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Old 03-24-2018, 09:33 PM
  # 137 (permalink)  
JeffreyAK
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Originally Posted by soberlicious View Post
...From what I'm gathering here from the conversation about the text, if you really want to moderate you can. You just have to really want to.
I know I really, really, really wanted to, but in the process of coming to the understanding that I couldn't ever do it, I racked up the worst consequences of my drinking career. And I tried, oh I tried.

I remember a counselor telling me once, "Ohhhhh.... You're a doctor? That's bad, you are gonna have a REAL hard time quitting", and it took me 4 more months of drinking to understand what she meant, but it was that you can't fight an irrational illogical process (addiction) with logic and reason, not past some fuzzy point in the progression when your brain isn't working right anymore. You just have to toss the twisted "logic" out the window and stop, or you'll keep spiraling down the drain, and that realization was a critical milestone for me even if it came 4 months later than it might have.

That's what concerns me about this model, the notion that you can either quit or learn to moderate, if you want to. I've actually never met anyone who was an addict and learned to moderate, I'm sure those people do exist but they must be rare. Just about all other approaches to ending drinking problems (MM excepted), no matter what they disagree on, do agree on the same central goal: Permanent abstinence.
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