What is so great about the alternative? I wouldn't know. I never needed to try them. A.A. is working for me. Just look around. I've got people on the www doing my steps for me. This chick named Madeline, my new friend, is taking my inventory for me.
But anyways, since they've all been so curious about A.A., what are they up to?
hey sorry
i got a dui last nite, fri was my day to drink on harm reduction? i drank too much, was going to subway (in my slippers, no less) and got hit by a car? just wanted to get something to eat? but i KNOW it is so wrong to drive drunk, i just lose all perspection0 iop is going to send me to a 30 day rehab! i am trying but guess not trying enough! think i hit my bottom
__________________luv and God Bless
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In the secular thread:
What is a relapse?
31 posts later, no answer. Just talk of subjective and objective and "I don't like the term relapse because it implies the 'disease model'."
Here's how I'd answer it; "a sip of booze."
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Somebody from SMART writes:
""Have you ever seen a homeless person who appears to be an alcoholic? And did you wonder which came first, the alcoholism or the homelessness? Most people would be tempted to drink if they had to spend the night in a sleeping bag on a freeway off ramp. Life success and mental health might be linked to the desire to abstain more than we immediately recognize.""
Answer, "No." Homeless people aren't alcoholics. They are willfull and lazy. Most alkies have gr8 willpower and work their asses off. "The goose hung high." "The papers reported men jumping to death from the towers of High Finance. That disguseted me. I would not jump. I went back to the bar... As I drank, the old fierce determination to win came back."
Alkies build a structure about them, just to tear it down again. They don't check out and go live under the bridge.
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So here SMART assessess A.A. and Rational Recovery and comes out on top;
""For example, SMART has tools to address irrational thinking and manage emotions. SMART has rules for happiness, tools to make decisions, templates for making changes in your life.
As near as I can tell, AA relies on a spiritual epiphany to abstain from drinking.
Rational Recovery explains that when you promise yourself that you will never drink again, there is no guarantee that your life will get better, just that you will be sober.
These plans work for some, but they do not give you the ammunition that SMART gives you.""
Epiphany: an appearance or manifestation, esp. of a deity. So God's got to show up. Fair enough.
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SMART philosophy on recovery:
""For me, it was a choice UNTIL I took that first pill. Then control goes out the window. Knowing that, it is still my choice to take the first pill. ""
Back to the old "choice" argument. Do SMART's say "for me" a lot, or is that just a new fad?
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Ok! Ready for a really good AA bashing? Here goes... oh, please go to youtube and enter yackety sax and play it while reading the following, kay?
"Step 1 interpretation - Discussion
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1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.
Right here, right at the start, is a giant problem. I am not powerless over alcohol, not even close. I have almost perfect control over alcohol. I can drink it or not, I can let it sit on the table and look at it, and I might even be able to juggle it. I can also drink enough to kill myself. My choice.
The second half of that sentence says that my life is "unmanageable". Ummm, no, that isn't quite right. If I drink alcohol, my life becomes a disorganized mess — I drink too much alcohol, and I get more or less addicted to it, and I get behind on the rent, and the utility companies turn everything off, and I starve, but I still wouldn't say that my life was "unmanageable" because I was "powerless" over alcohol.
Step One might be halfways true if it said that us alcoholics couldn't manage our lives very well while drinking alcohol. And Step One might be true if it said that it was ultimately impossible for us to continue drinking alcohol and still have a happy life. But that isn't what Step One says.
Step One is a setup for surrender to the cult. Since you are powerless over alcohol, you will need somebody or something else (like a sponsor) to be your keeper, and take care of you, and tell you what to do, to keep you from drinking. This step encourages dependence on the cult instead of self-reliance; incompetence and failure instead of competence and success.
Margaret Thaler Singer considered inducing a sense of powerlessness and guilt to be one of the five essential conditions for an effective mind-control, or "brainwashing", program. This step, and the next two, where you confess that you are insane, and then surrender to "Something greater than yourself", do a fine job of inducing a sense of powerlessness. And then the following steps, Steps Four through Ten, induce plenty of guilt.
Want more information?
I've got plenty. "
Oh, I bet you do! Get down with your bad self gurl!
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