cabledude

Justfor1...you guys who came in when you still had clothes bug me with your more-clothes-than-thou attitudes. Some of us had to hit a naked bottom. With our naked bottoms.

julez

Justfor1, your stories may in fact be more inspiring. However, think back to when you were at the same stage of your alcoholism as I am now. Don't you WISH you would have stopped then? Can you look back, and realize you were on a horribly slippery slope? I look at my mother and my uncle, and I can recognize myself as one who could become like them, serious down and out alkies.
IMO, when people want to talk about how someone like me may be on a pink cloud, or may not be a real alkie, its hurtful, because to me it sounds like those people are saying that my problems and issues aren't real, or don't matter, since others have had it so much worse. I feel like when I go to meetings now, I should just shut up. I would never want to make anyone feel that way. Basically I go for help. I go for inspiration. I go to stay sober one more day. I think thats why WE ALL go. So who cares who has done what, or who drank how much, or went to jail?

Supercrew

I'm guessing there might be a little sarcasm in Justfor1's post. And remember Rule 62.

julez

I don't get where the sarcasm is, but ok

Justfor1

I guess I was being a little flippant. However, I was a down & out drunk so julz, you have to see the other side. Yes, you are lucky that you have not sunk as low as some people. I suspect though that the majority of people in AA are low bottom?? I cannot imagine why someone would want to attend an AA meeting and not be alcoholic? If I wasn't a low bottom drunk I would never have started AA. If I would of had health insurance I would of have gone the doctor/therapy route. I'm sorry if I'm being blunt but this has been my path and my opinion.

LaFemme

Jistfor1 I appreciate your bluntness and can fully appreciate your point. I kind of agree that from my perspective aa is for those who truly have nowhere else to go and that is who it works best for. However, SR is not AA ...and as such there are many here who are alcoholics whose suffering is just as real as yours, although perhaps less dire. These people should not feel that because they haven't hit a hard and low bottom that they aren't alcoholics...because that isn't what SR is all about (at least for me).

I attended a funeral on Friday for someone who had a house a dog and a job and she still died from alcohol abuse.

I do find your experience humbling and inspiring...I'm glad it wasn't me...but I also hope that no one tells me or someone like me that they aren't real alcoholics and therefore are not in need of help.

Peace, Tina

omegasupreme

If following the basic text of a fellowship, the instruction guide, if you will, bothers or offends you...then find another fellowship, after all you do choose to walk into those meetings that use such literature. Seems pretty plain and simple to me. Wait...before any of you tell me that I can only share from experience...because, you see, that is my experience, I got to the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and didn't want to work the program. I wanted to hang out in the fellowship, not the program. I drank the coffee, took up valuable recovery time for others, and in meetings would tell the group how my opinions were different from those of the book they seemed a little too serious about. Then a couple longtimers finally explained to me that they didn't care to hear my opinions and to please be quiet if I were to attend anymore of there meetings. So I left, and nearly died trying to get back to the fellowship that I walked out on. They didn't need my opinions, they new what worked. Thank God for people like that, they were not afraid to stand for something. Do I take this fellowship/program very serious today, your damn right I do. My book explains that I have to seek the solution with the desperation of a drowning man, so yes, I do get a little tweaky when someone tries to water it down or say that anyway is fine and that I'm going against the love and tolerance code, because had someone not told me that my way was not ok, then I would have died in those rooms just like many others are today. Those of you giving your opinions on what you think AA was intended to be...I beg of you to open your hearts and minds to a new experience...check out some of the OG AA's...listen to Clarence Snyder's tapes...check out Back to Basics by Wally P. Look at the success rates of AA back in the early days when they were that serious and compare it to today's rates. And maybe...just maybe read the Big Book thoroughly before commenting on eliteism, the term "real alcoholic" as used and defined in the Big Book has nothing to do with eliteism, only choice and control. Am I saying your not welcome, no, just be careful what your sharing or if your new then be careful what your listening to...because a lot of it is pure feces.

Mark75

One of the best experiences I had here at SR... Once I described how I would wake up in the middle of the night, sneak out to the car, or the garage, and root around for the bottle of vodka, and stand there, in the moonlight, alone, turn the bottle up and finish it... Later on, a very low bottom, now very much recovered, alcoholic PM'd me and told me that he knew exactly how I felt....

He wasn't looking for differences in his story and mine... and there are many... but there is one very important similarity... alcoholism.... Now we share the solution. I've never met him, but I think of him as a dear friend.

Supercrew

Sorry Justfor1 for the misunderstanding. After reading the whole thread regarding us all being alcoholic's and in most case if we would have continued to drink would have found ourselves probably without jobs and homeless, I thought you were just being facetious saying that there are "not enough real alcoholics" here or at AA. Yes I never was jobless or homeless, but as we were saying those 2 things don't make you a true alcoholic.

Sorry for the misunderstanding and I am glad your program is working for you!

DayTrader

Given some of your other posts, I assume you're referring to why do ppl in AA say other alcoholics aren't real alcoholics.

Alcoholic has nothing to do with how much you drank, how bad your life got, how low your bottom was, or what/how many bad things you did. Not by the definition AA's used for the last 75 yrs anyway. It has nothing to do with elitism.....or reverse-elitism.....or anything like that. It has to do with a search for your and our truth. Are you or aren't you....and why not use the definition that's been around and well established as the baseline?

If you're interested the AA book's definition it's here: http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/
read pages 20 ---> the top of 26 to see what those of us in AA are talking about.

Now, if you fit.......congrats.....you're a real alcoholic and you're completely screwed unless you can find a power greater than yourself to relieve you of your alcoholism because NOTHING you can do.....no amount of support.... no amount of knowledge....nothing.......nothing will stop it and you'll die from the disease (and a big % commit suicide before the booze finally takes em).
I can't think of ONE reason to want to join that club........unless one HAS to.

LexieCat

I find it distinctly unproductive to compare whose horror was worse than whose. Mine was bad enough, thank you very much, and I didn't care to experience how much worse it could get.

And for just about everyone, yes, it could get worse. Those with desperate health problems might still have a family who cared and cried and prayed for them. Those with no home or family might still have their freedom. Until you're in the ground, it can always get worse.

So one person gets "desperate" sooner than someone else, or hears about (and accepts) the solution sooner than someone else. It's a progressive disease. By its nature it progresses. Someone who controls his/her diabetes soon after it's identified isn't less diabetic than someone who has lost limbs from the disease.

I identify just fine with people in my meetings, people with experiences much different from mine. I identify with the feelings around drinking, with the insanity, with the denial. I don't consider myself in any way better or smarter, just more scared, sooner, maybe. I always was kind of a wuss.

TheEnd

If it makes anyone feel better, "Alcoholic" is just a layman's term. The correct diagnosis according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) is alcohol abuse or alcohol dependence. You can probably read about it if you want on the internet, I'm quite positive that everyone here would meet one of those definitions

Supercrew

I read pages 20-26, and it explains me to the letter. In 1939 when the book was written there were no other recovery programs that were free. There were no studies on the brain and why we act the way we do. From what I have learned at AA, it is a great program, but the type of drinker described on pages 20-26 sound like most alcoholic's I have talked to on this board.

I drank for a long time and it got worse, and until I started looking for real information regarding why I continued over and over year after year, to where I was drinking in the AM's I was baffled and did not understand why I was doing this to myself. Well alot of us are lucky, because it is now 2011, and there is alot of free information and support you can find that can also help with the type of alcoholic found on pages 20-26 in the Big Book. 75 years is an awesome accoplishment for helping alcoholics find recovery, and 75 years ago it was the only free game in town, but there has been alot of medical and biological information learned in those years and to discount the book as the only workable solution in 75 years might be a little short sighted.

I am truly glad it is working for you, and I am glad that you are getting the word out to other members, because all information learned regarding our issues is good information in my opinion.

DayTrader

LOL.....ok Crew. The book's old. You say "outdated".......I say "why change what works."

AA isn't a recovery "method." It's not something you do to get recovered. YOU (the individual) actually have nothing to do with the matter, nor does your sponsor, nor does the fellowship........other than being participants.

Current methodology suggests you have a say in your recovery (as did all the past recovery methods prior to AA) and ALL of their approaches come from the belief that you can get healthy under human power.....AA is there for when human power has failed to work.

.....we've deviated enough from the original post. If you'd like to discuss further with me, let's go to PMs.

Supercrew

I didn't say "outdated", and for what it's worth you gave me the link so I am going to read more...hell it described me perfectly. I will PM you if I have any questions, or if I an curious about any of your posts. For what it is worth I am glad that you are here trying to help others, that in itself is awesome, and like I said anything I can learn is only going to help me.

Thank you again for the link!

soberbythesea

I know 2 things about myself and my drinking

1. Drinking as much as I previously did was harming me greatly. It was also harming my spouse and my marriage, and generally hampering my ability to reach my potential in my life.

2. My efforts to reduce or eliminate the harm that my drinking caused via "cutting back," or "moderating," completely failed every time, over a series of many attempts.

Realizing these two things led me to commit to abstinence, which has solved my problem. Now coming up on six months of sobriety, I couldn't care less whether anyone else thinks I am/was a "real" alcoholic or not. I don't even particularly care to define myself that way. All I know is that I had a problem, and that this solution is working. And that alone is enough to keep me on the wagon, no matter what anyone else thinks/says/does.

Murray4x5

I believe that to be 100% true for alcoholics.

The following is from DayTrader's link (underlined by me);

"The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called will power becomes practically nonexistent."

There have been many scientific discoveries since that was written which explain why some people are predisposed to becoming addicted to one drug or another, and how the brain changes to impel that person to keep increasing the frequency and amounts of the drug, despite the damage it causes to their bodies and their lives. Why one person can walk away from it and another can't is inexplicable, and probably falls more into the realm of psychology than physiology.

I read those six pages, DayTrader, and saw much of myself there, but you're right in that I never did get that far down the slope of alcoholism. Perhaps I hit the lottery and had a combination of personality traits and life experiences which gave me the tools to stop, who knows? Unfortunately, some members of my family are having a harder time with it than I...

My beef is when people here on SR tell other people that they aren't real alcoholic's, but are problem drinkers, binge drinkers, etc. Please read the testimonials on the pages of this thread from people who's minds started to rationalize their way into drinking again, or actually began drinking again because they were told they weren't real alcoholic's.

It's a ludicrous standard anyway, because by following that line of thinking to its ultimate end the only real and true alcoholic's would be the ones who died from it.

Murray

DayTrader

I get your point.....I'm just not going to try to illustrate mine any further. It becomes an exercise in futility and just upsets ppl.

I had all sorts of reasons for why I continued to drink, went back out, and did what I did.....after I had decided I wasn't going to do that stuff anymore. Mostly I convinced myself that my actions were the result of what others had done to me. I think I honestly believed that at the time. I can look back now, with the gift of hindsight, and see that I went back out because I WAS an alcoholic, and had no choice BUT to go back out.......over and over.....because I was in a position where nothing I could come up with WOULD keep me from going back out. At the time though, I thought I still had a choice in whether I drank or not.....and I certainly didn't think I needed some sort of spiritual experience to solve my problems.

Nitey nite. bed time for me.

spryte

In the past, I have got caught up in definitions and peoples' definition of me...I do best when I'm honest with myself and when I try to connect with people on a very basic level.

I find it hard to do my best that way; I find it hard to be honest with myself and others...maybe...because I'm an alcoholic? A-ha! Nope. It's like a snake eating its own tail, this thinking.

I don't know. I'm not adding to the discussion much, except to say, I think we all have lots in common and keep hanging out and posting

Antiderivative

I don't know were I heard this and I am probably butchering it, but I like this saying: Fools do not learn from their mistakes. Smart people learn from their mistakes. Wise people learn from the mistakes of others.

Looking back on my drinking and recovery, I tend to fall into the fool/smart category more often than I'd like to admit. I was definitely a fool for a long time.

I wasn't an extreme low bottom drunk. I wasn't out in the streets, selling myself, committing crimes, or contracting Hep C or other medical problems. For awhile, it certainly was difficult to hold jobs down, hold a place of residency where roommates/family didn't get tired of my drinking, develop meaningful relationships, keep my word, find the shower and my toothbrush for a couple days, not make it to the bathroom, etc. I came to the point where I was killing myself with booze and in the meantime, I was pissing away my life.

However, if anything, I feel jealous of 'high bottom' drunks. They are the wise person that I never was. I know it is a petty emotion and I ultimately overcome it and become sincerely grateful that they found recovery. There is just too much social and personal destruction from alcoholism/addiction. It does a tremendous amount of damage on people and society. I am glad that they didn't need to dig a deep hole and cause more devastation and destruction. There is just so much pain and misery with alcoholism/addiction, and sadly, it could be avoided.

I get a little jealous when someone tells me that their bottom was pissing in the wrong corner of the bathroom. Heck, I was waking up in a puddle of **** in my early 20's due to my excessive drinking and drugging and it just got worse. Once I curbed the drug use/cravings, I seem to remedy that behavior, but still...I wish I was wise enough to learn. But, I needed to dig my own hole. I couldn't learn from other people's holes. I was a fool.

Today, I try to be a wise person, but it is difficult. I definitely try not to be the fool anymore, but that is also difficult. I still make repeated mistakes, but I don't beat myself over it like I used to.