deprived of it. People in recovery look at the unmanageability of their life in active addiction and realize how out of control we really were.  We know that we are powerless over a disease that is incurable, progressive and fatal. We soon realize that we are not bad people—we are sick people. Through the 12 steps, we learn how to become responsible for our actions.  When we lose self-obsession, we are able to understand what it means to be happy, joyous, and free. We do live to become productive, responsible members of society.  I would like to propose that instead of looking at the negative effect of a self-centered, out of control, erratic person like Charlie Sheen spouting his insanity, that we should focus on what recovery has done for millions of people all over the world. We do recover!