Context blindness and one track mind thinking in addiction and recovery

In the book Context Blindness: Digital Technology and the Next Stage of Human Evolution the author said when we're all context blind, we can only follow directions blindly. I can't help but be reminded of the old school authoritarian relationship people have with their sponsor in recovery. At times it's even explicitly stated, by and as the sponsee that they HAVE to follow someone elses direction because as an addict they can't trust their own mind.

That is in a specific context, and even in the general recovery context we can make a distinction between early recovery where someone is at risk of dying by OD from a substance vs. later when there's presumably some element of mature recovery that can serve to guide other people. With regards to the latter though, even people who have been in a program for literally decades will emphatically make the statement that they need to follow someone elses direction, implying this pyramid like structure of seniority.

If that's the case though, how did the first people who found recovery do it?

Something that doesn't seem to be stated clearly is there's a difference between honesty and understanding. Someone who is being honest about how they're on a razors edge from relapsing takes themselves out of isolation by making such a statement in a group context, but that doesn't mean they understand how things work in much detail, or those around them hearing such a confession necessarily understands any more than they do. And yes, when someone is dishonest they may very well engage in some kind of twisted rationalization for using their drug or behavior of choice.

So the last paragraph is like an understanding of honesty, but what about being honest with our understanding? While some people in recovery are quick to admit they are not professionals, that doesn't stop them from recommending themselves as someone who can help and even sponsor or mentor others. So logically the question is how well can you help if your understanding is limited? In my experience this seems to be pretty much ignored, and is just chalked up to chronological time in abstinence or just in program with those that deal with subtle psychological nuances. But all things being equal, we can imagine one person in the business of say practicing medicine can do far worse than another one when they have an equal amount of experience, and there is not exactly anything like a medical board that oversees peer provided recovery support either.

That kind of brings me to the title of the post and the theme of the book cited. I think this may have something to do with addiction being some form of a one track mind. When we're fixated on one thing, we're context blind. But that also seems to explain a lot about the proposed or supposed solution. While this mindset can translate into a kind of determination, in the long run I think it's at the very least questionable how sustainable it is. And if the mentality of everyone involved in the chain of authorities is the same, just where is any kind of real understanding and discrimination supposed to come from? Perhaps it is not surprising that day counting is so big in both the NoFap community and the general addiction recovery community. A linear measure of time is one dimensional, and even as a metaphor it's easy to understand even a two dimensional view will be flat, but with this kind of perspective it's not even that sophisticated. Like the basic number line in math you have the negative on one side and the positive on the other. No doubt we deal with things with more complexity in our daily work and schooling, why is the thinking with recovery so simplistic?

On a larger collective level, I wonder whether there IS a social context in a lot of places anymore. If there is, it seems to be more a matter of everyone following a certain set of beliefs and rituals, rather than a kind of emergent mutual learning coming from the direct lived experience of each person and each other. In a longer historical time span, how realistic is it to expect this state of affairs to be sustainable or effective?

Agreement doesn't make something right or effective. But in this day and age we are familiar with the idea of an echo chamber. So to what extent might recovery groups essentially be a kind of therapeutic echo chamber? Is it possible people are mostly interested in feeling supported and "understood" by their peers but any detailed analysis is just kind of whatever or even incomprehensible, due to the fixed framing of a one track mind that is blind to other contexts? Good luck sharing something new and different in 3-5 minutes, both in articulating it and having it be heard and understood.