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?
You wanna be right or you wanna be happy? Geez. What a turn off to the wonderful program that AA is.
As usual there is a caveat to that - I would need to carry on trying to be of maximum service to God and the people around me, carry the message of a spiritual solution to other alcoholics and strive to grow spiritually for the rest of my days.
I really have considered doing that. This forum is pretty much dominated by people with short-term sobriety giving advice to newbies. In the almost three years I've been here, there's been a lot of turnover in both categories, and I sometimes wonder what has become of those people.
So I have to ask again, what are we doing here and what is it folks really want? If this is about how to enjoy life while taking a few months' breather between binges, then this place is indeed a goldmine of useful information.
Maybe those of us who wanted lifetime sobriety from the beginning are in a different category and don't belong here. I knew that was what I wanted from the get-go, and the only place I could find people who had multiple decades of sobriety was in AA. If there was another method that produced similar results, I had (and still have) no idea where to find those people. And that's the main reason I joined AA. There was nobody else to talk to who had what I wanted.
I'm still new here ... but love the combination of
some very new folks ... &
some very experienced long term sober folks.
I'm neither ... but have a good foundation ... 1543 days
AA was always adamant with me about NOT knocking what
works for someone else ... so I don't.
AA vs. Non - AA is interesting to me because ...
I was SURE I DIDN'T want AA ...
tried other methods ... failed ...
went to AA ... found out what I didn't like about AA wasn't even true
... tried AA ... GOT SOBER ... had a SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE ...
STAYED SOBER ... AND REALLY LOVE IT !!!
... and I have ton's of REAL friends.
( I am an EXCITING, FUNNY kinda guy also ... you know not the
AA type ) lol
AA has also always reminded me ...
I am a 1000 X better person than I was 4.5 yrs. ago ...
but being a ROLE MODEL for everyone else ...
I AM NOT READY FOR THAT ...
I AM SIMPLY ... NOT AS SICK AS I USED TO BE ...
AND CONTINUE TO WORK ON MY CHARACTER DEFECTS.
I WAS TOLD ...
WHEN I GET 5 yrs. ... I'll start to have some WALKING AROUND
SENSE.
I have also enjoyed the fellowship when traveling & such ...
I can be in any city, or any country, and quickly find people who
enjoy meeting me, & vice versa ... ( and we seem like old friends )
Thanx,
Jack / j
note: I like to let 'newbie's' know how anti - AA I was at the
beginning ... BUT, I HAVE NEVER BEEN MORE PROUD
TO BE A PART OF SOMETHING ...
... NOR, HAVE I EVER GOTTEN SO MUCH OUT OF
BEING A PART OF SOMETHING ...
AS I HAVE FROM BEING A PART OF AA.
note 2: WE DO NOT RECRUIT ...
... if you have a desire to stop drinking & can't do it
any other way ... check us out ...
if your NOT an alcoholic ... you don't need us.
I think most people hit a point where they move on from DS to other groups or interests. I know on the Without 12 Steps forum lots of people drop off. Then many stop back in a year or two and say "Hi" and let us know what's going on in their lives.
My friend with the longest length of sobriety, 30+ years, would never join a forum like this. He is sober now, that is who he is and how he lives his life and he doesn't feel the need to talk about it. So there's that -- no place to find those with long term sobriety other than AA; everyone else just goes on their way.
You ask what folks really want here. I can only answer for myself. I am sober for good (pun intended) and I come here to listen to others to clarify my thinking and make sure that I am on the right path for continued sobriety. If my comments can occasionally help others, then that's good too.
I think you have derailed a conversation that was interesting to bring up a lament we have heard before. I understand your point, and I can't magically subtract years of my drinking past so that I have long term sobriety. That I can only get moving forward.
And hey -- even though I don't have what you want, I'm glad you are hear and talking to me anyway. Thanks for that.
Nemo, and ExJerseyG, and all of you ...
Whatever gets you sober, keeps you sober, and
hopefully makes you a better person is ...
YOUR MIRACLE ! grab it and get ready for a better life.
Thanks everyone ... I'm still having trouble believing ...
I DON'T HAVE TO DRINK OR DRUG TODAY ...
and I FEEL GREAT !
Jack / j
For me one of the cornerstones of the AA programme is the need to keep an open mind and to be willing to be educated, regardless of whether it is 20 days or 20 years of sobriety. It would be extremely arrogant of me as an AA member to insist that God works only through AA when it comes to helping alcoholics. In the first few months I used to congratulate myself on the things that I had achieved and it took a while to realize that if I could have done it I would not have the problem in the first place. Through some sort of higher power I had done what had previously been impossible and stopped drinking and despite what I thought at the time the miracle was not achieved through my self-will or my knowledge.
I believe that if someone admits that self-will alone cannot fix the problem and reaches out to the God of their understanding for help, regardless of whether they are in AA or not, they will receive that help. It is just that in AA it is possible to follow clear instructions and guidelines and to draw on the experience of a large number of people in order to achieve that spiritual awakening. It should also be borne in mind that many people who attend AA meetings never go through the 12 Step programme and some of these people do indeed experience long periods of sobriety and possibly some sort of spiritual awakening. However, for many alcoholics recovery from alcoholism will not come about without that AA blueprint for living that takes account of the good and the bad times. It should also be remembered that there are many people going to AA meetings who have been heavy drinkers but who are not addicted to alcohol; these people can stay sober without the aid of a spiritual awakening and in some cases without AA meetings.
For alcoholics of the hopeless variety it would be dangerous to believe that a Do-It-Yourself approach would be successful. However, I have worked with several people who would fit that description and they remained sober for many years without going to AA meetings. The drinkers, myself included, used to laugh at these people and say that they had become religious nuts. I can now see that although they made constant use of religion, what they had found was spirituality and through their own version of a spiritual awakening, they had found recovery from alcoholism without continuous use of AA.
Therefore, from my own experience I would agree with the statement from the Big Book which reminds us that AA has no monopoly on recovery from alcoholism. However, one thing that I am certain about is that millions of alcoholics would have been deprived of recovery if it was not possible to achieve a spiritual awakening through the AA 12 Steps. Recognising that some can achieve the same results outside of AA and still others without a belief in God, it may be that it should not be a question of AA or not AA but rather, we should look at what constitutes a spiritual awakening.
Dr Carl Jung described the recovery of a small number of hopeless alcoholics in the pre AA days as being due to a psychic change. To quote Dr Graeme Cunningham: By that he meant a complete readjustment and change in attitudes, values, opinions and outlooks. They got it through some type of vital spiritual experience.
I think experience is needed not only in this forum but in all facets of life.