What was recovery?...
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What was recovery?...
... prior to publication of "Alcoholics Anonymous" in 1939. To keep things simpler, let's make that prior to the Oxford group(s). Anybody know? Was it just every man for his/herself?
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The Washingtonians were one group:
"The Washingtonian movement . . . was a 19th-century fellowship founded on April 2, 1840 by six alcoholics . . . at Chase's Tavern on Liberty Street in Baltimore, Maryland. The idea was that by relying on each other, sharing their alcoholic experiences and creating an atmosphere of conviviality, they could keep each other sober. Total abstinence from alcohol was their goal. The group taught sobriety and preceded Alcoholics Anonymous by almost a century. Members sought out other "drunkards" (the term alcoholic had not yet been created), told them their experiences with alcohol abuse and how the Society had helped them achieve sobriety."
Washingtonian movement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"The Washingtonian movement . . . was a 19th-century fellowship founded on April 2, 1840 by six alcoholics . . . at Chase's Tavern on Liberty Street in Baltimore, Maryland. The idea was that by relying on each other, sharing their alcoholic experiences and creating an atmosphere of conviviality, they could keep each other sober. Total abstinence from alcohol was their goal. The group taught sobriety and preceded Alcoholics Anonymous by almost a century. Members sought out other "drunkards" (the term alcoholic had not yet been created), told them their experiences with alcohol abuse and how the Society had helped them achieve sobriety."
Washingtonian movement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Hello,
This seemed like something more of religious or abstract ideas than practical conditions. Is recovery the same thing as suggested so far?
There might be other issues surrounding the actual idea of recovery. I think this is centered around the mindset of people.
This seemed like something more of religious or abstract ideas than practical conditions. Is recovery the same thing as suggested so far?
There might be other issues surrounding the actual idea of recovery. I think this is centered around the mindset of people.
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Originally Posted by dSober 
... prior to publication of "Alcoholics Anonymous" in 1939. To keep things simpler, let's make that prior to the Oxford group(s). Anybody know? Was it just every man for his/herself?
Emmanuel Movement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Matt Talbot - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Originally Posted by desypete
i am no history buff
but can anyone name me 1 person who sobered up over 100 years ago ?
but can anyone name me 1 person who sobered up over 100 years ago ?
He was an Australian politician - and an alcoholic who'd been hospitalised many times.
He quit drinking at the age of 45 in 1930, became PM in 1941.
He steered Australia through the dark days of WW2 and the threat of imminent invasion...but never drank again.
He died in 1945.
History's littered with inspirational men (and women) like this Desy
D
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Originally Posted by desypete
i am no history buff
but can anyone name me 1 person who sobered up over 100 years ago ?
but can anyone name me 1 person who sobered up over 100 years ago ?
The American Temperance Society was formed in 1826, within 12 years claiming more than 8,000 local groups and over 1,500,000 members.
What exactly are you implying from your question? That you don't believe that there was 1 person who quit drinking before 1914? Or that you really aren't curious at all?P.T. Barnum was drinking wine at the age of 5 and smoking cigars at 7. He went on to speak publicly for temperance and sobriety, and was an active proponent. He made a lot of money doing this too. He was born in 1810.
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Since alcoholic beverages have been made and consumed for thousands of years (Alcoholic beverage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), it seems reasonable to assume people got addicted to it and further, that some were able to recover. I think we're all familiar with the difficulty of doing so however and I find it interesting and useful to understand how that problem has been addressed over time beyond individual efforts, which many have found insufficient. I think it also helps understand why AA, and its variants for other addictions/compulsions, are so widespread today.
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Originally Posted by freshstart57
The American Temperance Society was formed in 1826, within 12 years claiming more than 8,000 local groups and over 1,500,000 members.
What exactly are you implying from your question? That you don't believe that there was 1 person who quit drinking before 1914? Or that you really aren't curious at all?P.T. Barnum was drinking wine at the age of 5 and smoking cigars at 7. He went on to speak publicly for temperance and sobriety, and was an active proponent. He made a lot of money doing this too. He was born in 1810.
i am sure there would of been drinkers who did quit but the question of were they just small time type of drinkers or the 24 /7 type who has nothing left is one that even in todays world most if not all will die from it even with all the help around there is today
so surely it makes sense that no one would of found recovery once they were down to that level ?
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Originally Posted by desypete
what i am implying is that i would expect most who were real alcoholics died from it
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Originally Posted by Boleo
That's still true today. No matter whos stats you look at... 95- 80% of those who get to recovery fail to stay sober. Not to mention, all of those who never get into any kind of recovery in the first place.
A cop in my town who use to arrest me regularly told me, when I bumped into him a few months ago, after not seeing me for a couple years, he thought I was dead.
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Originally Posted by desypete
what i am implying is that i would expect most who were real alcoholics died from it
i am sure there would of been drinkers who did quit but the question of were they just small time type of drinkers or the 24 /7 type who has nothing left is one that even in todays world most if not all will die from it even with all the help around there is today
so surely it makes sense that no one would of found recovery once they were down to that level ?
i am sure there would of been drinkers who did quit but the question of were they just small time type of drinkers or the 24 /7 type who has nothing left is one that even in todays world most if not all will die from it even with all the help around there is today
so surely it makes sense that no one would of found recovery once they were down to that level ?
but...it still nearly killed me Desy.
D
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Originally Posted by Dee74
I 'just quit' - if that makes my years of 24/7 drinking 'small time' to you so be it
but...it still nearly killed me Desy.
D
but...it still nearly killed me Desy.
D
he has had 20 detox paid for by the nhs etc and now they see him as someone who had abused there help and his illness is self inflicted so they are refusing to help the guy
this guy had set fire to his flat falling alseep while drunnk and suffered burns all over his face and body he is disfigured badly but he can not stay sober
longest time he has had is 3 months and that was over 2 years ago but he still keeps on falling back
today he is in a really bad way he needs locking up like they used to in the olden days and brought off the drink in a controlled way and kept away from it for a long time
but it all costs money so he is fated to die like so many who end up like that
i look at my own drink path and i lost it all and ended up with nothing but some how i found my way to aa and with there help i turned my life around
this guy shows me just how hopeless it is for many who end up in that state and how lucky i was to end up reaching a point were i couldn't do it anymore
now i suspect that in the olden days if you had money or family then there would be help even if it means locking them up out of the way for a while
were as for people like the guy i have tried to help there is no help, now put that back to many years ago when there was nothing around to help drunks it would stand to reason there was no way out for them but death
sadly in todays modern world its still the case as when you cross that line and you have nothing you will be very very lucky indeed to come back from it
if i would of carried on for say another year i am pretty sure i would of lost my flat and ended up out on the streets and been one of them who wouldnt ever of made it back
to compare our own drinking experiences with those who are out there now suffering out on the streets with nothing is one i can not even compare really as i havent been there
but with trying to help them i can see a hell of a different picture of just how powerful the drink is once your in that mess.
today we seem to have a lot of drunks who have gave up in time and still have a lot left to lose which is a good thing but still we have many many more who people ignore as they dismiss them as hopeless cases
like would of been done on a much more bigger scale in the dark ages
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Originally Posted by desypete
like would of been done on a much more bigger scale in the dark ages
Noone outside the aristocracy had time to be terribly self indulgent in the middle ages.
You worked from the time you woke til bedtime, and unless you took up begging, if you didn't work you didn't eat and you starved.
D
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Originally Posted by Dee74
actually I think alcoholism as we know it is pretty much a modern phenomenon.
Alcoholism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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It's very easy to look back and ascribe modern values and modes of thought to medieval peasants Doug, but the medieval mind was very different.
I'd be very surprised if they felt the need to 'escape' as much as you think they did.
I did a little work in Tudor History but it's not really my area..I'm open to any other sources you can give me, besides Wikipedia.
Drunkenness has been around for millennia - '24/7 alcoholism' as desy termed it I'd contend emerged after the industrial revolution when the modern concept of leisure time began to be developed
The medieval peasant actually drank a lot more beer than we would normally today...simply because the water was foul. Weak beer by all accounts, but still beer.
If alcoholism (in the AA framework you guys are suggesting) was around then, it should have been very widespread... so I wonder why it's not been remarked upon?
D
I'd be very surprised if they felt the need to 'escape' as much as you think they did.
I did a little work in Tudor History but it's not really my area..I'm open to any other sources you can give me, besides Wikipedia.
Drunkenness has been around for millennia - '24/7 alcoholism' as desy termed it I'd contend emerged after the industrial revolution when the modern concept of leisure time began to be developed
The medieval peasant actually drank a lot more beer than we would normally today...simply because the water was foul. Weak beer by all accounts, but still beer.
If alcoholism (in the AA framework you guys are suggesting) was around then, it should have been very widespread... so I wonder why it's not been remarked upon?
D
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Looking at the English situation in particular.
Possibly "functioning alcoholism" was borne out of pure necessity amongst the working class or peasants.
I'd hazard a guess that any 24/7 drinking that went on ie: carried out by the village drunks, was highly functional for three reasons ...
A) Beer was all that was available and it was weak, 1.5% -2.5% ABV, so nothing high powered was available for people to "graduate" to.
B) If you've ever had a night on naturally brewed "English Ale", even the stronger stuff, you'd know the hangover's are quite minimal. By comparison to a modern commercial beer, wine or spirit hangover at least.
C) people would simply run out of money, no credit cards, no bar tabs. You paid cash or traded for as much as you could afford & that was that and once you'd bought your supply, there was no convenient liquor store to return to for more.
The really alcoholic 24/7 drinking would have been found in, of all places, Monastery's.
It was the English monks who brewed all the beer for the villages. That was how they survived & it was, from my understanding, licensed by the Crown that way, so no one else was legally allowed to make their own alcohol (on pain of death no doubt) and so that the Monastery's could support themselves with no competition. This also saved the Crown from having to fund the Monastery's.
The less "party guy" Monks fulfilled many other tasks, but the "party guys" were the ones who did the brewing & they were notorious drunks. They could drink as much as they liked because they didn't have to pay for it, they always had a ready supply and so long as they produced enough beer to sell to the villagers and keep the Monastery in reasonable funds, they could basically work their own hours.
It was also common knowledge that the Monks brewed stronger stuff for themselves & that the beer sold to the villagers, was deliberately kept at lower strength.
Possibly "functioning alcoholism" was borne out of pure necessity amongst the working class or peasants.
I'd hazard a guess that any 24/7 drinking that went on ie: carried out by the village drunks, was highly functional for three reasons ...
A) Beer was all that was available and it was weak, 1.5% -2.5% ABV, so nothing high powered was available for people to "graduate" to.
B) If you've ever had a night on naturally brewed "English Ale", even the stronger stuff, you'd know the hangover's are quite minimal. By comparison to a modern commercial beer, wine or spirit hangover at least.
C) people would simply run out of money, no credit cards, no bar tabs. You paid cash or traded for as much as you could afford & that was that and once you'd bought your supply, there was no convenient liquor store to return to for more.
The really alcoholic 24/7 drinking would have been found in, of all places, Monastery's.
It was the English monks who brewed all the beer for the villages. That was how they survived & it was, from my understanding, licensed by the Crown that way, so no one else was legally allowed to make their own alcohol (on pain of death no doubt) and so that the Monastery's could support themselves with no competition. This also saved the Crown from having to fund the Monastery's.
The less "party guy" Monks fulfilled many other tasks, but the "party guys" were the ones who did the brewing & they were notorious drunks. They could drink as much as they liked because they didn't have to pay for it, they always had a ready supply and so long as they produced enough beer to sell to the villagers and keep the Monastery in reasonable funds, they could basically work their own hours.
It was also common knowledge that the Monks brewed stronger stuff for themselves & that the beer sold to the villagers, was deliberately kept at lower strength.
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