Who in this thread is?
Of course you’ll say that. To just about anything not in line with the program… which of course is just a suggestion, take it or leave it, unless of course you want to live.
I was simply quoting what someone else had said about guilt.
That’s nice for you, but people’s anecdotal experiences are at best often misleading. People generally fail to be self-aware about what motivates their behaviors even in simple, non-drug related situations. If you think one approach worked for you, that’s great. But it’s not a sound basis for any theory of addiction and recovery. That’s the problem.
Different groups no question say all sorts of different things. But I cited the Big Book, and heck, that pretty much WAS what your message implied, like it or not.
A sort of “Ha! You’ll be back!” attitude. 
Maybe hostile was a little too strong. If so, I am sorry I said it. But comments like “AA should be ashamed” and so on are not exactly friendly, either.
By the way, I should correct a slight mistake I made:
In answer to another poster who asked “Q**. What would you tell the guy or girl who’s there on a court order and says they have no intention of ceasing to drink?**” I should also have mentioned that one of our “traditions” (which is the closest thing we have to a “dogma”) is that “The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.”
Note that it says “desire”. Not that you have to stop, just desire to. If you say you desire to, we have to believe you.
So if someone said they have no desire to stop drinking and are only there because the court forced them, I would still say all the other stuff I said in the other post, but I would also point out that they cannot be a member unless they express a desire to stop. If they are only there because the court ordered them to, I would also give them the option of just sitting in the corner and reading a magazine, (you can still have a coffee and a cookie) and I will still sign their court document to say they were there.
On the other hand, if they are interested in what happens at an AA meeting, they are welcome to sit and listen to the discussion.
By the way, I do not know how it is in the US, but I work in the Courts in Canada, and it is not always so simple as the judge just “ordering” a person to go to AA. What may happen is that the person is being prosecuted for drunken brawling for the third time. Their lawyer tells them it would be a good idea if they admitted they may have a problem with alcohol and started going to AA. The lawyer and the prosecution agree to a guilty plea and a reduced penalty since the person admits they are seeking help. The judge may then give them a suspended sentence for a year provided they stay out of any trouble, refrain from consuming alcohol, and go to 10 AA meetings as well, since the guy’s lawyer says he is already going.
We in AA do not like that kind of “motivation” but we accept the guy anyway and sign any court paper he gives us. What else do you want us to do? But NOBODY shoves any religious belief down his throat.
It was more than a little too strong. It seems that my general position, outlined in one of my first posts, which can be summed up as “AA is religious but it doesn’t matter much” is shared by most people who make the claim that AA is religious. I haven’t seen one hostile post, and duffer couldn’t produce one either.
You snipped the other half of that comment.
This is just a question and I hope it doesn’t offend you, but since you said that the alcohol consumption was only a symptom, I’d like to ask it.
Do you think that now that you have worked on those other issues which caused you to abuse alcohol the possibility exists that you would be able to use without abusing? I guess kind of the overeating thing… the people who have that kind of food-abuse problem have to learn to stop abusing food, but not stop using food, or else they would die. Now obviously nobody’s going to die without alcohol, but I do consider its use in moderation and its health benefits some large positives that make it reasonable to me to think that there’s nothing wrong with a goal to stop abusing it, not stop using it.
Perhaps AA is different where you attend or maybe the public message that I’ve gotten isn’t right, but while I was in college there was a strong push to put anyone caught drinking underage into a program where they basically were on probation/punishment until they admitted to being an alcoholic. It’s the impression that a lot of people get, I think. Personally I thought that was absurd and was just lucky not to be caught as some of my friends were.
And that’s where most people fail, because there is nothing higher than yourself.
Perhaps I am not communicating well, so let me try again.
To be a member of AA, you must have a desire to stop drinking. If you do not, have a nice day.
If you do not feel you are powerless over your use and abuse of alcohol, wonderful. That is for you to judge. It is NEVER, EVER for other AAs to judge. Have a nice day.
If a person is for example drinking 40 oz of booze a day every day, and cannot stop a single day no matter how often they promise they will, no matter that they have lost their job and all their friends and family, then my PERSONAL feeling and the feeling of most AAs is that they are probably powerless over alcohol, and that they will eventually end up in a mental asylum or dead.
But we cannot decide for that person if they are powerless over alcohol or not. They must decide. If they come to our meeting and then walk out, we say: Have a nice day. 
Some people come to our meetings, decide we are a bunch of freaking idiots, and walk out. Or maybe they decide we are nice people but they themselves are not alcoholics, and they do not need us. I HAVE NEVER IN 16 YEARS HEARD ANYONE SAY “HA, YOU’LL BE BACK”. Never once.
Some are right in thinking they are not alcoholics. They learn to drink reasonably or quit entirely without AA. Wonderful. More power to you. Have a nice day. Have a cold one for me. Too bad I can’t join you, but if you want to be friends anyhow, I’ll have a lemonade and we can watch the game. My spouse is a non-alcoholic who drinks and keeps booze in the house. Has done so for all of the 16 years I have been in AA. Never ever abuses the stuff.
But some are wrong, and they are in denial. They may walk out of AA after trying one meeting and go on with their destructive drinking still convinced they have no problem. Years later they may come back to AA ready to admit that by themselves they are powerless against alcohol. Or, tragically, they go right to their deaths convinced there is nothing abnormal about their use of alcohol, and that those fucking AA assholes don’t know what they are talking about. I guess this is the only time I can’t really say: Have a nice day. 
Those tragic people are always welcome to come back to AA, and nobody will say a word of reproach, because we are all former drunks and have no right to judge them.
If someone can be helped by another group like Rational Recovery or some other program, I say HOORAY and WONDERFUL! What do you think, that we are in competition with other treatments? Do you think I get a commission for every drunk who joins AA or something?
The only thing I think when someone walks out of AA saying they don’t need us is this, and which I keep to myself: “I sincerely hope you’re right. If you are not, the door is always open”.
Maybe seeing how something like AA is even open for debate over whether it’s religious makes my ass twitch. Frankly, I don’t care if they worship carpet fibers and sacrifice ashtrays to the god of electrons.
It it works when nothing else did, what’s the difference? If you have some sort of pent up anger over the subject, find a way to deal with it.
Me neither.
None.
If you believe I have anger towards AA, you haven’t read my posts. I’m very glad that I had an AA group to go to when I needed it. It certainly helped me.
Why claim that people have said that it is wrong if no-one has?
Answer to first questiion: Not offended in the least by your question, Catsix. I am grateful for this wonderful chance to explain so many things. I have asked MYSELF that question a few times in the last 16 years. Remember, that is 16 Christmases with no rum or mulled wine or eggnog, 16 years of going to restaurants where other people enjoy fine wines, 16 years of summer barbecues without a cold one in my hand. And the worst of all: Being bumped up to first class on an airplane and having to turn down FREE high-quality booze! SOB!
But it has also been the 16 happiest years of my life. And I honestly do not miss the booze in any general sense. I have learned how to be happy without it. Maybe some AAs can go back to drinking but it can be VERY dangerous thin ice. AA has been around for over 75 years and we have seen many tragic cases who thought it must surely be all right to start again after so many years.
You may find this hard to believe but I have this straight from a number of very reliable AAs who tried using after many years of sobriety. The first drink or two they said: “okay, I can handle it. No big deal.” But within a few wekks something horrible happened. They not only took up with the volume of drinking they had been drinking before AA, but it was as if they had never stopped. As if the alcoholic urge had continued to progress “inside them” even during their years of sobriety. I know this sounds like science fiction but I have it on good authority of people who came back into the program and are now sober again.
There is also a high degree of SUICIDE among alcoholics who take to heavy drinking after many years of sobriety. I am not sure why this is, and I have no cite to offer you, but let’s just say it is common knowledge.
Incidentally, there are no real health benefits to moderate drinking. The much-ballyhooed study that showed that moderate drinkers were healthier than non-drinkers has since been shown to be flawed. Seems the non-drinker category included not only abstainers but people who had to stop drinking because they had abused alcohol so much that they had serious diseases. So obviously they brought down the group average. Moderate drinkers and life-long abstainers are about as healthy.
Another funny thing I have been told by AA buddies who slipped was that once you are in AA for a few years, you will never really enjoy being drunk again, no matter how plastered you get. Maybe that has a link with the suicide thing.
Anyhow, the short answer is that I do not want to risk it when I am so happy without booze. All I have to do is sooze and drink coke on first class, and I’m fine!
As for you, Catsix, if occasional drinking makes you feel good and does not harm your life of your happiness or those around you, have one for me, and long life to you. If however you think that your drinking might be turning into a problem and that you could be an alcoholic, look up AA in your neighbouhood OR ANY OTHER GOOD PROGRAM. AA will not make you sign anything, will not ask you for money, and will not take down your phone number. You are free to leave any time, even five minutes after your first meeting. Either way, I wish you happiness.
In answer to your second comment about the college that punished underage drinkers until they admitted they were alcoholic: That is the stupidest asshole thing I have ever heard of anyone doing! :eek: Please, please tell me there was no actual AA involvement in something so completely ridiculous and inhuman as that! If there was, all I can say is that the AA involved must have been to regular AA what Dr. Josef Mengele of Auschwitz was to the medical profession. AA is not organized in any central way, so if there was such a monstrous thing done by an AA somewhere, we cannot really control it. But I doubt if this was really an AA group that did this.
I, like a lot of other people, partied hard in college and for a while cared more about that than grades. I still managed to graduate with an engineering degree, spend five years as a systems administrator, and sign on as a software engineer now. I have drinks when I want, get drunk when I want, and sometimes occasionally have too much fun and get a hangover.
It wouldn’t occur to me to even wonder if I’m an alcoholic, nor would I consider it ‘binge drinking’ that I had more than two beers a day at the conference I just went to for my company. I can’t imagine life without alcohol in it, though. I enjoy it. It’d be like imagining the rest of my life without sex!
I see nothing wrong with an occasional hangover. And drinking was often fun when I drank, until it started to get out of control. But that was ME. Nothing says it has to be you.
I am in no position to make any decision about you or to pass jugement. Only you can do that. Some people say what you say and it is perfectly true. Some people say what you say and they are really lying to themselves. Some people just need a little discipline to avoid too many binges and they will be fine. Some people, like me, can try to be as disciplined as they want, but they have a problem bigger than they can handle alone, and it is only going to get worse over the years.
I know that genuine, moderate drinkers exist because I have been married to one for 30 years and I know what moderate, harmless drinking looks like. I also know what alcoholism looks like, because I have seen myself.
This may surprise you, but I do not consider a moderate drinker in any way morally superior to an alcoholic. Alcoholics are good, compassionate, decent people every bit as good as a non-alcoholic. I have never been made to feel any guilt at all in AA. Never.
If you are tired of me preaching at you catsix (and who wouln’t be?) all I can say is this incl;osing. Thanks for your deep and wonderful discussion.
Right now you say drinking adds a lot of fun to your life, and does little or no harm. Good. May it always remain that way.
But if ever you DO discover that you are an alcoholic and have a problem that you can’t lick alone, don’t feel like you have just been condemned to some horrible punishment or a future of misery. If alcohol or some other substance has stopped being fun and is ruining your life and you ahave the courage to admit it has you licked, and you are ready to turn to AA or any other good program, then you can learn to be very happy without booze as well. It is not the same as life without sex. In fact, sex gets better! 
Both situations are good! Live long and prosper, buddy!
I’ve been to my share of meetings. When someone questions whether or not they are an alcoholic the answer given to that person, every single time it has come up in a meeting, has been a variation of this:
“If you are unsure if you are an alcoholic, test it. Try controlled drinking. Trying limiting your drinking to just one and see what happens. If you can drink successfully, without it causing problems in your life, good for you. If, on the other hand, you cannot stop at just one or cannot drink successfully, we’ll be here if you decide you need us.”
I have never seen anyone in AA tell someone else that they are an alkie. I am not saying it never happens, I sure it does because there are assholes who think they know everything in every group. Sadly, assholes are everwhere.
Denial does come up quite often in AA because most people in AA were in deep denial of their problem. I know I was. Once again, I am sure that there are jackasses out there who think that if someone says they are not an alcoholic then that person is just in denial. However, from personal experience this is rare. I’ve been to tons of meetings and never encountered this.
Slee
The cite would be my husband. And his best friend. And my SIL. And my MIL. Of course, you can’t know until they’re dead if they were successful, but the same is true for AAers. All I’m saying is that it’s disingenuous to attribute it to the 12 steps or the group or the higher power when the one who’s responsible is the drinker himself. People find inspiration for quitting all over the place. But ultimately, they just decide to stop.
For some people the idea of not having a program to aid them in staying away from a drink is scary, for others it is not. Having a program to aid in staying sober and not just dry allows those who need it to live an easier life without booze. Instead of white knuckling it they learn to live a more honrable life. I’ve seen it with Doctors, lawyers, soccer moms and under the bridge paper bag drunks. Going to AA and taking from it only what you need to stay sober is the way of AA. There is a Huge difference betwen being sober and being dry. Have I known people who can stay away from the drink and not go to AA, yes of course, but they are certainly the exception and not the rule. It is my experience that they tend to not be able to stay away as a lifestyle, and more often then not they end up in the rooms.
My experience is the polar opposite of yours. And the problem I have here is that whole “sober” vs. “Dry Drunk” rap. The honor comes from not being an asshole drunk; not from AA. Too much is attributed to the organization that should be attributed to the absence of alcohol. And the absence of alcohol can only be achieved by not drinking, which can only be decided upon by the drinker.
Is your experience with AA or with people who simply don’t drink? Saying AA has nothing to do with living an honorable life means you have probably never seen the system work with someone… No?
That was moderately inflamatory, what I meant was I have seen the program help hundreds of people, and it is my experience that the program aids people with quitting and staying away from the drink…And it APPEARS to be easier with a program than without.
[sup]I should have stayed out of this thread…[/sup]
My atheist uncle was into it for quite a while. I believe he was sober 12 years before he fell back into drinking. He quit on his own the second time and remained sober until his death. Another friend (12 year guy) fell off and went directly to Personal Hell. My SIL died of alcoholism at the young age of 42. She tried AA so many times, in and out of rehab. A drawer full of Little One Month Marker Coins that served as a reminder of what a failure she was. I don’t like the Counting of the Days. Everyone sets the clock back to zero when they fall off. A subtle implication that those days of sobriety were meaningless. Instead of saying “I’ve been sober 364 of the last 370 days”, they count consecutive days. WTF is that? To me it looks like going back to the bottom of the hill.
Have I seen AA members succeed? Sure. But I’ve seen more people succeed on their own. They weren’t told they were powerless. Quite the contrary, as they actually did quit drinking on their own! They weren’t told they needed to inventory their lives in order to achieve true sobriety. They didn’t need to confess their sins to a group of strangers. They simply quit drinking and the rest fell into place.
Six of one Half Dozen of another… I agree with you. I’ve seen both myself.