addiction recovery is cultural
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Originally Posted by caboblanco 
the Chinese still have the the genes that create a low tolerance. Somehow that was never weeded out by natural selection....and the Native American came from Asia were alcohol was available...food for thought right...seriously I don't think that book is completely accurate with the history of alcohol use. They just use whatever is convenient to their theory
Re: the Chinese. Why WOULD the genes that create a low tolerance need to be weeded out by natural selection? It prevents them from drinking too much, and subsequently becoming alcoholics. Drinking more isn't something necessary for a race's survival.
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at any rate they are insisting that genetic components that we have never identified have been weeded out by out breeding...which i find comical due to the drug addicts and alcoholics i know that have quite a few kids. it's a theory. however they have
identified the genes in asians and native Americans that lower alcohol tolerance...so your theory is that Native Americans have other genetic phenomenas that create more alcohol abuse but somehow those genes get weeded out over time and the one that makes you drunk after 2 beers stays since the dawn of time...interesting
identified the genes in asians and native Americans that lower alcohol tolerance...so your theory is that Native Americans have other genetic phenomenas that create more alcohol abuse but somehow those genes get weeded out over time and the one that makes you drunk after 2 beers stays since the dawn of time...interesting
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Originally Posted by caboblanco
so your theory is that Native Americans have other genetic phenomenas that create more alcohol abuse but somehow those genes get weeded out over time and the one that makes you drunk after 2 beers stays since the dawn of time...interesting
Re: Native Americans, I am not talking about their genes whatsoever. I am simply stating that because alcohol was only introduced to them a mere 300 years ago, natural selection has not had enough time to lower the population of alcoholics.
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Originally Posted by freethinking
No. I'll put it simply. The theory I believe is that the longer a culture has been exposed to alcohol, the lower their alcoholism rate due to natural selection.
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I believe that once the alcoholism rates go down, the cultural can then evolve too.
Can you imagine, going to an Native American reservation for a dinner, opening a bottle of wine and giving some to a 16 year old? No way! The alcoholism rate in these places is something like 80%! You wouldn't do that in that culture where alcoholism is so prevalent. But maybe the culture there could change in another 7k years, once their alcoholism rates go down (as per the theory I stated above).
Can you imagine, going to an Native American reservation for a dinner, opening a bottle of wine and giving some to a 16 year old? No way! The alcoholism rate in these places is something like 80%! You wouldn't do that in that culture where alcoholism is so prevalent. But maybe the culture there could change in another 7k years, once their alcoholism rates go down (as per the theory I stated above).
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to say Native American alcohol abuse is not socio -economic or cultural.but mostly genetic is absurd to me...since these genes have never been identified..we are talking theories here. I have to do more research and read your book because i haven't. Culture aside statistics do show the economics influences abuse and recovery greatly.
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i believe that people on some level are very practical about their drug or alcohol use...they weigh out their options in their subconscious. it's a means to an end. If they don't have many options in life..economically, relationship or otherwise they see alcohol abuse their means to an end as crazy as that sounds..and recovery is difficult
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no I did go to AA at first...but I promised not to talk about the program anymore...lol..
i have read about avrt,, rational recovery also. I got sober by myself. I use sr for support. I don't have friends in recovery or any live sober group. How about yourself?
i have read about avrt,, rational recovery also. I got sober by myself. I use sr for support. I don't have friends in recovery or any live sober group. How about yourself?
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I started out with AA, then turned to AVRT (which helped me tremendously), but eventually I fell off the wagon and this time felt I was in need of the actual physical company and support of other alcoholics. So, here I am, back in AA again.
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Originally Posted by freshstart57
Which of these points in that quote do you disagree with?
Moderation Management is yet another way of saying social drinking works if you work it, imo. Its no secret millions of people have already successfully used common sense to moderate their social drinking. This is not news. Social drinking itself is not something that needs anything else except common sense to manage. Taking common sense behaviors and reframing them as a kind of superior management technique is not remarkable, imo. As for moderation working for those who themselves decide their drinking behaviors are out of the realm of acceptable social drinking, moderation routinely fails as a useful technique to moderate alcohol within a wholesome and successful social lifestyle, imo.
Lastly, its not about me and my disagreements being limited to a single quote of Dr. Peele. His web site is an entirely commercial venture, and he has a link where I can supposedly overcome my alcohol addiction for $99. Wow. Too easy, eh?! ... gotta love free enterprise, lol.
Seriously...
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cabo, I agree with you and feel that lower income groups have far higher alcohol and substance abuse rates. When you have nothing to lose, you pick up a drink. Feeling on the fringes of mainstream society can create a sense of loss that booze can, in the beginning, solve.
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Originally Posted by RobbyRobot
Moderation Management is yet another way of saying social drinking works if you work it, imo. Its no secret millions of people have already successfully used common sense to moderate their social drinking.
drinkers choose to abstain. Using your own personal experience and projecting it on the whole addiction community because it is your truth as you know it isn't fair imo..and dismissing anybody who is successful at a non abstinence method as not an alcoholic to begin with but just a social drinker is also unfair
if you think discussing moderation jeopardizes your recovery that's another issue and I respect that but you are also the one who brought it up
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Originally Posted by caboblanco
that's the old argument that anybody who can moderate is not an alcoholic or and alcohol addict. That is just something to feed a cultural belief. Of course even heavy alcoholics have moderated. Many lighter problem
drinkers choose to abstain. Using your own personal experience and projecting it on the whole addiction community because it is your truth as you know it isn't fair imo..and dismissing anybody who is successful at a non abstinence method as not an alcoholic to begin with but just a social drinker is also unfair
if you think discussing moderation jeopardizes your recovery that's another issue and I respect that but you are also the one who brought it up
drinkers choose to abstain. Using your own personal experience and projecting it on the whole addiction community because it is your truth as you know it isn't fair imo..and dismissing anybody who is successful at a non abstinence method as not an alcoholic to begin with but just a social drinker is also unfair
if you think discussing moderation jeopardizes your recovery that's another issue and I respect that but you are also the one who brought it up
I'm sorry. I don't have a clue how what you are saying to me applies to me in what I just posted, okay?
Chronic alcoholics, and anybody else can moderate as much as they desire, but having said that, only the drinker who is already successful with social drinking will be successful with moderated drinking. My whole point was to say moderated drinking is just a fancy way of saying social drinking.
Do you honestly think you can respect a person who suggests that social drinking by others jeopardizes their own sobriety!? Obviously, that person is not me. Social drinking is meaningless to me now successfully sober for decades, and while I was drinking. I started drinking when I was 12 years old, lol. Social drinking? Seriously...
I'm not projecting whatever. I am contributing to this thread, speaking from my informed opinion, as a recovered alcoholic, and that is no more or any less important then anybody else who contributes.
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Originally Posted by RobbyRobot
I don't agree with 'Moderation Management' as having any kind of real applied usefulness in any noteworthy application for any class of alcoholic, problem drinker, social drinker, what-have-you.
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I guess it was your quoting Dr. Peele to frame your position that led me to believe that you had issue with what you had quoted, else why quote? You said that your disagreements are not limited that quote, but this still states that you do have something about that quote which you disagree with.
I should think that Peele's proposition that 'lived human experience and its interpretation are central to the incidence, course, treatment, and remission of addiction' rolls right down your alley.
I should think that Peele's proposition that 'lived human experience and its interpretation are central to the incidence, course, treatment, and remission of addiction' rolls right down your alley.
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You don't practice MM. Okay. If you do or don't is none of my concern. As for abstinence itself, this is my best working solution to my past drinking lifestyle. As well, I identify with being in my drinking past a chronic alcoholic, as defined by AA. It's not surprising to me that I also identify with AA's suggested solution to my alcoholism.
Since my alcoholism is chronic, my past experiences with social drinking as a common sense choice for my kind of drinking always brought me to epic fail. I always failed at social drinking. I started at 12 - nothing social there to work with. By 15 I was a chronic alcoholic - still underage, so nothing social there either. By 18, the legal age for drinking in Ontario, I was already a burnout socially, so nothing there to work with either, lol.
No, I can never become a social drinker because there is nothing social about my past drinking, and it only makes good sense that any possible future drinking would follow the same path as my past drinking. Why on earth would it be different? It's not about me being closed minded. Its about me being intelligent and aware of who I am, where I have come from, and where I am going.
Moderation is a personal choice, and as well what defines success is a relative and somewhat subjective definition. Still though, anybody who successfully moderates their drinking is already successful in social drinking is my stated opinion. My opinion does not speak to what choices people make for themselves. Having said that, my respect for people being free to make choices does not extend out to mean that all choices people may choose to make will endear me to respect their choices. I too am free to make choices in whatever as well, goes without saying.
Since my alcoholism is chronic, my past experiences with social drinking as a common sense choice for my kind of drinking always brought me to epic fail. I always failed at social drinking. I started at 12 - nothing social there to work with. By 15 I was a chronic alcoholic - still underage, so nothing social there either. By 18, the legal age for drinking in Ontario, I was already a burnout socially, so nothing there to work with either, lol.
No, I can never become a social drinker because there is nothing social about my past drinking, and it only makes good sense that any possible future drinking would follow the same path as my past drinking. Why on earth would it be different? It's not about me being closed minded. Its about me being intelligent and aware of who I am, where I have come from, and where I am going.
Moderation is a personal choice, and as well what defines success is a relative and somewhat subjective definition. Still though, anybody who successfully moderates their drinking is already successful in social drinking is my stated opinion. My opinion does not speak to what choices people make for themselves. Having said that, my respect for people being free to make choices does not extend out to mean that all choices people may choose to make will endear me to respect their choices. I too am free to make choices in whatever as well, goes without saying.
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Originally Posted by freshstart57
I should think that Peele's proposition that 'lived human experience and its interpretation are central to the incidence, course, treatment, and remission of addiction' rolls right down your alley.
Let me say this too - When my AV suggests to me that my taking a future drink is certainly a choice I can freely make, my AV is being truthful in a limited way. Since I can intelligently see the consequences for my greater life should I choose to follow thru on the shallowness of my AV, then in fact my greater life is a better resource for me to experience enlightenment than my AV can ever now offer. This is akin to how I appreciate the theories suggested by Peele - what he offers for me would be a total epic failure in my life should I be in agreement with him as a lifestyle choice.
Peele and I are not walking on the same side of the street, lol.
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