Mark75

The important thing is the idea that alcoholics react differently to ethanol. Allergy, sensitivity, whatever... the word isn't important. The idea is.

I think there might be some truth to the idea that, for whatever reason, alcoholics have a different physical reaction to alcohol.

TheJungianThing

Paddy, I'm well aware that it can be done by people, I am not one of them though. Don't you think in my attempts to stop drinking I didn't "urge surf" right into a bar or liquor store ? Let me help you because I was there - YES. What about "weighing the pros and cons", most certainly and usually my "urge surf" wave came crashing down on the scale and hit the "**** It" rocks. They are great ideas, they are researched and many can apparently achieve great things with them. I could not - until - I hit Step 10.

That's my experience, I was there, I lived it and there's really no point in arguing with me. It's as factual as me telling you I have a killer paper cut right now. You can't see it, but I really don't have any reason to lie about it. I'm not selling anything, not trying to convince you of anything - questions were asked, I attempted to answer.


About your vast medical knowledge. Okay. Number one it was a theory in 1939, since then it has become somewhat of a similie - a literary device - as has been stated to describe an abnormal reaction to alcohol. I don't even know or care if there's a scientific explanation for it. I just know what it felt like to drink more than I intended, out of control, and have light drinkers and heavy drinkers both decry my drinking as abnormal. Couple that with the fact that my body has a heightened sensitivity to alcohol in food, the smell, etc.. nine years away from a drink - I don't care what they call it. Me drinking is bad news for me and the people around me. And I"m not using that as an excuse for my lack of character or rather my defects of character (Step 4 and 10), I get to look at them and face them honestly.

This is why I don't understand your angle. Are you coming from an angle where you think there's some sort of competition among methods to get sober here ? I don't think there is. I know I certainly don't care how someone goes about getting sober. The AA experience is something I dig, enjoy, and understand. The other methods - great - I can understand them on an intellectual level but not on an experiential level. I actually kind of dig the AVRT notion of "beast" and "addictive voice" because I am well aware of those things but didn't have cool words to ascribe to them.

Anyway Paddy, let's relax, have some non alcoholic beverage of a sort and just enjoy the sobriety we have today and share it with others ? Share our experiences for the still suffering - person - who wants to stop but it afraid to, doesn't know how, needs some support. That's a great idea isn't it ? A lot better than parsing words ?

Heck, if I get lazy and stop 10, 11 and 12 and wind up drunk one day I might go ahead and give some of these other methods a try just to see. Being scientific and all, you know.

But in all honesty, I dig my fellowship and 10, 11, and 12 make me feel so cool inside - I don't see that happening.

BUT - Once more: TheJungianThing "at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink. Except in few rare cases, neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense. His defense must come from a Higher Power"

Big Book First Edition

TheOnlyDryPaddy

I don't have an angle, TheJungianThing, and I would appreciate it if you would stop questioning my motives.

This issue is that I see members of AA dismissing suggestions from other recovery programs as "tips and tricks" that only work for the "sane". The fact is that they work for people people who haven't reached Step 10 or who have no intention of working the Steps, and the above dismissal denigrates other recovery programs, because it implies that people who recover using them only recover because they were never as "bad" as those who recover using AA.

TheJungianThing

Well I was wrong if I contributed to a sense of general discomfort here for you, that wasn't my intent. You appeared to seek information, I tried to provide it. Consider my input as nothing more than describing MY experience, nothing more and nothing less. I assure you I'm not speaking about yours or anyone elses with any program - including AA. Just talking about me, my life, my experience. I hold no judgement whatsoever about you or anyone else. There's no right, no wrong - only sober living, without alcohol. I wish it for you and have faith you'll achieve and maintain it and enjoy life.

Again, please accept my apologies for not communicating effectively enough with you, that's my weakness - I'm no Stephen King when it comes to the written word. I did my best to answer questions, I failed.

If there's anything I can do in the future, I'll give it my best. I truly am only here to help and to learn.

Best Regards.

Dee74

Paddy

I give out Urge Surfing links all the time.
It worked for me at a time when I needed all the help I could get.

It seems to have worked for others too, so I'll keep passing on my recommendation

I didn't invent the technique - I don't own it, and I don't get paid every time I post a link LOL.

I'm just passing something that worked for me. It's what we all do.
I'm not remotely bothered what others say or think - I suggest you do the same.

Arguing round and round can be alluring - I did a lot of it myself over the years - but personally I don't it's the best use of SR.

Boleo

"The amount of maintenance" and "Urge surfing" is irrelevant because it is no longer a ODAAT struggle. It is simply a natural awareness that there is some degree of delusional thinking going on in my brain that I need to watch for throughout the day (step 10).

I suppose I would be " in grave danger of drinking again" if I ignored my new mindfulness. I would in effect be throwing the baby out with the bath water if I wasted my new tools of prayer and meditation (step 11). Meditation removes pretty much any thoughts that are disturbing me. Kind of like alcohol did in the early days when it was a stress reducer without consequences.

And as far as helping others is concerned? (step 12). It is something I intrinsically want to do, as opposed to something I have to do. It does not seem anymore a chore than common courtesy. The good news is I get a sense of purpose out of it whether I succeed or fail. The benefit is in the effort, not the results .

There is nothing quite as copacetic as the peace of mind, joy and sense of purpose that I get from doing steps 10,11 & 12 continuously (not just once a day). In fact, when I feel a sense of purpose, I feel like I don't need anything at all to make my day better (La Via Bella). I am as liberated from the obsession as I was before I ever even tasted alcohol.

Not that I can ever safely drink again. I still have the allergy part of alcoholism. But at this point, who cares? I have "have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body."

freethinking

Not to sidetrack here, but can you be more specific? This just strikes a chord with me because I was watching some reality show the other day that involved a couple having a drink together before they went out for the night (where there would be no alcohol served) and I remember thinking "God, I could never do that (have just one drink). I would feel very low and uncommunicative after coming down off the 1 drink. It would put me in a very low state for the night if I had just one". It then occurred to me that maybe other people don't physically feel like this after a drink or 2.

RobbyRobot

Paddy, I have experienced wrongness within the rooms of AA. Some members do denigrate and dismiss and otherwise rundown other programs, and methods of recovery from alcoholism. Some members do dismiss the accomplishments of others if those accomplishments are not realized thru the AA way. Some members do resent other members for their failures with sobriety within the AA fellowship. It is not a rare occurance or a hidden secret that a real prevading "falseness" exists within AA.

I doubt that anybody who has truly attended AA would seriously say that everything is roses at every AA meeting everyday and everywhere. Some members do subscribe to the continual judgement of who is and is not a "real alcoholic".

It's all true. I've witnessed it for many years; some meetings more or less than other meetings. Some members are willingly involved in the wholesale descrimination of so-called middle-of-the-road members being cast as not really "living" the AA program.

I'm not surprised, and it really never bothered me much. I right from the start could see that members behaving as described above were simply caught up in their own misery and ignorance. And their arrogance is troublesome to be sure, but not difficult to understand... alcoholics being alcoholic.

When you gather together men and woman who know more from their own first-hand experience all about drunkeness and misfortune and heartbreak; put them altogether and forbid them any alcoholic beverages, and inform them that their sober salvation is dependent on correctly following the intsructions as laid out in the AA Big Book.... well, things are absolutely bound to go terribly wrong....

I'm not surprised.

At my very first AA meeting I was drunk. Not falling down, but not sober. The last drink I ever had was before that meeting. I've never had a drink since. That makes me a rare kind of member. It worked the first time for me, and has kept working for three decades. For six years prior, I failed at sobriety, and during those six years I never had anything to do with AA. You can draw your own conclusions.

Perhaps some would think it almost expected that I would have a narrow view of the behaviors of AA members who fail to get sober and stay sober. The thing is, I find I am more open-minded than most AA members I have fellowshipped with when we reflect upon the general consensus of what is a "good example" of an AA member.

It ironically seems that I am not a "good example", because my experience of getting it right first time is so rare, that statistically I'm unimportant when undertaking a tally of who is who in being successful in AA.

The other thing about me that is apparently different concerns the Promises. Well, all I had left in the world was a simple plastic green garbage bag of clothes and personal possessions, a guitar, and a wooden chess set given to me as a Christmas gift by my deceased younger sister Catherine, who had been killed by a DUI driver nine years earlier as she walked her bike along the road in front of our home. She was six years of age. I was fifteen.

So nine years later, age twenty-four, drunk, I did my first AA meeting and a few days after that I began my supervised detox and rehab stay.

Right from the start, my life got better and better. And even though many challenges have come my way, I have always been eventually victorious in so many ways. I was dirt poor and in poverty when I detoxed. Today I and my dear sober wife own one home in Ottawa and one home near Boston -- both homes paid in full and bought with cash-- no mortgage. We also own a vacation home and property mortgage free in Martha's Vineyard, which we are currently trying to sell but the market is being stubborn. I drive a new VW SUV 2011 -- paid in full. My wife drives a BMW and a Mercedes - all paid. We earn a living from investments though the open stock market worth into seven figures.

I am a polio survivor. I walk with crutches or I make use of a wheelchair. I am recovered from serious mental illness and emotional challenges. I'm divorced from a twenty-two year marriage in 2007 (my ex-wife I met in recovery, she is now twenty-eight years sober herself and re-married too) and I'm happily re-married in 2009, to my beautiful wife, Melissa, who is Ajax here at SR, ten years sober herself. I have a beautiful twenty one year old daughter who is an A+ student in the Ottawa School of Art, which is one of the oldest such mentoring establishments such within North American. She was a perfect "A" student in High School getting A's in every class every year from grade nine through grade twelve. I have four beautiful step-children and their futures are well set and fortunate.

Me, I'm a school drop-out. I didn't even finish primary school. I missed grade 6 and grade 8. I dropped outta high school after grade 10. I'm a street person. Based soley on my tested merits, I was given a paid scholarship for college twice, and drank both away into oblivion. I found my way into university and dropped out in my first year. Back to college again the third time, and dropped out my second year. To this day I have not ever finished any level of education. I am a true drop out and tune out.

I worked for years, all sober, within the recovery field as a counsellor / gestalt therapist. I worked for the Ontario government as a licensed foster parent care provider. We had four beds open for ten years, all sober. It was a wonderful exciting life providing a foster family.

I could write pages of my experiences since my first AA meeting. I usually don't speak so openly, but I'm sharing personally now, and not so much my philosophy, which is usually what I confine my shares to be. I hope I have not gone outta bounds and over the top of, but it feels good to share the authentic AA sober me, unpugged, you know?!

I want it shown that not all members of AA are as you have experienced. I don't know if you've already met members like me, but now you have in any case, and I hope it lightens your discomfort when reflecting on the real life experiences of some AA members when it comes to living the program, and receiving the Promises.

I'm retired now, I think I'll try my hand at writing. Something fictional at first, and then something in line with self-help rags to riches kinda thing, lol.

I dunno. AA sobriety and promises have always worked for me. I know many other ways would have worked too, if I had chosen those ways. I know that to be completely true. I don't work real hard any more with maintenance on keeping my sobriety healthy. Its pretty easy nowadays, you know? I think it is totally ignorant and arrogant when my fellow AA members say other ways failed them but AA didn't. I know the real truth is they failed themselves and when they finally got around to AA they succeeded. AA is not magical or whatever. It is universal in its appeal and so enjoys a wonderfully huge membership. Its a real achievement in attaining recovery from alcoholism through spiritual sobriety, but its not the only show in town.



Cheers!

langkah

Glad you did that Robby, and I know the resistance you overcame in plainly stating this overview of the kinds of lives we can have sober over time compared to how things were drinking for us.

It's so all but unbelievable in the cases of so many, mine included, that the laying out of it even to me it sounds like the spinning of a fairy tale, and since we're usually talking to people in dire straights of one sort or another, I often feel an impulse to stress at length the losses, difficulties and problems that I've experienced simply for believability. Some weird type of guilt feelings for enjoying what I know has been a totally undeserved amazingly good life.

But, putting it bluntly it has been frigging fantastic. Thanks for laying out some of your experience.

RobbyRobot

Yeah, ain't it the truth. Totally awesome and undeserved! Thanks for the informed affirmations, Langkah. They are much appreciated.

Ranger

Paddy - Food for thought...by my count the above respondents possess the better part of 70 years in sobriety.

Although they might be lacking academically (sorry, fellas), there's lots of wisdom there.

Not that you shouldn't be asking questions, but I hope you're listening too.

Everyone here wants you to succeed.

Terminally Unique

Paddy,

I was going to write an even longer response than this, but RobbyRobot covered many of the points I would have made, saving me some time.

As far as langkah's remarks on urge surfing, CBA's, and dealing with voices go, you can just take that with a grain of salt. After three decades of being around drunks, he has an uncanny ability to predict the addictive thought process, but he nevertheless views all other recovery paradigms as the proverbial Step Zero, and routinely says so all over the net. I happen to enjoy his sometimes snide remarks, and often appreciate his insights, but I don't take anything he says personally.

I also wouldn't take Boleo's "psychological tips and tricks" remarks too personally. Although I questioned his "completely removed, root and branch" argument, it was because I know that what he does in practice is probably very similar to what I do with AVRT. Indeed, he is one of the very few AA's I've run across that has spoken of the subjective experience of detachment, which is essentially what AVRT feels like in practice. I don't actually have to "deal with" a voice in my head; I completely dissociate from it.

Regarding the conflation of different models of addiction, I can see how that might concern you. Still, we can't always explain everything to our liking. For example, while AVRT does not require a "Higher Power" to put to use, which suits my atheist world-view, I am nevertheless keenly aware that AVRT is essentially a working model of free will and old-school moralism. It actually has far more in common with the traditional Christian view of addiction and recovery — where addiction itself is viewed as sin — than with AA or any psychological model. I haven't quite reconciled this entirely, and I could get hung up on it, but I choose not to.

My advice is to find something that works for you, and to disregard what everyone else says about it. At the end of the day, you are ultimately responsible for your own life, no?

TheOnlyDryPaddy

Thanks everyone for you suggestions and support. I teend to forget that SR is primmarily, if not exclusively for support and not debate. However, when I see other posters denigrating other recovery programs simply becausse they do not match the model of recovery that they chose, I think that it is appropriate to point that out. That said I do tend to take my response to a wholly inappropriate level for which I apologize.

I have found something that works for me, but I don't like seeing some the technique included therein dismissed as ineffective because there is pretty good non-anectdotal evidence that the techniques as a collection work.

TheOnlyDryPaddy

Thanks everyone for you suggestions and support. I teend to forget that SR is primmarily, if not exclusively for support and not debate. However, when I see other posters denigrating other recovery programs simply becausse they do not match the model of recovery that they chose, I think that it is appropriate to point that out. That said I do tend to take my response to a wholly inappropriate level for which I apologize.

I have found something that works for me, but I don't like seeing some the technique included therein dismissed as ineffective because there is pretty good non-anectdotal evidence that the techniques as a collection work.

RobbyRobot

Way cool.

Yeah, I started with AA back when, and I continue with AA and always will, but I too agree that a collection of techniques works best over all and I have been doing so for many years now along with AA. Its not all that difficult to multi-task if one takes the time to do quality work, be true to oneself, and of course, dont drink.

Glad your here, Paddy.

TheJungianThing

I want to thank you very much Paddy. Once again, it's not my intent nor my wish is to denigrate anything that gets people free from alcohol. I'm really not parochial about these things. But you've helped me tremendously in just one night, so thanks.

BackToSquareOne

A technique I found very useful was taken from a mindfulness meditation exercise. What you learn to do through practice is to view any disturbing thoughts as a non-judgemental outside observer. The technique works to one degree or another for almost anything, anger, cravings, fear, depression etc. etc. When a thought is viewed in that way, without attaching any right or wrong to it you come to see it as just a thought or feeling and it seems to lose its power. If I start to see depression comming on I'll view the thoughts behind the feeling , examine them and let them flow out. It's not a cure for depression but it does seem to help.

Mindfulness focuses on what is felt in the present, rather than what was, might be, could be, or should be. I think that what you gain through mindfulness practice is an awarness of your thought process. When a craving is viewed in this way it seems to take the power out of it. It should be noted that cravings fade into nothingness given enough time, the hardest part is dealing with them in early sobriety. Don't know if anyone has ever tried this but it did help me and I still find the technique very useful in dealing with any troubling thought or emotion.

One of the issues I see is that if a newcomer were to read the AA Big Book, then read Rational recovery they would end up totally confused as one refutes the other on many issues. Mindfulness is compatable with anything so in that regard it might be a useful tool to add to your arsenal.

Boleo

This is comparable to my step 4 and 10.

This is comparable to my step 11.

twilli59

People who are interested in pursuing spirituality gravitate toward that solution because it is a way of life that offers many people a powerful, fascinating and endless journey of discovery, and a search for truth and meaning. The best 12-steppers I know have used tools to develop that sense of the spirit and are expansive and balanced in their view of not just recovery - but of life. They may appreciate and honor the program that got them there (of course!), but they also heed the words of the founder, who recommended making use of many other tools. For people not inclined toward exploring spirituality, they often succesfully pursue other approaches - and even for some, just stop the addiction - period - then life gets great for them. Whatever works to deliver people from destruction, death or madness is only to be commended in my book.

RobbyRobot

Hey, thats a great share! Nicely worded. Meaningful.

Yeah, if whatever works for any individual really works, well then it works, yes? and life can move on sans alcohol. Rocket science not required. Sobriety is not a subtle magic trick, and alcoholism is not a confusing ****** curse.



This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

--Shakespeare's "Hamlet" (circa 1602)