Alcoholism Support Group
Alcoholism is the continued consumption of alcoholic beverages, even when it is negatively affecting your health, work, relationships and life. If you think alcohol is causing you to lose control, it's time to seek help. Our group is a safe place to vent, check in, get back up if you fall, and reach sobriety.
I have a couple addictions (which do not involve alcohol/substance abuse) that are completely ruining my life and have kept me on the edge of death (in high risk situations, on the edge of survival regarding resources, virtually non-functioning, etc.) for years now. The degree to which I am desperate for help to recover from addiction which I am severely powerless over cannot be adequately expressed. I knew someone from AA who I opened up to about this, and she was very understanding and wanted to help. She suggested I sit in on a couple AA meetings and brought me with. I do not live in a big city, or near a big city. There are only a couple different types of twelve-step groups around here (you really need a giant city to get all the different specific ones, and I'm not even sure I would find one 'for me' there). I have often thought, if not downright fantasized, about becoming a drug addict. I often feel on the verge of that. Often it feels if my life fell apart much more, that's exactly what I would do. But at this rate, I might be dead before I even got the chance. I am positive that the ONLY reason I am not an alcoholic and/or drug addict is that I grew up in a cult, in which such things were taboo, and I was isolated and NEVER had a friend who offered me a drink or a drug. That's the only reason. I just became addicted to what little in my environment there was to become addicted to. I HAVE FOUND THAT I IDENTIFY PRETTY MUCH 100% WITH EVERYTHING PEOPLE IN AA ARE SAYING, THE LITERATURE, ETC. The only factor of difference is the material focus/means of the addiction. Furthermore, I have read quite a bit about addiction at this point, and I also have a therapist now who has a lot of experience working with addiction. All I have read and my therapist has also echoed that it makes little difference what the addiction is. It operates very similarly. From talking with people in AA, listening to their stories, and reading the literature, I have found that the experience is almost exactly the same. (When I got the Big Book, the first chapter I read ("There is a Solution") I underlined almost every paragraph it seemed, lol, putting stars everywhere, and like every other paragraph I was like omg, ME!!! I was shocked how much I identified and felt so liberated to find SO much identification. That's how I felt (and feel) in the meetings too. But I just started, and I don't know if it will be a problem for others that my addictions are not alcohol or substance abuse (at this point). (Every time I am able to abstain from my addictions, btw, I find myself realizing how easily I could and would replace them with something else, often something more serious. My mind really goes there.) I would only stick to open meetings of course, but I have read mixed things about that. The literature seems to say they're open to everyone, BUT (it states) that it is at the discretion of the individual group. In a forum I read about it, one person said that at their open meetings, non-alcoholics are not allowed to speak. While others said at their meetings others are totally welcome and they have people come who are struggling with other addictions. What do you all think from your experience with AA?
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My 6mo twin DD's are EBF and just started rice cereal on the first. Everything has been going fine except this morning one of them had a diaper rash (lots of redness around her anus). I read this as one of the signs of an allergy. BUT I did just buy a different brand diaper yesterday (which they have used randomly before w/no issues). Do you think its the cereal or the diaper? Im ready to start...
Hugs,
Dennis
Good luck.
Or you can continue to attend open meetings. It's really up to you.
And saying "a drug is a drug" is treatment center jargon. I worked in a treatment center for 10 yrs. You won't find that in any AA material either.
The secret found through listening and with good sponsorship was reading and applying the(steps) literature and all the other wonderful information in my life in lets say Alanon, attending the meetings and staying abstinent from caretaking, rescuing and blaming especially in not using other fellowships to find those I could I could continue to act out in.
When in Rome( I did as the Romans did) in what was needed to abstain individually in the fellowship I was attending and apply things that would help me in that area of my life.
In Acoa the mainstay is to not give advice its to again let the individual find their way without being tempted to continue to be a chameleon by following others advise and emulating them our truths are collectedly our own.
Its really not that hard to understand if maybe you try and find a good sponsor who has also addressed many issues without bunching it all together. That in itself creates a fellowship far less effective and much more dogmatic in what its effectiveness is meant to be applied too:) a good therapist understands that too....
Billy
http://www.healtalk.com/public/38.shtml
A.A.'s way of fighting alcohol addiction is that it loses power over the individual when it is shared with others. Alcohol isolates a person and attacks their self esteem.
There is absolutely NO REASON TO THINK THIS WAY OF FIGHTING AN ADDICTION CAN NOT BE USED ON OTHER ADDICTIONS!!!
One of A.A.'s best motto's is "it works if you work it". Work it dear Hope, work it. Eric
Most of you seem like you didn't even read my post. I said that OF COURSE I am only sticking to open meetings.
I also said that there are hardly ANY other types of twelve-step groups in my area; that only big cities have ones for various specific types of addictions. I don't live anywhere close to a big city.
I would really genuinely deeply like to understand how it is unimportant that I am just as powerless over my addiction as an alcohol addict is, and how it does not matter that my life is in serious danger because of it.
As AA members, if you met or heard someone at an open meeting who was in that predicament (with no other types of meetings to go to for the same exact help it is that you need from the miserable powerlessness of your addiction), would you really just go wtf? Your addiction isn't the material object of alcohol? Get out of here. No compassion? No regard? Just left alone to struggle and very possibly die? Because only of the difference of the material focus of the addiction?
If I am only in open meetings and identify with everything being said and can both be helped/supported and give support ?
Why?
Wish you luck in your journey. I have seen a few people in a similar place...all I can say is sooner or later they can get a little fed up that everyone else keeps talking about alcohol when that particular behaviour doesn't quite fit for them. Make the most of what you can get from open meetings I suppose and perhaps it could help you to find an online resource where people have a similar problem to the one you're facing?
Try not to get angry with the folks here, mostly we are just speaking from our experience. It's important to find somewhere to really fit I think and many of us, having a problem with alcohol, find that in AA. It offers much more but that's the thing that holds it together - pretty unique in that way.
Like others I would suggest you keep opening up to people at those meetings you attend, before and after the meeting tell folks whyy you're really there and what you do/ don't identify with.
Take care
P
Having come late to this thread and being in a bit of a rush today I have not read all of the replies to your post but I think that I get the gist of what has been said and I can understand your difficulty.
The solution that I am proposing is not the ideal one but in the absence of access to meetings and face to face support from other people it a pretty good substitute. I am not selling anything and I apologise if this is the wrong place for posting a commercial suggestion but I think that this would help you and indeed many others.
When I got a sponsor and started on the Twelve Step programme I was introduced to an amazing source of help that I have used over and over since then. It was a set of DVDs called The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous by Joe McQuany. If you Google a bit you will find where the set of six DVDs can be bought online for about $60. Some of them are now posted on U-tube as well so you can look at those for free and see if you think that they are worth investing in.
A word of warning in an ideal world these DVDs should be used in conjunction with a sponsor as the Steps are not a DIY programme. This particular product is based on a series of Big Book chalk talks that were given by Joe McQuany of Joe and Charlie fame and they are directed at people who are dealing with alcoholism. However, as anyone who is familiar with the Steps will know, alcohol is mentioned only once, in Step 1. After that the programme is dealing with living and it could be applied to any addiction and indeed would be of benefit to people with no addiction at all.