AA Bulls***t
Dean
As is well-known, I had a nervous collapse about a year ago that involved excessive use of alcohol. Since then I have tried to be completely open about the whole thing, because I felt I owed that to my readers.
Note this: when I say "owed it" to my readers, I totally admit that that was a self-chosen obligation: I was drinking too much, and it hurt me badly, and I felt that in saying so I owed something to people to share how this had come about. After all, I had been drinking too much, and it had hurt me and my family, and I felt I had to tell people about it.
Since that happened, I have had endless people trying to tell me about my addiction and how I had to deal with it. In fact, they thought they knew everything there was to know about me, based on the fact that I drank too much. Indeed, to them the problem was quite simple: I had to admit that I was powerless against this horrible disease, and I would get better.
But my instinctive answer was to say, "Bulls***. I like the sauce too much, and I have to get over it and get it under control."
Powerless? Bite my crank. I am not powerless. I've just gotten too self-indulgent. Don't tell me I'm powerless, because I'm not. The truth is, I'd just become a self-indulgent, self-obsessed jerk and I needed to get this s*** under control.
This weekend, I went up to my sister-in-law's house to celebrate Memorial Day. At that get-together, lots of people had booze. Beer and wine were everywhere. When I went there, I made a conscious choice: I could drink booze, but I wouldn't. Because if I had indulged that urge, I would have been a smarmy, self-indulgent ass. So even though several opportunities to drink presented themselves, I consciously chose to say, "Nah, I'd better not. I'll just be a jerk if I do, and while I might enjoy myself then, I won't enjoy thinking about it later."
Since coming out with the fact that I have some self-indulgence problems with alcohol, I have had an andless variety of people telling me they think they understand my problem. Indeed, quite recently, I got an email from a guy who said, "Are you sober, or are you still drunk?" To which my instinctive response was, "F*** you ass***e, is that all you think you know about me? I'm either sober or I'm drunk??"
I recently got an email that seemed to define it all for me. Here's what it said:
Subject: The Big Lie of Alcoholics Anonymous
Hi Dean, this is in response to the blog you started about going to A.A. meetings and struggling with the "program."
I was really touched by your post. I'm in the same boat as you, Dean. I went to A.A. meetings for over a year and ended up feeling crazier than I was while I was drinking and using. I eventually stopped going to meetings and ended up drinking and using again because I really believed I was "powerless" and that the "disease" was "cunning, baffling and powerful," and that it was useless to try to resist the charms of substance abuse on my own. It seemed like I couldn't win. Out of A.A. I was on the road to destruction with my drinking and drugging. Inside A.A. I was on the road to suicide with those guilt-inducing 12-steps, and having to tell myself how bad and stupid I was all of the time. ("HA HA, if I try to get in the driver's seat and take control of my life, I just f*** everything up! HA HA! I can't do anything right, God has to do it for me! And I can't forget to ask my sponsor what God's will is for me!") Not only that, having to go to meetings for the rest of my life with a bunch of weird, boring people who jabber the same statements over and over again like brainwashed parrots didn't exactly appeal to me when I decided to get clean and sober again.
It is WRONG to present A.A. and other 12-step programs as the "only way to get sober and enjoy life." The fact is that MOST people quit by themselves without the help of a support group. Havard Medical School's study of alcholism shows this clearly. Here is a page you might find really refreshing and entertaining — I did. And it helped free my mind from the destructive 12-step programming I was exposed to.
The truth is, you've had the potential to quit all along. You just never learned how to say no to that little addictive beast voice in your head. It's no surprise that self-control and discipline are compromised in substance abusers. That's okay, because I, like you, didn't know how to say "no" to that addictive voice in my head. I thought I was powerless over it and it wasn't even worth trying. But the fact is that addiction isn't cunning, baffling, or powerful at all. It's not a disease, it's a bad habit. The concept is quite simple - you felt bad in life, or were bored, and discovered alcohol and/or drugs could make you feel good anytime you wanted. And it's only natural for us to seek out things that bring us pleasure when we're generally disatisfied with our lives. Pleasure bad, pain good. You felt bad, and wanted to feel good, simple as that.
Your alcoholism was NOT caused by:
Inherited genes or sins
Resentments
Moral defects
Spiritual sickness
Control issues
... and the list goes on. That was just a sample from goofy "causes of alcholism" that are suggested in the big book and the 12x12. I am quite versed in the literature (I was a fervent 12-stepper in that year and two months I attended A.A. and N.A.), so if people care to challenge me on this, I can point out specifically where in the literature it says this.
Anyways, enough with the A.A. bashing. It may work for some. It doesn't work for me. The "one-size-fits-all" approach to recovery is WRONG because there are many viable and effect alternatives to 12-step groups. It might help you to learn about your "addictive voice" and how confront it...
http://www.rational.org/html_public_area/course_avrt.html
You have, and have always had the power to quit! The AVRT I learned from this and several other sites gave me a powerful recovery tool that is much more effective than the crappy "spirtual tool kit" shoved down your throat in A.A. So effective, I have been clean for 2 years and a month and my life has never been better. I get a tremendous sense of accomplishment and a boost in self-esteem knowing that I did it on my own without the help of Higher Powers, sponsors, steps, or any other of the techniques forced upon us in A.A. and N.A.
If I can do it (I was HOPELESSELY addicted to methamphetamine), you can do it to!
Believe in yourself!
I like the sauce too f***ing much. That's been the problem all along. 12-step programs may help some people, but honestly: they are bulls***. They really are.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Crazy thought
- Okay, AA Is Not Bulls***
- AA Bulls***t
People I know who play World of Warcraft to the exclusion of their jobs and non-game-related social lives remind me of the same phenomenon: they try to convince non-insiders (i.e. me) of how cool the game is, what great entertainment it is, what a great deal it is for the money. Yeah, yeah, I say. I don't doubt for a second that it's good entertainment. That's not at issue. If this game fails to suck in the critical mass of the population due to some fault of its entertainment value, the next one will succeed. It's just a matter of time. What's at issue is the people who are addicted to this game recognizing what it is they're doing, the damage they're doing to themselves and their families and careers, and deciding to knock it off-- regardless of how much less entertainment they'd be getting. It's not like there's a dearth of entertainment to be had in this day and age.
What it comes down to, then, is that the game is a behavior the players engage in of their own free will, and can choose to stop of their own free will. They just have to decide that as much as they enjoy it, it's worth stopping.
Boozing it up excessively, though, does indicate a moral failing...gluttony is the sin involved. But its not like a person is an entire moral failure if they drink a lot...no more than an overweight person is a complete moral failure if they indulge in that extra bit of cheesecake. As for the genetics part of it: I have read stories which indicate there might be a genetic pre-disposition towards excessive alchohol consumption...but a genetic pre-disposition, even if true, doesn't mean that a person will be a drunk.
As for me, personally, I became quite the professional drinker in high school, and then went to Booze Graduate School in the United States Navy...gigantic earthquakes of drunkeness...me and 10 or 20 other swabbies out on liberty, with a 12-pack just as a warm-up. In 1988-89, I was living with a friend of mine (who was just out of the Army) and towards the middle of 1989 we sat back and tried to figure out how often we'd been drunk in the previous 12 months...as best we could estimate, of the 365 days we had been drunk about 300. You can do that to yourself and still function when you're in you're 20's; those days when you'd start at a little bar in Hollywood and wake up two days later on a beach in San Diego...
The desire for drink just faded in me...as I got into my late 20's, it just had less and less appeal to me. The last time I was really drunk was on New Year's Eve 2000-2001...since then, the worst I've had is a slight buzz after a couple beers. It is entirely likely that from this point forward, I could go my entire life without ever taking another drink...and without AA or any other group to help me to permanent sobriety.
Booze is a crutch, but AA is a crutch for people who don't want to admit that they went out and decided all on their own that they wanted to get sh**-faced drunk.
I'm entirely behind you on this one, Dean: Don't drink because you simply don't want to, for now...if you do decide to take a drink (or a dozen) then it was your choice to drink like that...but methinks you'll probably just not do it all that much anymore...
:o)
I can't stand the taste of alcohol, and I hate the feeling of losing control that comes with even slight intoxication. I'll never understand the appeal. So I'm in no position to give you advice, good or bad. Instead, I'll just offer my wishes that you and your family have good health and that you maintain self-control over self-indulgence.
Take the first two steps, I am powerless over alcohol and have come to believe that a power greater than myself will restore me to sanity.
Huh? God gave me free will. It's his greatest gift to me, every decision I make is a choice I make, not God, not my family or friends, not society. Me. I make my choices, I live with the consequences. I could never get past the first two "steps". It flies in the face of my very core belief system.
Dean: both of my parents were alcoholics. It could very well be that AA saved my life, as my father called them in 1966 after he found himself sitting in the basement with a loaded rifle across his lap wondering whether he should merely kill himself or take his children with him.
AA, flawed as it is, kept him alive. It rescued my parents from ruinous alcoholism, as it has done for a lot (a very large number) of other people. It may not be (in fact, I would say that it is not) for you, but that doesn't mean that it is 'bulls***'. When you go from saying 'It's not for me' to saying that it's bulls***, you make the same mistake that those ardent 12-steppers who send you email do.
AA isn't for everybody. But that doesn't mean it's all bulls***, either.
It did neither, actually. And I never saw anyone who attended, either overweight or anorexic (we had two anorexics in our regular group) conquer any eating disorder that brought them there.
12-step programs aren't for me, either. Richard Simmons wasn't for me. Weight Watchers wasn't for me. Never tried Atkins, but my step-son did and I can tell that wouldn't have been for me.
But just lately, my sister getting diagnosed with diabetes (she's older and a LOT heavier than I am) is what DID do it for me, because I could see myself in her shoes five years from now. 8 weeks and 25 pounds lighter...
And still counting...
Good for you, Dean. Good for you.
For people of faith, AA can be the difference between life and death. For others, there are lots of choices including medications.
If alcoholism is a disease then why are we still using a treatment that was invented in the 30's? Would you want your diabetes treated with the 1930's method or the 2005 one?
AA works for some, it doesn't work for everyone. Ignore the AA preachers because they don't get what AA is about.
The 12 Steps are ideals that we can never hope to attain. Personally I believe that the Serenity Prayer is the key to contentment - and almost just as ephemeral.
These are just tools. In the end it boils down to a choice to drink or not to drink.
I choose not to drink.
I've got a cousin who owns a rehab in New York state , been sober with AA for nearly 55 years. Worked great for him. Not for me, not for some other people. But for the ones it works for, i'm certainly not going to puncture their bubble.
Maybe the inpatient environment is different than just going to meetings. Who knows. I learned a lot in my 30 days and its been enough to help keep from pulling the trigger since then.
I agree with you. I'm saying why Dean thinks it's bull, I'm not saying that I agree.
I believe in God, Dean doesn't. Because he doesn't AA will never work for him, that is all I'm saying.
BTW, I drink maybe a couple times a year and when I do it's usually only a couple. My choice, I'm not addicted.
The Wife (may Her name be praised!) has had a hard time as well with Al-Anon because she's like Dean. However she has begun to realize that to state conclusively that there is nothing beyond us, that God does not and can not exist is a conceit. Of course, she's reading CS Lewis so I think that he's behind that one.
But she senses that there is something greater than her. Call it Nature, Life-force, God whatever, there is something bigger than her. This sense has allowed her to put up with all the G*d stuff one finds in 12 Step programs.
Dean should know that my "higher power" was Me - or rather the ideal Me that kept me sane and focused at critical times. The best analogy is a "Super Ego" in the Freudian sense which itself could be considered God.
Atheism is a very unstable state. I know because I just went through it with the death of my Father-in-law. Now I see my wife grudginly moving towards agnosticism. She will never embrace religion (nor I - I'm too independent) but she realizes that there are bigger things than her. And that keeps her humble and biting her tongue in Al-Anon.
The Captain got tired og his First Mate being drunk all the time and finally warned him that next time, he would write it in the Ship's Log. The next day, he saw the First Mate drunk again and wrote: "First Mate Drunk." But the First Mate got his revenge and snuck in and wrote: "Captain Sober."
True to life, as my Dad wrote once in his diary: "Steve is sober today." I would drink a bottle of champagne every New Year's and on some other holidays, too. I drank a lot of beer, too. I once passed out on some vodka. Later on, I got tired of beer and started drinking gin and tonics instead. That's all I drink nowadays.
It's been decades since I've been that drunk or drunk nearly that often. I've never been to an AA meeting or ever thought of going. I just finally decided that throwing up and passing out was not my idea of a good time. Now, I drink about once a month at the most, when I'm out at a restaurant with my family or friend or such to celebrate something or other, and only a glass or two.
I also don't like talking to people when they're drunk. Their memory and comprehension is shot when they're on the sauce, and so I can imagine what it must have been like trying to get through to me when I was on it all the time.
There are other ways to get high. Which brings me to another point about me and the sauce: I know full well that it works the opposite for a lot of other people, but if I may use the Greek mythological archetypes, I have found that Dionysus and Aphrodite never coexist in me. That type of liquid enhances every other emotion in me except that one. Having paid plenty of tribute to Dionysus, I prefer Aphrodite. Actually, I find Artemis even sexier. Perverted, I know. That's just the way I am, take it or leave it.
It's also the whole binary "yes you're an alcoholic/no you are not" thinking.
Plus, I get nothing out of sitting around listening to other boozehounds talking about horrible things they did. Others may relate to that, but I don't.
I remember going to a party and having one beer, and having others around me thinking, "Oh crap, he's going to get shitfaced." But I didn't. I had one beer, and went home and went to bed. It was horrible to me that I had to sit through that experience because people thought, "He has this horrible disease and can't control himself."
I admire Dean
For marrying the Queen.
I admire the Queen
For marrying Dean.
It's an ugly part of me and one that is hard to admit, but there it is. I suck, so there. Anyway, thanks for the great discussion on a fascinating topic.
Rick