Anonymous wrote:
Spurred by this site I have been again looking at alternative treatments for addiction and found some staggering statistics at the Harvard/Cambridge site. The statistics for repeat DUI offenders and the incidence of personality disorders, my guess brought on or made more acute by drinking/drugging and to think of how many times I’ve heard “just work the steps” make me nauseated.
My personal experience with the thing; My last D.U.I. was back in about 1986. With my lawyer doing his thing, I cannot remember exactly when I got the thing. All I know is that I quit drinking booze during my Christmas break in my first semester in college back in 1984/85 and after some months, I started drinking again. In two weeks time, I was drinking all night long at a party near Longmont Colorado and on into the next morning. The cops showed up and asked for park passes and I thought I should just boogie… as I was driving on a red license. So… I decided to just boogie. Everything was fine… till I tried to take a dirt road turn at 60. I crashed into the ditch and laid there in disgust…and off to jail.
As a teenager, not even 20 years old yet, I was facing my second D.U.I. charge and I felt like a real piece of whale crap. I managed to serve my sentencing and do a lot of court suggested remedies… like Level 2 education and therapy, antabuse… I don’t remember going to A.A. on the first go around.
My first D.U.I. came when I wrecked my 1st car during that Christmas Break after leaving a party where we played this game called Pass Out. I met a girl there. Remember making out with her… remember her being cute, don’t know why I was driving down Conifer and onto Broadway in front of Spedding Chevrolet taking that intersection at about 50. I slid into the median. It was 2:30 am so not much traffic. Cops took me to detox and that turned into my first treatment center, then… I met my first girlfriend in detox. She was 26 and had a Camaro… and the Playboy channel! Seriously. I hung out with her in her bedroom for about 4 months, then went back to college.
Sober for almost 8 months I think, but did all the good drugs. We did a couple of A.A. meetings together the first week out of treatment but I was 18 and all I remember was some crusty old-timers at Vitality and I didn’t “feel a connection.” It just didn’t “resonate” with me… this A.A. thing. I had read the Big Book though… while I was in treatment.
So… after the second D.U.I., I would go on and battle with booze…quit, start again. I had a summer job with a fence company and that’s where I got my nickname… McGowdog… and we’d go to the bar sometimes after work… or just drink right there on the lawn out front. I met a girl. She was nice. After about 6 weeks, she told me, “You drink too much.” I quit drinking and she left me for some other guy.
Then girl #2 comes along. We hit it off. I went to her home… where she roomed with 3 other college girls. I asked her if I could drink. She said go ahead. Later that night, we played Pass out. I woke up in the morning on her couch… had pissed my pants. Flipped the cushions over, went into her room and said, “I’m sorry!” She said “Why?” I said, “I’ve got to go to work!” She said, “Can you come back tonight?” I married her.
Then after a couple of years of living the high life, we went up gambling in Black Hawk/Central City. When we were leaving, my friend had to puke, so I pulled over. Cops pulled in behind me. Arrested me for D.U.I. My lawyer found a loophole and I got off. I didn’t even wreck my car this time. I considered that “lack of probable cause”. MADD would prove otherwise. But they slapped an alcohol eval on me… and guess what? A.A. meetings. Level II education and therapy too. I told my therapist that I didn’t want to do therapy with a bunch of half-assed drunks who didn’t want to get sober anyway. Told her I was doing A.A. and really wanted to get and stay sober for good. She said, “What do you suggest?” I said “One-on one therapy”. She bought it. I was done after 5 weeks. I remembered her from 7 years prior too.
So… out came my 10 year old Big Book and off to A.A.
After about 20 months of being sober, she divorced me. Surprise surprise.
I have not gotten a D.U.I since. I drank on and off for the next 10 years after that, but no drinking and driving. Sober for the longest stretch in my life at almost 6 years now in A.A., So… how did A.A. fail me?
Anonymous wrote:
Maybe the first step mtgs should include the “suggestion” to get a full physical and a complete psychiatric evaluation – the incidence in females according to the statistics are very alarming (I am a father and compassionate human being) what AA does to females according to these studies by not alerting them of the high probability of personality disorders should be criminal. And all these so called mental health professionals who are in the program not alerting us all to these probability is and should be civilly punishable.
I don’t get ya.
A.A. came along because nothing at the time was working to get drunks sober. Nobody wanted to even work with drunks back then. The professional community was frustrated with these guys. A.A. came about because nothing else was working. A.A. exists today because nothing else works with drunks. Has our wonderful medical fraternity done much in 70 years? Solved the common cold? The flu? Cancer? No! In fact, we’ve invented a few diseases along the way! A.A. is in and of itself sufficient.
The 12 Steps are THE A.A. program and A.A. is in and of itself complete. An alcoholic need go no further than the Big Book to get and stay sober and to plot out a life that is complete and whole. When I incorporate these principles into my life, I get what I need and then I realize that what I needed is what I wanted all along.
A.A. is where the clergymen come to find God's help to stay sober, where the psychologists and psychiatrists come to find the kind of group therapy that will bring sobriety and order to their lives.
A.A. came about because everything everybody was trying to do to get the alcoholic sober was not working. A.A. was born and alcoholics got sober. A.A. still exists today because it's still the only thing that works for alcoholics. Now... some alcoholics don't get it or do it or what ever... they may be cannots or willnots or whatever... and they drink and they die. But do a set of steps... all 12 of them, and we can rap about this. Alcoholics do die! That may bother some of you. We all die. Except for Enoch. Get over it.
This talk of 5% or whatever... Penn and Teller bullshit. I love the show as entertainment... but those guys are retarded mystics at best. Magicians who know a few card tricks.
Let's read what this book I don't like much says... the 12 & 12;
"A.A.'s Twelve Steps are a group of principles, spiritual in their nature, which, if practiced as a way of life, can expel the obsession to drink and enable the sufferer to become happily and usefully whole."
It’s not that the professional community doesn’t know anything. They do. But they know far too many things that are just not true… for the alcoholic. For me.
Dorothea Brande’s “Wake up and live”… she talks about “Act as if it’s impossible to fail.”
Oh yeah? Try that when you’ve got the dry heaves.
Anonymous wrote:
It’s ridiculous if not malicious to say surrendering these real diseases to a power, any power other a medical professional and getting positive results, will get you better. Yeah i got a broken leg and you want me to keep working steps one tow and three and its my own fault i keep falling. So keep coming back. You don’t need a doctor we’ll love to health. F that! You steppers defending this shit should be held financially responsible and make amends immediately for all the shit you’ve spewed to me in that than thou attitude in 7-8 yrs of mtg makers make it crap.
Ah… idiot! Alcoholism is NOT a disease! You were duped by Middle of the Road (MOTR) bullshit meetings! That’s what I’m here for! I will fix this industry and have it shitting you Tiffany cufflinks very soon.
Anonymous wrote:
Here’s the best part the f**kers that are so so sober and brainwashed end up in traditions mtg and big book studies discussing the intricacies of Bill’s beautiful literary style and the holy light which shines through the words they so artfully craft to blame be for being mentally ill, making me rework steps which have NOTHING TO DO WITH GETTING drugs out of my life and that it is my fault i can’t cure me through God. Blow me.
I was at the weekly traditions mtg last night and there was the sponsor i had just fired for telling me i just gotta have FAITH! I was dressed much more nicely than normal because i decided to manage my own life, by getting out of a sh!#hole job (7yrs) which when told the dozen or so sponsors have told me to quit being ungrateful and just hang on, and had a job interview with a very nice company for a bit less money but where they actually GREAT health benefits. He looked very disappointed and said very few words to me. Its like they need my constant remissions to valid themselves. And have almost always had this feeling when working with sponsors that I was more or less canon fodder for THEIR sobriety. You know he had NOT ONE word of encourage me nor any concern of the last weekend where i was suppose to call him twice a day…my youngest daughter stole my phone and promptly lost it. Yeah, real concern there huh?
Blah blah blah! For one thing, I don't believe in sponsors. Just do the steps. You need to share the 5th step with someone... if you find someone to "swap" 5th steps with, then you're even. We just do steps and the traditions long form in my group. We meet once a week and that’s it! Do a set of steps in 90 days and spend the rest of the year in 10, 11, and 12. Most people in A.A. do not do the steps but love to “Just go to meetings” and “just don’t drink” and when you imply that they are idiots and complicating the deal they get angry and defend. It’s just easier to do the work and don’t make it more than it is.
Anonymous wrote:
Thanks speed and agent orange for showing me a valid statistically proven path back to taking responsibility for my own life and quit buying into this flipping confession thing if my mentally disorders take me out for a couple quick hits every six months or so. At least now i have some tools to go to the medical professional who i have found to be more helpful than a dozen or more 20+ year AA god freaks.
So my goal is now to attend very few mtgs and mention these valid statistics and to verbally kick the shit of the freaks who tell first-timers to just keep coming back and read the doctors opinion every fng night.
That sounds nice. Why go at all? You getting those papers signed or something?
Anonymous wrote:
Basically who pays the price if I go out, me. Who pays the price if they are all full of shite-me. Not anymore by golly.
By gosh and by golly.
Anonymous wrote:
And do wish to be held accountable for all my actions and do feel a bit bad for not finding you all sooner, and i feel really bad because AA does a real awful disservice to woman and for the they should be responsible and the hand of AA should be duly slapped the f**k outta!!Thanks speedy and co!
I’m sure that these women need your defending. Are alcoholic women more prone to being taken advantage of than any other group of women? I don’t understand what you’re saying here.
Anonymous wrote:
Oh also, I do feel I have a duty to go to mtgs just to help folks like myself. Maybe that’s stupid but finding people like you all and my new mentor who finds all these things I’ve learned very interesting and tells me just try to be a nice person when and that you can go to too many mtgs and why don’t you stand up and tell these folks the way you see it because he sure does appreciate the new research and information.
Because i do feel life is about realizing our interdependence and having a good laugh at my expense and at yours while not humiliating others to find my humility. And being comfortable and the freedom to show alternative ways to get and stay happy and not use and have to feel i need to report in just to stay alive especially not a f***in day at a time. It really kicks me to see someone like Darren Littlejohn, a Buddhist, or Kevin Wallace , stand up and give me permission to have the consequences of my own actions and then show me how the twelve steps apply to Buddhism. Talk about grasping and clinging!!
What's this talk about humility? Isn't that where you shamefully say beautiful things about yourself? I'd give my Humility Speech, but there aren't enough people here to make it worth my while.
Anonymous wrote:
Sit with that brainwashed f****rs your as bad as all those counselors in AA that eat up the riches of my toils and then point to me as being the problem and spreading the disease, what the f is that? BE ACCOUNTABLE! You have a greater DUTY TO BE HONEST if you advertise yourselves to be Buddhist , or spiritual counselor, and sell books – you have a duty to be completely informed otherwise YOUR SPREADING SHIT!
Wow I got an opinion and am expressing it! My very own opinion- YEAH!
::::FLAME OFF:::::
You sound like you’ve been a victim of a bad group or a bunch of bad A.A. Paul Martin, God rest his soul, is a guy from Chicago who did much work in Alaska, Iceland, etc. He didn’t get to many meetings. He had a book though, and stayed sober, complete and whole by doing those 12 steps repeatedly… as in yearly. He would later advocate swapping 5th steps. His group was very orthodox and fundamental like ours and very effective. I say, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. It’s not what people know about the 12 Steps that’s damaging to drunks. Its all the other stuff that gets added.
There. I spread my guts and my soul out for ya. Those are my truths and experiences. If I never ever get another D.U.I or D.W.A.I., that buck in the basket once per week will be mighty worth it.
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