aa Spoken Here Community Group
Fellowship Where you can share your thoughts, feelings, stories and get support to gain and continue sobriety.
Although threads typically evolve and change I can see Holy crap's point about us hijacking the AA meeting thread.
Yet, I wanted to answer Lee's last comment, as I feel these discussions are good.
Simple soultion, start a new thread.
Lee you mentioned that we do not exist to even suggest behavior mod,. Theorectially that may be true but in reality we do it all the time.
We have little aceptence of recovering alcoholics continuing to use other drugs anbd with good reason.
However, we openly accept our members smoking without so much as a word.
Tobacco has an unreasonable, special protection and double standard in our society and in AA and that double standard is deadly.
Don't get me wrong , I;m not talking about intolerance. Yet why do we react so differently to an AA who states he's still smoking pot vs. one who's still smoking tobacco??
I mean no harm here, this is just part of who I am, I see the double stanards, the ironies and the stories behind the story and then like to get it out in the open.
Joel
Yet, I wanted to answer Lee's last comment, as I feel these discussions are good.
Simple soultion, start a new thread.
Lee you mentioned that we do not exist to even suggest behavior mod,. Theorectially that may be true but in reality we do it all the time.
We have little aceptence of recovering alcoholics continuing to use other drugs anbd with good reason.
However, we openly accept our members smoking without so much as a word.
Tobacco has an unreasonable, special protection and double standard in our society and in AA and that double standard is deadly.
Don't get me wrong , I;m not talking about intolerance. Yet why do we react so differently to an AA who states he's still smoking pot vs. one who's still smoking tobacco??
I mean no harm here, this is just part of who I am, I see the double stanards, the ironies and the stories behind the story and then like to get it out in the open.
Joel
But using your argument, I could make the case that a long time maintenance drinker doesn't drink to get high either. Does that make it OK??
And I'm far from vegan. But the topic is how other drug use is accepted or not accepted in AA , with tobacco being accepted.
Tobacco is addcitive, controls our lives and harms and kills us. It has more in common with alcohol, cocaine and MJ than there are differences.
I don't suggest we browbeat people, more like encourage them to quit and to stop pretending it's not drug use.
Joel
There was a meeting near me where the person in the chair was still smoking dope on a daily basis. The group conscience was that since he was abstinent from alcohol, he could be in the chair. I didn't agree with that, but then it wasn't my home group and so it was none of my business.
For me, personally, the concept of "practising these principles in all my affairs" means no drugs, no tobacco, no innapropriate sex, no eating loads of food to change the way I feel ... no behaviour that is likely to put me into my "addict" way of thinking.
That, however, is my personal choice. Each to their own.
Trouble is, ANY mind altering drug prevents a person from living a spiritual life - how can they when their mind is chemically distorted? Nicotine is not like that and neither are anti-depressants, for that matter.
Today, some people will class smoking dope along the same lines as tobacco. I recently encountered this when someone asked me to sponsor her. If I had not asked the question whether she was using any other mind altering substance or any prescription drugs, she said she might never have thought to mention it. She stopped using it and so I agreed to sponsor her. She still smokes though and I have no problem with that. She can have a cigarette and still enjoy a spiritual life!
Blues, I fail to see how taking an asprin invalidates my arguement.
Asprin and chocolate aren't killing more people than booze, heroine, cocaine, suicide and aids combined, tobacco is.
OTC meds aren't killing more alcoholics than alcohol, tobacco is.
I'm not talking about making tobacco abstinence a requirement , aftrerall there is only one requirement. But the double standard is killing people, plain and simple. Or perhaps it'ds better to accept other drug use and only speak to alcohol, like the group Mike described?
But our current stance looks hypocritical to me!
Joel
Many of those heart deaths you speak of are caused by tobacco. In fact I've lost too many AA friends to tobacco without ever having said a word.
It took me many years into sobriety to quit and many attempts, during some of those attempts I had to avoid meetings because the smoke was so thick. Since then we have progressed to non-smoking meetings at least. But I did much damage to my lungs that cannot be corrected!
Really Blues, why doesn't tobacco count as a drug? Because you use it?
In a momentary flash of sheer panic, I quickly reviewed my recent conduct and did a mental spot-check inventory of everything I had in the house that could possibly be construed as immoral, illegal, sacrilegious or fattening. With reasonable assurance that they'd never find my secret stash, I opened the door with cautious confidence.
"Yes?" I queried.
"Death Prevention Squad, sir. We're doing a sweep of the neighborhood. You do not have the right to remain silent, and anything you say will become part of your Permanent Medical Records. Do you understand that this means the total suspension of all your civil rights under the Fourth Amendment?"
"N-not entirely," I stammered.
The cop turned to his assistant, a uniformed rookie who was already punching text and numbers into her Blackberry. "Make a note of that as one infraction each for incipient Alzheimer's and geriatric insubordination, Officer," he barked.
bluesaway77 ... I think you may have scanned too quickly over my post. You might like to look at what I *actually* said.
Hell, I'm confused now !
in our group we are encouraged to focus on not drinking at all,for 3 to 5 years before trying diets or giving up tobacco,
If we are addicted to drugs we are encouraged to wean ourselves off them too but in a shorter time.ASAP usually ,depending on what it is we are addicted to.
Yes tobacco kills us and being fat and unhealthy,
but first we have to stop drinking long enough to care whether we live or die first, that can take a long time.
I gave up smoking before I could give up drinking, that required will power for me and the same goes for diets or giving up caffeine etc. I think I would not have found it so hard to give up smoking if I had the spiritual power at the time as well but it was achievable none the less.
With alcoholism it is our minds that are the main trouble before we find recovery and no amount of willpower can address that!