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.
With or without AA seems to always be a contentious topic on here but that is not my attention with this post.
I have been carefully reading lots of posts on here and something has come to me regarding the fact that with or without AA in many cases might be the same thing.
The principle behind AA is that a spiritual awakening is the solution to alcoholism and the 12 steps are the way by which this spiritual awakening is achieved.
The AA literature refers to a spiritual awakening in many ways including "entire psychic change", "revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, our fellows and towards God's universe", "change in outlook and attitude,"huge emotional displacements and rearrangements".
The literature also makes two important points - that AA has no monopoly on treatment for the alcoholic and that no specific beliefs or conceptions of a higher power or spiritual path are required. A spiritual awakening can occur in a variety of time frames and be experienced very differently by different people.
There is also no claim that the 12 steps are the only way to achieve a spirtual awakening - we know this form common sense as there are millions of spiritual people in the world and only a small minority of them had their spiritual awakening through the 12 steps. The advantage of the 12 steps is that it is a way that can me communicated easily to others but it is certainly not the only way.
When I read the posts of people who have not used AA but have been happily and productively sober I see a lot of similarities in their recovery and mine. They often talk about spiritual matters, changes in the thinking, attitude, outlook etc. To me it would seem that these people have had spiritual awakenings. There have been a couple of posts recently that have really made me believe this - dont want to quote them here as i dont want to make this about specific people but they seemed to be about spiritual awakenings to me.
Not in all cases but certainly in some is it possible that our recoveries are essentially the same whether we are in AA or not? They are based on a spiritual awakening of some sort. Some of us acheived that through the 12 steps, some of us in other ways but the outcome is the same.
What do others think?
I have been carefully reading lots of posts on here and something has come to me regarding the fact that with or without AA in many cases might be the same thing.
The principle behind AA is that a spiritual awakening is the solution to alcoholism and the 12 steps are the way by which this spiritual awakening is achieved.
The AA literature refers to a spiritual awakening in many ways including "entire psychic change", "revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, our fellows and towards God's universe", "change in outlook and attitude,"huge emotional displacements and rearrangements".
The literature also makes two important points - that AA has no monopoly on treatment for the alcoholic and that no specific beliefs or conceptions of a higher power or spiritual path are required. A spiritual awakening can occur in a variety of time frames and be experienced very differently by different people.
There is also no claim that the 12 steps are the only way to achieve a spirtual awakening - we know this form common sense as there are millions of spiritual people in the world and only a small minority of them had their spiritual awakening through the 12 steps. The advantage of the 12 steps is that it is a way that can me communicated easily to others but it is certainly not the only way.
When I read the posts of people who have not used AA but have been happily and productively sober I see a lot of similarities in their recovery and mine. They often talk about spiritual matters, changes in the thinking, attitude, outlook etc. To me it would seem that these people have had spiritual awakenings. There have been a couple of posts recently that have really made me believe this - dont want to quote them here as i dont want to make this about specific people but they seemed to be about spiritual awakenings to me.
Not in all cases but certainly in some is it possible that our recoveries are essentially the same whether we are in AA or not? They are based on a spiritual awakening of some sort. Some of us acheived that through the 12 steps, some of us in other ways but the outcome is the same.
What do others think?
I believe there has to be a "psychic change", change on thinking and of course even though I find this with the aa program we don't have a corner of the market so to speak for attaining sobriety.
Good post Nicky
What I think we lose sight of is that AA is not the solution to alcoholism, the solution is the spiritual awakening available in AA through the 12 steps but also available in other ways.
I WAS 100% AGAINST AA ...
( I actually didn't like AA because of what ' non - AA people '
had told me ... preconceived ideas, etc. )
I WAS also 100% adamant that MY RECOVERY HAD TO BE MY
IDEA ... & HAD TO BE ON MY TIME FRAME.
So, I tried without AA ... went back out ... got in lots of trouble ...
got put on probation ... sent to AA ... ( not my time frame )
... after fighting like a big baby because I wasn't in control ...
DID WHAT THEY TOLD ME, GOT SOBER, DIG AA ...
SO I WAS WRONG !!! who knew ???
IN the end ... whatever works ...
Thanx,
Jack / j
I've posted this invitation a few times in the last three years here, and so far no one has taken me up on it.
Perhaps I should have worded my request more clearly. I'm simply asking if there's anyone here who has achieved 20 years or more of continuous sobriety without AA and inviting them to share with us how they did it.
The point is that the solution in AA is a spiritual awakening. But the 12 steps is not the only way to achieve a spiritual awakening. Therefore there are people outside of AA (not all but some) who are actually pursuing a spiritual solution to alcoholism just like those of us who are in AA.
Why don't you start a board for people with over 20 years sobriety? Then you can have discussions that you think are meaningful.
Jersey-I hope Nemo stays. As a newbie I have learned a lot from what he has to say. Would you recommend that AA or other groups separate veterans from newbies? How can newbies like me learn only from other newbies? The veterans and warriors are who I think I can learn so much from from their experience, as well as from the newbies going through what I am going through. Don't knock Nemo because he has been sober because of AA and has 20 years to show for it. I think that is a great achievement.