Personal Recovery & AA: dissonace and conflict vs. connection & community
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Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: « USA » Recovered with AVRT (Rational Recovery) ___________
Posts: 3,680
Originally Posted by bellakeller 
LOL. Sometimes when I read your posts AVRT, I hear the screaming "MEOW" sound of an angry kitty.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Columbus, OH
Posts: 95
Wow. I'm fairly new to SR and just read this whole thread. I currently attend AA meetings, have studied the history and all of the literature, and am working the steps with a sponsor. It's powerful stuff. But underneath, I share all of the typical reservations that have been described. Too many to mention - but they're all in this thread. I'm a seeker. I'm intellectual and get slammed for it continually in the rooms. I've also read and tried all of the other methods I could find as well...Easy Way, MM, SMART, AVRT (which I tried to work from the website). I liked them all! My pattern is 3-4 months sober...the drink. No other stuff anymore - just drink, and usually control it, which confuses me even more! Anyway, this thread is the most amazing snapshot of the current world of recovery that I have ever seen. The problem is...I can relate to all of it! The clarity of the AA steps when focused on action....cause/effect. The power of directed intellect and detachment in AVRT and other methods. Just the fellowship and connection with others who are exploring the EXACT same world as I am, investigating, searching. I feel the resistance in the thread to what I see as the one obvious "God" that underlies AA's history - which I personally have no problem with, but I can't always retain the connection, the rock-solid, turn-it-over faith. Then I'll feel guilty, or defective! This is just amazing, intelligent stuff from all of you. I'm confused as hell, but in a good way! LOL. Thanks.
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Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: « USA » Recovered with AVRT (Rational Recovery) ___________
Posts: 3,680
Originally Posted by twilli59
I'm a seeker. I'm intellectual and get slammed for it continually in the rooms.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Columbus, OH
Posts: 95
Yes, will definitely remember - it's hard not to! My hope is that working the steps, and staying open to other approaches as well, will lead me to an effective program that suits my particular recovery. So far it's been a bit of a filtering process, with the steps as my base.
Shape-Shifting Super-Hero
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Eating Tofu!
Posts: 882
I’m glad the initial post and the discussion this has spawned have been as helpful, as it has to so many people out there; it makes me happy to see that others are also melding different aspects of recovery, and good results.
There is much about the AA meetings I have gone to that I have liked, namely, the before and after chit-chat, and also, speaking during them, and listening to many of the stories. And just observing the individuals, and the social dynamics of the group, how people are interacting, how the group is organized, how it is functioning. Now to some, this may seem boring, but like a bird-watcher, I derive a lot of pleasure from observing, noting patterns, making sense of things, analyzing, thinking, and this is an excellent arena in which to see certain social-psychological theories in action, and to allow these to help me remain calm, open-minded, and unbiased, as if I were an anthropologist simply taking notes, without making immediate value judgments.
And the coffee. I like the coffee, and also the cigarettes, yes, I know they are bad, and yes, I will quit one day, but they are a wonderful combination in sobriety.
One might say I am in-between a more cognitive based approach, and a spiritual approach, and use elements of both. What bothers me about AA most is that it 'must' be a spiritual approach, or so the three or four people I had asked about sponsoring me explained, as they went on to say they would decline to sponsor me, given my views and that maybe this was not a program for me, and why was I here, an AA, anyway??? Why couldn’t I do 90 meetings in 90 days, as I surely must have drank every day? So when I said I drank heavy 1 to 3 nights a weeks, and nothing the other days, they seemed perplexed: Did I even qualify as an alcoholic, despite the blackouts and the various problems drinking too much created? Opinions varied. And then the odd 'ask your sponsor' aspect, whenever you have questions. What if you don't have one? Or want one? There is a sense that asking questions is frowned upon, or, like the Catholic Church, must only be transacted via these sponsors, acting like priests, of sorts.
As time goes on, I can clearly see that AA is not something that I am able to ‘do’, for many reasons. One of them is that I can’t bear reading The Big Book. Aside from all the religious language, the style is horrid: Breezy at turns, preachy at others, at one point damning, at the other promising gold, jewels and salvation. It is too much. As an English major, I want to rap the person who wrote the tome over the head with it, and tell them to get a copy of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, and rewrite it, after having had that slender tome of writing tips sink in. The whole thing strikes me as corny in style, and contradictory and flawed in message.
I think the main reason I have gone to a few AA meetings is essentially feeling lonely, as silly as that sounds. But as humans, we are social creatures, and there is the existential need to fill our time with some or other activity, and generally, to have so much contact with other humans. But I am finding these groups do not go very far in meting these basic longings, and have wished other in person groups existed, as I most enjoy talking to others face to faced, though the internet has come to be a kind of stand-in that I have come to accept both the benefits and limitations of.
I used to post at SMART under the name Adric, for a few years, but I somehow got on the bad side of the admins there, and got banned for life. One problem I had there was that it was all cognitive, all the time. I am a few credits shy of also having a psychology degree, so that it seemed that SMART could be very rigid if one mentioned other psychological paradigms from which addiction might be addressed; discussing Maslow, Jung and Eric Berne got a pretty cold reception; B. F. Skinner fared better, yet he has always struck me as a rather cold fish, for all his sagacity.
I did go to a few live SMART meetings, and found the atmosphere much more convivial…I just wish there were more of them, as I don’t have a car, and work nights, and none of them are at times and places I can get to. I do use many of the SMART tools, though, and despite seeking a social outlet, my recovery efforts, in the main, remain individual.
At the same time, I do like the idea of involving some aspect of the spiritual in recovery, or at least of the ‘divine’, which I take to mean that which is not mundane: to me, most work and human activity is mundane, just actions done to get by in a hive; things such as art, literature, music, sex, beauty seem, on the other hand, invested with (or potentially invested) with greater energy, a kind of electricity that to me approximates the spiritual, and is of use in recovery.
But I lack that kind of belief in a higher power that is going to simply erase away my so-called defects, and hold my hand, and all that. I tend to be more Tao in that aspect: The universe simply is, and is indifferent, it just goes on and on. Such spiritual affinities are of little use in the A paradigm, I have found.
Then again, maybe I go to meetings because I like to be the subtle Trickster figure…the one that might say something that causes people to question things, that stirs the pot, so to speak, without appearing to do so. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. And I do like wolves, and wild dogs; here, one might say, I catch a glimpse of the spiritual, thinking of the gaze on an animal, the look in their eyes, and those lines by Rilke in The Duino Elegies:
8th Elegy, excerpt:
“The creature gazes into openness with all
its eyes. But our eyes are
as if they were reversed, and surround it,
everywhere, like barriers against its free passage.
We know what is outside us from the animal’s
face alone: since we already turn
the young child round and make it look
backwards at what is settled, not that openness
that is so deep in the animal’s vision. Free from death.
We alone see that: the free creature
has its progress always behind it,
and God before it, and when it moves, it moves
in eternity, as streams do.
We never have pure space in front of us,
not for a single day, such as flowers open
endlessly into. Always there is world,
and never the Nowhere without the Not: the pure,
unwatched-over, that one breathes and
endlessly knows, without craving. As a child
loses itself sometimes, one with the stillness, and
is jolted back. Or someone dies and is it.
Since near to death one no longer sees death,
and stares ahead, perhaps with the large gaze of the creature.
Lovers are close to it, in wonder, if
the other were not always there closing off the view.....
As if through an oversight it opens out
behind the other......But there is no
way past it, and it turns to world again.
Always turned towards creation, we see
only a mirroring of freedom
dimmed by us. Or that an animal
mutely, calmly is looking through and through us.
This is what fate means: to be opposite,
and to be that and nothing else, opposite, forever.”
------Rilke
But one can not really talk about such matters at an AA meeting, certainly the intellect and probity required to talk about how this poem might be a spiritual help would most likely be greeted with both dismay and vacant stares: why not just read the BB, some would say? Why think so much? Others might add. What does this have to do with anything? And me, there, alone in my knowledge of the meaning it carries, feeling some need to share this with others like showing somebody a precious stone they had found in a vacant lot.
Well, coming up on 2 months, here, this weekend…so something I am doing must be working, I suppose!
Peace and Puppykisses,
& may you wake up as a new-born wolf pup in your next life, the cool wind against your wet fur, straining towards warmth and sustenance, with nothing but the will to live.
H. Pup
There is much about the AA meetings I have gone to that I have liked, namely, the before and after chit-chat, and also, speaking during them, and listening to many of the stories. And just observing the individuals, and the social dynamics of the group, how people are interacting, how the group is organized, how it is functioning. Now to some, this may seem boring, but like a bird-watcher, I derive a lot of pleasure from observing, noting patterns, making sense of things, analyzing, thinking, and this is an excellent arena in which to see certain social-psychological theories in action, and to allow these to help me remain calm, open-minded, and unbiased, as if I were an anthropologist simply taking notes, without making immediate value judgments.
And the coffee. I like the coffee, and also the cigarettes, yes, I know they are bad, and yes, I will quit one day, but they are a wonderful combination in sobriety.
One might say I am in-between a more cognitive based approach, and a spiritual approach, and use elements of both. What bothers me about AA most is that it 'must' be a spiritual approach, or so the three or four people I had asked about sponsoring me explained, as they went on to say they would decline to sponsor me, given my views and that maybe this was not a program for me, and why was I here, an AA, anyway??? Why couldn’t I do 90 meetings in 90 days, as I surely must have drank every day? So when I said I drank heavy 1 to 3 nights a weeks, and nothing the other days, they seemed perplexed: Did I even qualify as an alcoholic, despite the blackouts and the various problems drinking too much created? Opinions varied. And then the odd 'ask your sponsor' aspect, whenever you have questions. What if you don't have one? Or want one? There is a sense that asking questions is frowned upon, or, like the Catholic Church, must only be transacted via these sponsors, acting like priests, of sorts.
As time goes on, I can clearly see that AA is not something that I am able to ‘do’, for many reasons. One of them is that I can’t bear reading The Big Book. Aside from all the religious language, the style is horrid: Breezy at turns, preachy at others, at one point damning, at the other promising gold, jewels and salvation. It is too much. As an English major, I want to rap the person who wrote the tome over the head with it, and tell them to get a copy of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, and rewrite it, after having had that slender tome of writing tips sink in. The whole thing strikes me as corny in style, and contradictory and flawed in message.
I think the main reason I have gone to a few AA meetings is essentially feeling lonely, as silly as that sounds. But as humans, we are social creatures, and there is the existential need to fill our time with some or other activity, and generally, to have so much contact with other humans. But I am finding these groups do not go very far in meting these basic longings, and have wished other in person groups existed, as I most enjoy talking to others face to faced, though the internet has come to be a kind of stand-in that I have come to accept both the benefits and limitations of.
I used to post at SMART under the name Adric, for a few years, but I somehow got on the bad side of the admins there, and got banned for life. One problem I had there was that it was all cognitive, all the time. I am a few credits shy of also having a psychology degree, so that it seemed that SMART could be very rigid if one mentioned other psychological paradigms from which addiction might be addressed; discussing Maslow, Jung and Eric Berne got a pretty cold reception; B. F. Skinner fared better, yet he has always struck me as a rather cold fish, for all his sagacity.
I did go to a few live SMART meetings, and found the atmosphere much more convivial…I just wish there were more of them, as I don’t have a car, and work nights, and none of them are at times and places I can get to. I do use many of the SMART tools, though, and despite seeking a social outlet, my recovery efforts, in the main, remain individual.
At the same time, I do like the idea of involving some aspect of the spiritual in recovery, or at least of the ‘divine’, which I take to mean that which is not mundane: to me, most work and human activity is mundane, just actions done to get by in a hive; things such as art, literature, music, sex, beauty seem, on the other hand, invested with (or potentially invested) with greater energy, a kind of electricity that to me approximates the spiritual, and is of use in recovery.
But I lack that kind of belief in a higher power that is going to simply erase away my so-called defects, and hold my hand, and all that. I tend to be more Tao in that aspect: The universe simply is, and is indifferent, it just goes on and on. Such spiritual affinities are of little use in the A paradigm, I have found.
Then again, maybe I go to meetings because I like to be the subtle Trickster figure…the one that might say something that causes people to question things, that stirs the pot, so to speak, without appearing to do so. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. And I do like wolves, and wild dogs; here, one might say, I catch a glimpse of the spiritual, thinking of the gaze on an animal, the look in their eyes, and those lines by Rilke in The Duino Elegies:
8th Elegy, excerpt:
“The creature gazes into openness with all
its eyes. But our eyes are
as if they were reversed, and surround it,
everywhere, like barriers against its free passage.
We know what is outside us from the animal’s
face alone: since we already turn
the young child round and make it look
backwards at what is settled, not that openness
that is so deep in the animal’s vision. Free from death.
We alone see that: the free creature
has its progress always behind it,
and God before it, and when it moves, it moves
in eternity, as streams do.
We never have pure space in front of us,
not for a single day, such as flowers open
endlessly into. Always there is world,
and never the Nowhere without the Not: the pure,
unwatched-over, that one breathes and
endlessly knows, without craving. As a child
loses itself sometimes, one with the stillness, and
is jolted back. Or someone dies and is it.
Since near to death one no longer sees death,
and stares ahead, perhaps with the large gaze of the creature.
Lovers are close to it, in wonder, if
the other were not always there closing off the view.....
As if through an oversight it opens out
behind the other......But there is no
way past it, and it turns to world again.
Always turned towards creation, we see
only a mirroring of freedom
dimmed by us. Or that an animal
mutely, calmly is looking through and through us.
This is what fate means: to be opposite,
and to be that and nothing else, opposite, forever.”
------Rilke
But one can not really talk about such matters at an AA meeting, certainly the intellect and probity required to talk about how this poem might be a spiritual help would most likely be greeted with both dismay and vacant stares: why not just read the BB, some would say? Why think so much? Others might add. What does this have to do with anything? And me, there, alone in my knowledge of the meaning it carries, feeling some need to share this with others like showing somebody a precious stone they had found in a vacant lot.
Well, coming up on 2 months, here, this weekend…so something I am doing must be working, I suppose!
Peace and Puppykisses,
& may you wake up as a new-born wolf pup in your next life, the cool wind against your wet fur, straining towards warmth and sustenance, with nothing but the will to live.
H. Pup
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: "I'm not lost for I know where I am. But however, where I am may be lost ..."
Posts: 5,273
Originally Posted by AVRT
I often feel compelled to go on the defense when people say this, but then I remember that my experience on both sides, so to speak, is probably not too common.
Originally Posted by mark75
Well, there I go, intellectualizing again... LOLOLOL
Originally Posted by bellakiller
LOL. Sometimes when I read your posts AVRT, I hear the screaming "MEOW" sound of an angry kitty.
Originally Posted by Huskypup
And the coffee. I like the coffee, and also the cigarettes, yes, I know they are bad, and yes, I will quit one day, but they are a wonderful combination in sobriety.
Originally Posted by huskypup
greeted with both dismay and vacant stares: why not just read the BB, some would say? Why think so much? Others might add. What does this have to do with anything? And me, there, alone in my knowledge of the meaning it carries, feeling some need to share this with others like showing somebody a precious stone they had found in a vacant lot.
Huskypup, you have a gift with words.
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: "I'm not lost for I know where I am. But however, where I am may be lost ..."
Posts: 5,273
Originally Posted by AVRT
Ever try to pet a feral kitty? The cat usually wins. :-)
Member
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Upstate New York
Posts: 1,928
Originally Posted by AVRT
Please don't use Orwellian Step-talk to try and bring me down a peg, Charon. I know the real meaning of the lingo.
Originally Posted by AVRT
Try praying for me instead. Let go and let great spirit, as you called it...
Member
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Merritt Island, Fl
Posts: 1,164
Originally Posted by HuskyPup
One of them is that I can’t bear reading The Big Book. Aside from all the religious language, the style is horrid: Breezy at turns, preachy at others, at one point damning, at the other promising gold, jewels and salvation. It is too much. As an English major, I want to rap the person who wrote the tome over the head with it, and tell them to get a copy of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, and rewrite it, after having had that slender tome of writing tips sink in. The whole thing strikes me as corny in style, and contradictory and flawed in message.
Shape-Shifting Super-Hero
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Eating Tofu!
Posts: 882
Well, different strokes for different folks. Some people prefer to read Charles Dickens, others like Danielle Steele.
But my jocular jabs at the style of the BB aside, I am finding many books that have been a tremendous help, ranging from Games People Play to Moving Beyond The 12 Steps, among others, that have given me a sturdy, multifaceted foundation to build upon, one that welcomes the intellectual and questioning, and is also open to the spiritual, but does not demand it, nor demand it as an active agent.
I think if one was raised with a Christian background, much of the language would be easier to swallow...but this not being the case, it comes off as sounding like Pat Robertson of the 700 Club, who in fact probably utters God, He and Him less than Bill W., on average.
But such are the connotations language is larded with. I think often we don't think much about words, and the power they have, their connection to our thoughts and beliefs, and even in terms of meaning. Because meaning is a broad term. On one hand, there is the denotative meaning, the ones found in the dictionary; on the other hand, are the connotative meanings, those acquired by use and culture and time, which are just as important as the denotative meanings, if not more so. One might refer to a person of African American descent using any number of terms, but some are clearly less acceptable than others, even though the denotative meaning is essentially the same. Similarly, it is hard to strip the deep-rooted connotative aspects from the BB (the time, culture and socioeconomic position it was written from), even aside from my simply not agreeing with much of its method.
But to each their own, it has helped some, and hurt others, been neutral for still others; such is life, and I am not unhappy finding my own path, though at times a bit lonely. But that is something one can live with, and live with sober.
All that said, I do like the shiny coins. I will go to a meeting this Sunday to get my 2 month coin at the GLBT center...the coins and the coffee are two big pluses, to me.
But my jocular jabs at the style of the BB aside, I am finding many books that have been a tremendous help, ranging from Games People Play to Moving Beyond The 12 Steps, among others, that have given me a sturdy, multifaceted foundation to build upon, one that welcomes the intellectual and questioning, and is also open to the spiritual, but does not demand it, nor demand it as an active agent.
I think if one was raised with a Christian background, much of the language would be easier to swallow...but this not being the case, it comes off as sounding like Pat Robertson of the 700 Club, who in fact probably utters God, He and Him less than Bill W., on average.
But such are the connotations language is larded with. I think often we don't think much about words, and the power they have, their connection to our thoughts and beliefs, and even in terms of meaning. Because meaning is a broad term. On one hand, there is the denotative meaning, the ones found in the dictionary; on the other hand, are the connotative meanings, those acquired by use and culture and time, which are just as important as the denotative meanings, if not more so. One might refer to a person of African American descent using any number of terms, but some are clearly less acceptable than others, even though the denotative meaning is essentially the same. Similarly, it is hard to strip the deep-rooted connotative aspects from the BB (the time, culture and socioeconomic position it was written from), even aside from my simply not agreeing with much of its method.
But to each their own, it has helped some, and hurt others, been neutral for still others; such is life, and I am not unhappy finding my own path, though at times a bit lonely. But that is something one can live with, and live with sober.
All that said, I do like the shiny coins. I will go to a meeting this Sunday to get my 2 month coin at the GLBT center...the coins and the coffee are two big pluses, to me.
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: "I'm not lost for I know where I am. But however, where I am may be lost ..."
Posts: 5,273
Originally Posted by stugotz
Our best thinking landed us here so maybe its time to stop thinking, and start listening.
My worst thinking landed me there, and it was time to start thinking clearly and start listening to myself.
Guest
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 83
This is In response to the original post by husky pup
I often wonder if those same people in meetings who frown upon medical help for their "disease" of addiction would simply sit in a room and chat about it with other similarly afflicted if they had say cancer or HIV? Would they simply turn it over to their higher power and wait it out? I think we all know they would seek medical attention for every other "disease".
I used to remember feeling exactly the way you describe. So many contradictions my head was spinning after some meetings. I am not bashing them by no means as in early recovery my first time around they definitely saved me from using. But it's hard to "take what you need and leave the rest" sometimes when it all sounds so crazy.
I often wonder if those same people in meetings who frown upon medical help for their "disease" of addiction would simply sit in a room and chat about it with other similarly afflicted if they had say cancer or HIV? Would they simply turn it over to their higher power and wait it out? I think we all know they would seek medical attention for every other "disease".
I used to remember feeling exactly the way you describe. So many contradictions my head was spinning after some meetings. I am not bashing them by no means as in early recovery my first time around they definitely saved me from using. But it's hard to "take what you need and leave the rest" sometimes when it all sounds so crazy.
Laozi Old Man
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Detroit, MI
Posts: 6,665
Originally Posted by soberlicious
For myself, I would rephrase that sentence as follows:
My worst thinking landed me there, and it was time to start thinking clearly and start listening to myself.
My worst thinking landed me there, and it was time to start thinking clearly and start listening to myself.
My delusional thinking landed me here, and it was time to awaken and start listening to universal-self.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 3,796
Originally Posted by HuskyPup
it was as if an outside force had attacked, and they mobilized against it. It was a very striking example of group dynamics, and, to that extent, a learning experience.
I understand it works for some people; good for them. Maybe I'm in denial; who knows. If I am, then I'm in big trouble.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: « USA » Recovered with AVRT (Rational Recovery) ___________
Posts: 3,680
Originally Posted by choublak
I feel the EXACT same way about the friends and family forum here; and possibly al-anon. I haven't been to an al-anon meeting ever but if their meetings are anything like what is said in the friends and family...
I understand it works for some people; good for them. Maybe I'm in denial; who knows. If I am, then I'm in big trouble.
I understand it works for some people; good for them. Maybe I'm in denial; who knows. If I am, then I'm in big trouble.
Laozi Old Man
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Detroit, MI
Posts: 6,665
Originally Posted by Terminally Unique
Trust your own instincts and your own native family values over the advice of anonymous people on the Internet that you have never met. This necessarily includes my own advice.
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Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: « USA » Recovered with AVRT (Rational Recovery) ___________
Posts: 3,680
Originally Posted by Boleo
Speaking of "anonymous people on the Internet", what ever happened to AVRT?
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