SoberDan

Hi all I am 3.5 months sober after 20 yrs of daily drinking, and very happy and at peace with not drinking for the rest of my life. I have a great wife two wonderful children a mortgage and a good job. I thought I was an alcoholic for a couple of years and felt I couldn't stop without help so I went to AA got sober and got a sponsor who took me through the steps. but now have been having alot of second thoughts about AA and have not been going to many meetings maybe 1 a week. My problem with AA is I don't believe I am sick with an Illness or disease. I believe I was heavily addicted to an addictive substance alcohol, which some people get more addicted to than others.
I know I can never drink again because I will always end up back where I left off , and once I have one drink I don't want to stop until I've had too much. and then the withdrawals which are cravings will start again and the addictive cycle will start again.
I like alot of things about AA, how there is always a meeting to go to for support when you feel like crap. I think the spiritual side is great to and I can see how that works for people, it teaches you to be honest, positive, have a belief in a god or higher power and to live in the moment.
So my problem is after doing the steps going to 50 or so meetings I still don't believe I have a disease or illness which is what AA is based on. I would still like to go to meetings because I like hearing peoples stories of what it was like, what happened and what it is like now, but when it comes my time to share how can I stand up and say Hi I'm Dan and I'm an Alcoholic, when I don't believe I have a disease. I could go as far as to say I was mentally ill when I was addicted to alcohol and would become mentally ill again if I started drinking, but I just can't believe that I have a disease. my second problem is friends Ive made at AA are wondering why I'm not going to meetings and that makes me feel frustrated. any words of wisdom would be gratly appreciated. Thanks SoberDan.

hereigo

I seems that many successfully sober people on this forum draw from a variety of resources, not always just one, to keep deepening their sobriety.

Also, it seems to me that some people in AA can adapt certain aspects of it so that it works for them.

Sapling

I don't know Dan...Sounds to me like you are having a problem with one of the steps....That would be step one. The one that all the other steps are based on. You have to do what you have to do. I go to meetings because I want to and I have a lot to learn. Don't really have an answer....But I wish you the best.

Ranger

SoberDan - AA led me to sobriety...in my case, about 2.5 years ago. I was a 3-ish meetings per week kinda guy for the first four month or so.

Although I enjoy the experience without fail, these days I very rarely attend an AA meeting. So, like you I am an attendee who does not work the program of AA.

I am not compelled to volunteer this at any point during the meeting, much less during my self-introduction ("hi, my name is ranger and I'm an alcoholic who does not and will not work the program of AA").

In my case, the only reasons I would share this are selfish ones: I want to differentiate myself from the group, I think my way is "better" and want people to damn well know it, I am unwilling graciously decline offers from AA members seeking to deepen my involvement with the program and/or group, etc.

dawnrunner

I'm no AA expert but here's my take on the 'disease' concept:

In the time when the Big Book was being developed and written, alcoholics were regarded as depraved individuals who had a wicked vice, or weaklings who lacked will-power, or both.

The 'disease' concept with its 'allergy' correlate was fundamentally a corrective to that social view, and it was moreover propounded by a medical doctor. It allows alcoholics and addicts to escape the self-loathing that comes from thinking their condition is a fault, all their fault. And self-loathing is a huge trap and trigger.

It's not a perfect concept in my opinion, because we do choose to drink in a way that people do not choose to have cancer. But there is something useful and freeing about it, understood in the right way.

I don't like meetings where people wallow in it and obsess about "my disease", because I prefer to think of health as well within my reach. I just dislike negative thoughts.

langkah

This is common and a constant in AA. Someone comes into AA feeling very bad and soon feels very good and figures they don't belong because they're doing so very well and misses the reason why they are feeling so well now as opposed to how they felt on their own. They figure since the problem has been solved so effectively that further efforts are unneccesary.

They don't want to drink, certainly. They've learned their lesson all about that!

So AA worked and the only reason to go (being they are so well now) is to see their friends and be inspired by listening to others and maybe to give some of the newcomers hope.

I never try to talk anyone out of those kinds of thoughts, as it's a waste of time because I don't understand their special and unique circumstance and couldn't possibly know how healed up they feel and how they are no longer challenged and need to grow in ways that demand they look elsewhere and some of the AA understandings are wrong and they will be just fine forevermore and there's absolutely no reason to worry about them at all.

I just can't possibly get it whenever it happens, and it happens as regularly as the sunrise.

It's a new dawn for you now, Dan.

Boleo

So you don't like the word disease? No big deal. How about the word illness. Thats what the Big Book calls it. Personally I like to use the word affliction because it struck me from out of nowhere as far as I am concerned.

As far as calling myself a alcoholic goes? I like to say I no longer suffer from alcoholism, I know my organs still react as if alcohol were poison for me. However, I don't need to suffer as a result of having a allergy to it, so long as I keep it out of my mind and body. The mind part is equally as important to me because I am the kind of alcoholic who suffered when I stopped drinking.

Recovering is needing to think about not drinking.

Recovered is not nedding to think about drinking.

TheJungianThing

I had issues with the "disease" concept as well. I don't know why, I just did. Might have had to do with what dawnrunner was suggesting - some folks seem to kind of wallow in it.

Oddly, I've witnessed an interesting phenomena between alcoholics and diabetics. Don't know if the two are related - but considering alcohol is broken down into sugars - well I don't know. The phenomena of craving is real, I've experienced it.

But I wouldn't have had I not taken a drink. So the "disease" is a form of mental illness maybe - certainly my thinking isn't right.

Trouble with personal relationships, a prey to misery, depression, self - pity I am - NOT AT EASE, with life. I am at DIS-EASE with life as it is. Joe and Charlie Big Book study tapes really helped sealed the deal for me. I got it. I have "DIS-EASE", I am ILL at EASE with life - without the sense of ease and comfort that alcohol provides.

Then I turn. Then I uncover defects and moral failings.


There's absolutely nothing in the book that tells me I can get off scott free and blame my crap on a disease. Not one thing. The book says I'm suffering from a physical reaction to alcohol when I drink it, a mental obsession with drinking it, and a spiritual malady. It also says that my problems are of my own making. No disease. Just selfish, self centered "choices" that make life so uncomfortable I seek comfort and know right where to find some instant comfort and safety - in a bottle.

Contemplating this "God", I can't explain but feel is present, seeking - asking for knowledge of its will for me and the power to carry that out - something Higher than my own selfish wants. Like being of service to my fellows. Being a part of events and things in life that have brought joy to the hearts of people like my wife and my family - people I brought so much pain and emotional turmoil to.

I look around at my life today, a life I don't deserve, my "cop out" is that I'm not the arbiter of what I deserve and what I don't deserve that is this God's domain - not mine. My cop out is NOT "I have a disease". I just acknowledge that without continuing to enlarge my spiritual life through application of the Steps and my mind WILL lead me back to alcohol. Disease ? Who knows, who cares. And quite frankly the cool **** I've experienced in sobriety isn't "FOR ME", it's actually this God working so that the wife I verbally abused, the parents I verbally abused and disappointed and the brothers whose time and emotional security I STOLE - can experience true joy. I see it on their faces. "in the world to play the role God assigns", I get to play a small bit part in that happening and damn if it doesn't feel better than any shot of whiskey made me feel.

Is it a disease ? I really don't give a flying **** what they call it. If there's not drinking involved and being able to experience the things I've experienced in sobriety - I'll believe anything you tell me.

mattparadise

I understand exactly where you are coming from. It's not a disease.

Ranger

It would be super awesome if this thread did not devolve into a "is, is-not" pissing match. Neither quantity nor fervor of staunch declarations will change the fact this topic is indeterminable.

BHF

I just wrote out this longer-than-average, elegant, insightful response that would have undoubtedly been benefical to us all.... and then I somehow lost it prior to posting. Long story made short - it's just semantics. Call it what you will. Disease, mental illness, sickness, malady, problem...it's up to you. Like all of us, your recovery is your responsibility, so do whatever it takes to safeguard that. If you feel that AA has helped you in staying sober, then don't worry about the name of the thing that got you there. Worry about staying. If you're not comfortable in AA for any reason, you know you don't have to stay. Find another program of recovery that better suits you.

I suggest that you question your motives, though, before you do anything. I've struggled with the disease issue before because in my mind (at the time) that gave me an out. "It was just a moral flaw and I could fix that!" I no longer feel this way, as I've accepted that regardless of the definition, I can't drink. You say that you know you can't drink, but you also say that you "thought you were an alcoholic"? This is where my brain would try to lead me, especially if I was in my head and not working some form of a program:
(1) I don't believe alcoholism is a disease, so I can't call myself alcoholic.
(2) If I'm not alcoholic then I'm a problem drinker.
(3) If i'm just a problem drinker, then I can fix it and drink again......

Also, if you can go so far as admit to a mental illness, then you're in. I'm no medical doctor, but I'm pretty sure that mental illness is considered a disease. Hell, that may be why alcoholism is considered a disease to begin with? So, if you can admit suffering from a mental illness, then you should be able to attend AA without having to question it. If that's what worried you.

Sally1009

It has been difficult for me to see alcoholism as a disease, especially in the beginning. But as time went by, it became less important. When I was drinking I certainly became very ill indeed - nearly dead in fact. So something is going on that makes me unable to drink like other people.
I would rather see it as a disease than as having an absolutely horrible and foul personality.
And at the end of the day, there is still no actual proof scientifically if it is a disease or not.
Since AA has benefited you so much, I wouldn't get too analytical, or you could analyse yourself right out of your sobriety.

camedown

I personally consider a permanent change to the neural pathways of my brain a disease.

EricL

Thanks for masquerading an opinion as fact, super helpful as always.

For me, it was helpful at first. I could identify with the description in the doctors opinion and it kept me coming around. As I got further into the work, the description as a "disease" softened. Began being referred to as a spiritual malady. Today, that is what I most identify with. Much like my spirituality, its been an evolution of sorts where my feelings and beliefs today are not necessarily the same as before.

Sapling

We are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period we get worse, never better.


This was good enough for me.

BB first edition Pg 30

blackoutgirl

SoberDan-
Tomato, tom-a-to. Potato, pot -a-to!! Lol!! I hope you understand that as you obviously cannot here me saying it My personal opinion is that if you feel AA is helping you, then continue going to meetings. Whether or not you believe that you have a disease process shouldn't be an issue, really, unless you feel that others are pressuring you to feel that way.

I don't go to AA but I've read where many people have the "take it or leave it" approach. Get what you want out of the program and simply leave the rest aside. If you enjoy going to the meetings and feel that AA is beneficial to you, I don't see a reason why you should stop going simply because you don't believe that you have a disease.

We are all entitled to our own opinion and that just so happens to be yours. Who's to say what is right and wrong? As long as you think that AA has more positives than negatives and is helpful to you, that is the only thing that matters.

If, however, you simply cannot get passed this, there are more programs out there I'm sure that would suit you as well.

I don't know how AA works really but from an outside perspective, this is just my opinion. There are many people who identify themselves as alcoholics but do not believe it is a disease either.

I hope this was helpful

Peter G

Yeah. Alcoholism. Nothing but moral irresponsibility and poor personal choices.

Oddly enough, here's how my Mom's oncologist described to me how developing cancers form in people. I had asked him long ago now, regarding my mother's ovarian cancer (RIP).

"Study would suggest that in both men and women, cancer is both genetically and environmentally determined, I'd say to a ratio of around 50/50, of course you must allow for undefinable causative stimulation."

Here's the description of developing alcoholism according to NIAAA...

"Current evidence indicates that in both men and women, alcoholism is 50-60% genetically determined, leaving 40-50% for environmental and other influences."

Hmmm... if I didn't know better one could switch those descriptions and no one would be the wiser. Wonder why that is?

Yep. No doubt. Alcoholism is not a disease... and monkeys regularly fly out of my butt.

Sure this is not an either/or question, but it's also not any simplistic, opinion based declaration as a few posters here are so quick to share. There have been volumes upon volumes of empirical evidence documented by study after study by the AMA and various other highly reputable groups since the early '90's (when funding was made more readily available)... all suggest that alcoholism bears ALL the hallmarks of a progressive disease.

Of course it is a question over semantics, in that the term "disease" might not sufficiently explain the entire scope of this illness/malady/affliction/whatever. Having said that, I beg to differ on those who'd suggest that alcoholism is simply what some believe as a curable issue of sin, or that it is a mere case of personal moral choice gone awry. While spiritual epiphanies help some with drinking problems, and while applying a rigid moral code can help some, there are documented physiological aspects of alcoholism that cannot be denied, understated, nor ridiculed. The characteristics that often define an alcoholic are by no means matters of choice, no more than they can be summarily dismissed with quick opinions and personal "belief"... as there are distinct pathological commonalities, strikingly similar to the progression of many incurable diseases. Alcoholism is - after all - subjected to an anomalous phenomena; the physiological interaction between the drug's constitution and each individuals biological structure. Funny how that is also a virtually identical description of diseases such as diabetes along with many others, cancer included.

So, disease or not, those here talking like it's simply nothing of the sort? I'd say get a grip, but that's not very AA of me. Instead I'll just say I truly hope that judgment keeps you sober, and if it does, keep right on believing it.

2granddaughters

Everyone has those "second guesses" in AA. Keep going and you'll move through them.

Alcoholism is the only disease that will convince you that you don't have it.
And when the remedy for it is presented, the disease will deny and refute it.

You are just like the rest of us Dan. Keep going and keep getting better. Don't buy into the rationalizing disease in your head.

All the best.

Bob R.


If we, by free choice, keep drinking until we have lost everything meaningful to us and then we die.... we are not at ease, we are at dis-ease.

SoberDan

Thank you to all for your helpful responses. I was wondering do people who believe in the disease "concept" believe that people Addicted to heroin etc have the same disease? because allot of people addicted to these drugs will also keep using until it kills them. they also get the craving "phenomena" of needing more which you could call an "allergic reaction". does NA use the Disease concept? thanks Dan.

exodus3122

i hate alcohol