12 Step Oriented Rehabs?

12 Step oriented rehabs?  What the hell is this?  A.A., by it's own traditions cannot, did not, and will not... ever... be affiliated with outside entities!  A.A. is not professional!  The founders may have looked into this.  Bill sure wanted it!  He wanted A.A. hospitals and treatment for alcoholics, did he not?


But when Rockefeller said "money would screw this thing up", it kind of put a damper on the plans, right?

Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

requests the pleasure of your company

at dinner

on Thursday, the eighth of February

at seven o'clock

THE UNION CLUB

Park Avenue and 69th Street

Mr. William G. Wilson, author of "Alcoholics Anonymous"

and Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick

will speak on an effective control of alcoholism

12 Step Oriented Rehab... I've been through a couple of "treatment centers" myself, and did community service at some and went to meetings at still others.  I chaired meetings at one for a time.  It's been my experience and observation that A.A. and the 12-step process is not the only game in town.

You talk about MOTR (Middle Of The Road) sobriety!?!  They got all kinds of stuff in these things and even if they offer the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous up for sale there, they sure don't use it in their curriculum.  They got a bunch of other stuff that is very much NOT A.A.;

• group therapy
• 7 tools, of which the 12 steps may or may not be one of
• a drug is a drug is a drug
• THIQ
• dopamines
• Valium
• antabuse
• psychology/psychiatry
• TFT
• cigarettes, smoking porch
• 283 question 4th Step
• Step 1 declaration, "I lose things"
• aftercare
• Orange Juice spiked with honey
• ping pong
• pajamas
• spades/poker/rummy
• good insurance or 14,000 to 28,000 dollars to spare

Now... I have some friends who work at these places in some capacity.  I even know and respect some of these counselors that work there.  I'm just not seeing them on the same page as A.A. in any of the three legacies, Unity, Recovery, and Service.  Perhaps good PI and CPC work could and should bridge the gap.  But if we were to go into these treatment center meetings, that call themselves an A.A. meeting, and try to change things, it would go contrary to what they're being taught by the folks in the treatment center.

I know this for a fact, because I've seen it from both sides of the fence.  To go to a treatment center and be told to use them for subsequent aftercare is a fantasy.  At some point, you either have to be on your way or seek support in some kind of 12 Step Program not affiliated with the treatment center or some other Recovery Program or seek some other spiritual avenue or go it alone.

I don't think rehab is necessary for most with alcohol problems.  A place to dry out like at a hospital or detox place for about 3 days, then recovery of your choice on your own.  That could mean A.A. or some of the alternatives to A.A., be it spiritual-based or not.

I go to these treatment center meetings and hear them out, speak my peace and experience in the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, and once in a while, a person from there asks me to "sponsor" him.  This basically means "hear his 5th Step."  So I do that and try to line them up with what I do from there, namely 6,7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12... and wish them well.  But I get no chance to follow up... or see if they stay sober.  Once in a while I see them outside of there and at an A.A. meeting... but not the kind of A.A. meeting that I would attend.  That's right.  I said "kind of A.A. meeting". 

A.A. as a whole has got some problems.  I admit this fully.  I just think that there's hope for some in there.  If you're there to do spiritual work, it's there for you.  If you're there to sit around and "support each other", that's there too.  If you're there to serve some social function, well that's sad, but it's there too.  If you're there to try to turn A.A. into Life Ring, I guess that's going on too. 

But 12 Step Oriented Rehab is a claim put on us by our adversaries... the radical atheist/anti/XAers.  It's bullshit.  There is no such thing.  Treatment/rehab is not A.A.  Not now, not ever.

Freedom

Nice.  I messed up my post.  So... yeah!  Freedom.

Tony J says, "You are a pimple on the ass of progress"

... and McGowdog wags his tail.

Babies at A.A. meetings?

No.

At least, that's how simple it is at my home group.

A.A. is not a daycare center.  People bring their babies and young children to some "open" meetings I go to and guess what?  The kid misbehaves.  Surprise surprise!  These kids' folks aren't Ward and June Cleaver.  These kids tend to be loud, disruptive, self-aware, and they don't behave like the rest of the group would want them to.  Some are so young, that the parent puts the rest of a group into a situation that's not fair.

When you go to a movie theater, church, on a long coast-to-coast flight, or a nice restaurant, how do you like when you get stuck next to the crying baby?  It's unbearable.  In fact, Bose has come out with a set of noise-cancelling headphones which work pretty well... and retails for about tree-fiddy.  

Screw that.  I'd like to develop another gadget... the bubble-head®.  The Bubble-head® is an invention of mine in the concept stage.  It's a device that you put onto the baby's head that enables air to go in, but for sounds, fluids, etc. to stay in as well.  It could be an ergonomic break-through as well.  No more chiped teeth, broken noses, etc.

Anywho.  No babies at meetings.  Find a baby-sitter for an hour or two.  If you can't afford child-care, keep your legs crossed.  A.A. is for alcoholics.  Disruptions suck. 

W.C. Fields used to say, "Little children are to be seen and never heard."  Unfortunately, that's not possible.  My dad used to say to me, "Here's 5 dollars, go play on the freeway."

An SR-er:

"the long form of tradition 5 states that each aa group aught to be a spiritual enity having but one primary purpose, carrying the message to the alchoholic who still suffers.

This leave TONS of room for interpretation...it can support either side.

It doesn't say we judge who is suffering or who is not...it doesn't say that our purpose is best served by every person in the meeting being free from the sound of children.


Many things in the big book and the other literature are not specific...we bring our expereince to the issue and see it as we think it is ment...and since this is a disease of perceptions we are often quite wrong.


I have a lot of concerns about how the issue explained is being discussed and the answers formulated....because i have my own expereince within the program that colors my perceptions.


This is why my biggist concern in any decision making process on issues like this is when individuals have already decided in their mind what the right answer is and are simply playing lip service to the idea of a group concious (scuse my spelling lol) Naw!  We wouldn't possibly judge you for that!  We didn't even notice!


I would be hard pushed to set aside my own opinions and experience that helping the still suffering alchoholic goes beyond years of sobriety (not always just dry) and that the welfare of the individual follows CLOSELY after that of the group...how harmed are the others really... And HOW do we best help the alchoholic who still suffers?


I think what we are suppose to do is enter the arena with an open mind for a solution for all rather than an agenda of whats best for everyone...we have never managed the world well..that is our problem is it not.


the traditions are suppose to bind us together in action...not be used to drive us appart .... I have staunchly supported specific interpreatations of the traditions within my home group that I believed were absolutely correct...and still do.....yet the result was that i added to the disharmony, spintered the group..rather than working together for a common solution.


I made my ammends for that years ago...and have kept that in mind very carefully the last few years.


but i have to say it cause i'm still sick...krikes! a crying baby is gonna keep someone from getting sober?????
 
Oh, and this is a poster with some "cred..."
 

Posts: 11,502

So yeah, Tradition 5 aught two bee a spearichyouall intity and stough... so reconize bich!

Ana... I'm with you in spirit.  We are a bunch of drunken bastards and mean as weasels when we get sobered up compared  to the olden days when we were nice and all fuckered up.

You didn't splinter the group.  The minority fucking opinion is the most important one.  The "calm still voice" is the voice of God and is rarely heard.

We sober drunks are intolerant bastards when we wanna be, and we always wanna be.  But what the hell?  Some of us came to the meeting to get away from the kids, right?  When you invite folks over and they have kids, guess who gets the remote?  They don't want to watch Boise State play Oregon.  No.  They want to watch Dora the Stupid Twit.  Kid TV sucks.  Unless they're watching South Park, Aqua Teen, Robot Chicken, Spongebob, or Mad Men.

Can an Alcoholic live with someone who drinks?

Another beauty topic from cyber-space.

_______________________________________________
Hi all, I've been sober for a year and some time now. By the end of my drinking, I weighed 96 pounds, looked like **** and actually was a day or two away from death from anemia and whatever else was ailing me if I hadn't entered rehab when I did.
My husband has continued to drink and I've been told by my counselor that I have to suck it up and recover despite his usage. I don't think my husband is an alcoholic. He doesn't drink like me and he doesn't create the kind of chaos and pain that I did when I was active. But he does drink every day and has since I met him 17 years ago.

I've asked him to not bring the hard stuff in the house and by no means set foot here with a box of wine (I was a really talented sneaky drunk and boxed wine is so easy to take without detection). He does keep bottles of wine in the house and I know he keeps the hard stuff in his car. I used to go visit the liquor in his car, waving at it and sticking my tongue out at it before I once relapsed by chugging it before I was really committed to getting sober.


So I know the potential is there. I work a program every day and have a really solid support system which includes my husband but it kind of irks me that he continues to use the stuff that almost killed me.

I don't know. I guess "irks" is a good word because I feel pretty strong around his using otherwise. It only bugs me occasionally.


Any thoughts would be welcome. Thanks in advance.

______________________________________

Cue the McGowdog... No!  Thank YOU!

I think your "recovery program" is failing you if you're a year sober and know that your husband has been a drinker for 17+ years.  He may drink more than you know.  Do you want he should go elsewhere to drink?  Do you want him to abstain from booze because you're spiritually weak?  If so, why not just leave him and find a non-drinker?

The bottom line is, are your troubles of your own making or not?  If they are not, then you don't need a solution.  If you are, perhaps, the source of your problem, you've got hope.  You can seek a solution and get free of what's bothering you and the world can go on the way it is and you'll be A-ok!

As far as the box of wine... grow up. 

If you're willing to put aside your pride and ego for just a second, maybe you might want to consider the A.A. program.  Let me read to you the 10th Step promises if I could.  They are, btw, my experience;

And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.

__________________________________

Now if you decide to do A.A., you can start by putting your husband's name in column one, what he did to you in column two... drink booze and not hide it from you, and solve your problem in column three because he doesn't have one.

Alcoholics Anonymous is not a place to "get" something

That's right.  Alcoholics Anonymous is not even a place to "get" sober.  We get sober laying on the floor with our head in the toilet.  We get sober laying on the concrete sidewalk outside of our favorite bar.  We get sober behind a set of bars in a pink room.  We might even get sober in a hospital bed.

But to come to A.A. expecting to "get" something is ludacris.  If anything, we come to A.A. to get rid of a thing or two.  One thing I've been afforded the opportunity to get rid of in A.A. is my ability to lie to myself and you.  I can still do that from time to time, but it doesn't sit too well anymore... with me or with you.

Those anti/XAers out there are out there right now, thinking of how they hate A.A.  They are spinning up proof and evidence that we are their problem and we are to blame... we are the bad guys.  Look at them.  They're doing it right now. 

The people who didn't find A.A. useful walked away and went on their way.  They still exist... outside of A.A. and their hatred for it.  In fact, they don't even hate A.A.  They are fine with folks who got by with it.  But the anti/XAer is so narcissistic that they don't want you to have it either.  They are fine with not needing A.A., but they don't even want it to work for you either.  Why is this?  Because they went to A.A. expecting to get something and they didn't get it.

The thought never occurred to them to give something.  If someone truly needed help and couldn't be helped by A.A., they would have at least noticed that those who are helped by A.A. are too busy doing things for others and don't have time to have problems of their own... or they just don't have time to be bothered by their own problems because their eyes, ears, and hands are pointed out in front of them... out into the world helping you and me.  They are at least for a time being helpful and unselfish.  And it don't take time sober to do this.  You just do it. 

If someone couldn't be helped by A.A. really cared about other drunks and wanted to be helpful to them, they'd be busy finding those drunks and getting them to a place where they could meet and help each other and yet others in return.  It might look something like A.A., but different.  It could be logical and secular and not spiritual.  Or it could be churchy if that's what they want.  It could even be exclusive of criminals.  They could call it "Non-farting, cussing, 13th Stepping, stealing, cheating, smoking, coffee-drinking, donut eating, cake eating, hugging Anonymous.  Or they could just go on the internet and form a blog and a forum to spin stories about criminals who crossed paths with A.A. and now kill and abuse people and make fun of AAers... er... wait.  They already got that!  Nevermind!

I have some of that to attend to now... so I'll leave you now to get out into the f2f world and hope you have a fantastic Saturday!

Sorry to those I've upset at SR

Well, that's what they did to me.

Sorry if I've upset you.  I was upset too.  That's exactly why I got upset and did this blog in the first place.

If what I say about you is untrue, sorry.  It's some stuff I've heard or stuff I've deducted over what I saw.  You maybe right.  It may be untrue about you.  So be it.  I'll leave you alone as you wish.  I'm not out to bother you.  I've got  my own life to live and it's hard enough.  Hope you do well from here on out and someday learn the value of listening to our critics just a bit from time to time.  At very least, they've motivated me to not take myself so seriously.  Nobody else does.  I, like you, am a child of God.  If you be an athiest, then my rank goes up from there.

Have a nice day and may you folks over at SR have the same happiness, peace and abundance as I would hope for myself.