Firehazard

Yep Andre,
I understand it because I was there. I used to drink to escape reality, feel good, or to blot out my mind but that last few weeks, my last drunk, was different. It did not matter how much wiskey I drank and I drank copious amounts I did not feel drunk/better emotionally I also did not feel like reality was changing for the better. The only thing felt was utter despair. It was my bottom and it is a terrifying state to be in. To be drunk physically but not mentally was strange. I do feel now it is a spiritual disease.

This was my bottom!!

jojoba

The reason it is confusing you is because it's incorrect. It's something that people in the rooms just repeat because they heard someone else say it. It has no basis in the BB or the actual program.

A good rule of thumb: when you hear something stupid or illogical in the rooms, that's because it's not the real program of AA. The person who is saying it doesn't even really believe it themselves most of the time.

Sally1009

Disagree. I think alcohol does stop working in the ways people have described. As the disease progresses, and the tolerance builds, the effects change. Alcohol stops working in that it changes from being pleasurable to umpleasurable.

jojoba

That doesn't mean it's stopped working. It means you have a higher tolerance. I guarantee that if you were to stop drinking for a few weeks and then recommence, it would start working again. I don't recommend doing that, however.

Now if people at meetings would just state plainly what they mean -- "I developed a higher tolerance from drinking so much--therefore I wasn't getting as drunk from drinking 8 beers anymore" -- there would be no issue (if they really mean what they are saying).

But most don't, because meetings these days don't teach you how to recover--they teach you to repeat vague, non-program based cliches. And it's very damaging.

Dee74

I don't think the OP is in AA Jojoba.

I'm not in AA either - I'm sharing my experience - are you saying that I didn't experience what I experienced?

D

jojoba

dee74 I have heard "alcohol stopped working" stated in many AA meetings along with other dubious cliches ("you pick where you left off", "I was miserable from the first drink--I never enjoyed it!", etc.). Since it's not AA-based, it may have infiltrated whatever program, rehab, etc that you attend as well. Like trash floating on top of the ocean, it gets around.

That's why I insist my sponsees base their program on the BB. I tell them that if they want a head filled with junk, believe everything they hear at meetings.

penny74

It's when you don't get the "click" anymore..
When the switch in your head won't go to off...

Dee74

I don't attend any programmes jojoba - like I said, alcohol stopped working for me. No theses no dogma, just fact.

I'm sorry you feel I'm mistaken in my experience - perhaps it's possible I've experienced something in my journey you haven't?

D

BackToSquareOne

Jojoba, The Big Book was a book written in 1939. This is 2012, science can explain why drugs and alcohol fail to produce the same effects over time. Dopamine can not be replenished as quickly as it gets used up hence the feel good feelings can't be reproduced ad infinitum. Give the brain enough time to recover and yes the effect would come back. It will always end the same tho so why bother.

desertsong

"The person who is saying it doesn't even really believe it themselves most of the time."

I completely disagree. I know what my experience was, and I wouldn't presume to know what someone else's experience is either, whether in AA or not. I can only speak for myself when I say that alcohol most certainly DID stop "working" for me. And I can also tell you that after several relapses over the past couple of years, going back to it after a period of sobriety did NOT cause it to "work" again. I simply went from being straight-sober to flat-out drunk. No "happy place," no "warm fuzzies," just stupid drunk. And it was worse each time I went back out. It may be partly related to tolerance but I personally think there is more to it than that. JMO.

desertsong

Maybe it gets around because that is truly people's experience and it is an experience that is shared by many. Who am I to judge what someone else's journey is or how they feel/felt just because it may not be in the Big Book? I'm sorry, but to call someone's sharing of their honest experience "trash floating on the ocean" is really insensitive and closed-minded.

BackToSquareOne

That's interesting Desertsong, I've read that changes to the receptor sites can occur to the point that the feel good feelings no longer happen. I'd rather not go back and try it again tho.

desertsong

I don't doubt that's true, BTSO. That just wasn't my experience, but that's just me and I wouldn't generalize it to include every alcoholic. I do know that I've heard the same thing from enough people to convince me that that "sweet spot" doesn't always return after a period of sobriety, and I've read examples of it in quite a few of the posts here from people who have relapsed. But again, I wouldn't generalize and say that it's the majority experience.

jojoba

square1, statements like "alcohol stopped working" which are bandied about at meetings don't count as science. I'm not sure what point your trying to make.

BackToSquareOne

Jojoba, a person at a meeting is not going to present a scientific dissertation. They're merely trying to put feelings into words, would you rather they brought in reams of documents along with slide shows and videos? You seem to be dismissing their words as nonsense because it isn't written in the Big Book.

jojoba

The OP was correct to question the dubious statement "alcohol stopped working". If the statement were expanded and clarified maybe it would make sense, but as it stands it's illogical and unhelpful. That's what happens when you try to cram everything into slogans and cliches.

jojoba

I'm not asking for a dissertation, just two sentences, maybe?

Not just repeating things that other people said at meetings.

DoinThis

I completely disagree. I know what my experience was, and I wouldn't presume to know what someone else's experience is either, whether in AA or not. I can only speak for myself when I say that alcohol most certainly DID stop "working" for me. And I can also tell you that after several relapses over the past couple of years, going back to it after a period of sobriety did NOT cause it to "work" again. I simply went from being straight-sober to flat-out drunk. No "happy place," no "warm fuzzies," just stupid drunk. And it was worse each time I went back out. It may be partly related to tolerance but I personally think there is more to it than that. JMO.


ABSOLUTELY Desertsong,
Ditto!

DoinThis

Jojoba it works to get me drunk but not to make me feel good like it used to. I spent a year trying to make the good bit work again, even with a few weeks off here and there. It doesn't work anymore, I was gutted! So I kept drinking more than ever before to try make it work, it just worked by making me more miserable and more drunk!

jojoba

That isn't everyone's experience. If you went from sober to "flat out drunk" instantaneously that's because you made a conscious decision to drink something like Cisco or 5 Jager bombs at once. You wanted to black out.

Unfortunately the program influences people to believe that this is what happens when someone goes back out, with slogans like "your disease is doing push ups" and "you pick up where you left off". It becomes a dangerous self-fulfilling prophecy for some people.

Where is the proof for these slogans? There isn't any. It's just lore repeated at meetings.

In fact, if someone hasn't drank for a year (or whatever long term amount of time) and they drink again, they typically don't pick up where they left off, unless they choose to. In fact it takes at least a few months or even years to get back into the throes of alcoholism if you've been away from it for some time.

NOT that it's a good idea to go back out. But spreading misinformation and lies via slogans in meetings doesn't help the people who do. Those people won't come back because they see that one thing that was told to them was lies, so they assume it was all BS, and chuck the whole thing. They never come back to the program.

This is the problem with the slogan/cliche/rumor based "AA" that is practiced in the rooms these days.