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Permalink Reply by Cecilia on January 25, 2011 at 2:28pm

Thanks for sharing and congratulations!  I would also note that there is an alternative to AA: SMART recovery which is a "secular, science-based" support group:

http://smartrecovery.org/

 

The problem is that they do not have nearly as chapters as AA but they do have an active online community.  I think it is important to get the word out because there are lots of people who are turned off by AA's higher power stuff but because AA has a monopoly in the recovery game lots of people aren't getting the help they need.

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Mike Powers on January 25, 2011 at 3:08pm

Thanks for posting, Carlos.  My name is Mike.  I am an alcoholic/ addict.  Although I recognize that the peer support of AA would be valuable in helping me to avoid drink and drugs, I don't attend AA meetings specifically because of the "higher power" issue.  Since I can't give myself over to something that I don't believe exists, it undermines their whole approach.  I wish that I could suggest an alternative.  Smart Recovery looks like a pretty good group but there isn't one in my area.  Best to you, brother.

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Permalink Reply by Reg The Fronkey Farmer on January 25, 2011 at 3:19pm

A friend of mine attended AA in England. He was pressurised into choosing his “higher power” at every meeting. He was not an atheist nor would I say he was religious. Gods were not important to him at the time. After 3 weeks he was told that if he did not choose his Higher Power that he would not be strong enough to stay sober by himself. So he said his choice was an old oak tree that he sat under in a local park to contemplate life.

He was then told that if he did not choose God he should leave because he was only wasting his and everyone else’s time. This caused objections from others at the meeting. It turns out that some meeting groups are based more on religion and god rather than the 12 steps. There is also a lot of pseudo psychology practised. He was told that he needed to talk to everybody that harmed him or that he harmed in his life to “purge these monsters”

He left the AA. He is sober over 10 years because he wants to be. He now has a wife and child. He looks to and trusts himself as his own “higher power”. I think that if they removed the Woo from it and got more practical it might be a better organisation.

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Permalink Reply by justin gold on January 26, 2011 at 11:31am

Hi Reg I agree,but they cant remove the Woo as the organisation is based on Woo! If your a bible bashing,god fearing,creation believing drunk the A.A is built for you.Rational people with a problem should go elsewhere.

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Permalink Reply by Dustin on January 25, 2011 at 4:30pm

The thing they don't tell a skeptical mind is that the stats they use to show the 'recovery rates' are taken from the members that stay in the program.  Duh!  The take out the ones that don't stay. 

 

They also don't tell you that some that don't stay still get better.  So that is why the stats are skewed. 

 

I wonder why many don't stay ... 

 

The entire program is based off empty claims that you 'need' to accept a higher power and that you 'need' to admit you are helpless against the addiction , which is just pathetically false.  All you have to do is go talk to someone who has achieved a clean slate without falling into the psychological mumbo jumbo they feed you in those meetings.  

 

I went in for 'GA' , but attended AA meetings as well because they were more diverse than GA meetings.  They tried to force me to admit I was helpless , which I adamantly refused to do.  I told them I am in control over my body and mind.  They did not like that one bit.  I said Tough shit because you are not going to force this on me.  I also told them I don't believe in God and I think it's all made up.  I told them my higher power was Nature and they accepted that.  

 

I was a deep introvert and got addicted to online poker.  I was extremely good at it , too.  But I was so good that I would win a lot of money but continue playing and get sleep deprived and lose it all.  I never lost a lot of money , but I did lose a ton of real time I could have done doing real things.  

 

Since then , which was only a few years ago , I have dabbled in online poker again and have been perfectly fine and won some very lucrative tournaments.  Consistently.  I have made other life changes.  I have forced myself to stay in touch with friends and go out to clubs to meet girls and socialize.  Stop feeling sorry for myself.  

 

You don't need AA, GA , or NA.  The fellowship is what unites them , but I found my fellowship with people outside of the group.  I couldn't take listening to their sob stories any longer and accusing me that I am going to become an alcoholic and become addicted to other substances because I didn't 'accept' what they tried to force onto me.  It was absolutely painful listening to their stories.  It's a bunch of old guys talking about betting on horses and it's always the same story every week.  I refused to attend any longer.  I have also been fine since I learned new life style choices.  

 

Its all in your mind.  Some people are more susceptible to addiction in moments of their life , but I firmly believe anyone can succumb to it.  Anyone can also get out of it if they have a structural support of loved ones and become educated on the signs of addiction.  Wow this is long , sorry about that :P

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Permalink Reply by justin gold on January 26, 2011 at 11:22am

Hey dustin,is the G.A the same sort of outfit as the A.A, the same religious undertone to it?

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Permalink Reply by Dustin on January 26, 2011 at 10:54pm

It depends on where the meetings are.  In virginia, the religiosity seemed more potent.  In a certain part of Maryland , not so much.  I'm guessing the bible belt would be more religious compared to a GA meeting in NYC for instance.  

 

I didn't attend that many of the same AA meetings so I couldn't really get a feel for it.  

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Permalink Reply by Isaac on January 25, 2011 at 7:43pm

I think that if I were to be in AA, being a determinist would cause more problems for me than being an atheist. Fortunately, based on my alcohol consumption during 2010, which was me getting drunk on average of once per 2 months, I doubt I'd be going to AA anytime soon.

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Permalink Reply by justin gold on January 26, 2011 at 11:17am

That's exactly what turns people away from the A.A in Britain,they want to go to talk to other people about their drink problem not to start turning to God.That's what annoys me about the religious organisations,Targeting the vulnerable to join their faith. "We can help you beat your problem but you need to do it with Gods help"BOLLOCKS!!!  You don't need God to beat drink or any other drug now we're on about it. Luckily in the u.k there are the community drug & alcohol teams(C.D.A.T) which are the most popular, Probably as the U.K is a less religious country but the A.A still operate here.

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Permalink Reply by Cecilia on January 26, 2011 at 12:07pm

You guys have the greatest words:  "bollocks" - I love that word.  And, it describes so much of the 12 step/AA models of recovery perfectly.   It is unfortunate that here in the U.S. there really is not much of an alternative to that approach, unfortunate because I really do not think it is nearly as effective as claimed.

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Permalink Reply by Mo Trauen on January 26, 2011 at 2:15pm

You really should check out this website:

 

http://www.orange-papers.org/index.html

 

It is about the religious basis of AA, the abuses it is guilty of, and the fact that it doesn't seem to actually work any better than going it alone.  Apparently, a small percentage of addicts decide on their own every year to sober up and then do so and AA' success rate appears to be no higher and may be lower.

 

Here is information about secular organizations for sobriety:

 

http://www.cfiwest.org/sos/index.htm

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Permalink Reply by Cecilia on January 26, 2011 at 3:22pm

The link below takes you to a review of a book called Addiction:  A Disorder of Choice, by Gene Heyman

http://www.naturalism.org/Heyman.htm

 

Here is a quote from the review:

Heyman, a psychologist with appointments at Harvard and Boston College, presents an eye-opening and empirically grounded theory of voluntary behavior that goes a long way toward explaining addiction, not as a disease, but as choice-making gone bad. His analysis adds substantially to the growing literature in behavioral economics that shows we are not optimally rational maximizers of our own self-interest. Addiction, it turns out, is simply one rather vivid manifestation of a basic feature of voluntary action: judged from the standpoint of an ideal consumer taking a long-term view of her choices, we tend to overconsume our immediate preferences, and in so doing undermine our net self-interest over the long haul. Drugs, including alcohol, are very good subverters of ideal, globally informed choice-making, so addiction properly understood is a paradigm disorder of choice, of voluntary behavior."

 

Needless to say, Heyman's thesis is quite the opposite of the disease, you have no control model of addiction that is sanctioned by the treatment established.  Some of the negative reader comments at Amazon showed the extent to which AA  has had the final say in what is "kosher" in the treatment world.  Anyway, I bought the book but (of course) haven't gotten around to reading it.

 

I always found the AA "you have not control and must give yourself to a higher power" to be exactly the opposite of what I would view as a positive therapeutic approach to the problem.

 

 

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