Well...my take on it is this. Labeling yourself is just a way of admitting a problem.

My very first sponsor could see that I thought myself as "lower than dirt" and suggested I think of myself as a "Garden Variety" drunk and junkie.

These days I refer to myself as a "Grateful Recovered Alcoholic/Addict. (Oh my, did I say Recovered)!

I refuse to get hung up in definitions of labels, live and let live! yeah

Now I agree with that - it is important to understand that there is no special club or class in our general meetings although everyone should come to understand the differences.

However, when we share it is important that we tell it like it is and when I share on recovery (I don't like the war stories), I have to say that I was in and out of AA as my disease progressed and that I nearly died when I was in the chronic phase. It was "bitter end pending" when I found my spiritual awakening. I now consider myself recovered and I live each day in the spiritual solution.

One thing I do NOT do is keep harping on about how different I am to the other types because that does no good at all. It is how we make this distinction, when we need to, that matters.

So still confussed, Gail. (o; You mean I must not be the alcoholic as discribed in the BB because I wasn't as sick as you? and not had my spiritual awaking yet, because I haven't got 'done' with the steps yet?

No, I don't mean that - you are an alcoholic just like me - it is the degree that your disease has progressed that may be the difference.

I should have put "the possible difference" instead of "the difference" so apols for that. I don't know that much about your own personal alcoholism.

Prayer and faith are important to help you stay sober as you know. You may well have had a spiritual awakening - I am just unsure if you have done all the Steps yet? I don't know. The thing is that when you have, the spiritual awakening is different. We are recovered and no longer struggle because we have ALL the spiritual tools.

Karen...Sweet Lady, you know you are an alcoholic...I get frustrated when people insist on quoting BB. Keep it Simple... geezzz listen to me, LOL I try and make everything complicated!

There is a point where I needed my sponsor (to walk me through the steps as outlined) but our personal beliefs about what it all means is personal and comes with experiencing life as we apply what we have learned. Am I making any sense?

I guess what I mean is the BB has much information about our disease, I had to get with the HP for a deeper understanding of what it all means to me. Not what someone elses definition is. The steps brought me into a relationship with my HP.

I see. Yes, I was pretty bad off. Chronic, no, but didn't want to get there! lol. I went pretty quick from every 4 days, to every other, to every day there at the end. Had to get to rehab, because I was just to sick in my mind to make it to the meetings that would have been manditory for me to make it for sure!

I'm lacking a sponsor right now, and so I am living on a wing and a prayer, really. Once I have that spiritual awaking I KNOW I will be well on my way to recovery...and recovered...there's that word, Ree...hehehe.

Thought I wasn't going to get through last weekend. Sick this week, so no meetings...I'm hurting, yes. But fear is driving me...and I know that will run out if I don't get me a new sponsor!!! Ohhhhh, how this is so scary for me right now! shooot!

Ree, oh yeah...I have GOT to keep this simple! Thanks for the reminder. (o; I either do, or die! I get a little weller, and I'm hitting a f2f. Right now I just hang out here, talk with Phil608, did an online in london rooms on Thursday, and well, I NEED A SPONSOR! Bottom Line! Like you mentioned about that HP (God is His name) needs a strong place in my life, because my fear is running low on fuel.

Yes I am very put off by people using the terms 'real' alcoholic and 'chronic' alcoholic it really doesn't help with my denial and also makes me feel like I'm not even good enough for an AA meeting (no offence!). I struggle to feel like I fit in at my meetings anyway, I am usually the youngests one there and female and when people use these terms it makes me feel even less able to find my place, sometimes I wonder if AA is for me at all

As Ree says, it is better to "keep it simple" when in early recovery, especially when you haven't gone through the Steps formally with a sponsor. Remember, this is a learning process, not a race. It takes time to understand exactly what the programme involves.

People have a moral right to say which stage they were at before they recovered, this is the experience they have to share. It certainly is nothing to boast about (who would want to be that near death!) and there is no hierarchy of "qualification" although that seems to be some people's misconception.

It is just fact that those who are extremely ill desperately need to do the programme(Steps) as soon as possible, they don't have much time left on their side. It gets to the point of bitter end (death) or spirituality.

All who have a problem with alcohol and an honest desire to stop drinking are welcome in AA, even non-Alcoholics.

We don't all have to be at the same stage. That would be impossible! People who come into AA at an earlier stage are saved a lot of pain and despair.

It doesn't matter to me how someone describes themselves as an alkie. Maybe it keeps them in focus if it's kind of unusual. Maybe they need attention. No clue here really.. I don't put much thought into it. This one man literally says how many days he's been sober when he introduces himself. It over 10,000 days! Which is great but I admit I have privately rolled my eyes when he does it sometimes. Oh well.. The dude is very cool though! And sober!

It happen in the US too. I pay no attention as long as you identify as an alcoholic you cn add anything you want as far as I'm concerned. I do question why some people identify as they do but it's none of my business.

I see this in Canadian AA, too. One fellow introduces himself as a "Larry, Sick puppy". There is another who calls himself a "real alcoholic" and uses his first and last name, thus breaking his anonymity. There are several who introduce themselves by saying "I'm so and so and I have a desire to not drink today." All of these men are tolerated, although I know it raises a few hackles. I would be surprised if it didn't. We are an opinionated lot and we don't like change.

It seems to me that there is nothing written in the Big Book that says we even have to qualify at meetings. I think it's a personal group decision, although every AA meeting that I've ever been to around the province insists on qualifying during closed meetings. These men are acting "outside of the norm" and it makes us nervous. lol

We alcholics are the same. We are ego driven or need to see ourselves as unique. We all try to swim against the current at some point in our recovery, trying to prove that we are different from our fellows.

It can be dangerous when we think that we are different and the recovery 'rules' don't apply to us. Terminal uniqueness kills a lot of alcoholics because they end up convincing themselves they don't have the disease. It's not the person who identifies themselves as a "real alcoholic" in a meeting who is putting themselves at risk. It's the one who uses insecure comparing to create uniqueness: "I wasn't that bad. Maybe I'm not an alcholic at all."

I am a proud AAer and I do use the Big Book as a recovery tool. I also look to medical science to fill in the gaps that the Big Book doesn't deal with.

I do accept the fact that it is a progressive and terminal disease. Your disease might not have progressed to the point of the "real alcholic" in the Big Book, but it will if you are alcoholic and continue to drink. High bottom alcholics always become low bottom ones unless they get into recovery. That is the nature of the disease. We know enough about the disease now to diagnose high bottom drunks, too. They do have a place in today's AA.

Where I attend meetings (in Cheshire) almost no-one introduces themselves saying how long they have been sober or what type of alcoholic they are. For the same reasons as most state here - that differentiation to that degree is not good for the whole.

The norm is that I, for example, say Hi, my name is Gail and I am an alcoholic. That is standard in Cheshire and at every other meeting I have been to in the UK.

We will only touch on any other detail during our share, if we share.

I never say how long I have been sober unless directly asked in a personal conversation but I do say I was a chronic phase alcoholic before I did the programme. That is an important part of my story and if it can help someone to do the Steps sooner than I did I am very glad.

The Big Book doesn't talk about meetings because they did not have them like we do today and if someone went to a meeting they did the programme beforehand (That certainly applied to the first 100 instrumental in the compilation of the book). My sponsor was taken through the programme before she ever attended an AA meeting - very unusual in today's AA.

I've never heard someone say "chronic" or "real" but there are a couple who always give a bit of a long introduction.

One that I find interesting is a guy who says "I'm 'so & so' and thanks to my higher power and this program, I did not find it necessary to pick up a drink today". I like that he says "did not find it necessary".

I find it comical when some try to prove who is the bigger alcoholic. What is it? A freakin contest?? "Well listen to what I did!!" holycrap, do you want an award or something?? hee hee..

It is interesting that you say that, Gailly. Not too long ago, an oldtimer in my town with forty-plus years in says he remembers a time when newcomers were taken out of meetings and did the first three steps right there. When they had done that, they were brought into the meeting again, a member of AA. Very ritualistic...and kinda cool from where I sit. He said originally, we stuck like glue to newcomers and weren't afraid to be blunt. We are limited in some ways by the climate of political correctness that is so pervasive in our society...and yet I see a need for it, too.

The norm in closed meetings in Canada is to say, "Hi, my name is bato and I am an alcoholic". Or "bato, alcoholic." People who refuse to do this will be brought in on the third tradition. The chair will ask, "Do you have a desire to stop drinking?" If they still refuse but want to stay, we make the meeting an open one.

hmmm, yeah.....hmmmm....maybe I'm not the real alcoholic. I could go find out if anyone wants to know?

Bets on? lol . Let's get this party started! Whoot!