The "philosophy" of AA
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Originally Posted by Sapling 
I like how Dr. Bob put it too...
It never fails, if you go about it with one half the zeal you have been in the habit of showing when you were getting another drink. Your Heavenly Father will never let you down!
BB first edition
It never fails, if you go about it with one half the zeal you have been in the habit of showing when you were getting another drink. Your Heavenly Father will never let you down!
BB first edition
"Smithy, unlike me and the man on the bed, was bothered very badly by the temptation to drink... by the time he got to be sixty odd which was when he got to A.A., he was so rum soaked that he just had a terrible urge to drink. Long after, he told me that he had that urge for six or seven years and that it was constant and that his basic release from it was doing what we now call the Twelfth Step."
— Bill Wilson (Memorial Service for Dr. Bob, Nov. 15, 1952)
— Bill Wilson (Memorial Service for Dr. Bob, Nov. 15, 1952)
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Join Date: May 2009
Location: Arizona
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The program works for many people. If I can't get with the program, it won't work for me. There are many reasons that a person might not be able to get with the program.
That is not a judgment on either the person or the program.
People telling me I should be able to get with the program, because they were able to, doesn't much change the issue. Makes no more sense than people who don't work the program trying to tell other people the program is shyte.
That is not a judgment on either the person or the program.
People telling me I should be able to get with the program, because they were able to, doesn't much change the issue. Makes no more sense than people who don't work the program trying to tell other people the program is shyte.
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Join Date: Dec 2011
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This is from his own story...
Unlike most of our crowd, I did not get over my craving for liquor much during the first two and one-half years of abstinence. It was almost always with me. But at no time have I been anywhere near yielding. I used to get terribly upset when I saw my friends drink and knew I could not, but I schooled myself to believe that though I once had the same privilege, I had abused it so frightfully that it was withdrawn. So it doesn’t behoove me to squawk about it for, after all, nobody ever had to throw me down and pour liquor down my throat.
Unlike most of our crowd, I did not get over my craving for liquor much during the first two and one-half years of abstinence. It was almost always with me. But at no time have I been anywhere near yielding. I used to get terribly upset when I saw my friends drink and knew I could not, but I schooled myself to believe that though I once had the same privilege, I had abused it so frightfully that it was withdrawn. So it doesn’t behoove me to squawk about it for, after all, nobody ever had to throw me down and pour liquor down my throat.
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Originally Posted by Sapling
He died sober. But thanks for your always valuable input TU.
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Originally Posted by Terminally Unique
Yes, I know. You'll never hear me say that willpower doesn't work.
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Location: UK
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Originally Posted by choublak
Can someone clear this up for me? I feel like the fundamental philosophy of AA/Al-Anon is something like "You can't stop, only your Higher Power can stop you." When, in reality, it's more like, if it is your responsibility to stop, you can?
It's not my intention to create any heated discussions or any of that. Nor am I being a troll, or at least I'm not trying to be.
It's not my intention to create any heated discussions or any of that. Nor am I being a troll, or at least I'm not trying to be.
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Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado
Posts: 7,583
I am not a church type at all. I don't do the God of the week, century or millennia. I have no problem with those that do, as long as they accept a no thanks, but I am glad it works for you, and pass on to another subject. But I did do AA for most of the first six months of my now relaxed sobriety where it is a normal state that I don't think about except when here.
I can tell you a few things that I find truth. I don't hear voices in the desert, nor inside my head. Alcohol is an inanimate substance that does not talk to me, and it has no voice to me. I do weigh things over in my head a lot, but that is me talking not substances or substances with voices, and I get no messages from the skies. When I gave into drinking that was my decision and action at the time. I am not an atheist but am a lot closer to some few of them than some few of those who take the title "religious." They quote from more than one book by and large. However they also are tolerated by me only so long as I don’t have to subscribe to their lack of beliefs either.
Here is my truth for becoming and staying sober. It is valid only for me unless it becomes valid or has been for others. I am not leading nor want followers. My persona does not depend on building up, or putting down one sobriety schema or another.
First I was drinking morning until night, and had the shakes so bad I had to drink scotch in my coffee and hope I could hold it down daily just to get to what passed for normal in my alcohol soaked brain and life. One day I decided enough. I did look up and say hey! If you are there, a little help please. I then made an appointment to go into in hospital detox, 7 days with a follow on of 28 days of rehab. I quit smoking too and had patches supplied.
I did not join AA or SR until after I made those decisions and actions. I had no clue what AA was about and never heard of any recovery options or philosophies. I had not read one book on recovery or anything else. I was untainted, or ignorant, take your pick. Stupid I am not. I had my regular Doc and my Docs at the VA but I stuck with my regular Doc when I dropped the VA program of rehab.
I joined SR after I quit the rehab after three days. They forced me to go to a mixed AA and NA meeting that I did not want to attend and then I got the “you have to go because we can't stay here and guard you” essentially. This was exactly the wrong thing to say or do to me. A proud individual who had already decided to never drink again, and was there voluntarily! I was not sent there by the police or any other work or civil authority, and did not need to pass their course or get their mark of approval to present to any third party. They acted like I had no options. I told them I was leaving and they said I could not. I told them watch me. I left and swore I would never go to any meeting again. They all told me I would never make it unless I stayed. I did not fit into their cookie cutter. Apparently the rest did. I did not leave because they were bad or I was above them. I was just past the needing space away from life stage. I was not fighting going back, I was trying to fight my way forward, through withdrawal, acute and post-acute.
One person here said that they had gone to several meetings and then found a group they were OK with. I then realized that the area that first meeting was in was in one I would never go to myself without police escort. So I tried a meeting in my part of town. It clicked. I did not go to meetings every night and for some that might be right for them. The group I found were not a bunch of religious fanatics so I went and told them I was just looking. I relaxed after a few weeks of going to their twice weekly meetings. They filled a void for local contact, and eye to eye moral support. I needed that. Other do not.
AA Gave me step one, and people to talk to that had been there and done even more than I did under the influence. More importantly I could say what was on my mind and not be looked at like I had just puked on someone's shoes. See this was my once and only. I had never tried and failed except for the daily I will quit tomorrow every day, and never make it for more than a half hour while awake.
Why did I try AA again after all that mess with the rehab folks? Because I read here that it is better to succeed and do too much, than to fail for too little effort put into sobriety.
So I went to AA for the first three months sober and met a great bunch there, and then told them I was good and would check in from time to time so they would know I am doing great. I went back for my one year coin, and will go back for my two year coin in five months.
So to answer the questions about the true intent of AA, I learned it and found it. AA is a place for those who want to be sober, and can take one from drinking to as far as they need. It is good for all creeds and lack thereof, as well. But the oddballs like me who are fighting to get through the withdrawals and the PAWS, not even for a second looking back as that is not an alternative for me once I flipped that switch, might have to go to a lot of different meetings before they find the group that they fit.
I could not have made it without AA for what I took from them, nor without all the folks here like Dee. But that is just me.
I look at it like we all are hacking through brush with a machete, and some are hacking in a frenzy hard thinking a beast pursues them. I was taking my time and checking my compass, the stars, until my inner GPS was working again.
The devil did not make me do it as Flip used to claim.
AA, like here, is a meeting place for us to take what we can use and leave the rest. I would say to all still struggling to find a meeting that seems a fit and go for long enough to get what you need like I did. Others may want to stay longer and that is fine too for them. Or one of the other non-AA meetings or counseling situations, whatever you find you need and works. Follow whatever path works for you and don't throw stones at those taking another. No one methodology, theology, schema, book, meeting, Gods or Goddesses, place or person will work 100% for all, 100% of the time.
Don't let your beliefs, or belief that you have no beliefs, stand in the way of your sobriety.
Try everything at once and like a shotgun, you are bound to hit something. That is my belief, and my schema and dogma; it need not, nor will, apply to even one other. I used 00 buckshot. You might get game with a single bullet or birdshot. Then you can stop hunting once you get your game.
Hope that answers the OP's question.
As for the rest, beware those who say their way is the only way or that you can't do both their program and another because it violates the exact way things should be done. "You will drink without my beliefs" works just as well as "you will go to hell if you are without my exact beliefs," on me. I believe in whatever works for each, and the rest is nunya. (Nunya business)
Don't be afraid to try them all, take what you can use, and drop them when you no longer need them, or use them. Guess I still choose to use . . . SR.
Have a great week folks.
I can tell you a few things that I find truth. I don't hear voices in the desert, nor inside my head. Alcohol is an inanimate substance that does not talk to me, and it has no voice to me. I do weigh things over in my head a lot, but that is me talking not substances or substances with voices, and I get no messages from the skies. When I gave into drinking that was my decision and action at the time. I am not an atheist but am a lot closer to some few of them than some few of those who take the title "religious." They quote from more than one book by and large. However they also are tolerated by me only so long as I don’t have to subscribe to their lack of beliefs either.
Here is my truth for becoming and staying sober. It is valid only for me unless it becomes valid or has been for others. I am not leading nor want followers. My persona does not depend on building up, or putting down one sobriety schema or another.
First I was drinking morning until night, and had the shakes so bad I had to drink scotch in my coffee and hope I could hold it down daily just to get to what passed for normal in my alcohol soaked brain and life. One day I decided enough. I did look up and say hey! If you are there, a little help please. I then made an appointment to go into in hospital detox, 7 days with a follow on of 28 days of rehab. I quit smoking too and had patches supplied.
I did not join AA or SR until after I made those decisions and actions. I had no clue what AA was about and never heard of any recovery options or philosophies. I had not read one book on recovery or anything else. I was untainted, or ignorant, take your pick. Stupid I am not. I had my regular Doc and my Docs at the VA but I stuck with my regular Doc when I dropped the VA program of rehab.
I joined SR after I quit the rehab after three days. They forced me to go to a mixed AA and NA meeting that I did not want to attend and then I got the “you have to go because we can't stay here and guard you” essentially. This was exactly the wrong thing to say or do to me. A proud individual who had already decided to never drink again, and was there voluntarily! I was not sent there by the police or any other work or civil authority, and did not need to pass their course or get their mark of approval to present to any third party. They acted like I had no options. I told them I was leaving and they said I could not. I told them watch me. I left and swore I would never go to any meeting again. They all told me I would never make it unless I stayed. I did not fit into their cookie cutter. Apparently the rest did. I did not leave because they were bad or I was above them. I was just past the needing space away from life stage. I was not fighting going back, I was trying to fight my way forward, through withdrawal, acute and post-acute.
One person here said that they had gone to several meetings and then found a group they were OK with. I then realized that the area that first meeting was in was in one I would never go to myself without police escort. So I tried a meeting in my part of town. It clicked. I did not go to meetings every night and for some that might be right for them. The group I found were not a bunch of religious fanatics so I went and told them I was just looking. I relaxed after a few weeks of going to their twice weekly meetings. They filled a void for local contact, and eye to eye moral support. I needed that. Other do not.
AA Gave me step one, and people to talk to that had been there and done even more than I did under the influence. More importantly I could say what was on my mind and not be looked at like I had just puked on someone's shoes. See this was my once and only. I had never tried and failed except for the daily I will quit tomorrow every day, and never make it for more than a half hour while awake.
Why did I try AA again after all that mess with the rehab folks? Because I read here that it is better to succeed and do too much, than to fail for too little effort put into sobriety.
So I went to AA for the first three months sober and met a great bunch there, and then told them I was good and would check in from time to time so they would know I am doing great. I went back for my one year coin, and will go back for my two year coin in five months.
So to answer the questions about the true intent of AA, I learned it and found it. AA is a place for those who want to be sober, and can take one from drinking to as far as they need. It is good for all creeds and lack thereof, as well. But the oddballs like me who are fighting to get through the withdrawals and the PAWS, not even for a second looking back as that is not an alternative for me once I flipped that switch, might have to go to a lot of different meetings before they find the group that they fit.
I could not have made it without AA for what I took from them, nor without all the folks here like Dee. But that is just me.
I look at it like we all are hacking through brush with a machete, and some are hacking in a frenzy hard thinking a beast pursues them. I was taking my time and checking my compass, the stars, until my inner GPS was working again.
The devil did not make me do it as Flip used to claim.
AA, like here, is a meeting place for us to take what we can use and leave the rest. I would say to all still struggling to find a meeting that seems a fit and go for long enough to get what you need like I did. Others may want to stay longer and that is fine too for them. Or one of the other non-AA meetings or counseling situations, whatever you find you need and works. Follow whatever path works for you and don't throw stones at those taking another. No one methodology, theology, schema, book, meeting, Gods or Goddesses, place or person will work 100% for all, 100% of the time.
Don't let your beliefs, or belief that you have no beliefs, stand in the way of your sobriety.
Try everything at once and like a shotgun, you are bound to hit something. That is my belief, and my schema and dogma; it need not, nor will, apply to even one other. I used 00 buckshot. You might get game with a single bullet or birdshot. Then you can stop hunting once you get your game.
Hope that answers the OP's question.
As for the rest, beware those who say their way is the only way or that you can't do both their program and another because it violates the exact way things should be done. "You will drink without my beliefs" works just as well as "you will go to hell if you are without my exact beliefs," on me. I believe in whatever works for each, and the rest is nunya. (Nunya business)
Don't be afraid to try them all, take what you can use, and drop them when you no longer need them, or use them. Guess I still choose to use . . . SR.
Have a great week folks.
Re-Member
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado
Posts: 7,583
It was a very small group so they all were in hindsight. But no, I was already there on all but the not drinking. They were my support group. I am not an AA success story, I am a success story in which AA played a large part, very non-traditionally. But every other person there, that was there for me were traditional and were and are still there as their last step. I found here to do the help others part. They and me are all making a difference for some, and are a way station for others, each in our own way.
My whole message is to not do as I say, nor even what I do, or they do. But to do everything you can and drop what you don't need, or want, later.
My whole message is to not do as I say, nor even what I do, or they do. But to do everything you can and drop what you don't need, or want, later.
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Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: New York City
Posts: 221
I couldn't do it alone. I needed a positive peer group to support my resolve. Everyone I knew was a drunk or pothead... The Spiritual Awakening is also called a "psychic change" sufficient to avoid the first drink. To me, the psychic change was deep choice to try to be happy. Seeing the glass half full and filling it the rest myself. "Spiritual" to this agnostic simply means "life affirming" and humility. My cynicism was killing me.
Getting back my life back on the rails took a lot of work. And those rails are mine, not AAs. Confucious said, "Chance favors the prepared." The AA method has helped me get prepared. It hasn't converted me. I don't see it as a philosophy, but more so as a technology.
Getting back my life back on the rails took a lot of work. And those rails are mine, not AAs. Confucious said, "Chance favors the prepared." The AA method has helped me get prepared. It hasn't converted me. I don't see it as a philosophy, but more so as a technology.
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"Chance favors the prepared." The AA method has helped me get prepared. It hasn't converted me."
Well said Pale Male My experience was that it helped me get through the several months of hard withdrawal and healing more easily. After I already prepared, took action, and had already quit and been through detox. I was sober, newly sober granted, but already sober nevertheless when I joined here and then AA.
I see we are both still editing. I also as you said so well:
"I needed a positive peer group to support my resolve." It filled that for me in person as here did online.
Well said Pale Male My experience was that it helped me get through the several months of hard withdrawal and healing more easily. After I already prepared, took action, and had already quit and been through detox. I was sober, newly sober granted, but already sober nevertheless when I joined here and then AA.
I see we are both still editing. I also as you said so well:
"I needed a positive peer group to support my resolve." It filled that for me in person as here did online.
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Originally Posted by PaleMale
The AA method has helped me get prepared. It hasn't converted me.
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Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado
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Sapling,
That was my point exactly. For those in fear it is a religion or religiously oriented it is not necessarily. The people in different groups do it differently - Rule 62 applies here.
My sobriety remains mine. No philosophy or group can give that to me or take it. They can only help me keep it as long as I value it enough to keep.
That was my point exactly. For those in fear it is a religion or religiously oriented it is not necessarily. The people in different groups do it differently - Rule 62 applies here.
My sobriety remains mine. No philosophy or group can give that to me or take it. They can only help me keep it as long as I value it enough to keep.
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Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado
Posts: 7,583
Sapling,
Are you asking me again or Pale Male?
If me, this was and is in my post #51 above:
"But no, I was already there on all but the not drinking. They were my support group. I am not an AA success story, I am a success story in which AA played a large part, very non-traditionally."
AA was a big part of my early path as far as I was concerned, and no to your question means no. Now I will say yes, I made my own path. Why do you ask?
Are you asking me again or Pale Male?
If me, this was and is in my post #51 above:
"But no, I was already there on all but the not drinking. They were my support group. I am not an AA success story, I am a success story in which AA played a large part, very non-traditionally."
AA was a big part of my early path as far as I was concerned, and no to your question means no. Now I will say yes, I made my own path. Why do you ask?
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Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado
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Sapling,
I was quit for good the day I checked into rehab. Stood outside and had my last smoke too that day. I already had my scotch in my coffee that morning. My AA family was there for me to get through the crazy first days after. I did not join here, AA, or see a shrink first. I didn't read any books on how to quit, or staying quit. I only talked finally to my Doc who is a GP and was not much help but did offer to me that I needed to do it in hospital because withdrawal could kill you. So I went to the VA which had some good things and some not so good things for me.
AA, SR, and all these discussions came after I was already quit and determined. I needed to know what was normal and not. I also needed to talk with folks who have been there and got sober. Camaraderie and support. And here filled the void at night. Thanks all. My PAWS that were a bit scary lasted almost six months of my last 17 months of sobriety. My GP was great for doing blood tests once a months for three months and monitoring my progress with assurances of what aches were real, and which were my body saying it missed the alcohol or was healing.
My path took parts from each as I learned how to be sober again and stay that way. The fact that I would not take one minute of my AA experience back if I had it to do over, is true for me.
That is the beauty of programs of recovery. They can each stretch enough if they are well made. The reason I recommend AA as part of a recovery plan, as well as a doc, and local counseling and here, is that AA can handle as much or as little as each needs. You needed to take a little more from AA and I may have needed more reading here. See, at some point each will no longer be needed. That point is when alcohol is no longer needed or wanted. I passed that point already. Now I just want to help others find their own path, which I hope is different than mine or yours as needed, except for the sobriety part.
I was quit for good the day I checked into rehab. Stood outside and had my last smoke too that day. I already had my scotch in my coffee that morning. My AA family was there for me to get through the crazy first days after. I did not join here, AA, or see a shrink first. I didn't read any books on how to quit, or staying quit. I only talked finally to my Doc who is a GP and was not much help but did offer to me that I needed to do it in hospital because withdrawal could kill you. So I went to the VA which had some good things and some not so good things for me.
AA, SR, and all these discussions came after I was already quit and determined. I needed to know what was normal and not. I also needed to talk with folks who have been there and got sober. Camaraderie and support. And here filled the void at night. Thanks all. My PAWS that were a bit scary lasted almost six months of my last 17 months of sobriety. My GP was great for doing blood tests once a months for three months and monitoring my progress with assurances of what aches were real, and which were my body saying it missed the alcohol or was healing.
My path took parts from each as I learned how to be sober again and stay that way. The fact that I would not take one minute of my AA experience back if I had it to do over, is true for me.
That is the beauty of programs of recovery. They can each stretch enough if they are well made. The reason I recommend AA as part of a recovery plan, as well as a doc, and local counseling and here, is that AA can handle as much or as little as each needs. You needed to take a little more from AA and I may have needed more reading here. See, at some point each will no longer be needed. That point is when alcohol is no longer needed or wanted. I passed that point already. Now I just want to help others find their own path, which I hope is different than mine or yours as needed, except for the sobriety part.
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Join Date: Jun 2011
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Originally Posted by coming_clean
My higher power is within myself,
It's more about...
surrendering instead of fighting I guess.
It's more about...
surrendering instead of fighting I guess.
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