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Terminal uniqueness

Old 03-26-2009, 06:02 AM
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I have been going to AA for 2 years and have seen the opposite, where people didn't think they were unique enough and its nearly cost them their lives.
My friend very big on AA philosophy who hadn't drank for few years but suffered horrible emotional problems described it as her alcoholism and her self-centredness recently overdosed ended in hospital and thankfully is now receiving specific treatment to suite her needs. She was very big on the stereotyping alcoholics as the same.
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Old 03-26-2009, 06:06 AM
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I have also done it myself, as a result of the kind views held by people on this thread, I re diagnosed my depression as alcoholism came off my anti depressants and relapsed.
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Old 03-26-2009, 06:20 AM
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In some form or fashion, the disease or condition of addiction blinds the addicted to the fact that there is absolutely nothing unique about being addicted. It happens to people all the time, to varying levels or degrees. What makes anyone who addicted to anything "unique" is what they do to fight back, and over come it.
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Old 03-26-2009, 07:22 AM
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paulmh: When I suffered from terminal uniqueness the phrase didn't have any meaning - nor could it, because I was inside the condition. I wasn't being wilful about it, because "terminal uniqueness" describes an unconscious condition.

I totally agree. That's a really important distinction you make, Paulmh. Thank you.

kurtrambis: I have also done it myself, as a result of the kind views held by people on this thread, I re diagnosed my depression as alcoholism came off my anti depressants and relapsed.

I'm confused by your assertion here, kurtrambis. I think there's sometimes some misunderstanding about the term terminal uniqueness. No one would hypothesis that ALL aspects of our character or experience are blandly monotonous. Obviously, we all are unique in personality and life experience. Not all aspects of alcoholism are the same. There's a huge variety on all levels.

You seem somewhat hostile to the concept of terminal uniqueness. I don't mean to indicate that all people who don't accept all aspects of one perspective of one program are dammed to die. That somehow if you don't mold yourself or fit yourself (even horribly uncomfortably) into the cookie-cutter form of that program than you are doomed.

Terminal uniqueness is merely one way of talking about one very small aspect of how many of us have gone through a stage in our drinking and sobriety where we believe ourselves to be such an exception to the world of recovery that we are somehow denied access to recovery. Our brain tells us that there's no way the solutions we are being offered have anything to do with us. There's no way that they would work for us because we are so uniquely different.

I'm not sure what that has to do with your depression. I myself am bipolar and am on 4 different pysch drugs in order to stay stable. I couldn't be sober if I didn't take my medications. Stopping my meds would not be an example of me deciding I should stop being so "different" and "conform." It would just be foolish in terms of my mental health and therefor, be putting my sobriety at great risk.

Not everyone who has special circumstances in their life that make it difficult for them to find the right road to recovery are suffering from terminal uniqueness. But everyone who dies after repeatedly arguing that their alcoholism is a different kind of animal from the alcoholism the rest of us suffer from - they could reasonably be mourned as having been suffering from what many of us call terminal uniqueness.

But at the end of the day, it's just a linguistic term. It's just a way of talking about something that we sometimes see around us. It's not an empirical truth. It's just a phrase to help us talk about things we sometimes see or experience.
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Old 03-26-2009, 08:06 AM
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Originally Posted by sailorjohn View Post
What was your experience with 'terminal uniqueness'?

Protecting yourself through your feelings of being completely different from other people and through your ideas that you are therefore misperceived by them.

I know it was one of the things that kept me away from those people.
Eckart Tolle (A New Earth) writes about how the ego's survival depends on asserting itself as unique - either superior (I'm better than you) or inferior (poor me). "Listen to my story, you don't understand..." The ego serves to separate from the rest of humanity. This was me (still is to a degree) and it's a very lonely place. Terminal uniqueness isn't just for alcoholics!

I have come to accept myself as a garden-variety drunk with some fairly common challenges and problems. With respect to alcoholism and recovery, my experience is typical.

In many ways I am a unique individual but lets face it, in many ways I'm just a normal guy - predictable behaviours included.

I really had to get over myself.
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Old 03-26-2009, 08:13 AM
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It's just a way of talking about something that we sometimes see around us. It's not an empirical truth. It's just a phrase to help us talk about things we sometimes see or experience.
True that. None of us stand or fall on these things. It's only helpful if it's helpful.

I really had to get over myself.
That's the bit where it became helpful.
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Old 03-26-2009, 08:14 AM
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Sorry mle I don't really understand what your saying. From what your saying I do consider myself terminally unique as I don't feel any of the options specifically designed for alcoholics are not suitable, I have to find my own recovery.
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Old 03-26-2009, 08:17 AM
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Originally Posted by gravity View Post
I really had to get over myself.
LOL, yes. Me too.

I am a big Tolle fan too, and you are right it is not just alcoholics who have the "poor me story".

To compare, judge and find differences is a human thing.
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Old 03-26-2009, 09:12 AM
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Originally Posted by kurtrambis View Post
Sorry mle I don't really understand what your saying. From what your saying I do consider myself terminally unique as I don't feel any of the options specifically designed for alcoholics are not suitable, I have to find my own recovery.

edited
Sorry mle I don't really understand what your saying. From what your saying I do consider myself terminally unique as I don't feel any of the options specifically designed for alcoholics are suitable, I have to find my own recovery.
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Old 03-26-2009, 09:31 AM
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I think that most in AA would go along with mle on this issue. It seems there are those however who can be more extreme and insensitive in their views, because they lack awareness and understanding.

I'm an alcoholic and have also suffered from depression since my early teens, long before I started drinking. I drank to self-medicate for awhile, but alcohol really only caused my mental state to get worse. I will not use alcohol though now for any reason. I've gone past that ability.

I tend to think that I know better than others and can be defiant. That is partly the illness talking. I'm not fully committed to AA as yet but am prepared to do it without preconceived notions if that's what it takes for me.
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Old 03-26-2009, 09:37 AM
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Originally Posted by gravity View Post

I have come to accept myself as a garden-variety drunk with some fairly common challenges and problems. With respect to alcoholism and recovery, my experience is typical.

In many ways I am a unique individual but lets face it, in many ways I'm just a normal guy - predictable behaviours included.

I really had to get over myself.
Couldn't have said it better. Me too! Thanks.
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Old 03-26-2009, 09:55 AM
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"Terminally unique" is what I am not. Unique, yes. But not terminally so. I'm an alcoholic so I can't drink. At all. Ever. As long as I stay sober I am not 'terminal', unless I get run over by a bus or something...
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Old 03-26-2009, 09:56 AM
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Uniqueness as I use the term is to defuse the idea that the suffering Drunk is somehow significantly different, hurt or alone compared to any other human in life; the Alcoholics separation is self induced. Alcoholism works the same way in every human being; given enough time it destroys everything. Grain, beverage Alcohol is a solvent and it does destroy brain tissue at an alarming rate; no wonder I have lingering physical and emotional issues that result in daily medication and a regimented lifestyle. Left untreated, I would return to my old life rather quickly; I knew because I have completed all the research one life can forgive.

As a human being, I am unique; there is only one of me. As an Alcoholic who lived in active Alcoholism for decades, I am not unique; I am no different than any other Alcoholic who has found a solution.

When I read through the posts in this thread, I see hope for new lives everywhere. I also see those who refuse to accept that no one is to blame for their disease or their recovery except themselves. Some members wallow in self pity, some in defiance and others sing the party line, but all will come to terms with their disease, either active or in remission, either in life or in death. If you can get past the blaming, you might truly find hope.

Mortality is the most basic of life's truths; we all die. I choose to live for as long as life will have me and while I live, I will enlarge this life with hope, learning and joy to the best of my ability. For you see, I no longer have anyone to blame, they are all gone.

As a Funeral Director, I weekly see the results of active Alcoholism as the decedents pass through our company. From babies to the elderly, accident victims,terminally health victims, suicide victims and murder victims; all because Alcoholism touched their life. Maybe I have become callous to the cries of death or maybe I am resigned to a reality where each individual is finally responsible for their own life. I choose to leave it with something greater than I and I find a measure of peace.
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Old 03-26-2009, 10:06 AM
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Originally Posted by least View Post
"Terminally unique" is what I am not. Unique, yes. But not terminally so. I'm an alcoholic so I can't drink. At all. Ever. As long as I stay sober I am not 'terminal', unless I get run over by a bus or something...
Just me, probably, but I try not to use that word today. Brings back some very unpleasant associations, the words I heard several days before I went out on my hopefully last road trip. "You can't drink" Problem is, and it's still true today, Is that I can drink. Today. If I choose to.
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Old 03-26-2009, 10:16 AM
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Originally Posted by RufusACanal
When I read through the posts in this thread, I see hope for new lives everywhere. I also see those who refuse to accept that no one is to blame for their disease or their recovery except themselves. Some members wallow in self pity, some in defiance and others sing the party line, but all will come to terms with their disease, either active or in remission, either in life or in death. If you can get past the blaming, you might truly find hope.
Brilliant post, so true. You know when I see a little of myself at one stage reflected here it makes me shudder. I too have had to accept that ultimately it comes down to me and I have to be proactive, and change my way of thinking. I can't sit there and wait for someone else to do it all for me, but I do have to be prepared to listen and heed. If I want to stay stuck in the past instead of resolving it I will just continue to be the 'victim'.
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Old 03-26-2009, 10:36 AM
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Originally Posted by kurtrambis View Post
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Sorry mle I don't really understand what your saying. From what your saying I do consider myself terminally unique as I don't feel any of the options specifically designed for alcoholics are suitable, I have to find my own recovery.
Kurt,

The question you might ask yourself would not be are you using someone else's ideas for recovery - but rather, do you see yourself as so exceptional and/or unique that you assert your individuality to the detriment of your recovery? To what extent does your protection of what you see as your special circumstances encourage you to continue to drink rather than encourage you to find lasting recovery?

The question of terminal uniqueness is not a question about whether each of us is special and wonderful (and inscrutable to others when it comes right down to it). The question is only how does our definition of our unique SELF allow or exclude us from our recovery.

If we define ourselves as so different from others that their solutions can in no way ever work for us, than we are in trouble. But when you ask yourself that question, you have to keep in mind that many, many, many people have come before you. We are not just talking about one or two or even three different programs. We are talking about books and music and conversations and sites like SR.

If you find yourself listening to other alcoholics or reading their stories or listening to their music and you say, again and again, "well, that doesn't apply to me because x, y, and z." than, you may want to ask yourself why, don't you think? Why is it that so many addicts and alcoholics, from so many different walks of life, can find comfort and assistance and maps to sobriety when you would only feel alienated, as if the world will never, ever understand you?

And then, I guess, we'd have to follow that question to the end. What are the results of your determination to protect your singularly unique identity?

Did you find that you spent your whole life marking your territory, deliniating it as unknown to anyone else, and keeping all attempts to help you at arms length? Did your need to designate yourself as unique serve to protect your drinking? Did it make you a happier person in your world or did it allow you to devote yourself to true and lasting misery through continued alcoholism? Did it pave the way for your death from alcoholism? That's the question.
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Old 03-26-2009, 10:41 AM
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Uniqueness as I use the term is to defuse the idea that the suffering Drunk is somehow significantly different, hurt or alone compared to any other human in life; the Alcoholics separation is self induced.

Agree blaming others is unhelpful and counter-productive but your making a big assumption that with all alcoholics separation is self induced. They might of already felt separated and that's what contributed to their increased drinking intake.
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Old 03-26-2009, 10:59 AM
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Originally Posted by mle-sober View Post
Kurt,

The question you might ask yourself would not be are you using someone else's ideas for recovery - but rather, do you see yourself as so exceptional and/or unique that you assert your individuality to the detriment of your recovery? To what extent does your protection of what you see as your special circumstances encourage you to continue to drink rather than encourage you to find lasting recovery?

The question of terminal uniqueness is not a question about whether each of us is special and wonderful (and inscrutable to others when it comes right down to it). The question is only how does our definition of our unique SELF allow or exclude us from our recovery.

If we define ourselves as so different from others that their solutions can in no way ever work for us, than we are in trouble. But when you ask yourself that question, you have to keep in mind that many, many, many people have come before you. We are not just talking about one or two or even three different programs. We are talking about books and music and conversations and sites like SR.

If you find yourself listening to other alcoholics or reading their stories or listening to their music and you say, again and again, "well, that doesn't apply to me because x, y, and z." than, you may want to ask yourself why, don't you think? Why is it that so many addicts and alcoholics, from so many different walks of life, can find comfort and assistance and maps to sobriety when you would only feel alienated, as if the world will never, ever understand you?

And then, I guess, we'd have to follow that question to the end. What are the results of your determination to protect your singularly unique identity?

Did you find that you spent your whole life marking your territory, deliniating it as unknown to anyone else, and keeping all attempts to help you at arms length? Did your need to designate yourself as unique serve to protect your drinking? Did it make you a happier person in your world or did it allow you to devote yourself to true and lasting misery through continued alcoholism? Did it pave the way for your death from alcoholism? That's the question.
I find this a bit too abstract to understand properly, although thanks for the help.
Well most alcoholics that recover don't use any program and then there's the alcoholics that don't recover so I am not that unique, infact I am in the majority.
The only approach that makes sense to my personal recovery is Stanton Peele's Life approach, which I have to work myself

Recovering from an All-or-Nothing Approach to Alcohol
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Old 03-26-2009, 11:17 AM
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Originally Posted by kurtrambis View Post
The only approach that makes sense to my personal recovery is Stanton Peele's Life approach, which I have to work myself

Recovering from an All-or-Nothing Approach to Alcohol
Most every poster in this thread has come to the same conclusion about the cornerstone of their recovery program.

Terminal uniqueness only has significance to those recovering alcoholics/addicts that are clean and sober today, and would understandably be utterly baffling to those whole feel that sobriety is not the answer for them.

If you really feel that you have the answer to your 'problem' and can help other suffering addicts with your answer, you might get a wider audience if you start a separate thread with your particular answer.

Good luck.
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Old 03-26-2009, 11:24 AM
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Originally Posted by kurtrambis View Post
They might of already felt separated and that's what contributed to their increased drinking intake.
Kurt,

From what I have read of your posts, I believe that you are quite enlightened and knowledgeable, but do you truly believe your own words here? Is this not another form of blame?

Ron
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