RobbyRobot

Learning from direct experience speaks for itself. Direct experience informs opinion, all else being equal. Are opinions importantly valuable regardless of the actual experience of the person? Is direct experience the gold standard?

When we speak of experience with sobriety, how qualified does one need be? A day? A month? Years?

How important a measure is success while living a sober lifestyle? After all, don't we measure life style failure as evidence of problems with drinking / alcoholism / what-have-you? Is quitting enough? Is change as well required for sustained success?

Food for thought.

ESD907

I'd like to think I know much about sobriety, but a few weeks over 2 years? am I expert? No. I'll compare it to growing up with lifes normal trials. As a child and all throughout my mother gave me some really great advice on so many different facets of life. I chose not to take most of her advice, in hindsight, I sure wish I did. Today, I'd be much more successful, both in relationships and career. I'd be happier than I am. And I probably would never have become alcoholic. I could list hundreds of things she told me that could bite me on the behind. The adage youth is wasted on the young is very very true.. "The greatest responsibility entrusted to man is that of the development of himself" William Ross.
"You grow up the day you have the first real laugh at yourself" Ethel Barrymore" ************************************************** *************so bottom line, we can always learn from those older and/OR wiser than we.

ScottFromWI

Both are important. Life is a sum of many sources of knowledge, some good and some bad. It's impossible to quantify which is more important.

jdooner

I think it really depends upon your learning style and your ability to trust the one providing an opinion. Since I am a logical and physical student then experience, my own, is quite important. So one could tell me how to ride a bike but I am going to need to experience it myself for it to make sense even though intellectually I grasp the concept. Perhaps this is deviating from the point you are making?

In terms of value I place on duration of sobriety, I tend to discount any advice less than a month based on my own experience. I was crazy during this period so those pearls of wisdom from someone with a week or a month, well, I discount them compared to someone with six months or six years, as I feel the comments are coming from a likely place of a bit more chemical stability. Though there are members here with years and decades that I don't respect much either but that is based on following their posts for some time now.

RobbyRobot

I don't know about impossible, Scott. I can quantify enough for me to take action on my reflections of experiences and opinions, both my own and of others. I don't think my quantifying is wasted as an impossible task.

RobbyRobot

I doubt any of us can claim to be experts on sobriety, regardless of our experiences and opinions. You make a good point ESD907 that as children we made choices which directed our journey into alcoholism or whatever. Hind sight is always 20/20 of course. In childhood we also made choices which now sustain us in sobriety too.

silentrun

I'm with the cheesehead on this one. Memory and experience are not always trustworthy in their own right. It can be corrupted by perspective. I think pulling as much into that sum as you can is important. Especially if it is something you don't want to see.
I find that it isn't me so much that is changing it is just the way I look at things.

soberlicious

I don't think that one can completely separate the act of quitting from other change. When I quit, I became more aware of the pain I had caused others. I fixed that, and continue to strive to rectify my actions when they are less than stellar. Why? Because I can see now. I have clarity. The act of quitting alone brought about that change for me.

The act of quitting also brought about other changes. I am better at my job, I am a better mother, I manage my finances better, my relationships are better, I am healthier, and I look better. Most things I did not have to put an exorbitant amount of effort towards. The changes were natural growth that took place because alcohol was not longer in the way.

Other things came by way of connecting with others, reading, studying, therapy, etc. working at change. Work that is only possible by the act of quitting alcohol.

I cannot separate "quitting" and "change". In my life, they have been deeply entwined.

RobbyRobot

Yes, JD I'm in agreement. Ironically, extensive quantity of years in terms of sobriety can actually degrade the opinion of certain people relative to their shares and posts. Results across the board speak loudest to me when a poster makes this claim or that claim and suggests thereafter their claim has validity based on the sheer quantity of their sober time.

Especially those who make a huge deal of quitting drinking as importantly more worthwhile than a well-lived and self-examined life. Quitting is just the beginning of the journey, and not the journey itself. There is more to life than simply not drinking.

RobbyRobot

For me, I can. Until I quit, change was always on the horizon but never in hand, so to speak. Quitting does in fact create change, as you have said. I agree eventually as the quit is sustained, and life is recovered, the distinctions become more inseparable and entwined. Still though, I yet can learn from my initial experiences in my first years of quit experience and creating a recovered life in those early years which in fact empower me to this day. I believe in the examination of cause and effect as real tools to inform me. Quitting for me was (is) like the Big Bang Theory in real life from drunkenness (nothingness) to sobriety (everything).

RobbyRobot

Perspective is everything. Given enough perspective, does this inform my choice to create change? I believe it does.

soberlicious

I have never seen anyone here say anything like that. There are posts that say it is "importantly more worthwhile"?

Here's the thing. I'm not going to even attempt to tell someone how they should live their life, what should make them happy, or that I know what constitutes a "well-lived and self-examined life". To do so would be pompous, arrogant and small minded.

I can, however, tell them how I quit drinking alcohol and I can tell them that I believe that they are capable of both quitting and going from there to build a happy life of their own making.

Quitting alcohol is of utmost importance to anyone wanting to change. Without doing so there is no journey.

silentrun

Check this out Robby. This kind of irked me when I was into synchronicity. I finally had to admit yeah I was doing that.

https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_sh...self_deception

soberlicious

Exactly. That's what I was saying. The act of quitting alone creates much spontaneous change, and also allows for further change to occur as a result of conscious work toward goals. They are entwined. I have a hard time seeing how one can occur without the other.

Now, some people may not change as much as I think they should. They may live life in such a way that is not compatible with my beliefs. They may be unkind toward others, they may appear to not have grown much since quitting.

Again, is it my place to pass judgement on that?

RobbyRobot

Neither have I. I am speaking to my opinion of what to me amounts to them supposing quitting is more important than success in their own eyes relative to their own lives. Holding on to a failing lifestyle without examination as being worthwhile simply because one doesn't drink is what I'm speaking of in my opinion. Certainly quitting has initial importance. Eventually though quitting becomes a done deed in one's life. For me, I didn't quit one day at a time. I didn't quit drinking today, as it were. I quit a long time ago in a different life so to speak.

Yes, without quitting there is no journey in sobriety to be had, clearly. I said as much earlier on I believe.

RobbyRobot

And when they don't change as much as they themselves think they should? This has meaning for me. In these examples, simply telling these people they need not be concerned because they have already quit seems to lack respect. I believe change is required in life with or without an addiction history to inform and draw from.

Its not anyones place to pass judgment on the differences of beliefs and expectations etc. of one person to another. How someone looks in my eyes is my own responsibility. That being said, I see what I see. Don't we all claim the same right of responsibility?

Soberwolf

Really liking this thread you guys are so grown up in your approach

Love being sober I stopped drinking and from there I excel daily in all things I do

You guys rock glad were all here to talk like this if that ain't sobriety I don't know what is

WOW

Boleo

When it comes to "Spiritual Awakenings", experience isn't everything - it's the only thing.

PurpleKnight

Experience comes with the guarantee that someone knows what they are talking about, they have lived it themselves, it also allows empathy into the picture when talking to someone, I can say "I got Sober by doing X", "I messed up by doing Y" or "Z helped me a lot in my Sobriety".

Though none based experience opinions are no less valid, they can be of equal measure, I have never jumped off a cliff, driven a car without my seatbelt on, or lost a job through turning up repeatedly late, but from my knowledge and rationalisation of things, I'm pretty sure any of those scenarios may not work out for the best if I tried them, are they less valid because I haven't tried them out? I doubt so!!

The danger though is getting things wrong from non experience based opinion, medical advice is banned on the Forum for a very good reason, because getting health advice wrong can be dangerous.

On the whole though SR is pretty balanced, a range of opinions experienced and non experienced is generally given to most posts to provide an OP a range of posts to gain a perspective on things!!

awuh1

silentrun, I think objectivity is key.

Regarding that video. He makes several statements at the beginning of the talk such as "Belief is the natural state of things. It is the defalt option" and "we want to believe in UFO's". This may be true for some individuals, but for many (including myself) it is just the opposite.

What I found troubleing was that he goes from a fairy objective discussion of pattern recognion to abruptly introducing host of things which are contrversial, and all of them nearly in the same sentence. In effect he lumps them all togather and attempts to create a generalization (a pattern) in which the listener will dismiss them all because a majority of these things will be disbelieved (at least by a vast majority of the people listening). In effect, he is guilty of doing the very thing he cautions against (introducing a pattern where there is none).

Perhaps it takes a stanch sceptic (someone who does not have belief as their defalt option) to recognise the tactic he is useing.

I did however like the film of the monkies quite a bit (but it might have been a better fit in a talk about expectations).