Great article. There wasn't anything anyone could have said or done that wasn't already said or done to make me stop and stay stopped. Yeah, I might have given it a good college try, but it wouldn't last very long.

That was my experience.

Thank you for the wonderful article. I have been stuck - dating a retired man who drinks every single day and is in total denial. I feel sad for him when I read how alcohol consumes lives. I understand but I am fed up with the verbal abuse for no reason. I clean, take care of the house and outside - he sits and drinks and watches TV. If we go anywhere, he has a beer before we leave and 2 during dinner. (I do not drink).

I am alone in this situation - his grown son and daughter 39 and 42 do not mention the problem and are aware he does very little each day except rant and rave about the world situation and how he would change things!

My personality is flat and my energy gone - I was peppy and ready to go 3 years ago when we met! I am leaving to save my health.

Coreen, I can relate to that, but I was in a supposedly "sober" relationship. The behavior coming from both of us was anything but sober! There was just no alcohol involved.

I went from a bubbly, outgoing person to worse than a wallflower. Wouldn't open my mouth around anyone. It was a sin, but I allowed it to happen, let AA become less of a priority, and I was certainly not letting God run any show at that time in my life. Disastrous!!

Oh yeah, there are tons of people who will tell you what's wrong with the world and what they would do to change it,... all while comfortably sitting on the same barstool they sit on every single day. Talk, talk, talk. Blah Blah Blah. I take what they say with a grain of salt.

Great, enlightening article. Thank you for sharing it. The below excerpt is me almost to a T, except the refusal to go. I have gone, but I am still trying to clean up so much wreckage and am having trouble facing it due to fear, shame, embarrassment and denial.

"Many of the hurdles are self imposed, yet like fortified brick walls - to the alcoholic they are impassible. The walls are constructed from fear, shame, embarrassment, and denial. The uncertainty of what they must face is enough to trigger enough stress that they simply refuse to go."

Just getting past the ignoring and denial stages has taken most of my life time...I am most fortunate to have even arrived at the door step of acceptance.

Courage, Imagination and persistence. Is what comes to mind.

...g

Billy,

Great article indeed, except that I've read its main points at least a dozen times before. What I wanna know is, what does "treatment" consist of except to lock 'em up, dry 'em out and lecture 'em. They can call it an illness, but the medical model can only be applied in a top-down, authoritarian setting and the moral overtones carry over despite the more enlightened wording.

This is in sharp contrast to the AA approach, and historically there have been big problems when AA members try to play play both roles at once.

Lots of reality-check information here:

http://lsrbooks.blogspot.com/2007/04/slaying-dragon.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU-RuR-qO4Y

Good article. I love this part:

"Admitting youre an alcoholic is not a requirement for membership to (AA), it is however, the #1 requirement to your recovery. Dont Drink Today - and get involved. Listen to a speaker. Hear their story. In many cases youll find its not all that different from yours."

Its that aha moment when we realize/ relate and are not alone. Identification of another alcoholic, and then knowing they were sober a day at a time, gave me hope. Its all amazing stuff and recovery isnt easy, but its beautiful.

sticky,

I think we have to tread very gently here. My subjective experience just happens to be identical to yours, but that still doesn't make it an objective template for everyone.

From the review of White's book:

"The inexorable demand for an institutional program that was definable and replicable (hence insurable and bankable) meant that the 12 Steps, initially sketched as a suggested path of personal spiritual transformation, became transmogrified and blenderized into a compulsory top-down treatment protocol. It was a great victory for the invisible army, but it turned the legions of America's alcoholics and addicts, and many who were neither but happened to be caught in a urine test, into dispirited prisoners of war."

Not to loud!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRguZr0xCOc

Its a little unorthodox .. You know the original version, before it became a butterfly lol