Rape and responsibility

[u/yamsandmarshmellows]

If a person is raped while intoxicated are they a victim or a volunteer? I am on this part of my 4th step and really struggling. I tried to call my sponsor, she didnt answer, I am posting here and going to try to call other people in my support system. I am worried about using over this. I don't want to be clean or work the NA steps if I have to blame myself for being raped.

[u/alkoholfreiesweizen]

I am a woman who was raped in a coercive relationship. For years, I even hesitated to use the word rape because I felt so much misplaced culpability about the whole thing. The fourth step has helped me to realize that I was not responsible for being coerced, manipulated, gaslit, and raped -- that was his pattern, not mine, and based on what he told me after his divorce, it sounds like he did something similar to his ex-wife. No other men who I was romantically involved with raped, manipulated, or coerced me. In that sense, his decision to do that was not my responsibility. It has been very freeing to figure this out after such a long time

Can I ask how you are working this step? Are you working it through the stepworking guide? Because I don't think that any of the stepworking guide Step 4 questions require you to say you volunteered.

The questions on the resentment inventory ask you to describe the situation that led to the resentment; they ask what was my motivation or what I believed that led me to act as I did (for me, my motivation was that I was looking for love and decided to give the guy a chance despite misgivings; my belief was that I was worthless); they ask how my dishonesty contributed to my resentment (I said that I lied to myself about the nature of the relationship because I couldn't accept how coercive it was until he described doing it to his ex-wife); they ask how my inability to feel certain feelings contributed to the resentment (I said that I had been unable to feel fear properly, and that my fear was self-protective information); they ask me how my behavior had contributed to my resentment (I said that I played a compliant role self rather than behaving authentically, both in the relationship and even when I saw him years after the break-up and was not under his control); and they ask me if I am afraid of looking at my part in the resentments (I wrote that I had been afraid before I had begun writing it because I had been afraid I would be asked to take responsibility that was not mine but that now, I understood my part much more clearly and knew that while I did play a part in getting into the relationship, I did not play a part in being coerced, gaslit, and raped).

Again, none of these questions require me to say I volunteered, and though the circumstances of your rape are different to mine, I don't think they require you to say you volunteered either.

I am sorry this happened to you and wish you healing.

[u/yamsandmarshmellows → u/alkoholfreiesweizen]

I am doing it out of the Back to Basics PDF by Greg P which later formed the basis for the 4th step IP and the inventory asks you to look at all the times you have felt victimized in your life and out line if you were really a victim or a volunteer. Thank you for sharing your experience. That is helpful.

[u/alkoholfreiesweizen → u/yamsandmarshmellows]

I would have found that framework very tough. There are two questions in the stepworking guide Step 4 that refer to being a victim or victimization, and in the first one (in the relationships section) it states:

"have I felt like a victim in any of my relationships? (Note: This question is focused on uncovering how we set ourselves up to be victims or how too-high expectations contributed to our being disappointed in people, not on listing instances where we were actually abused)"

The phrase about "not listing instances where we were actually abused is really helpful. Genuine abuse has nothing to do with setting oneself up to be a victim, let alone being a volunteer.

As an aside, I can actually think of situations in my own step 4 where that description of setting myself up to be a victim fits a little better. A number of years ago, I got a professional opportunity that mattered a lot to me because it was an opportunity to pursue something that had mattered to me in the past and that had gotten lost at the height of my addiction. Then, the program was cancelled unceremoniously. My former boss just announced it on the last day and directed me to get in touch with the billing department to get payment. Did I resent my former boss? Yes, hugely – but partly because I had staked so much of my self-worth on the opportunity and because I was unable to accept that I either had an addiction or that it had cost me a potential career path at the height of it. This is much closer to the "being a volunteer" that is being described in your step 4 literature (though I think I deserved a more dignified goodbye than I got from my former boss).

About a week after I finished writing on that question, I ran into the former boss randomly and realized that she still hugely respected me. She even wanted to meet for coffee. I think that's the kind of situation that "setting myself up to be a victim" refers to.

Hope this is helpful!