Indeed, I would forsee difficulty in doing several of the steps beyond 5 if I am to fully commit to the Buddhist Path !

Alcoholism is rooted in all forms of self.
In others words we are selfish people.
Sometimes it's a subconscious selfishness but other times it's as simple as taking my ball and going home :/

Has anyone here thought of giving back to AA?

Actually I'm sort of surprised. I don't see a lot of real 12-step recovery on this forum anymore. It's more like atheists and 12-step haters!

It's just interesting for me to observe.

I try to think of how I can make something better instead of leaving although these days I also go to other fellowships too!

But if it ain't in 12-step literature I def can't trust it...it's coming from my ego!!!!

(and that's a warning!!!!!)

How do you define ego? Before you get on the pulpit we should at least define ego so we can speak the same language. Joe Nerv started a thread on defining ego and most don’t agree on the definition. So if we are going to have a clinical debate we should at least have proper nomenclature.

It is my observation that you have found sobriety and what you perceive as salvation in AA and the 12 steps. This is a good thing and I don't disparage at all. You are not unique or special many have shared this experience. However, I am concerned and fear that your education in this area of addiction and recovery is limited to the Big Book and other AA literature. I am not saying this is wrong but one of the problems is you are telling everyone else about an elephant but only can feel the trunk and are blind to the other areas of the animal. You might not be wrong as to the trunk but you certainly have no idea about the torso, the legs, the belly, etc. Its a myopic perspective at best.

Hitler tried to take this approach through genocide and killing all that did not fit his ideal of a perfect human specimen. Millions of Jews were murdered in this Holocaust. These atrocities so awful most would not believe were rationalized by a jaded view. Nazis truly believed they were dutifully caring a message of the right - they did not think of themselves as murders.

Can you see the error in this logic? I appreciate your warning, although I am not sure what it is I am being warned about? My ego, my sobriety, my open minded approach to recovery or are you warning me of your deluded myopic perspective?

[QUOTE=BuildWithMe;4393185]

Actually I'm sort of surprised. I don't see a lot of real 12-step recovery on this forum anymore. It's more like atheists and 12-step haters!

[QUOTE]

There is a specific 12 step forum. This is the Alcoholism forum. I kind of see this forum as a melting pot where we can all be together....and try not to kill each other lol

I am baffled by this ego thing too. I have self-worth at last and ambition ~ is that ego? If it is then I have it. If, on the other hand, it is defined as selfishness, then I haven't got one at all. I have always put others first, resulting in my becomming and over empathising doormat which led me to be abused and I drank as a result of the constant barage of it.

I would rather give back to people on this forum to be honest ... :)

KAte we all have an ego and an id and a super ego. Clinically speaking, the ego moderates between the id, which Freud would argue is our basic needs the Beast if you will and our Superego our moral compass.

When the ego is out of balance we can have either too much self righteous or beast. In my humble opinion its about becoming self aware of how these things interact and being able to disassociate with your idea. They are not you and don't define you.

I always love your posts. They are so balanced x

That is absolutely ridiculous. How long have you been sober? If you can't trust yourself by now maybe you are one of the people who NEEDS AA because you've switched one addiction for another.

Just my opinion.

Exactly. When you get sober you break down the ego and try to improve the negative parts of it. No one can completely get rid of their ego. It will always be part of who we are. The idea that it's "bad" any time you're questioning things is absurd. If anything, self-discovery like questioning what feeds your soul and works for you is the heart RECOVERY.

I don't think I've come across the word 'hater' on this forum before either. The majority of people on here are very polite. The only thing I hate is the fact that alcohol got it's vice-like grip on me, not other people's ideas or beleifs.

Not to get too deep into it, since this is not a psychology board, and not to disagree outright with your clinical speak, JD, but I myself am defined by my ego since ego is me by definition. I follow Jungian psychology more so then Freud's on ego - ie I agree with Jung's "Individuation"

"In general, it is the process by which individual beings are formed and differentiated [from other human beings]; in particular, it is the development of the psychological individual as a being distinct from the general, collective psychology" (Wiki)

"In Jungian psychology, also called analytical psychology, it expresses the process in which the individual self develops out of an undifferentiated unconscious. It is a developmental psychic process during which innate elements of personality, the components of the immature psyche, and the experiences of the person's life become integrated over time into a well-functioning whole." (Wiki)

For me, my psyche is my entire self - including of course my ego (self). My ego is neither good or bad, and certainly not something to be disassociated from myself. I'm also mindful of Gestalt Therapy, which has been, and remains invaluable to me in my post drinking life of spiritual sobriety. I am much more then the present sums of me may add up to, to put it bluntly.

Just offering this since Freudian psychology is at the end of the day just another part of that elephant your appropriately speaking of. For that matter, so is Jungian psychology, lol.

:)

Awesome thread!

My head just exploded :lmao

Thanks Robby...I am an Electrical Engineer so I am open to my interpretations being off. Just learning from a personal interest. I find it all quite interesting. Thank you! This is the part about this site that I just love. You can learn so much from others.

Overall, I feel that AA is an excellent organization and one that has helped a lot of people. But, it is only one of several approaches to sobriety none of which is measurably better than any of the others. My experience with AA has been truly mixed: I get a lot of support and encouragement from AA literature, especially the Big Book and “Living Sober”. On the other hand, my experience at the face-to-face meetings has been uniformly unfortunate.

I am now working on my second effort at becoming a teetotaler. I quit once when I was in my 40’s and stayed sober for over thirty years. The first time, I quit on my own and did not get involved with any support groups. Then, for reasons that are not germane to this post, I started drinking again about three years ago and am working on becoming a teetotaler again. It seems harder this time.

Part of my effort to quit involves becoming informed: reading a lot of literature on alcohol, alcoholism, drinking, sobriety, addiction, psychology and behavior modification. I read from the Big Book and “Living Sober” regularly and find a lot of support in doing so. I also read several blogs from people who are in one phase or another of recovery as well as books on AVRT and RR. All of this reading has helped me to formulate a personal approach to staying sober. It’s early days yet but so far it seems to be working.

Most of what AA teaches makes a lot of sense to me. There is a wealth of experience behind what is written in AA literature and reading about the experience of others has helped me a lot. My only issues with AA lie with the notions of powerlessness, the disease model, several of the “steps” and the higher power. This is because I don’t see myself as powerless over alcohol, I don’t agree completely with the disease concept, I think a few of the twelve steps could be less than helpful, and, I am an atheist. But, I do agree with the idea of “take what you need and leave the rest”. And, this applies to all recovery programs, not just AA.

As I noted above, my experience with face-to-face AA meetings has been less than fortunate. I have attended meetings of six different groups now and have yet to come away feeling that there would be any help there. Several of the meetings just seemed directionless, a few were openly evangelical and at two of them I encountered open, angry hostility. I was told after one of the meetings that “unless you let Jesus into your heart and are ‘born-again’, you will die a drunk and roast in hell”—that was comforting to hear. After another meeting, I was quizzed about my drinking habits by one crusty old toad and then was told that “you aren’t enough of a drunk to be here, you are wasting our time” all the while; other attendees were standing by and said not a word about this guy’s diatribe.

I live near an area where there are many retired, older alcoholics as well as many under-employed younger people who serve them. Most of the meetings I attended seem to have been composed of three groups: 1) the (self-important) old-timers; 2) the court-ordered DUI attendees who tended to be young and 3) a group of uncertain, confused people of many ages who were just getting started (this included me). The old-timers dominated the meetings with their “can you top this?” war stories while the court-ordered groups remained indifferent to the proceedings. Their participation was limited to attendance. The uncertain and confused group just listened and tried to figure out what was going on. None of the meetings I attended promised much in the way of fellowship nor did I find them particularly uplifting. In fact, I wanted to go have a drink after every meeting I attended and after two of them I did. I have a 40 minute drive to the nearest meeting and don’t feel that I gained enough from any of them to be worth the gas and drive time. I am willing to concede that I may not have given any of the groups much of a chance but, on the other hand, none of them seemed too interested in giving me one either.

I have also sampled SMART Recovery and Lifering meetings in the past few months but decided that neither of them was for me either. As with AA, there is nothing wrong with the organizations, it was just the combination of people at the meetings that put me off. Maybe I’m just not a “people person”.

I now rely entirely on Sober Recovery as my “F2F” support group. Here, if someone tries to tell me that “if it isn’t---12-step---it is ego” I can just go to the next post. I feel that the program that I have finally worked out by combining elements of AA, RR, SR et al. seems to be working. I feel that I am off to a pretty good start on lifetime sobriety now and much of the credit belongs to people like Dee, Anna, Deeker, KateL and many others here who make SR such a welcoming place. My hat is off to everyone here!

:herewego

If a program or treatment doesn't work for a person, I really see no point in them, especially if they are still new and struggling, to try to stay and reform it.

Makes more sense, and seems more productive to move on to something that they find success with and "give back" to that.

stating that they didn't find what they need in AA (or any other program) isn't hating on it. It's just stating a fact. Being an atheist isn't hating on deities or those who believe in them, it's just not believing in them oneself.

I don't play golf, but I'm not hating on those who do. I don't eat lamb, but I don't think people who eat it are inferior to me.

I am an alcoholic who uses the 12 steps but found myself incompatible with AA..go figure. I'm also an atheist who belongs to a non theistic religion...isn't life grand!

Great post. I agree with you that if we take a bit from everything we digest that suits us, we have found an awful lot of answers in our own personal growth, and I do, indeed agree that we need to find empowerment again. xxx thanks

Lol :) x

You Beat me to it. :) Ill see yours
And raise you 2 :herewego :herewego :herewego