I once had an AA alcoholic tell me that because I chose to work things out with my boyfriend during a troubling time instead of breaking up, that I was just like an alcoholic. That was a big WTF for me.
That probably does a lot to get people to rein it in, or at least to make sure not to let their drinking become your problem.
It sounds to me like the toupee fallacy.
If you actually bothered to read what I said instead of getting defensive, you’d see that it is not like the toupee fallacy at all.
Any cites other then anecdotal of this? It’s an anonymous program and there are no real stats proving this statement to be true.
Kids, let’s all remember that the people in AA are a cross section of the population to begin with and often damaged their brains with hard drink. A fair chunk of them are idiots who don’t understand the program, partly because it’s not explained well in the literature because God help anyone who touches the sacred words of Bill W, partly because parts of it are idiotic, and partly because it’s fucking folklore handed down from sponsor to newbie. When an AA tells you something there’s a good chance he’s repeating something he misheard from someone who misheard it, going back to 1935 like a game of Telephone. You may ignore him, but telling him to fuck off is not advised because sobriety does not fix all of ones anger management issues.
Le sigh.
Every time A.A. comes up on this board the whole ‘Fighting Ignorance’ thing goes out the window. Certain posters hate of A.A. causes them to ignore the evidence.
I have posted the results of studies multiple times. The results show that A.A. and therapy combined is the most effective treatment, followed by A.A. alone.
Link.
Link.
There are more studies. Alcoholism is a bitch to study as the alkies tend to be a bit less responsible than, say, your average heart attack victim. They are less likely to follow up and a lot of alkies move around a lot making tracking hard. Additionally, the best success rate is still insanely low.
As to the O.P. Are there douchbags in A.A. Yep. Just like there are douchbag atheists, Christians, Muslims, Jews and Straight Dope members. But a persons douchbagness isn’t caused by membership in any group (well, Scientology might be a bit different).
Slee (8 years and 10 months)
Pardon me for not searching for your posts on this subject. I actually do think it helps people but I’m not convinced of it’s longevity.
Anyway, nicely done. Hope you can stay sober for life. I’m curious why you can’t drink at all? If you’re cured of being a drunk why can’t you learn to drink responsibly? You can’t have just one drink? So it’s impossible for an “alcoholic” to be able to drink responsibly without. So basically you have no willpower over yourself if you have even one drink? M’kay. Whatever works for you that keeps you from crashing in to me.
It’s mainly a matter of being responsible. Saying “If I have even one drink I’m doomed to getting drunk” sounds like a cop out. But hey if it works for you then it works.
Myself, I was not taught to drink responsibly. Both of my parents were heavy drinkers/alcoholics or whatever you want to call it. We were basically taught you drink to get drunk. The fruits of Catholicism. Nowadays, I don’t drink because it just doesn’t appeal to me anymore. And I was definitely a heavy drinker and had serious problems from it. I’ve been to AA meetings many times. It’s usually a coffee drinking, tell us a story of something stupid you did drunk type thing. And don’t get me started about people saying “Poor me! drugs/alcohol ruined my life/caused me to do X”. Bull shit! You’re abuse of those things was the problem. I say if you kill someone while driving drunk, or break any laws, then you should be punished just as severely as anyone that did those things sober. Seriously, is there even one person that doesn’t know if you drive drunk you could potentially kill someone? Sounds like premeditation to me if you drive drunk and kill someone. And as far as it being a disease… BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Now that is total bullshit. It certainly causes many diseases but being a drunk isn’t a disease it’s a character flaw or just shows you weren’t taught how to drink responsibly.
I don’t believe he ever claimed he was cured of anything.
And what is it a “cop out” to, exactly??
You make it sound like you think people are often punished less for being involved in a fatal accident while intoxicated than they would be if the exact same thing happened but with everyone sober.
Very often the punishment is worse because they’re more likely to be presumed to be at fault, and especially if you consider all the “treatment”/punishment like forced endless “help”/fines/etc. And no, I’ve never been involved in that, but I know a lot of people who have been. A lot of it is intended as punishment and/or revenue no matter what they call it.
I don’t recall the exact numbers, but a professor of mine was who was also a lawyer said that in WA for intoxication to even be *attempted *as a defense, the person’s BAC would have to be high enough that it would kill a lot of people.
I’ll answer this one from my point of view, but bear in mind it’s only my opinion.
The first point is, I stopped drinking because I decided I was drinking too much, and that had to stop.
The second is that the only amount of alcohol that I’m absolutely certain isn’t too much is none at all.
Now, I’m pretty sure I could go out and have a couple of drinks and then come home. It wouldn’t be that hard, but it would make the night less enjoyable than not drinking. If I drink nothing, I simply order a coke every time I go to the bar. If I say I’m having two drinks, say, then I’m always thinking “do I have one now? Do I wait till later? What’s the best time to have it?” and that takes over the evening.
Also, if I go out, and have a couple of drinks, and it’s fine and nothing bad happens, I’ll do it again. Then next time, 2 becomes 3. Then next time, 5. And nothing bad happens again. Then I’m back where I was before, getting drunk regularly and spending all my money on booze. It’s not worth the risk to me.
All that said, I know I can stop drinking, and I’ve gone over a year now with no alcohol. So, if I do at some point try to experiment with moderate drinking, I know I can stop again if it gets out of hand. This, by the way, is my fundamental disagreement with AA, that they claim that one cannot have that control. I’m not ready to take that step yet, though, and I don’t know if I ever will. I’ve decided, for irrelevant reasons, that it will be the middle of 2015 before I seriously consider doing so.
Never heard of it, but would’ve tried it thanks! Had half a glass of wine, and went straight to bed instead. It’s a slippery slope indeed, that first drink 
Yeah, I think there are people who really need to just stay away from alcohol completely. I think my dad is one of them. If you became a heavy drinker as soon as you started drinking at all, you might be one of them. But AA seems to believe that if you’ve EVER gone through a period of drinking more than you should, you should never drink again, and that’s silly.
I know a lot of people who have gone through periods of drinking too much. My ex drinks an amount I’m not too comfortable with on his days off. But, I saw him almost only on his days off. I KNOW he doesn’t drink when he has work (he’s in the military with random drug tests every month), which is usually. I know he goes 1+ years without drinking at all when he’s deployed. But if I was an AAer seeing him have a liquid breakfast at my house, I’d be like damn, this dude needs to attend meetings daily and never touch alcohol again. But it’s just not that simple. Drinking too much can be a habit like eating too much. Obviously with eating you can curb it back but you have to do it sometimes, but I think a lot of people can chill with the drinking without completely cutting it off too. Taking it to such extremes just puts off some people who could otherwise benefit, I would think.
The problem is you underatanding. For alcoholics it is NOT just a matter of being responsible. There are genetic components involved that cause an alcoholics body to handle alcohol differently than a normal persons body. The specific gene involved is named CREB. More research is being done and another gene that may be involved is DRD2. Right now the exact biology is still being worked in but there is no doubt that a persons genes play a large role.
Additionally, studies of twins seperated at birth show the genetic link. Iirc, if one identical twin is an alkie the odds are 80% that the other twin is an alkie even if they were raised seperately.
I know that I cannot drink again because I have a done a couple thousand experiments on this subject. If I pick up a drink I wil keep drinking. I tried moderation and it never worked. it is not a cop out. It is a fact that my body handles alcohol differently. The first time I drank I was 9 and drank until I passed out. That is not the way a normal person drinks.
As far as it goes, A.A. even recommends trying controlled drinking to find out if you really have a problem. If you can have one drink and stop, good for you. If not, well you probably have a problem.
Slee
Ooh, that’s exactly what it is. Thank you! 
Missy, it’s possible that I have a long lost white sister somewhere.
Since you wrote this in response to my first post in the thread, it shouldn’t be to hard for you to point out exactly where I got defensive (well, here, but this post is a reply to yours so you obviously didn’t mean it).
That aside, saying “all drunk people behave abominably” is exactly the toupee fallacy. Unless you’re including “behaves abominably” in your definition of “drunk,” in which case it’s no true Scotsman.
Point out where someone has made that claim.
For the last time, being drunk does not necessarily change your behavior. It is very possible, and it happens all the time, that someone is drunk with NO behavioral changes of any kind. You only notice someone is drunk if they HAVE started behaving differently (even though in many cases, they don’t). You only notice the bad toupees.
I don’t understand why you are so certain that this is some kind of rebuttal to what I said. You are insisting that the word “drunk” has only one valid meaning when is obvious that in the context of what I’m saying that “drunk” means something different, specifically, “noticeably exhibiting the signs and behaviors characteristic of alcohol intoxication,” and not “intoxicated according to standards set for legal or medical purposes.” Your objection to my statement resides entirely on your insisting that I’m saying something that I’m obviously not saying. That’s what I’m calling defensive.
That’s a pretty long sentence for a teetotaller. Miller time?
No, I get it. You’re just dumb. When I said earlier that you don’t really seem to have a problem with drunkenness per se, then, and really have a problem with people behaving sloppily when drunk. And then you said no, you have a problem with drunkenness. (:smack:, btw)There is a huge gulf between being a little drunk and being so freakin’ hammered that you’re acting silly, but in your mind, drunkenness period means being shitfaced to the point of speaking and acting differently. Yeah, I’m not the one with some crazy definition of “drunk” here; you are.
On that note, I gotta run. Gonna get drunk now. But don’t worry, Ascenray, I’ll still be standing upright and will retain my grasp of the English language. I know in your mind that’s not drunk, but trust me, it is. Oh, it is…