TheOnlyDryPaddy

"Scientists" still don't understand diabetes or cancer. Neither one "defies all logic".

Yeah, arguments from ignorance do not bode well for the people who make them.

How does AVRT "bypass[] logic and reason"?

The only thing that I find "irrational" about AVRT is that it partitions the brain into two parts, which are really both "me", ontogetnically speaking.

Boleo

Mad TV Bob Newhart Skit - Mo Collins - Stop it - YouTube

onlythetruth

Boleo, I am happy that AA works for you and others. However, once again, it does not work for everyone. Therefore it should not be the only option, and no one should be forced into it. If people eventually find their way there, that is fine; but even AA's eleventh tradition (attraction rather than promotion) would suggest that coercion is unacceptable.

As far as nihilism being the default, I am actually a bit stunned that you would use that word. Since when does a choice of options equate to nihilism?

keithj

Saying that AA is not the only way to stay sober, and saying that it doesn't work for everyone are very different things. I have yet to find a single person who took the Steps as directed in the BB, fail to stay sober.

In a meeting this past week, another guy made the same observation. He identified 3 things; work the Steps, committed to a home group, work with others. Those folks never go back to drinking.

I don't see any 'forcing' indicated in your experience. You complied because it was in your best interest. You were free to not comply and accept the consequences. And even being compliant with AA attendance, nobody forced you to accept the powerlessness viewpoint. You're example is proof positive that despite attendance at AA, you didn't have to accept AA's viewpoint.

Terminally Unique

AVRT is absolutist and tyrannical, modeled after the logic of addiction itself. It puts an end to inner debates like the one in a thread you recently started ("Alcoholics" who turned out to be moderate drinkers). Viewed through AVRT, it does not matter if you are "an alcoholic" or not, certainly not if you will never drink again. That entire thread, since it suggests the possibility of future drinking, and makes abstinence contingent on a label, is pure Addictive Voice. AVRT would have torpedoed such pernicious thinking before it even had a chance to gain a foothold in your mind, which judging from your later posts, did in fact lead to further drinking.

onlythetruth

My goodness. If the threat of divorce (as my case), the threat of job loss (as in people who are forced due to EAP programs) or worst of all the threat of incarceration (as in people who are court-ordered) aren't "forcing", then what is?

And as far as accepting the concept of powerlessness...why should I EVER have been placed in the position of having to do so? How was that helpful?

The bottom line is that more people would have the opportunity to recover if they were given multiple options about the type of recovery path they are able to access/utilize. Again, if we analogize addiction to cancer, we currently have a situation where, among a dozen or so legitimate recovery pathways, only one is readily accessible, and those who do not benefit from it are, basically, SOL. My view is that if we truly care about helping those who suffer from addiction, we all--regardless of the path we personally use--need to work towards putting one-size-fits-all in the rearview mirror.

The people at Faces and Voices of Recovery put this idea better than I ever could, in the Recovery Bill of Rights:

http://www.facesandvoicesofrecovery....RBOR_legal.pdf


1. We have the right to be viewed as capable of changing, growing and becoming positively connected to our community, no matter what we did in the past because of our addiction.

2. We have the right, as do our families and friends, to know about the many pathways to recovery, the nature of addiction and the barriers to long-term recovery, all conveyed in ways that we can understand.

3. We have the right, whether seeking recovery in the community, a physician’s office, and treatment center or while incarcerated, to set our own recovery goals, working with a personalized recovery plan that we have designed based on accurate and understandable information about our health status, including a comprehensive, holistic assessment.

4. We have the right to select the services that build on our strengths, armed with full information about the experience and credentials of the people providing services and the effectiveness of the services and programs from which we are seeking help.

5. We have the right to be served by organizations or health care and social service providers that view recovery positively, meet the highest public health and safety standards, provide rapid access to services, treat us respectfully, understand that our motivation is related to successfully accessing our strengths and will work with us and our families to find a pathway to recovery[/B][/I].

6. We have the right to be considered as more than a statistic, stereotype, risk score, diagnosis, label or pathology unit – free from the social stigma that characterizes us as weak and morally flawed. If we relapse and begin treatment again, we should be treated with dignity and respect that welcomes our continued efforts to achieve long-term recovery.

7. We have the right to health care and social services system that recognizes the strengths and needs of people with addiction and coordinates its efforts to provide recovery based care that honors and respects our cultural beliefs. This support may include introduction to religious, spiritual and secular communities of recovery, and the involvement of our families, kinship networks and indigenous healers as part of our treatment experience.

8. We have the right to be represented by policy makers who remove barriers to education all, housing and employment opportunities once we are no longer misusing alcohol or other drugs in or on the road to recovery.

9. We have the right to respectful, nondiscriminatory care from doctors and other healthcare providers and to receive services on the same basis as people do for any other chronic illness, with the same provisions, co-payments, lifetime benefits and catastrophic coverage and insurance, self funded/self-insured health plans, Medicare and HMO plans. The criteria of “proper” care should be exclusively between our healthcare providers and ourselves; it should reflect the severity complexity and duration of our illness and provide a reasonable opportunity for recovery maintenance.

10. We have the right to treatment and recovery support in the criminal justice system and to regain our place in rights and society once we have served our sentences.

11. We have the right to speak out publicly about our recovery to let others know that long-term recovery from addiction is a reality.

Terminally Unique

Much as I tend to agree with many things you write, OTT, I'm not so sure about item #9 here. It seems to be an attempt to create a loophole large enough for a beer truck to drive through, with the door wide open to endless "relapses" and multiple re-admissions to rehab. I have no doubt that the addiction treatment industry lobby had a hand in this one.

onlythetruth

You may well be right on that one, TU, and will admit that FAVoR has a bit too much of a "forever in recovery" bent to suit my tastebuds. However, I still think the general point of the Bill of Rights--that options need to be made available--is valid.

TheOnlyDryPaddy

This really depends on the patient's concept of "the nature of addiction" as laid out in #2. I think one thing that has been hard for me to comprehend is that recovery is more dependent on the conceptual constructs we use that it is on whatever physiological states pre-exist and/or are induced by the addiction. Thus, addiction can most certainly be a disease (in any of the senses that Terminally Unique has listed), but people can still recover and remain perpetually abstinent without believing that addiction is a disease.

onlythetruth

Absolutely, and the trick, I think, for any given individual is to find a recovery pathway (which does not necessarily have to be a program or support group, and which can include bits and pieces of different viewpoints) that fits their own conceptual construct.

Terminally Unique

Until such time that science produces an actual medical cure or treatment for addiction, whether or not addiction is a disease will have little functional relevance. If addiction is a disease, you had better quit getting drunk and high, and if it isn't a disease, you still had better quit getting drunk and high. Either way, the solution is the same.

TheOnlyDryPaddy

You've made this statement several times before, and I am having trouble understanding how you can make that statement with an sort of authority, given that there are many diseases that simply do not have cures at the moment but that have treatments that vastly improve the lives of the affected.

Would you dispute that ALS is a disease, simply because there is no cure?

This is yet another thing that I don't understand. If substance abuse is merely a "moral corruption", why can't one simply moderate their intake? After all, the "moral corruption" is in the degree of use and not the fact of use.

Terminally Unique

When medicine comes up with a treatment for the desire to get drunk or high, some sort of injection or pill that will make me not want to get drunk ever again, I will amend my statement. Yes, I am aware of TSM, but that only negates the buzz, not the desire to get buzzed. One sip of the good stuff without Naltrexone in your system and you are back to square one.

I never said it was a moral corruption. As for moderation, those who yearn to moderate have, by definition, already proven that they cannot moderate, else they would not yearn to do so. In such cases, abstinence provides the safest, easiest path to avoid any further problems from drinking or using.

Terminally Unique

On another note, what is it with this obsession people seem to have over moderate drinking?

TheOnlyDryPaddy

It's not so much an obsession per se as it is a effort to understand why a behavior modification method can be used to achieve a only one outcome, when the issue is a matter of degree and not kind.

Terminally Unique

Intellectually, I know that some people are indeed able to moderate their drinking, but my training in AVRT leads me to view such ideas among proven problem drinkers with deep suspicion. AVRT is a self-aiming weapon that shows no mercy whatsoever on the addictive mentality, and which necessarily identifies any ideas of drinking in moderation as the Addictive Voice itself. Is this a shortcoming on my part? Quite possibly, but it is what it is. Take that as you will.

Mark75

As I understand Behavior Modification, and I do have a reasonably good working knowledge of it, it works when you target one behavior and there is either a positive or negative, either you were on time or not, either you behaved in class or you did not based on a predetermined definition of acceptable behavior, either you drink or you did not.

Period

Shades of grey, degrees of behavior... nope... behavior modification is not the tool to use if that is a desired feature of the program.

TheOnlyDryPaddy

Well, last time I checked students were graded on continua and not categories. "Behaving oneself in class" is not simply a binary classification because "well-behaved" does not necessarily mean "not disruptive".

That people generally consider consumption of alcohol on a continuum rather than in distinct categories is fairly evident in the fact that a given level of alcohol consumption is considered socially acceptable. What I see happening here is there is an implicit distinction being made insofar as "addicts" are somehow considered "not like" everyone else, even though, according to my understanding of AVRT (which is most probably flat-out wrong), "addicts" differ from "non-addicts" simply in the amount that they consume.

If there is no essential difference, then why can't "addicts" moderate?

Mark75

Yes, students are graded on a continuem, absolutely.

For the purposes of a behavior modification program... ie rewards and consequences... to stop a particular (one) behavior ... it is, in fact binary... therefore it essential that the definition of well behaved be very specifically defined and understood by all...

I guess you could set it up so that it was binary, either 2 drinks or not...

littlefish

Onlythetruth wrote: I think it is rather a quandary. As far as I know the US is the only place in the world where the justice system has involved AA in it's sentencing procedure, (if that's the right legal term).
I have mixed feelings about courts forcing people to go to AA meetings. I believe it goes against the original spirit of AA.
I live in Europe and AA has absolutely nothing to do with the justice system: people who are convicted of DUI where I live don't have the relative luxury of appealing their case in court or being sent to AA on a mandatory basis: you are tossed in jail and your license is taken away. End of story. If you want your license back, you have to pass all the driving tests all over again after waiting a mandatory period. Harsh?
What is the yearly alcohol related injuries and deaths every year in the states? 17,000? Or something like that. Maybe figures like that left the justice system desperate to find something. Would US taxpayers be willing to pay for alternative programs to AA for DUI offenders? I doubt it. US taxpayers tend to not like paying for anything. It's obvious AA is used because it is free.

Believe me, AA has discussed this endlessly to my understanding: whether this involvement in the courts is good for AA or not. I personally wouldn't like going to a meeting where most of the people are forced to be there. On the other hand, I know several people forced to go to AA through the US courts systems and they are glad they ended up in AA.

I agree, though, that it would be only fair to provide people with a non-faith based alternative.
That said, most non-faith based programs use the 12 steps in modified form.