Originally Posted by
fini 
Then why do you call it alcoholism??? Perhaps I'm a compulsive gambler, but I just don't know it because I don't gamble, and gambling doesn't have terrifically much to do with that particular ism either? When you replace alcohol with any other addictive substance or activity, it sounds ridiculous. Why does alcohol get awarded this superstitious, magical quality?
SoberKnitter,
"alcoholism" might not be what we'd call it today if we were to name it now.
i'm thinking now of what we call "eating disorders", and how we don't call that "foodism", because we know that it isn't about the food. it plays out around food.
so, in a similar manner, my alcoholism played/plays out around alcohol, but isn't exactly ABOUT alcohol.
does that show better what i mean?
nothing to do with awarding alcohol any qualities, magical or otherwise.
That makes more sense, and, yes, a different name would be really, really helpful. I still don't get the point of continuing to use unhelpful and misleading terms, as opposed to calling it inner turmoil or whatever. I don't think eating disorders are exactly analogous, because when someone stops the disordered eating, it would be just as confusing for him or her to continue to self-identify as someone with an eating disorder.
Originally Posted by
fini and once again, i've responded without reading past your post, and i'd imagine someone else will have pointed out that aa does not require belief in god.
I think this points out another source of the communication problems happening in this thread: defining AA workings in ways that don't track with the organization's own literature. No one reading the Big Book or even the steps could reasonably conclude that AA can be used without a belief in God. You can use the higher power euphemism, but said higher power is indistinguishable from a monotheistic deity if it can be used in the way the steps require. It is singular, desirous, omnipotent (at the very least it can restore sanity) and in communication with the AA practitioner through prayer and meditation. Heck, it is even male and named "God".
I, like every other non-theist who has been to AA, have been told that one's higher power can be a doorknob, but read through the steps substituting any terrestrial thing for the word "God," and it's obvious why the doorknob thing sounds like unadulterated and insulting BS to most people.
Originally Posted by
fini and there is a huge difference between a belief in god (you mean this as in "faith"?) and a tool: a tool is something we use that is designed to help us attain a certain result/goal.
faith is its own end. not there for a purpose of achieving something else.
Step 2 ("Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.") and the "Chapter to the Agnostic" both refer to belief in God, or faith, as something to be cultivated in order to attain certain goals (e.g. sobriety and sanity).
It seems that many - including yourself and Robby - are practicing their own, modified versions of AA. This isn't a bad thing, but it does make it troublesome to talk about. I suppose I can call myself a Catholic and believe it to be so, but it will confuse the bejeesus out of people when I say that I don't believe in any of the church's doctrines, or that I find my Catholicism to be perfectly compatible with my job at an abortion clinic or a gay bar.