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This idea was brought up in Isaac’s thread in GBS about not being a heavy alcoholic anymore so I figure I would start the ball rolling since there seemed to be interest in learning about what it was like then and what it is like now. I welcome anyone from that thread or not from that thread to offer their own stories and answer questions too, which is why this is “ask us”. This doesn’t have to focus solely on alcohol (I certainly didn’t) but I am going to focus on it here. I guess I could post a long rear end story of my whole life but that wouldn’t leave much to ask so I’ll just give the shortened version, which will still be long I am guessing. I grew up in a religious household and remember about the age of 5 having my first panic attack. The answer to everything was “pray harder” so you can probably imagine why I started abusing substances (I don’t want to cut down people who find religion successful for them but the way it was taught to me from the day I was born did not help me with my problems). I can remember my childhood but not a lot of it in detail so I can’t really get too much into that. In high school I first smoked pot in 12th grade, at least in a way that got me high. I was still having severe anxiety which left me with some friends since I was a musician and I hung out with the people I played with but no close friendships and an inability to have any relationships with girls because of the anxiety. Weed was great but it wasn’t until college that I really took off with it. The few times I drank in high school I got blackout drunk since I didn’t know when to stop (you will see a trend there) but weed was the est thing ever until I got out of college and moved, didn’t know where to find weed and started drinking vodka heavily. I started losing friends and still had no relationships. My anxiety was better because I had gotten into meditation in college, which was a somewhat brief window of sobriety and taught me mindfulness and how to manage immediate panic, but the damage was done in terms of my brain having learned to rely on substances. I ended up in rehab at 24 after almost dying from drinking so much and at that point it had affected my work since I was passing out in the early hours of the morning and not going to work. I was drinking about .75-1.25 handles of vodka a night. Somehow I still have the same job now (I am a teacher at a music conservatory, teach privately and am a freelance musician) but I was dangerously close to losing it. During rehab I just wanted to not drink or do anything at all but they wanted me to take Zoloft and gave me some medication to help me sleep. I left early and finished that medication script in two nights since I downed them all and went to the pharmacy to beg for more, which didn’t work obviously. Slowly I progressed back into drinking more and then cut back telling myself that if I only drank beer that I would be ok. So that led to drinking 20-30 beers a night playing online video games (still no friends or relationships, and I am not exaggerating). Until 28 years old I just drank basically, also doing any drugs I came across as well and there are a lot of stories here about being a sad sack alcoholic but I will save those for any questions that come up. I tried to kill myself a few times but always woke up afterwards. When I was 28 my dad died and I stopped drinking, worked on being healthier for about a year until I entered my first relationship with my future wife. I mean first because this was actually my first relationship. I started drinking socially with her and did ok for a while but then started drinking when out with friends (I had made friends that year after my dad died) and it just ramped up from there. There are also more stories here which I will skip until answers for the sake of brevity. Still doing any drugs I came across even taking large amounts of Benadryl for no reason other than to get hosed up. Around 2012 I started reading about mental health and assumed I was depressed. I had no health insurance and read that DXM (the ingredient in cough syrup) had SSRI properties so I started taking small doses and it was like coming out of a fog - I felt “normal”. But then I started taking too much and abused it for about a full year, taking the equivalent of 3-5 bottles of cough syrup a day for about 9 months. No one knew what I was doing but my wife knew something was wrong. I damaged my professional life there too showing up to commitments unable to play and feigning sickness but I could basically not even talk at the worst of it. Still perceived as functional somehow. After stopping that I tried to get completely sober - I had gotten health insurance but after seeing a doctor and health clinic I had to wait 4 months to get to see anyone. They prescribed me an antidepressant to take by myself in this period of time and i was drinking less but when I did I didn’t know how much I thought I could handle and ended up severely blacking out every time, doing thing that I will not mention due to the rule about not discussing anything illegal. After a a couple months in to taking the antidepressant, I went out for what I said would be a few drinks with the drummer and ended up in an ambulance after passing out and hitting my head in the street. After a night in the ER of being unable to talk I ent to treatment a second time, 10 years after my first visit. This time I told myself i was serious and would do anything they said. They put me on 7 medications for anxiety, bipolar 2 and depression. The doctor said I must have some genetic super liver (not kidding) because I had no liver damage after all of this, according to the blood tests. It was going well until I got out of outpatient (there were 10 days of inpatient before this) and got to meet some truly inept and uncaring therapists, which is a story in and of itself. I started abusing substances for a short while after getting my wisdom teeth out and getting a prescription for painkillers. Eventually i realized that I wasn’t feeling anything and went off all of them at once. I started talking to a girl online, told my wife that I wanted to separate (my relationship with her is also a long story, lets just say we both had issues) and three weeks after that my head cleared and I realized that I had made a mistake. I started drinking heavily again, going through drinking as heavy as my worst going through 3/4 to a entire handle of vodka a night. I was also taking a lot of Benadryl again at the same time and had some frightening and hilarious to talk about sometimes hallucinations. I started having weird feelings like crawling sensations in my abdomen around my liver which progressed to pain. I still get it occasionally but it is a lot better than it was for that year. I eventually sold my house and moved. I had my dead dad’s stuff, my dead grandma’s stuff, my wife’s stuff that she left and didn’t want as well as everything I had kept since college to go through but I got it all done and moved into a condo that is at the end of a street next to the park. Very peaceful and a five minute walk from my wife’s place, which is good since our daughter goes back and forth every day sleeping at our place one night,my wife’s the next etc. We have been separated for a couple years now and I would like to reconcile but it is in her court. We both have issues with each other that we need to work through and we still love each other and she has not served my papers but I don’t know if that will ever happen since it is up to her. I haven’t drank since moving and the only substances I put in my body are coffee and kratom. I don’t want to get into it since I have been probated twice for talking about kratom (a legal substance related to coffee) in the drug forum not affecting me like a drug, but all I will say is that i take such small amounts that it is just for energy and I feel sober 100%. I am working on mindfulness a lot, have my sad days but am not depressed and have my anxious days but am not generally anxious or having panic attacks. I think I was misdiagnosed in treatment and was just a bad alcoholic whose symptoms from that illness were diagnosed as mental disorders and the mental problems that I did have were either related to substance abuse, made manageable through mindfulness and did not need medication with the proper coping skills. I should also mention that I have stories about AA and got into it big time for about a year. I worked really hard at it because I was told it was the right thing to do and the only way to get better. It was not for me and if anyone has questions about any of that I am happy to talk about it. So that is it - still long but not as long as it could have been . I know that others will be able to chime in with their own stories and answers as well and I look forward to learning together. Right now I am just a fairly normal guy who is generally excited about being alive who is focused on being the best dad I can be and hopefully someday the best husband I can be too. I have not drank since last July and my new place has never seen alcohol in it. I am trying to the with a cat on my lap so I apologize for any typos I missed or weird autocorrects. I welcome any questions and anyone having dealt with addiction who is now on the other side to offer answers and stories. Edit: I forgot to mention that while working on AA I was doing the reconciliation thing and telling people about my history with alcohol. Most were shocked and the vast majority had no idea I drank heavily and though I was just a normal dude (at every stage and age of this story). Just a fun fact I forgot to mention. rio fucked around with this message at 05:56 on Sep 25, 2017 |
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Sep 25, 2017 05:51
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Glad you are doing better. I have tried to sober up three times and each ended when a close friend committed suicide.
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Sep 25, 2017 06:10
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Great idea for a thread, thanks for starting it. I've been sober from alcoholism for four years now (mainly doing 12 steps) and indeed some random goon advice is actually a small part of what got me here, so I feel like I have something to give back here. I started typing out my story but as it's taking longer than I anticipated, I'll just say for now that I'd love to answer any questions about my disease, recovery experiences, AA... you name it.rio posted:Edit: I forgot to mention that while working on AA I was doing the reconciliation thing and telling people about my history with alcohol. Most were shocked and the vast majority had no idea I drank heavily and though I was just a normal dude (at every stage and age of this story). Just a fun fact I forgot to mention. 
Drink-Mix Man fucked around with this message at 09:10 on Sep 25, 2017 |
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Sep 25, 2017 09:05
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Thanks for posting this thread, OP!, and sharing your story! Glad to hear about your massive and impressive progress  I think it might be helpful, if the OP had a few suggestions on talking-points, and some questions that it'd be interesting to hear multiple answers on from people who might stop by and be willing to share part of their experience, too. I could definitely see this topic ending up with a bunch of interest, and it'd just make it easier for new people on the Tell-side to jump in and contribute, I think! Anyway, questions; rio posted:Edit: I forgot to mention that while working on AA I was doing the reconciliation thing and telling people about my history with alcohol. Most were shocked and the vast majority had no idea I drank heavily and though I was just a normal dude (at every stage and age of this story). Just a fun fact I forgot to mention. I'm really surprised to hear that! Is this because you had few really close personal relationships where you saw people often, or were you just that good at hiding it from family and friends? My perspective on this as a a friend and family member to a number of alcoholics, is that I absolutely did not feel that they could hide this, and that it was really, really obvious when people were drinking. What kind of strategies did you use, like, mouthwash and smoking to hide the scent of alcohol, hiding alcohol in absurd places? Specifically about the reconciliation step - does people being surprised at your drinking problem translate into them not having the same sense of as if you needed to make reconciliations, as you did yourself? I mean, I'm assuming the reason you visit someone during the reconciliation step, is to make some sort of amends, but if people didn't know you had a problem, did they even have an impression of being slighted? Outside being surprised, did you find people to be sympathetic, or did they get angry, or a mix? Also, congratulations on 4 years, Drink-Mix Man, that is impressive as hell! More questions; Do you have experience with antabus/disulfiram treatment, and if you do, did you find it useful? Did you ever drink alcohol while on antabus/disulfiram? If you have made multiple recovery-attempts, what were the "wake-up calls" that made you start them, and what do you think is the reason why some might have worked well and others didn't? It'd generally be interesting to hear of any "wake-up calls" that might stand out - whether they lead to recovery-attempts or not, like, what kind of moments or impressions would it generally be, that made you think "I need to stop this"? Do you feel as if friends and family can force or set ultimatums that helps a recovery-process, like denying access to family get-togethers if someone doesn't go to rehrab, or should a support network attempt to be available, or what kind of general thoughts do you have as to what approaches by friends and family are constructive and less constructive - like, in your process, how did friends and family help out in the most meaningful way for you?
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Sep 25, 2017 10:45
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Grandmother of Five posted:
Well, most all my friends were drinking buddies for one, and they didn't see anything different about my drinking from theirs. A lot of this would have to do with the fact that I'd go out and basically just match drinks with everyone else (for the most part), then just rush home afterward to get completely obliterated in private. Or vice versa, start the party with a couple six packs before I arrived. I wasn't necessarily drunk 24/7, but I did lots of secret drinking. I definitely tried to do a lot of scent-masking, carried eye drops. I even ordered a case of some special gum that was supposed to remove alcohol smell from my breath. (Note: it didn't disguise anything from the cops when they pulled me over for my second DUI.) I rarely drank around my family, except my alcoholic father and sister. For the rest, I always showed up clean-cut and really honed this well-mannered, innocent young man act. Alcoholics are generally all actors, and some are better than others. Addressing this tendency to always display what I think people want to see of me is a huge part of my recovery. How well we hide it partly has to do with how far our disease has progressed, too. Grandmother of Five posted:
Never did any of those treatments. When I decided to seek help in recovery, I tried AA first (plus some court-ordered counseling) and thankfully, that was effective enough for me. Personally, I just felt I was done trying to seek a chemical solution to a chemical problem. My recovery has been all about A) recognizing I'm powerless over alcohol after taking the first drink, and B) addressing the psychological/emotional/spiritual issues that drive me to pick up the first drink. On the wake-up calls, I had an extreme DUI in '08 after a blackout, throw-up drunk. Then I had a super-extreme DUI in 2013 which felt like a normal, moderately drinking day. So these consequences woke me up, and I had indisputable evidence that my tolerance had gone way up. A prudish girlfriend hated my drinking, and we broke up after some fights partly revolving around my hiding alcohol and drinking in secret. I was also just miserable. There was a period in my early 20's when I could solve a lot of problems with booze and have a great, normal time. Now I was finding I had this unfillable black hole in my chest all the time, and the booze just wasn't doing what it used to to fill the void. (Not that I didn't try.) I had also tried quitting for ethical and health reasons (getting into Buddhism and meditation) and found I just kept coming back to it over and over. Grandmother of Five posted:Do you feel as if friends and family can force or set ultimatums that helps a recovery-process, like denying access to family get-togethers if someone doesn't go to rehrab, or should a support network attempt to be available, or what kind of general thoughts do you have as to what approaches by friends and family are constructive and less constructive - like, in your process, how did friends and family help out in the most meaningful way for you? Hard to say about a lot of these people, because I mentioned before I kept it pretty well-hidden from practically everyone. My aforementioned girlfriend would issue a lot of protests and some ultimatums over my drinking, and it helped me "bare-knuckle" sobriety for a while, though ultimately just drove me to drink in secret as I wasn't really ready to quit. However, this stuff did eventually become part of my tapestry of wake-up calls over time, so it was important. "Frothy emotional appeals" alone seldom lead to lasting sobriety (for most people I've met), so I'd hedge your expectations a little on them, at least in the short term. But this stuff adds up over time. I'd say just approach things with as much love as possible, and definitely don't hesitate to take the dramatic actions like kicking someone out of a house if their drinking is hurting somebody. (Or if poo poo has just gone on too long.) In the end, though, just keep in mind it's a disease and don't waste your time hoping that reason will prevail or that they'll somehow figure out how to drink like normal people. Drink-Mix Man fucked around with this message at 23:10 on Sep 25, 2017 |
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Sep 25, 2017 22:04
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Grandmother of Five posted:Thanks for posting this thread, OP!, and sharing your story! Glad to hear about your massive and impressive progress Thanks for the suggestions - I think talking points are a good idea. And I think the things you asked are good ones! I think that i and a lot of other "functional" alcoholics hid it well enough because it is just lying in the end. I lied to myself all of the time so it wasn't very hard to lie to others, and except when i was taking the antidepressants towards the end I could drink more than anyone I knew and could still appear functional even if I was smashed or even blacked out. It is pretty hosed up how that works. I think the only person who knew how much I was drinking was my wife because she saw the empty bottles but eventually I started hiding that from her. I had many hiding places and no one found them. Mouthwash was also a big thing but it doesn't work very well. I chewed gum all of the time as well. No one got angry at the reconciliations and many didn't really find it necessary. Some people got kind of judge mental about it and they treated me differently afterwards. The times I tried to get clean were usually precipitated by catastrophic consequences of drinking and drugging. Passing out places I didn't remember was not bad enough for me, like passing out in the driveway somehow having gone to sleep inside the house and having a massive sunburn on half of my body, working up with things broken in the house and all of that - even suicide attempts did not get me to want to stop. They usually had to do with feeling like I was going to die and occasionally having the police come from friends calling them out of concern from things I said while I was blacked out. The only exceptions were when I moved last year, which was also the time I started taking very small amounts of kratom (which is known for somehow removing the desire to abuse substances in some people) and when my dad died. All of the other times I stopped were from severe consequences of my drinking. My family didn't really do any of the stuff you mentioned and they didn't know how much I was drinking anyway. The family who made me not end up dead, most likely, was my daughter. I haven't cared for anyone in my life as much as her and her mom has issues as well so from the beginning I have told myself that I need to be alive to take care of her - at least until she is out of high school. I hope I live longer but that is the bargain I am telling the universe - just let me live until she is an adult. Even though my drinking was still severe, it was not as bad comparatively after she was born with a lot of small recovery periods in that time. I had no coping skills though so every time there was stress (and there often was with my wife) I would pick up a bottle again and for a good period of that time I was only drinking beer, which was problematic but no where near as bad as when I drank liquor.
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Sep 25, 2017 23:32
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Thanks for the in-depth answers from you both @ rio I'd be interested in hearing more about your experience with lovely, inept therapists, and also how AA might have helped you out and why it didn't turn out to be for you. Drink-Mix Man posted:"Frothy emotional appeals" alone seldom lead to lasting sobriety (for most people I've met), so I'd hedge your expectations a little on them, at least in the short term. But this stuff adds up over time. I'd say just approach things with as much love as possible, and definitely don't hesitate to take the dramatic actions like kicking someone out of a house if their drinking is hurting somebody. (Or if poo poo has just gone on too long.) In the end, though, just keep in mind it's a disease and don't waste your time hoping that reason will prevail or that they'll somehow figure out how to drink like normal people. I absolutely agree, by the way. I can understand if it sounds like it, but I'm not trying to ask for fixes on how to cure anyone I know In my experience as a friend and family member to a handful of addicts, stuff like the "frothy emotional appeals", interventions, and cutting off contact from an addict in various ways, isn't helpful for the addict, as much as it is something that friends and family members may need to do for themselves, and I was curious about whether this experience extended to some of those of you on "the other side".Drink-Mix Man posted:Alcoholics are generally all actors, and some are better than others. Addressing this tendency to always display what I think people want to see of me is a huge part of my recovery. There is this saying in Danish that I don't know if there in an English equivalent of, but it basically goes "the best acting is seen off-stage", and I think that's true. Alcoholics or not, were all pretty good at pretending, if we have to, especially when believing our own lies. I'd say that, close friends and family-members might often have a good idea about whether someone is drinking, but also really wants to believe that it isn't the case, and for a good long while, is willing to accept really poor excuses, both as an attempt to believe in someone suffering from addiction, but also as an attempt to not be hurt yourself, by not plainly uncovering and confronting breaches of trust. The lie is often shared to some extent, I think.
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Sep 26, 2017 11:04
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Following; alcoholic/drug addict/co-dependent, sober for 4 years and some. I might add my story if there's interest.
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Sep 26, 2017 11:48
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Grandmother of Five posted:Thanks for the in-depth answers from you both I'll start by saying that in inpatient and outpatient treatment, I had phenomenal therapists. They really cared, were engaged and offered a huge amount of resources with coping skills and information. Inpatient was 10 days and outpatient was full day for 7 weeks and half day for 7 weeks. After that, it took a couple of months to get to see a therapist and my insurance would only let me go to one place. The first therapist I had was mentally checked out and just didn't really offer anything that helped. She was quiet most of the time, which is not a bad thing, but in this case it was because she just didn't seem to care. She was also severely overweight and I am not judging her for that as a person but after quitting drinking I had a problem with overeating (binging, like a full quart of ice cream if I had any and that kind of stuff) and she just couldn't offer any help with that. It wasn't a weight thing, since although I was getting chubby at 6'1" and about 210-215 pounds, I was more concerned about my health binging on unhealthy foods and a lack of control being able to stop if I had a taste of anything. It seemed like she was uncomfortable if I brought any of that up and since that was an addiction that came directly out of my substance abuse it was important for me to try to address it and couldn't. She also didn't seem to believe me about certain things (like when I was doing the massive amounts of DXM and that came up she said that couldn't be true and minimized it when trying to talk about my concerns about taking medications if sick and a lack of control other than abstinence from any of that) and didn't have a lot of knowledge about substance abuse or any other real recommendations other than "go to AA". After a couple months I was told that she was leaving for another job and it partially explained why she seemed so checked out. The next guy was even worse. I found out later that he was a DJ and I think he was doing therapy to make ends meet. He also left or was asked to leave by the end. Generally he was condescending and also didn't have much to offer and didn't really seem to be hearing what I was saying. The two things that stuck out as the worst were once when it came up that my three year old daughter was cosleeping with my wife or me depending on the night and was not fully potty trained (she had a hard time pooping in the toilet even though she had peeing there down), he said that she was probably being molested. Like, factually said that as if he was certain of it. I am not leaving out details either - that was his only evidence because he read that kids who are not potty trained and cosleep with parents at that age are most likely being molested (he had no kids and had a girlfriend, by the way so it was hard for him to relate to many of the problems I wanted to being up - I don't think that being married and having kids is a requirement to offer good therapy to someone since some of my inpatient and outpatient therapists did not have kids and were not married and were great but this guy could not relate at all). This was the week where I had come in to try to talk about my decision to separate with my wife and going off of all of my meds because I was unable to feel anything and the entire session became me trying to defend myself from this guy saying that my daughter was being molested. I was furious. This was to be our second to last meeting since he was already lined up to leave. I didn't go back for the last meeting and have not sought therapy since then, just trying to use the knowledge I had from inpatient and outpatient to manage myself. Regarding AA, my first sponsor was moving really fast regarding the service part of AA, which I liked because I wanted to try to help people and ended up going back to speak with him at the place I did inpatient but very, very slowly through the steps. In three months we did not get beyond step one. He was married and never had children, in his fifties, and got upset if I couldn't talk to him for an extended period of time every day and I was home with my daughter often so long phone calls were just not possible sometimes and other times just not something I wanted to do since I would have to leave my daughter to keep herself busy as a three year old for a while. He was a good guy but I don't think we clicked. The second guy sped through the steps in such a way that I couldn't get into them at all and I just lost touch with him. I tried to do the 90 meetings in 90 days and it was affecting my relationship with my wife, which was a problem (she had a lot of issues with my recovery) and created stress. I have a hard time with institutionalized Christianity due to it being forced on me and harmful to me growing up (other stories here which I will not go into but will if someone is interested) and despite everyone saying that AA was not religious, it obviously was in every meeting I went to and although people said "the higher power can be a bicycle if you want it to be, you just have to have one" it almost always ended up being a Christian god. I worked really hard to get over that and probably could have dealt with it but that in addition to everything else made me realize that the program was not for me, although I really liked meetings and learned a lot there. I had a hard time forming meaningful relationships there too in the six months or so that I went to various meetings - there were lots of nice people but nothing outside of the meetings ever happened. That was just all adding up to me not going back.
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Sep 26, 2017 14:37
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I stopped drinking 293 days ago. I didn't use AA or rehab and I used to binge drink. It wasn't that difficult to stop.
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Sep 27, 2017 06:44
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We Know Catheters posted:I stopped drinking 293 days ago. I didn't use AA or rehab and I used to binge drink. It wasn't that difficult to stop. The most recent time I stopped was the easiest time I've ever had of it. No temptation - some Pavlovian responses but I was just done with it. I think it isn't true for everyone but sometimes if you really want to stop - and are ready to - you just do. Unfortunately it isn't that simple many times and there is no guarantee that things will stay that way. One of the more important lessons I took away from AA is to be vigilant and self aware because when your brain gets so used to a substance as a coping mechanism and way of life it can be pretty sneaky about gettin you back into it.
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Sep 27, 2017 07:05
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Personally, when I started AA I wasn't convinced I needed it to stay quit, feeling like I had quit pretty easily (admittedly only for ten days following a DUI scare). But I'm glad I gave it a go and stuck with it, it gives me tools to handle a lot of emotional stuff for me that— even if it didn't drive me to drink (which it probably would)— has the potential to make me crazy, depressed, and/or suicidal. I hear a lot of guys talking about "dry drunks," i.e. being abstinent from substance long-term but out of your gourd with emotional problems the substance used to cover up. I easily see that potential in myself, and indeed have struggled with it from time to time. So I need tools to address it (besides other non-chemical addictions I can easily fall into). So far my biggest ones have been the 12-step program, my Zen practice, and the kind of talk-therapy I get with people like my sponsor. I'm also considering counseling for a few things I've been uncovering about myself the last few years. Drink-Mix Man fucked around with this message at 08:22 on Sep 27, 2017 |
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Sep 27, 2017 08:18
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Drink-Mix Man posted:Personally, when I started AA I wasn't convinced I needed it to stay quit, feeling like I had quit pretty easily (admittedly only for ten days following a DUI scare). But I'm glad I gave it a go and stuck with it, it gives me tools to handle a lot of emotional stuff for me that— even if it didn't drive me to drink (which it probably would)— has the potential to make me crazy, depressed, and/or suicidal. Happy to hear it <3 I got through via AA as well, and still commit to meetings and sponsoring people on a weekly basis. I still can't explain exactly why it works so well, but it does.
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Sep 28, 2017 17:25
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Tias posted:Happy to hear it <3 I got through via AA as well, and still commit to meetings and sponsoring people on a weekly basis. I still can't explain exactly why it works so well, but it does. There's a lot of evidence that shows addiction being caused and exacerbated by isolation and a lack of meaningful relationships. AA, if done correctly, makes sure that you have meaningful relationships so although there are other things it has going on I think that is a large part of the success that people find when working the program.
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Sep 28, 2017 17:44
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rio posted:There's a lot of evidence that shows addiction being caused and exacerbated by isolation and a lack of meaningful relationships. AA, if done correctly, makes sure that you have meaningful relationships so although there are other things it has going on I think that is a large part of the success that people find when working the program. It's a lot of this for me (last drink February 17th 2010). Just being around other people who are recovering and not isolating myself (which I still do, but recognize the issue and try to get out as much as I can stand; also being more involved with social media helps) is a big part of my staying sober. I don't regularly attend anymore though. If you're in a more religious area like I am, you get a lot of "Jesus keeps me sober" speeches. Now, the phrase "Take what you can and leave the rest" is good to a point, but after awhile it gets tedious. There's also the issue with a whole heckuva lot of self-blame going on, with members having the same expectations of borderline and not so borderline homeless people as they have of retired successful lawyers. Again, I chalk this up to living in Trump country, but some of the parts of AA itself aren't much different from saying your sobriety is completely up to you, and if you fail it's your fault for The biggest thing that can lead to sobriety is a person has to want to get sober. If a person doesn't want to get sober, they won't get sober. It sounds like a trite axiom, but it is a lot easier for a person who wants to stop drinking versus a person who simply wants the consequences of drinking to stop. One wants to recover, the other just wants things to get better without any sacrifices. I saw this first hand with a guy who was doing community service for a DUI at the charity where I was volunteering. He always complained about how tired he was since he was still doing all the stuff he did before he got court ordered, and was adamant that it wasn't fair he had to work and do community service when that left him no time for his kids. I don't know where the guy ended up, but I am certain he learned absolutely nothing from his time. A little aside on that, I got into the working for the charity through a guy in AA. I show up for the first day, mentioned him, and the staff gushed about him and how great a help he was. I got to work although a little surprised he wasn't there since he said he'd meet me and show me the ropes, but things still went fine. The next time I saw him was about a week later in the hospital three days before he died of liver failure.
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Sep 28, 2017 18:58
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rio posted:There's a lot of evidence that shows addiction being caused and exacerbated by isolation and a lack of meaningful relationships. AA, if done correctly, makes sure that you have meaningful relationships so although there are other things it has going on I think that is a large part of the success that people find when working the program. Word. The addiction as disease can be summed up, for me anyway, as wanting to isolate myself so I can get hosed up in peace.
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Sep 28, 2017 20:22
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rio posted:There's a lot of evidence that shows addiction being caused and exacerbated by isolation and a lack of meaningful relationships. I can believe it. My drinking increased at a pretty much 1-1 rate of friends getting married and totally disappearing, and with my increasing failure to get a new girlfriend after a breakup. Isolation totally defines my addiction. I'm literally 3 days sober right now, but I hope my experience is still appropriate to the thread: The biggest thing I think about is my first binge episode. It was strange, after a lovely date and some drinking, I woke up the next day, a Saturday, and decided.. why not just keep drinking? The next thing I remember it was Wednesday, I had hit on a friend/coworker publicly on Facebook(?????), and I had missed 3 days of work. The fallout from that cost me my last reliable group of friends to hang out with, and my isolation reached its peak. It didn't help that my best friend, who is also a coworker, decided to start dating that same chick I hit on literally a week later, including taking her to the gym with us, which we'd been doing for years. It took me a year to realize he was a loving shithead for doing that when he knew exactly what I was going through. A nice job in a tiny hick town plus a mortgage meant there was no way to leave my job, so I dealt with the fallout from that for an entire year. That first binge was a total turning point in my drinking. I went from coming in hungover or a bit late but never missing work, to every drink meaning a binge. I alternated between trying to quit and binging hard (750ml of 100 proof a night until blackout, 3+ days and missed work every time) until after a year I got fired for missing too many days. Thank God, the severance pay was enough to let me finish off work on my house and get the gently caress out of the South. I also immediately started taking Vivitrol, which stops me from drinking more than 3 or 4 beers without losing interest, and it got me sober for a while. Then I decided to take a job in Thailand (spoiler: don't do that if you're an alcoholic in recovery) Things actually went well for my first 4 or 5 months, no binges at all, a couple of beers at work events but not a big deal with the Vivitrol. But someone trying not to drink should probably not move somewhere that the only place for a conversation in their language is at a bar, and that ended up loving me, as I ended up ditching the prescription out of whatever addictive thing is in our heads. When I'm not on Vivitrol, 1 beer is ALWAYS 20. 10 hours at work listening to a language you don't know + going home to all of your online friends asleep = isolation loving hard mode. I amped up the drinking again, switching to beer here, probably 20, 30 a day while binging. My job never gave a poo poo about the absences, but in the last few months the only other English speakers at work all quit, and I started blacking out 3 days a week minimum. I realized the job was just garbage, however cool Thailand is, and I was going to end up dead if I kept up like I was. So a month ago I quit, and immediately felt much better. But the isolation only got worse there, spending so much time in my apartment, so.. more binging. I have a recovery plan - one I don't like, but one I need to do. I'm moving back in with my parents and my brother/his girlfriend, getting a remote job, and spending at least the next 6 months that way. My parents don't drink, and know I'm an alcoholic. Anyway, ask me anything about recovery from unstoppable binge drinking. I have a need to drink so much so fast that I can't even fathom people managing to be drunk at work. I've never been through withdrawal as I manage 3-4 sober days in between, which means I've sat there, in an alcohol free house, wanting to quit, and made that decision to go but liquor at least 50 times. Loutre fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Sep 29, 2017 |
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Sep 29, 2017 00:40
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Loutre posted:Then I decided to take a job in Thailand (spoiler: don't do that if you're an alcoholic in recovery) And I say this as gently and non-judgmentally as possible, that could apply to viewing moving back home as the solution that will fix things. Addiction requires outside help. If it didn't, it wouldn't be an addiction. quote:I've never been through withdrawal as I manage 3-4 sober days in between, which means I've sat there, in an alcohol free house, wanting to quit, and made that decision to go but liquor at least 50 times.
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Sep 29, 2017 01:52
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ryonguy posted:This is often called a "geographical". Everything here sucks, so if I move my problems will be left behind. At least this job gave me enough new skills to swap my job title a bit and work remotely, so I can return to my family support network. Plus this year I drank probably 1/3rd or 1/4th what I drank by October last year, so I'll count that as an improvement. quote:I can vividly remember a specific moment walking down the street to spend my last five dollars cursing myself for it as I went. I am pretty sure it was the day before payday, but I was just sick of living paycheck to paycheck solely because of how much I drank. I've never had money problems but haha yeah wow does "cursing myself for it as I went" ever hit close to home. Never prouder of myself than those times I sat in my truck, never turned the key, and talked myself out of breaking my sobriety again.
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Sep 29, 2017 05:38
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i realize that the questions have been answered by some posters already, and appreciate that, but I'd still be interested in multiple perspectives on the following questions;Grandmother of Five posted:Do you have experience with antabus/disulfiram treatment, and if you do, did you find it useful? Did you ever drink alcohol while on antabus/disulfiram? I sort of assume, that recovery processes can be as different as whatever lead to an addiction in the first place, so I'd for sure be interesting in hearing personal takes on the above, even if similar to what others might have shared already As an additional general, standing-question to that, I'd also be interested in hearing specifically about what parts of AA people might have found worthwhile, and which have felt less so.
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Sep 29, 2017 22:14
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One other wake-up call I had was when I realized I had stopped buying nice liquor and started buying plastic-bottle vodka. Not because I could no longer afford it, but because it just made zero sense to buy my usual fifth of Jameson when I wouldn't remember anything past the first hour. My mental picture of what alcohol was had completely changed. I don't even know when I switched, but I know the first time I looked at a bottle of Kamchatka and went "what the gently caress am I doing?" Goes well with when I downed the last of my once extensive bar - I kept a nicely stocked liquor cabinet with all the trimmings, for several years. I stopped replacing things, then eventually started drinking the liqeures straight when I ran out of whatever I'd bought that night. There was an unbroken streak of "I can have a bottle of liquor in my house" that ended in "but it won't be there tomorrow" when things first turned real bad. Being denied access to things by friends/family in exchange for seeing a doctor or something ALWAYS backfired for me. That may be a personal thing, but when you feel isolated I think it's easy to be hostile or defensive to ultimatums like that, and it definitely wasn't a threat that got me on Vivitrol and therapy. Loutre fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Sep 29, 2017 |
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Sep 29, 2017 22:36
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I'm a dude who weed gave schizophrenia* *induced, brought forward, whatever. it inflames it. makes it bad. There's a family history of it on my mum's side for sure I used to smoke bongs all day every day, just as a baseline. I'd go without food to buy pot. I've been on an antidepressant(SNRI, Effexor) that made drinking really unpleasant since back in November else I'd have been doing that too. I'm about 2 months sober right now I would mix in opiods and benzos whenever I could get my hands on them. I'd make opium from poppy seeds, make tea and drink it. I couldn't sober up til I was placed on antipsychotics and had a lot less schizophrenia to deal with (I'm diagnosed schizophrenia, major depression and aspergers) I'm still a bit wacko. I lapsed recently by ordering 250g of kava kava online. It works on your GABA receptors just like booze, it makes your body feel drunk while your mind stays clear. Sounds like a miracle drug, but it's still not sobriety. So I've gotta find someone near me to resell it off to so I haven't just wasted 60 bucks. At least I caught myself before the substance even showed up on my doorstep. I also gotta up my antipsychotic dose. It's olanzapine it's doing good things for my anxiety as well but I think I gotta take it day+night not just at night. Probably. I feel better than I did 30 mins ago purely by typing all this here out. But I was pretty scatter-brained. Also I'm gonna smoke DMT tomorrow (yeah, I know, probably not wise. I'll learn a lesson either way). I've researched how it interacts with schizophrenia, how it interacts with my specific meds. At most, my meds will dull the experience. I'm craving some ego death and the opportunity arose and I'm taking it. Please don't badger me on the matter I'm on 7mg of Valium per day cos I was on 20mg/day a while back sorting out the correct antipsychotic. I drop down to 5mg soon, tapering down, ultimately landing on 0. It's messing with my memory more than anything else. I'm just staving off withdrawals which are b a d n e w s more than getting any effect. I dream about drugs every night. Getting high, taking pills, whatever. I've been able to use the valium correctly, not abusing the 100mg+ I have on hand and taking it as at the slow drip I'm prescribed. I can identify psychotic states and ride them out safely so if DMT induces psychosis I'll be able to handle it. There'll be a (sober) nurse friend on hand if anything too bad happens. I'll have some extra valium on hand in case it's really necessary (I'm hoping it's not. rather not gently caress with my taper)
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Sep 30, 2017 01:32
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Caredresser posted:I'm diagnosed schizophrenia, major depression and aspergers Caredresser posted:I'm gonna smoke DMT tomorrow Caredresser posted:I can identify psychotic states and ride them out safely so if DMT induces psychosis I'll be able to handle it. There'll be a (sober) nurse friend on hand if anything too bad happens. I'll have some extra valium on hand in case it's really necessary (I'm hoping it's not. rather not gently caress with my taper) Whyyyyyy? Like, we've tried to talk you out of this a bunch of times in another thread. If you feel the need to have a nurse and benzos on hand then you know it's a bad idea
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Sep 30, 2017 02:37
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because I think it might kill my urges to take drugs for a good long while. might knock my ego down to a good point. will overall help my sober cause if I post in 24-48 hours "I smoked dmt and everything is bad" we can play "I told you so" but it is happening regardless of the "don't do it"
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Sep 30, 2017 10:10
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Caredresser posted:because I think it might kill my urges to take drugs for a good long while. might knock my ego down to a good point. will overall help my sober cause I'm not going to talk you out of it, but I will offer you this perspective: You are completely correct that you need to humble your ego, but psychoactive drugs won't cut it. I've done these brainbenders a thousand times in the vain belief that it would cure my feelings of self-loathing and insecurity, that it would be 'therapy'. The thing is, it only dissolves your ego for the short time, and you won't really know what happened to you in the morning. Becoming unshackled by the ego takes actual, daily work. Prayer, meditation, helping others, denying yourself and doing things that feel dumb right now, but will help you in a not too distant future. That will help you permanently so you don't have to struggle in the future, going for a quick fix is a compulsion from your brain because it's used to you doping it. (Trust me, I've tried going down that road. I'm the guy who has taken every entheogen under the sun, I can feel the difference between 2c-t-7 and 2c-t-2, but I wouldn't be able to explain it to you )
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Sep 30, 2017 10:46
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Tias posted:I'm not going to talk you out of it, but I will offer you this perspective: You are completely correct that you need to humble your ego, but psychoactive drugs won't cut it. I've done these brainbenders a thousand times in the vain belief that it would cure my feelings of self-loathing and insecurity, that it would be 'therapy'. The thing is, it only dissolves your ego for the short time, and you won't really know what happened to you in the morning. This is the most relevant and useful response on the matter I've received. You're right and I didn't really expect to be totally cured after one more DMT trip. (It'll be my fourth, none in 2 years) It just means that "there is no free lunch" isn't properly set down in my brain yet. I had a phase where I was blindly taking whatever hallucinogenic substance I could find, before noticing the damage they were causing me and cutting them out (except for marijuana, of which I'm 2 months sober of now). My rationale for taking DMT again is: the last few times I had the opportunity I was entirely unprepared and insensitive to the intensity of it. Now, having discovered meditation and weaving it into my daily life as often as possible, taking on generosity in all it's forms(giving love as well as wealth, regardless of your own riches) and trying my best to understand the importance of sacrifice: I believe I can trip and gain something other than trauma from it. It may just be another delusion and the right move might be to abstain entirely. I'll find out after my businessman's lunch. I'll be approaching it on a belly full of sous vide-ed pork, among friends and felines. In the morning and afternoon my medication is still in effect and I still feel content and anxiety-free. I think the risk for damage is as low as it could possibly be. What I gain from the experience may be as little as "taking DMT, and by extension, any other hallucinogen, is a bad idea". Either way it's something that needed gaining.
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Sep 30, 2017 12:58
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Should probably chime in supporting AA here, because it might help someone who needs help. I was an atheist nearly homeless alcoholic junkie who had abused substances on a daily basis for about 14 years. I went to AA at my bottom and was pretty dang convinced I could not stop and the program absolutely helped. It's as spiritual as you want it to be, and that really shouldn't scare anyone away. I'm coming up on 5 years sober, which is a loving miracle for someone with my brain. I've got a good career, got married and consider myself pretty much happy. I still go to meetings and sponsor people. I would say the most valuable thing for me in sobriety is really leaning on my emotional side. When i first started the program, my first instinct was to over-analyze it and interpret it intellectually. The program really developed my emotional instincts and lessened my need to 'solve' every problem. meanolmrcloud fucked around with this message at 14:08 on Sep 30, 2017 |
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Sep 30, 2017 14:02
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Your brain will convince you any way it can to continue relying on substances and one of the favorites it uses is "it will make things better" and by extension "it will help you get sober". So I'm sure it is a compelling argument that taking DMT will make it easier to be sober but in real life - sober real life - that is just really easy to see the lie that your brain is telling you. Taking a powerful drug to get sober doesn't make sense logically and even stuff like ibogaine doesn't have any science or data behind it in terms of long term sobriety. Some of these substances help with short term sobriety but very rarely long term. There isn't a quick fix except doing work on yourself one day at a time and being vigilant to watch for the times your brain tries to convince you to drink or take a drug while trying to be a better person. And don't take this as judgement because I have been there many times thinking that whatever I was taking was going to make me normal and that would DEFINITELY be the thing that would help me get sober. Hell, that was why I took massive amounts of DXM for an entire year - sounds totally illogical but that is what my brain convinced me with somehow, that it would help me get sober and feel normal. Good luck with whatever you decide.
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Sep 30, 2017 14:43
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I drank a bottle of DXM once, (alongside a lot of codeine and pot) and walked down the road and fell over really badly on my ankle and felt nothing, but seriously sprained it ending up in hospital 5 days later. It still swells up painfully at the slightest provocation every so often I also later went back inside, hit some nangs(whippets) and fell off my chair. That's my dissociative story At this point I'm accepting DMT will be neutral at best and just taking care of myself as it happens. Sometimes I feel my life is in control of something else and this is one time. I met up with a drugs and alcohol counsellor who said I was "fascinating" and will be seeing me again in a fortnight. Through him I might get myself back to some group sessions of some sort. Part of me thinks I'm still reliant on substances, they're just doctor issued and approved. I'm okay with that, I have faith in the medical system. But it doesn't leave me feeling "substance free".
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Oct 1, 2017 01:13
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Grandmother of Five posted:As an additional general, standing-question to that, I'd also be interested in hearing specifically about what parts of AA people might have found worthwhile, and which have felt less so. What works is having a network of support that you didn't have before. More importantly, people who are in the same boat as you. So many times early on I heard other people talking about their experiences and seeing myself in them time and time again. Really, if you get literally nothing else out of AA, having a support group is still a good thing.
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Oct 1, 2017 17:12
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Different strokes, maybe, but I'm the other way around. I find the spiritual program enriches and helps me find extra purpose in my life. Spirituality in my personal program never ended up having anything to do with supernaturalism or “faith" in the biblical sense. For me, it's about practices, working with others, and direct first-hand experiences. Meditating, prayer (even to nothing in particular), and service to others are perception-altering exercises that hack my mind out of self-centeredness. It's bizarre to think of myself doing it sometimes, but it's had a profound effect on me. (Not the least of which is that I don't think about drinking.)ryonguy posted:The anonymity is also a problem to me. Forcing addiction underground can only aggravate it. If a person's career is threatened by their addiction, then they should have the opportunity to come forward about it and ask for help in a public manner, being forced to keep it a secret only adds another level of difficulty. In this day and age we should, and must be more open about addiction. To co-opt a phrase, silence = death. Maybe our experiences differ, but I don't think it's about forcing you into keeping your addiction a secret. I was told and tell people be open about your program as you want to be, but the anonymity is there to protect you if you want it. We just don't "out" others without their permission so that they are free to work their program in private if they need to. And we don't talk about AA membership to the media (though it doesn't mean we don't talk about being in recovery in general if we want). This is partly a holdover from the early experimental days of the program, but it's designed to prevent people from becoming symbols of AA "failure" if they slip or relapse in the public eye. Drink-Mix Man fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Oct 1, 2017 |
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Oct 1, 2017 22:22
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Yea, at least in my area, anyone telling anyone else HOW to be spiritual is looked down upon. One of the extremely amazing things about AA is how you can really go about it any way you want. If you want to keep it a secret, go nuts. If you want to have your higher power be a doorknob, knock yourself out. The important thing is trying to be honest and open minded. I recently took a sponsee to an officially approved AA supplemental program (back to basics) which REALLY pushed the spiritual/god angle. Sure, it’s in the big book and finding some sort of higher power is essential, but it really rubbed me the wrong way. However, my sponsee loved it and got a lot out of it. For me, spirituality came about more of a function of my own personal weaknesses. I am absolutely an alcoholic and will likely always have an alcoholic brain and tendencies. As a result of this, my judgement as far as alcohol or substances is concerned is fatally compromised, and heeding the will of something else (at first my sponsor, then a higher power) has proven to be an effective means of helping me form better habits.
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Oct 2, 2017 00:02
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It does vary widely and unfortunately, at least the meetings around here. I think that is a down side of the program since people talking about Jesus being the only way and so on is a big turn off to some. It was definitely a stumbling block for me that I had to work really hard to get over, and I did mostly. I think that the specifics of spirituality should be kept non specific but I guess that would be hard to police.
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Oct 2, 2017 01:27
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Drink-Mix Man posted:Different strokes, maybe, but I'm the other way around. I find the spiritual program enriches and helps me find extra purpose in my life. Spirituality in my personal program never ended up having anything to do with supernaturalism or “faith" in the biblical sense. For me, it's about practices, working with others, and direct first-hand experiences. Meditating, prayer (even to nothing in particular), and service to others are perception-altering exercises that hack my mind out of self-centeredness. quote:Maybe our experiences differ, but I don't think it's about forcing you into keeping your addiction a secret. I was told and tell people be open about your program as you want to be, but the anonymity is there to protect you if you want it. We just don't "out" others without their permission so that they are free to work their program in private if they need to. And if AA has a few massive public failures, then maybe change can be made instead of just being able to pretend, "He/She just didn't want it hard enough".
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Oct 2, 2017 17:10
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Yeah, AA doesn't force you into any religion at all. Most people who were already atheist or agnostic remain so after taking the steps.ryonguy posted:Of course we're able to be as public about it as we want. It's also more about it being a personal health issue than anything else, by which privacy is the default. But continuing to hold anonymity sacrosanct allows people to continue to place alcoholism and addiction in general aside from "real" health problems. It's a dirty, nasty thing we don't want people to know about, whereas cancer, diabetes, etc. are perfectly fine to discuss. I don't know what got in your craw about AA, but your interpretation simply isn't true. The eleventh tradition states( in part) "We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films", not a drat thing more. So, if you got something to say in the press, you remain anonymous, otherwise you don't have to. That most meetings opt to keep each others identities safe from the prying eyes of media or other stalkers is a courtesy that I think is pretty sensible. You come out when you're ready to, not because someone thinks it's exciting to talk about.
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Oct 2, 2017 17:58
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ryonguy posted:Then just call it "practices, working with others and direct first hand experience". If we did, there wouldn't be an issue. Instead, it has to be tailored to the mindset of a couple of biblethumpers from 1930's Ohio, so we end up with wording and attitudes of 2017 Ohio. The "higher power" was a compromise because the people deciding originally had a mix of those who wants it to be a Christian god and atheists with everything in between. So it wasn't just made by biblethumpers (although I might be misunderstanding what you are saying) since they had to have a compromise to make an official program that worked for everyone. I think in terms of the big book, they did a good job with that compromise but in real life that does turn into some people thinking that the higher power has to be a Christian god, and that is reinforced by having the Lord's Prayer be part of virtually every meeting (which is something I think needs to be re-evaluated). That said, the success rate for AA is about the same success rate as people using other means to quit and you didn't usually hear that statistic in meetings since it is in the book that you will definitely not ever drink again if you follow everything in AA. I do think that some people (not all) do have the mindset that those who fail didn't "want it hard enough" and that is true sometimes because I do think that if AA is a good fit for someone and they do everything in the program wholeheartedly that they will probably not drink. But sometimes the program just doesn't do it for some people, maybe because of only having religious meetings in their areas or other reasons. There are a lot of variables. It comes down more to failure being a result of not committing enough to recovery and being unable to train yourself to unlearn bad habits, replace bad coping skills with good ones and all of that. AA is not required for that and since it doesn't have a higher success rate than other means of quitting drinking it is not a requirement, but it is a good option. One thing I also really don't like is that there are a lot of ways for people to quit but AA is still the thing that law enforcement, most doctors and society as a whole think is the only solution to recovery. I hope that changes because I think more people might stop drinking if their doctors, judges etc. gave them more options.
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Oct 2, 2017 19:43
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I took the DMT and ultimately regret it because I then went ahead and smoked weed after. Then went and got some changa and some pot to "breakthrough". Which I did but I had 2 months sobriety and I ruined it!! Seeing a GP soon to talk instability and impulsivity but drat. I regret my actions
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Oct 3, 2017 04:12
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Well that's a huge surprise...
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Oct 3, 2017 09:08
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rio posted:The "higher power" was a compromise because the people deciding originally had a mix of those who wants it to be a Christian god and atheists with everything in between. So it wasn't just made by biblethumpers (although I might be misunderstanding what you are saying) since they had to have a compromise to make an official program that worked for everyone. I think in terms of the big book, they did a good job with that compromise but in real life that does turn into some Agreed, though this is mostly a US phenomenon. I have yet to see a meeting in Europe where this happened. quote:That said, the success rate for AA is about the same success rate as people using other means to quit [citation needed] quote:and you didn't usually hear that statistic in meetings since it is in the book that you will definitely not ever drink again if you follow everything in AA. I do think that some people (not all) do have the mindset that those who fail didn't "want it hard enough" and that is true sometimes because I do think that if AA is a good fit for someone and they do everything in the program wholeheartedly that they will probably not drink. But sometimes the program just doesn't do it for some people, maybe because of only having religious meetings in their areas or other reasons. There are a lot of variables. It comes down more to failure being a result of not committing enough to recovery and being unable to train yourself to unlearn bad habits, replace bad coping skills with good ones and all of that. AA is not required for that and since it doesn't have a higher success rate than other means of quitting drinking it is not a requirement, but it is a good option. I am certain it has a higher succes rate than other means of not quitting, at least for people who are terminal alcoholics. I've met thousands of people in the fellowship who have tried everything before AA, and I do mean everything - without getting sober. No one is a "a good fit" for AA, if we thought a spiritual fellowship of people who don't drink could help us, we wouldn't have gotten to the point of rock bottom. I know it's not a popular point of view, but I honestly think AA can help everybody. Those who try and fail are usually still too proud to admit they need help, and they'd fail any other method of recovery as well.
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Oct 3, 2017 10:21
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Tias posted:Agreed, though this is mostly a US phenomenon. I have yet to see a meeting in Europe where this happened. If you google around you can find studies but just the first result was this, which gives about 5-10% success rate. http://www.npr.org/2014/03/23/291405829/with-sobering-science-doctor-debunks-12-step-recovery Unfortunately most of the sites that give realistic numbers are also talking negatively about the program, which makes it hard to accept if you are really into it, but then again the program and sites that are for it state 50-75% success rates which is wildly unrealistic. What you are saying is what I heard often at meetings and I know I'm not going to convince you, nor do I want to I the program is working for you, but the science behind it does show that there are other successful means of getting sober and I think it is harmful to paint AA as the only solution and that if someone can't use it to get sober then they are "too proud to admit they need help, and they'd fail any other method of recovery as well." I know people who are sober and heathy without the program and while I did benefit from my time there (and I am not against it, despite what I am typing) I am also happily working on sobriety without it too. I am also happier not drinking now than I was when I was in the program, but I'm not saying that needs to be true for everyone. The attitude that AA is the only and best way is similar to a religion (yes, I am making that connection because in many groups that is how it functions) and that if someone fails then they aren't serious about recovery reminds me of religious attitudes as well. As for it being a good fit, I'm sure there are great meetings out there but in many areas they are all religious. Religious freedom is important and having to go to a group that makes you chant the Lord's Prayer while holding hands is pretty offensive to someone who doesn't want to be a Christian - there were many people trying explain in meetings that t wasn't religious and that just seems mind boggling. So no, I don't think it is fair to say that there isn't such a thing as someone not being a good fit for the program because people can't travel hundreds of miles to the only meeting that is not overtly religious when they are surrounded by meetings that are religious, and people should not be forced to attend Christian gatherings taking about how Christianity helped them when they are not Christians and then told that "they aren't serious about recovery" because they don't want to have others' religious views forced on them and be made to chant the Lord's Prayer as a group. But if that works for people it is good! It's not a bad thing I and of itself. Just when doctors and judges force people to do it and be told by virtually everyone that it is the only way.
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Oct 3, 2017 14:55
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