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.
Hey,
Sooo I went to a meeting today for the first time in years, my drinking seems to be getting out of control again but the thing is that i don't want to stop drinking, I'm not really much of joiner and there are lots of things about AA that annoy me so although i know AA might be able to help me I also feel like i will have to lie to people and keep my mouth shut if i keep going so not really sure what to do?
Sooo I went to a meeting today for the first time in years, my drinking seems to be getting out of control again but the thing is that i don't want to stop drinking, I'm not really much of joiner and there are lots of things about AA that annoy me so although i know AA might be able to help me I also feel like i will have to lie to people and keep my mouth shut if i keep going so not really sure what to do?
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I invited Bill to have dinner with me last Sunday. He wasn't willing to drive 7 hours to mid Michigan and teased me with his beautiful ribs!!! So, of course I ate alone and had cedar salmon
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check out that smoke ring. It tasted really good. I smothered it with Maulls BBQ sauce which is Local to St. Louis and one of the best I ever had.....
So no matter where you are or what bar stool your sitting on, the doors of AA will always be open, waiting for you, when your ready.
For me, it was my mum's face that got me to AA. I knew I had the 'desire' yet I too wasn't sure what would happen initially. I knew the consequences of my drinking had got worse and still were. I knew I wasn't living much of a life. I knew I wasn't happy.
I saw other people smiling and that was enough to keep me going back while the seeds were being sewn.
One thing I love about that meeting still, the hope. No-where until that time had I felt there were others like me. Today I am glad that I found the solution and was prepared to do the work.
If that's the case, don't worry, you won't. You can sit in the chair in a meeting every day but as long as you think you can drink successfully, it will be a waste of time.
AA is for people who want to live sober and sanely in this world. Come on in when you're ready to stop. We'll keep the light on.
For me, I was in and out of AA for many years, I was always glad when I got back to meetings and reassured to see familiar faces.
What broke that "in and out" pattern for me was the eventual desire to want to stop drinking wholeheartedly for myself.
Then I became teachable and could start on the HOW of AA - honesty, open-mindedness and willingness to do what was required for a happy and healthy sobriety.
I found that if I worked hard by following the directions of the 12 Step programme with my sponsor, there was a "way out" for me too - however bleak and unlikely it seemed at the time.
stopping but geee I've spent most of
my AA yrs sober.I found I wanted a
different life & I learnt to get one,
stop needing to ber in a bar,stop
needing to drink,stop having no control
not to drink etc.I'm still working on
change but I've now got 10 yrs straight without a drink.I've been going to AA
for nearly 21 yrs & most of it not
drinking,working on improvement.
Take care
~ Author Unknown
Mayday I'm fairly new to AA, been sober for 7 months and a bit. I don't love every person I meet, and in fact had a really bad experience yesterday. BUT I love AA. I love that there is a singleness of purpose and that I don't *have* to join I just need to be willing to suit up and show up. All that's required is a desire to stop drinking. That's it.
Why will you have to lie or shut up? We have all sorts of opinions aired in meetings. Its all just fine and welcome. Occasionally I don't relate or it makes me uncomfortable but I've never found it a reason to stop coming back.
And for me, its been a miracle. I havent had to have a drink in 217 days. And I'm pretty sure if I keep doing whats been suggested I won't drink tomorrow.
Recovery in AA is 'a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty.' _ You're thinking about lying to the people there.
How is AA going to help you?? It's not about trying to persuade you to quit drinking. All I hope is that you don't take up the time of people who are trying to help you if you have no desire to stop - you might deny someone who actually wants to get sober from doing so.
Please make sure that you attend open meetings only as closed meetings are for people who actually want to recover!
Serenity, how culd AA help me? Well it helped me quit before, maybe it could help me cut down? And no I don't want to take up anyones time and i hink i agree about only going to open meetings but people alwyays reach out anyway and unless i keep skipping about to different locations to go to meetings then I'm going to bump into the same people and i don't want to hurt anyone, guess i'm just looking for a different solution right now
Anyone who tried to impress a drinking alcoholic with the approach, You cant have your cake and eat it, too, would probably draw a scornful, So what! Who wants any cake? Tony, make it a double this time.
The same idea expressed as, You cant have your bottle and drink it, too, might get his attention because to a drinking alcoholic a fresh unopened bottle, brimming brightly with abundance, is a symbol of good things to come. He knows well enough, of course, that he cant drink it and still have it, but he blocks his mind to the inevitability of that horrible moment when the last bottle will be empty.
The untapped bottle remains a symbol to the non-drinking alcoholic, at least to the alcoholic who has dried up in A.A. So long as it stands unopened it represents drinks he has not taken, and the good things of life he has found by not drinking.
Yet now and then a persevering soul tries to have both the figurative and the liquid contents of the bottle. He tries to make an impossible compromise.
In the opinion of a man who has administered personally to at least 10,000 alcoholics, the attempt to make this kind of compromise is one of the most common causes of failure to get a safe hold on A.A.
Dr. W.D. Silkworth, genial and beloved little patriarch at Towns Hospital, New York, for twelve years and now (1945) also in charge of the new A.A. ward at Knickerbocker, also New York, defines it as the alcoholic double-cross.
The majority who slip after periods of sobriety, says Dr. Silkworth, having double-crossed themselves into thinking that somehow they can have the unopened bottle and drink it, too. Even though they have been in A.A. and going to meetings, and following parts of the program, they have accepted it with reservations somewhere. They actually have been one step ahead of a drink. Then they began playing around with the notion they can drink a little and still have the good things of A.A. The outcome is an inevitable as the bottle becoming empty once it has been opened by the alcoholic.
When Dr. Silkworth discusses A.A. slips his usually cheerful face becomes serious even a little grim. Through his long years of practice in the field, he has become increasingly sympathetic, but not case-hardened, to alcoholics. He understands what they experience. Having been one of the first in his profession to support A.A. and having guided scores of alcoholics into A.A., he also appreciates the fact that a slip for an A.A. involves an extra degree of remorse and misery.
Dr. Silkworth is particularly emphatic on one point.
Slips are not the fault of A.A. I have heard patients complain, when brought in for another drying out, that A.A. failed them. The truth, of course, is that they failed A.A.
But this mental maneuvering to transfer the blame is obviously another indication of fallacious thinking. It is another symptom of the disease.
A quick way to get Dr. Silkworths appraisal of A.A. is to ask him how he thinks slips can be prevented.
First, he explains, lets remember the cause. The A.A. who slips has not accepted the A.A. program in its entirety. He has a reservation, or reservations. Hes tried to make a compromise. Frequently, of course, he will say he doesnt know why he reverted to a drink. He means that sincerely and, as a matter of fact, he may not be aware of any reason. But if his thoughts can be probed deeply enough a reason can usually be found in the form of a reservation.
The preventive, therefore, is acceptance of the A.A. program and A.A. principles without any reservations. This brings us to what I call the moral issue and to what I have always believed from the first to be the essence of A.A."
Why does this moral issue and belief in a power greater than oneself appear to be the essential principle of A.A.? First, an important comparison is found in the fact that all other plans involving psychoanalysis, will-power, restraint and other ingenious ideas have failed in 95 per cent of the cases. A second is that all movements of reform minus a moral issue have passed into oblivion.
Whatever may be the opinions one professes in the matter of philosophy -whether one is a spiritualist or a scientific materialist - one should recognize the reciprocal influence which the moral and physical exert upon each other. Alcoholism is a mental and physical issue. Physically a man has developed an illness. He cannot use alcohol in moderation, at least not for a period of enduring length. If the alcoholic starts to drink, he sooner or later develops the phenomenon of craving.
Mentally, this same alcoholic develops an obsessive type of thinking which, in itself a neurosis, offers an unfavorable prognosis through former plans of treatment. Physically - science does not know why - a man cannot drink in moderation. But through moral psychology - a new interpretation of an old idea - A.A. has been able to solve his former mental obsession. It is the vital principle of A.A., without which A.A. would have failed even as other forms of treatment have failed."
To be sure, A.A. offers a number of highly useful tools or props. Its group therapy is very effective. I have seen countless demonstrations of how well your 24-hour plan operates. The principle of working with other alcoholics has a sound psychological basis. All of these features of the program are extremely important.
But, in my opinion, the key principle which makes A.A. work where other plans have proved inadequate is the way of life it proposes based upon the belief of the individual in a Power greater than himself and the faith that this Power is all sufficient to destroy the obsession which possessed him and was destroying him mentally and physically.
For many years I faced this alcoholic problem being sure of one scientific fact - that detoxication by medical treatment must precede any psychiatric approach. I have tried many of these orthodox psychiatric approaches and invented some new ones of my own. With some patients I would be coldly analytical, if they were of the so-called scientific type who is apt to have a superior attitude toward anything emotional or spiritual. With others, I would try the scare method, telling them that if they continued to drink they would kill themselves. With still others, I would attempt the emotional appeal, working both the patient and myself into a lather. He might be moved to the point of shaking hands dramatically and telling me, with tears streaming down his face, that he was never going to take another drink. And I knew that the probability was he would be drunk again within two weeks or less.
Since I have been working with A.A. the comparative percentage of successful results has increased to an amazing extent.
The percentage of success that A.A. has scored leaves no doubt that it has something more than we as doctors can offer. It is, I am convinced, your second step. Once the A.A. alcoholic has grasped that, he will have no more slips.
On page 63 just after the third step prayer there is a warning ( and I don`t know why the warning is not before the prayer) which states" we thought well before taking this step making sure we were ready".
There was a guy I met years ago that would always say (and believe me i can relate) if your not interested in stopping drinking turn around and walk right back through the front door cause AA will not only mess up my drinking as Silkworth states a slip for an A.A. involves an extra degree of remorse and misery.
It`s something to think about