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 hear a lot people talk about AA as a solution to alcoholism. AA works, AA doesnt work etc. Whilst I understand what people mean by this in a sense I feel it is a bit misleading.
AA itself is not a solution to alcoholism. AA is a fellowship of people who have access to a solution to alcoholism and meet to share their experience, strength, and hope in relation to that.
The solution offered in AA is actually a spiritual awakening - connection to a power greater than ourselves that can solve our problem - a problem we cannot solve ourselves due to our powerlessness.
The means suggested to bring about that spiritual awakening is the 12 step program.
Based on my own experience of being in AA and not applying the suggested solution and being in AA and applying the suggested solution I would say to anyone considering AA or new to AA or struggling in AA - please dont judge whether AA "works" or doesnt "work" until you have tried the real solution on offer there.
The fellowship on offer in AA is a wonderful thing but I have not yet seen someone who is powerless over alcohol reliably overcome that powerlessness on fellowship alone.
AA itself is not a solution to alcoholism. AA is a fellowship of people who have access to a solution to alcoholism and meet to share their experience, strength, and hope in relation to that.
The solution offered in AA is actually a spiritual awakening - connection to a power greater than ourselves that can solve our problem - a problem we cannot solve ourselves due to our powerlessness.
The means suggested to bring about that spiritual awakening is the 12 step program.
Based on my own experience of being in AA and not applying the suggested solution and being in AA and applying the suggested solution I would say to anyone considering AA or new to AA or struggling in AA - please dont judge whether AA "works" or doesnt "work" until you have tried the real solution on offer there.
The fellowship on offer in AA is a wonderful thing but I have not yet seen someone who is powerless over alcohol reliably overcome that powerlessness on fellowship alone.
My experience of recovery is very much like yours and over the time I have been sober, I have seen this truth so many times!
Good points. One of the magic bullets we supposedly have is the ability to implant a desire to stop drinking in those who are still on the fence about it. So to those who haven't quite made up their minds about us, I suggest trying AA only after all other options have been fully explored and exhausted.
I am ten and a half years sober now but when I was nine months sober, one of my wonderful friends of my youth, Jason, took his own life due to his alcoholism and drug addiction (he was a semi-trailer truck driver and his work-style ramped up his drug use - but he would have used anyway). I was, at 9 months sober, so raw. Jason's death drove home to me that he was my PEER. And he was dead. He and I were a couple of the stand-outs in out big group of young men an women as crazy drinkers and he was gone. I was also devasted because her was such a terrific fellow, we all loved him. He was a country boy, a horse rider, a State Level Champion Shooter. And he's gone. Forever.
And I have been around in AA to see such wonderful people pass as well. Along with the blessings of AA comes a very sad, lifelong experience of seeing people not make it. Wonderful people. Beloved people.
I want to work in and outside the room to get more people through the doors. I am now living in a town of 30,000 and the politics in AA here are diabolical - and the main people that affects is potential members, or new members. I want to do Public Information, but it's like I've said a swear word when I raise it at meeting - because of the politics. But I'm not going to give up.
As an alcoholic, I can be grandiose and over-dramatic, but it is not grandiose to say that this is a fatal illness. We are never cured but can arrest the disease on a daily basis - AND BE RELIEVED OF THE COMPULSION TO DRINK.
Wendy
AA works in proportion to how hard we work at it.
"Keep coming back it works if ya work it" But I also believe that some clearly haven't completed their research yet, and nothing except more research will work.