Exactly! I hate to quote myself, but this little circle of girls are all happy, joyous, free and sober!
[QUOTE=EJsGirl]
I am a nominally Christian straight white woman with Buddhist leanings. I sponsor, among others, a practicing witch, a lesbian lapsed Catholic, a close-to-fundy Christian and a questioning agnostic.
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Okay I’m back to clarify. Actually I went to the meetings in nashville (my hometown) and to be fair, everywhere in that part of the south is like christian summer camp. I never sought out any more treatment. The 30 days wasnt at all difficult and I saw people with real problems in the meetings shaking and losing it. I didn’t belong there. I was just in a transient phase of my life and had too much time on my hands. Now I have a job I love and friends and I’m just too busy to get wasted all the time. It just wasnt a physical addiction and I needed the experience to find out.
Just an FYI - It’s not a physical addiction with a lot of people, me included. But thanks for clarifying.
[QUOTE=Phlosphr]
Just an FYI - It’s not a physical addiction with a lot of people, me included. But thanks for clarifying.
[/QUOTE]
At the risk of turning this into yet another rehashed, warmed-over GD, for a lot of people, it’s not an addiction at all. For a lot of people, it seems to be about self-medicating psychological problems such that the desire to drink goes away if the underlying problems/disorder is treated.
Robin
When you go ,you will be stunned how bad off some people are. Many are multiples, booze,heroine,cocaine etc. You will find your problems are not so bad.
The religion is annoying as hell.
[QUOTE=MsRobyn]
At the risk of turning this into yet another rehashed, warmed-over GD, for a lot of people, it’s not an addiction at all. For a lot of people, it seems to be about self-medicating psychological problems such that the desire to drink goes away if the underlying problems/disorder is treated.
Robin
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Sure. Alcohol is so widely abused, especially in the US, that there are ‘a lot of people’ in all phases of abusing it. I take the people you are describing to be problem drinkers or potential, or maybe early stage, alcoholics.
I’ll also grant that a large percentage of people I see in AA meetings are not late or even mid-stage alcoholics, and only a small percentage are wet-brained, have horror stories of DTs, or required morning drinks to stop the shakes.
Here is the danger I see with minimizing the physical addiction dangers of alcohol. Self-medicating itself is not a healthy sign. ‘Normal’ people go to a doctor or therapist to deal with an issue IF they are aware they have one. So we are already starting off with someone who either doesn’t know they have an issue, or knows they do and either feels it has a stigma that makes them avoid treatment, minimizes it, or is ill-guided enough to think they should medicate it themselves with an OTC depressant. Whatever the case, they enjoy the effect alcohol has (or they would try something different if it did nothing for them) and instead of getting help, they continue self-medicating with a socially accepted, even encouraged, product from the grocery store. It works for a while, but then not quite as well. No problem, just a little extra each time does the trick (tolerance). Tolerance leads to increased usage, usage instead of treatment allows the underlying issue to fester and contribute to the downward spiral, eventually increasing usage leads to early dependence, characterized by mild withdrawal when not using which is alleviated by what? More using. Overdo it, and toxify your system? Nothing cures a hangover like a fresh buzz, and hey, it’s the only thing my stomach would keep down this morning anyway. Lather, rinse, repeat for a few years and that physical addiction we weren’t worried about is so strong it can KILL YOU if the alcohol is taken away abruptly.
The elevator goes all the way down. Some people don’t get in it at all. Some can walk in and out repeatedly before the doors close. But by the time you have tried to quit many, many times on your own, are worried about drinking yourself to death, and are endangering your relationships with your loved ones because you can’t quit on your own (all straight from the OP)…the doors have closed and the down arrow is lit. The fact that some people realize they are on the wrong conveyance, emergency stop, and take the stairs back up sooner rather than later in NO way negates that others ride it all the way down, gradually getting pressed further and further to the back where it becomes physically harder to get to the stop button.
If that person towards the middle of the car says they are in fear of their life, is it really our place to remonstrate them with the fact that others got off at a higher floor before it started speeding up in its descent? Especially over the intercom from a safe seat elsewhere? Or do we help them find the button and then take the steps with them?
[QUOTE=MsRobyn]
At the risk of turning this into yet another rehashed, warmed-over GD, for a lot of people, it’s not an addiction at all. For a lot of people, it seems to be about self-medicating psychological problems such that the desire to drink goes away if the underlying problems/disorder is treated.
Robin
[/QUOTE]
I think many in AA / 12 Step would agree with you. In my personal experience, the 12 Steppers focus on the reasons you feel to do this, which is the reason you may have generated a physical addiction. In some cases, like gambling, the addiction is not physical, but entirely psychological, but the steps still seem to work for a lot of people.
[QUOTE=Cardinal]
I think many in AA / 12 Step would agree with you. In my personal experience, the 12 Steppers focus on the reasons you feel to do this, which is the reason you may have generated a physical addiction. In some cases, like gambling, the addiction is not physical, but entirely psychological, but the steps still seem to work for a lot of people.
[/QUOTE]
Yup, exactly. Only one step mentions alcohol, the first one. The rest are a design for living a better life. You put the plug in the jug and THEN work the steps.
“Alcohol is but a symptom of my disease.”
If you don’t stop self-medicating yourself with a judgement-impairing drug, how will you ever be able to accurately analyze those underlying issues?
Hard to self-diagnose depression when you’re guzzling depressants. Hard to uncover those repressed memories when you’re living in a blackout. Hard to isolate anger control issues or promiscuity when you’re constantly imbibing a drug that lowers inhibition. Am I anitsocial or do I just not want to drive when already drunk to go out and do something stupid in front of people? Am I chronically fatigued or is it just sleep apnea from paralyzing my soft-palate with a topical anasthetic and pissing out all my vitamins and drinking my dinner? Do I have low self-esteem, or just feel shitty about losing my job and license and wife and kids by drinking? Am I a klepto or would I have paid for that bottle if they would have let me at 16 years of age? Is it ego or narcissism or just liquid courage? Do I have a learning disorder, or is it anterograde amnesia from thiamine deficiency and early WKS?