courage2

Yeah, actually, I've never heard anyone blame a relapse on AA. Or a slip or picking up or whatever. That's why I put in the "may". But ... whatever. This seems like a phantom issue to me, but if others want to pursue it, go for it.

fini

i HAVE heard in person and read here, too, several times: "AA meetings make me want to drink!"
and remember quite well that this was true for me also in early sobriety; the concentrated focus in my LR meeting often produced a drinking-urge.

esinger

I don't think that AA causes relapse but the "I'm a victim of a disease and can't help myself" powerless stuff sure makes a great excuse for a hell of a binge when you do. Unfortunately your loved ones don't usually buy it, just other AA members. Didn't buy it myself but what the hell, it was worth a shot.

JeffreyAK

I've convened a LifeRing meeting for several years, and been to many others on/off, and outside of meetings at treatment facilities I really don't see many relapses. I attribute that not so much to LifeRing, which isn't a program at all, but more to the types of people who tend to attend - mostly people who are already sober and/or have other support groups they use, especially Smart or outpatient medical groups, sometimes (rarely) AA. But you're right, if you're the only person/group/thing responsible for your own sobriety, you're also responsible for relapses.

Bmac

Good stuff right there! ^^^^^

courage2

Sooooo confused -- the only kind of "program" that I've used is AA, because it's convenient. I never thought anything besides me was responsible for my sobriety. Does that mean I'm doing AA wrong??

Boleo

Could it be that you have alternate Higher Power?

Group Of Drunks
Good Orderly Direction
Guider Of Decisions

courage2

What does that mean?

There are so many things I don't understand. How can you "have" a higher power? Seems to me, if the power's higher, it has you, not the other way around.

Boleo

Another factor seldom mentioned, is what constitutes success or failure?

If a person uses AA just long enough to achieve a short term goal, such as, getting their drivers license back, then goes back to drinking, does that make them a success or failure?

In a subjective way, it's mission accomplished.

LBrain

this is starting to get interesting. I don't have time right now, but I will return.
Oh yeah...

Ken33xx

A backup to the primary Hp?

courage2

I don't even back up my hard drive and at least I believe i have one of those.

I have never ever gotten the hp thing in AA. No problems admitting I'm not the most powerful thing on the planet, but in AA, you've gotta have spirituality and I got none. And don't try me on the scientific stuff, either. I'm an absurdist.

Isn't it interesting that people can get sober in AA and learn a lot and probably even help some people without believing in god or "hp" for one single second? Ah, but it won't last.... 'cause of that relapse thing you all were all talking about. Right?

Boleo

"Trust in the absurd is the highest level of faith."
- Soren Kierkegaard

courage2

I used to love me some of that old Soren Kierkegaard when I was just a little former speed-freak baby! But I wouldn't take that leap. I'm not scared of heights, I'm scared of falls.

Bmac

I am proponent of the New Age concept. You do not "have" a higher power, you "are" a higher power: always connected to the Source (God if you will) rather than needing to seek out and find something "out there" somewhere and then bend the knee to ask that something to please guide me and fix the "bad" that I was born with and/or acquired due to years of separation. If I want to find God, I look within, not out there. Hence my difficulty with the western Protestant based 12 steps.

fini

but in AA, you've gotta have spirituality and I got none.
hm. haven't found that to be true, courage.
as you know, i got sober with connection in LifeRing. where there are people who "have" spirituality and others who do not. which is a ridiculous statement. of course. but in LR, "spirituality" is not a component of sobriety, though it well might be for the individual.
i was sober many years before deciding on taking the steps. i didn't have to "have spirituality" to take them, though. i'm seeing it as a way to "develop" it, or to "grow" from whatever seed might be/is/was already in me.
hm again.
can it "grow" if there's no seed?

"unsuspected inner resource" would be plenty good enough for me as a start.

long way from your OP now....

courage2

Point taken. I don't have any desire to develop spirituality.

Original post? I don't think we've strayed too far away. I think we're asking questions about what are you paying for with different programs of recovery. And what constitutes recovery. Seems pretty relevant to the question of what you should pay, to me.

Gottalife

The only thing AA offered, at least in its early days, was a spiritual solution to the drink problem. Today, the head of our national addiction centre and professor of psychiatry, who has spent all of his career in alcohol and drug dependency, and set out thirty years ago to prove AA didn't work, now says that for chronic (bottom of the barrel) alcoholics like me a conversion experience is the only known solution. And there is still no medical way to bring this about. He stated that AA is expert in this area, and for professional reasons he could not use the term spiritual experience. Jung had this dilememna too.

Having said that, I think there are plenty who treat the steps as a psycholigical therapeutic process, judging by the number who try and fill the role of the HP in removing their own character defects. There doesnt seem to be a great deal of difference in outcome day to day, excepting that meetings seem more important in keeping on the rails, and lifes certain low spots can be more difficult to deal with.
It may also take a lot longer to accomplish the complete psychic change brought on by spiritual experience. It was this speed of the spiritual approach that amazed the medical professionals in the early days of AA. It defied explanation.

Gottalife

The only thing AA offered, at least in its early days, was a spiritual solution to the drink problem. Today, the head of our national addiction centre and professor of psychiatry, who has spent all of his career in alcohol and drug dependency, and set out thirty years ago to prove AA didn't work, now says that for chronic (bottom of the barrel) alcoholics like me a conversion experience is the only known solution. And there is still no medical way to bring this about. He stated that AA is expert in this area, and for professional reasons he could not use the term spiritual experience. Jung had this dilememna too.

Having said that, I think there are plenty who treat the steps and/or meetings as a psycholigical therapeutic process, judging by the number who try and fill the role of the HP in removing their own character defects. There doesnt seem to be a great deal of difference in outcome day to day, excepting that meetings seem more important in keeping on the rails, and lifes certain low spots can be more difficult to deal with.
It may also take a lot longer to accomplish the complete psychic change brought on by spiritual experience. It was this speed of the spiritual approach that amazed the medical professionals in the early days of AA. It defied explanation.

JeffreyAK

I'm sorry but that's ridiculous, and I don't care how many letters he has after his name. If it works for you, great, but there are as many solutions as there are chronic alcoholics.