legna

In NA we are taught that alcohol is just another drug. Our drug of choice is merely a symptom of our disease - a disease that extends to alcohol whether we have ever had a drink or not. To the addict, AA is home. To the alcoholic in AA, addicts are a different breed.

Here's my take: No one disputes that the bottom has been raised significantly. The introduction of treatment centers, interventions, the lessening of the stigma of being an alcoholic - all these have helped raise the bottom from the levels of despair and destitution that the original members experienced. This is not to say that the occasional person doesn't crawl through the door of AA every bit as bad off as someone coming into the program back in the thirties and forties - but it's rare today. Usually they are stopped before getting to that point.

I'd go so far as to say that the low bottom drunk has a lot more in common with an addict today than the typical AA-er. I've seen low bottom drunks come in and be rounded up by eager folks trying to help that really have no idea where this person is coming from and handing them tools that simply won't work.

Taking a low bottom drunk through the steps at a glacial pace "because that's how I did it" simply doesn't work with the 'alcoholic of our type' found in the Big Book. I know it's unpopular, and I'm not saying it to antagonize anyone, but there are an awful lot of alcoholics in AA that are little more than potential alcoholics. I'm glad they have found their way and have the chance to save themselves another twenty, thirty, or more years of misery but for folks like this - 90 in 90, the fellowship, and a step a year might work. For the desperate low bottom alcoholic (imo) it doesn't.

For them, hooking up early with a recovered addict who considers alcohol just one more drug, might be the best thing for them. As far as addicts in AA - well, I'm an addict, but I'm a member of AA because I say I am. Our responsibility declaration tells me (the way I read it) that I should help anyone, anywhere - my hand as an AA member out to be there. I am qualified to help addicts and alcoholics through the twelve steps and so I do. Whether it's at an AA meeting or an NA meeting...or under a bridge.

TigerLili

I think drug addicts tend to hit bottom younger and faster than alcoholics. You can be a functioning alcoholic for decades. I certainly was. I haven't seen anyone be a functioning drug addict for decades.

I also haven't been to an NA meeting that has many members with more than a few years clean. I think it's a great idea for addicts to come to AA meetings and hear from many people with decades of sobriety through practicing the Steps, if that's what they want to do.

I didn't know I was a drug addict until I after I discovered I was an alcoholic, which didn't happen until I found myself in AA. Who is to say that people won't need to hear what they need to hear, regardless of which fellowship they hear it in?

NYCDoglvr

My drug of choice is alcohol but it could easily be something else. There are plenty of folks who primarily used drugs in the meetings I go to. Our doors are open to anyone who has a desire to stop drinking.

Pagekeeper

Well, I suppose I suspected when I posted this thread that some people would completely take my intentions out of context and twist it into something morbid ... like I don't want Jane to get better ... like I'm denying Jane the chance to recover. Which is simply not true.

Jane came to me. Jane explained in great detail her dilemma. When I asked Jane if she wanted to stop drinking, she told me the drink was not her problem, and she would just substitute "alcoholic" for "addict" in the literature and meetings. I told Jane she sounded like a good candidate for NA. Jane then told me she didn't like NA (of which she has been to THREE meetings total).

I never told Jane she could not go to AA. I simply questioned her motives for wanting to do so, considering her story. If a sex addict came to me and said they had been to a total of THREE sex addict meetings, but they would rather go to AA, I would also wonder why.

Because not everyone in AA is there to recover. And people who are just getting sober are sick. Their motives are not always pure.

I know about drug addicts. I do not identify as a drug addict, but I've done my fair share of drugs. All of my friends in high school were into drugs. Many of those friends are dead. My best friend from childhood is a heroin addict. I still talk to her. I've had to detach from her situation, and she lives in a different state, but she knows I am sober and she knows how I got sober. She is not an alcoholic. She never liked to drink, that was always me. She likes the dope. If she came to me for help, AA would not be my first suggestion. It would be NA. Just because I needed AA does not mean she does.

Also, I have seen some of the consequences when AA tries to solve every problem. Talk about a sad mess.

There was an alcoholic in my group who took meds for serious psychiatric and medical problems. A new person came into the group, who did not identify as an alcoholic, and became very friendly with our member. Eventually new person stole all the medication and our member committed suicide two weeks later.

Another guy who did not identify as an alcoholic preyed on newcomer women. It got so bad charges were brought against him. I don't want to even think about how many women never came back after encountering him.

So don't act like there are no consequences for non-alcoholics in AA. I made my suggestion to Jane with her own well being and AA as a whole in mind. I want her to recover, but I don't want other alcoholics to be harmed in the process.

Bill Wilson says as much in the supplemental material ...

--Bill W

RumHound

Pagemaker, you raised an interesting question in your OP:

Can a non-alcoholic addict go to AA meetings?

Another question developed, too:

Can a non-alcoholic addict be a member of AA?

The answers are that a non-alcoholic addict can, usually, go to AA meetings and that a non-alcoholic addict (or any non-alcoholic) cannot ever be a member of AA.

If Jane or your heroin addict friend are non-alcoholics, these answers would apply to them.

Thanks for posting the problem.

Boleo

IMO the only addicts who should not be allowed at closed meetings are the ones who have
NO DESIRE to stop drinking alcohol.

skg

You know, I have never done heroin. In my line of work there has to be some means of plausible deniability, after all. But seriously, I've never wanted to shoot up. Needles, the process, the thrill? I understand it, and I'm sure it's absolutely fabulous. Just been spared that particular bottom, I guess. I have done alot of other illegals, though, and everyone of them made me feel different--and I KNEW that I could become addicted to them instantly.

And I drank. ALOT. All the time. It's what people around me did, it's what fun people did, it's what I did. I said I'd never do those other things because I could become addicted, and somehow that seemed worse than getting hammered every night, but at least I was legal.

Today, I understand addictions. All of 'em. Heck, when I finally started getting help for my alcoholism, I got up to 5 pints of ice cream a week. I'd have done it every night, but weekends were for pie! And chocolate. Sugar. And caffeine. And women. And, and, and... Those things may have made me fat, but they didn't make me crazy, so it was harder for me to understand why I could be addicted. And exercising. And running. You name it, I can become addicted to it if it changes the way I feel.

So when a GA, or an NA, or an AA, or SA, or ?A comes into the Open Meetings that I attend, I understand. They think they're different, but really it's the same spiritual sickness they suffer from which used to get me hammered every night. That "God Shaped Hole," I've heard it called in the rooms.

I spoke at a CR program when I was about 18 months sober--way too early to understand the similarities--and there were people announcing their diseases and talking about steps like they knew who I was. Creeped me out back then, but I get it now.

So yeah, I'm a little more accommodating to "those others" when they come in, and usually make it a point to explain the "topic of alcoholism" conundrum with them. It's tough enough to come into an AA room without feeling different already, but they're not in God's eyes. That's my experience, anyway.

Pagekeeper

skg: I also had an outside issue when I came into AA. My sponsor acknowledged this issue, but also firmly suggested we focus on alcoholism and the steps. My outside issue, she said, might be resolved from finding the solution to my alcoholism. She was right. The outside issue wasn't removed as quickly as I wanted it to be, but god removes my shortcomings in god's time, with god's reasons. So I get what you are saying about that God shaped hole.

TigerLili

Pagekeeper I think it's totally fine for you to suggest to Jane that she perseveres with NA for a bit longer. I also think it's totally fine for her to go to AA, because at least she's still open to going to meetings. It's not like she has to make a big, never-to-be-changed decision about which fellowship she'll attend. It sound like she's still in very early days. She may be harbouring some question about whether she is also an alcoholic. WHo knows? I would just encourage her to keep going to meetings. Maybe when she gets a few months of clean time you could talk to her again about which fellowship she might want to make her primary one. It's much safer for her to be in a 12 step group of some kind than not being in one at all because she doesn't like what little she has seen of NA. It took me a month to go back to my second AA meeting. I STILL don't like meetings. I'd rather stick myself in the eye than go to meetings. I found for myself that I need to go whether I like it or not. Jane might come to that conclusion too. Recovery isn't just about doing what you like.

Hawks

Well obviously we can't ask Bill for his current opinion, but we all know he was pretty big on prayer & meditation.

Maybe your answer is outside human input.