Shodan and AClockWorkMelon

The BBQ Pit
1

You two are absolutely contemptible.

A person comes asking for assistance with alcoholism. A disease that kills people. And you two have to start a fucking debate about A.A. in a thread where someone is asking for help.

I don’t give a fuck what you think about A.A. I am in rooms with people every week whose lives were saved by A.A. Your opinions don’t mean shit. I’ve read the studies and they don’t mean shit either. There are a bunch of people on this board who got sober through A.A.

I don’t give a fuck why you two have a hard on about A.A. but, my gawd, do either of you two have any respect for the OP? What the fuck? He is asking for help and your response basically comes down to ‘A.A. doesn’t work, nothing will. You are fucked.’ You turned a thread where a person asked for help into a thread about your personal pet peeve with A.A.

What the fuck is wrong with you?

Slee

2

And this is why some people think raping virgins cures AIDS: If it happened to work for someone, even someone you don’t know, nothing else means shit.

3

Confirmation Bias. You’re soaking in it.

4

Trust me, that does not work for alcoholism AT ALL. You just get yourself into more trouble that way.

But in all seriousness, (to the OP) what the person asked was “I’ve looked up AA meetings in the area but I feel almost silly going. Not sure if it is the answer for me. Any thoughts from anyone? Where else can I go, what else should I consider?” So, it seems like, in that case, a “fucking debate over A. A.” is appropriate. The person wanted to know if AA would help him, and people gave their opinions on that.

5

Also, to add, because my 5 minutes is up, it seems like your problem wasn’t that people were debating AA, but that the two posters mentioned said bad thinks about it. Otherwise, your criticism would have equally been for people like twickster and broomstick who were advocating it.

6

A couple flawed studies certainly don’t mean shit. There are also studies showing that AA does help.

Linky

There is a fundamental problem with studying A.A. and that is the studies rely on alcoholics. Active alcoholics aren’t exactly the most stable and reliable people in the world.

At the same time, bringing in a personal crusade into a thread about an individuals problem is way beyond uncool.

:: on preview :: If Shodan and AClockWorkMelon had actually added, ya know, advice, it wouldn’t be an issue.

Slee

7

I certainly had advice for him. Namely, not to bother with AA because in all likelihood it wouldn’t have worked. I’d rather he get real help than continue to be a danger to himself and others.

8

Voice of experience?
(I doubt it)

9

I also expressed disbelief in the AA program. This would have been my first pitting, had I been included. Missed it by thismuch.

10

Having read the thread, I’d first have to say that, speaking of angry drunks, the moderator fucked up big time, and should probably feel embarassed about himself.

The second thing I’d say is that if the statistical evidence suggests that AA doesn’t work, then don’t get angry at the evidence, don’t get angry at the people quoting it, and don’t trot out useless anecdotal evidence. Don’t we get enough of that stupid shit from the woo woos? For a board devoted to fighting ignorance, there sure were a lot of ignorant arguments in that thread (including, surprise, the god-damn moderator!)

The last thing I’d like to say is that the person who linked to a statistical study in this thread [which said that support groups (not just AA) have a positive impact] is the only non-useless pro-AA commentator, so cudos. You should have posted that first instead of pulling out the ignorant woo woo arguments; if you had, then the first thread probably wouldn’t have devolved.

11

Whoa. I’m usually impressed by Twickster and Marley23’s moderating, but not in that thread. And I think the OP of this thread is off his or her rocker. There is nothing at all objectionable about the named posters’ behavior in that thread; they were picked on solely for the content of their views, which were entirely relevant to the thread and not even expressed inappropriately.

The accusation that the people interested in empirical evidence of effectiveness are just atheists mad at AA because it talks about god is particularly bizarre.

12

They’re drunk. Duh.

13

I don’t have any particular dog in the fight, but I find it curious how the AA threads always seem to follow this pattern:

AA Alumnus: AA really works!
AA Skeptic: Actually, there’s not much evidence that AA provides any better results than not going to AA. Here’s a cite.
Alumnus: You just don’t know, man! I’ve SEEN it work! It helped me and my friend Otis!
Skeptic: Yeah, but those are anecdotes… I’m talking about statistical results.
Alumnus: Why do you have such a hard-on for AA? You must be hiding something!

14

He says himself he’s not just looking for blind support, and later in the same OP he states:

So the OP expresses skepticism about the effectiveness of AA, and you want to pit people who also express skepticism that is apparently statistically supported. Maybe you’re the one who should fuck off.

15

Because people who are alcoholics or who have had to deal with alcoholics for most of their lives have a huge emotional investment. It’s not easy seeing families disintegrate, especially when it’s your own. I bailed out of that thread very quickly, when it was clear that I would probably end up being banned before it was over (particularly since I was immediately attacked in the thread for providing family information). When people find help in a program like AA, like my brother, brother in law, sister, son & his wife, you tend to believe that there is some success or at least solice to be given by the program. Yes, this is anecdotal and so fucking what? My belief is that the success of any program is pretty much in the hands of the person partaking.

16

The so fucking what is that anecdotal evidence is fucking useless. It’s useless when it’s used to support homeopathic medicine, it’s useless when it’s used to support astrology, and it’s useless when it’s used to support AA. Fucking useless, fucking stupid, fucking waste of time.

Seriously, did the fucking scientific revolution never happen in this universe?

Go hang out with that stupid fucking moderator and swap useless fucking stories of how a friend-of-a-friend quit smoking through the healing power of crystals.

“How dare the scientific evidence contradict stories my friends tell me!”

P.s., saying that the success of a program “is in the hands of the person partaking” is exactly equivalent to saying that the program is fucking useless.

17

My father took me to an AA party once. He said “This is going to be the party you always wanted to go to. You’re going to meet a very high percentage of talented, intelligent, funny and sensitive people. But you can’t join the club, because you weren’t stupid enough to fuck up your whole life.”

Damned if he wasn’t right.

Anyway, I think arguing over whether or not AA works, and whether or not some of its alumni are too extreme in their grateful respect, misses the point. This ain’t rocket surgery, its no kind of science at all. Alcoholism is despair, hope cures despair, and hope is the result of that cure. But it has to start with some scrap of hope, if you don’t have the little light, you cannot make it shine.

Perhaps there are psychological cures that work as well. But do they work better? Or might they work for some, but not for others, especially those people who are strongly attuned to human interaction, who crave the support and acceptance that AA can offer. Some people don’t like that, they recoil from such intimacy, they might well prefer something more clinical.

But AA is available everywhere, when the moment hits. Any phone book, any day, any town, you can find a meeting. Without filling out insurance forms, without making an appointment, without any entry into your permanent record, you don’t even have to give anybody your last name.

Worked for him. Couldn’t give him back what he threw away, but it gave him the first day of the rest of his life.

18

Some of the comments here remind me that I’ve never met a cycnic who didn’t think of himself as a hard-headed realist.

19

I don’t know. Some pretty ignorant shit was said. Such as “Don’t go to AA, go to rehab” as if the two were in any way mutually exclusive, as if 12-step isn’t a significant part of virtually all rehab programs, and as if AA in any way discourages medically supervised rehab – none of which are true.

–I’m not a member of AA, I’ve never had a drinking problem, I’m agnostic,and I’m not quite sure why people have such a hard on for a peer support program that is completely free and voluntary.

20

1.) Rehab is more than just AA. It has forced sobriety that can allow people to get beyond withdrawal symptoms.
2.) I retracted my advice concerning rehab (mainly because of its cost).

For many people who are instructed to attend AA meetings by judges across the country the program certainly isn’t voluntary.

Edit: And I don’t know why you think I’ve got a “hard on” for AA. The OP requested advice and I provided it much like I would in any other thread.