Too Many Non-Alcoholics in AA

[473geo]

4 minutes ago, MrPatrickThai said:

Not downgraded, there's nothing wrong with being a heavy drinker.  

 

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/heavy-drinkers-arent-necessarily-alcoholics-may-almost-alcoholics-201411217539

Oh but according to this thread there is, they are not wanted, and are possibly refused support at AA once they are recategorised as a 'heavy drinker'

 

"Too Many Non-Alcoholics in AA"

[MrPatrickThai]

Just now, 473geo said:

Oh but according to this thread there is, they are not wanted, and are possibly refused support at AA once they are recategorised as a 'heavy drinker'

 

"Too Many Non-Alcoholics in AA"

They are doing harm to alcoholics, so yes, not wanted but are welcomed. I certainly wouldn't say they are downgraded. Good for them, they can stop on willpower, just like I quit cigs on will power. Heavy drinkers don't need a spiritual solution to quit drinking. They could/do kill an alcoholic by saying things like just put the plug in the jug, just go to meetings and don't drink, no hurry to do the steps etc. They don't talk about how they recovered by working the steps, as they don't need to and have no experience of it. 

[rucus7]

Lets see, The last five years I drank I blacked out two or three times a week. I woke  up with a tattoo I had no recollection of, was arrested for drunk driving. Wrecked two cars,got arrested again lost my driving privilege, spent time in jail. Lost friends and alienated family. The last year I drank I needed a 50/50 mix of coffee and whiskey to stop shaking  many mornings.It goes on and on. My question is, was I a heavy drinker or a problem drinker?Or something else?  BTW my last drink of alcohol was December 31, 1985. I was 33 years old.

[MrPatrickThai]

11 minutes ago, rucus7 said:

Lets see, The last five years I drank I blacked out two or three times a week. I woke  up with a tattoo I had no recollection of, was arrested for drunk driving. Wrecked two cars,got arrested again lost my driving privilege, spent time in jail. Lost friends and alienated family. The last year I drank I needed a 50/50 mix of coffee and whiskey to stop shaking in the many mornings.It goes on and on. My question is, was I a heavy drinker or a problem drinker?Or something else?  BTW my last drink of alcohol was December 31, 1985. I was 33 years old.

Did you lose the power of choice in whether you drank or not? Did you suffer DT's? Sound like an alcoholic to me.  There is a simple test. Take one drink and then stop, if you can do this then you are not alkie but a problem drinker, alcohol abuser or whatever they call it.

Alcoholism or alcohol dependence is a diagnosable disease characterized by several factors including a strong craving for alcohol, continued use despite harm or personal injury, the inability to limit drinking, physical illness when drinking stops, and the need to increase the amount drunk in order to feel the effects .

Alcohol abuse is a pattern of drinking that results in harm to one’s health, interpersonal relationships or ability to work. Certain manifestations of alcohol abuse include failure to fulfill responsibilities at work, school or home; drinking in dangerous situations such as while driving; legal problems associated with alcohol use and continued drinking despite problems that are caused or worsened by drinking. Alcohol abuse can lead to alcohol dependence

 

[rucus7]

How often do you take that test? That test sounds foolish to me.

[MrPatrickThai]

7 minutes ago, rucus7 said:

How often do you take that test? That test sounds foolish to me.

Not foolish to decide if you have a disease or not. Then you know how to treat it.

 

I haven't taken it this century but used to try it many times.   

 

[rucus7]

I am certain I am happy not drinking. However you define a disease holds little relevance in the context of alcohol. Choice is a matter for conceptual semantics. I take responsibility for my antics whilst drunk. Conversely I take credit for my accomplishments during the last 31 years of not drinking. 

[Kim1950]

Why all the posturing? If AA works for you, great. If some AA groups want to determine who may join their fellowship, fine, too. Though they don't appear to be very into the spirit of fellowship. Besides, just go somewhere else. There's SMART Recovery. Many just find their drinking becoming too troublesome so they quit on their own, so they are not 'real' alcoholics. Does it matter. They quit.

 

There are AA goups which do suck and they should just not advertise themselves as open. They become their own-ism. The other downside of AA is they are not a clinically certified organization. I went for years, quit drinking, learned about others and myself. Then much later I was diagnosed on the spectrum of autism. That was one trigger to my drinking. You may might have a medical or mental health issue. 

 

And, there will still be asses in AA with decades of sobriety.

[Neeranam]

7 hours ago, rucus7 said:

I am certain I am happy not drinking. However you define a disease holds little relevance in the context of alcohol. Choice is a matter for conceptual semantics. I take responsibility for my antics whilst drunk. Conversely I take credit for my accomplishments during the last 31 years of not drinking. 

Well done, how did you do it?

Will power?

[Wilson Smith]

Whenever I see a post that starts off with criticism and then followed up with quotes from the book to back their point I wonder about all the other quotes from the book like “ like we only know a little” “ Our book is meant to be suggestive only’ “ We never criticize” I can go on and on.

 

Or how about the part in tradition 3 “Who dared to be judge, jury, and executioner of his own sick brother?”

 

How about start off with the 11 step prayer and then decide whether criticizing AA in an public forum is the best way to carry a message.    

[MrPatrickThai]

14 minutes ago, Wilson Smith said:

Whenever I see a post that starts off with criticism and then followed up with quotes from the book to back their point I wonder about all the other quotes from the book like “ like we only know a little” “ Our book is meant to be suggestive only’ “ We never criticize” I can go on and on.

 

Or how about the part in tradition 3 “Who dared to be judge, jury, and executioner of his own sick brother?”

 

How about start off with the 11 step prayer and then decide whether criticizing AA in an public forum is the best way to carry a message.    

Good points Wilson, thanks for sharing.

 

The message I'm trying to get across is not the message you think it is.I am not criticizing AA, as an entity but giving the reasons why it has a terrible 'success' rate these days and IMHO, we have to save it. 

We HAVE to tell the "my weedwhacker broke today" guys to shut up and talk about recovery.

AA has changed so much since those words were written. 80% or so success rate then compared to 5 % these days. 

[Wilson Smith]

25 minutes ago, MrPatrickThai said:

Good points Wilson, thanks for sharing.

 

The message I'm trying to get across is not the message you think it is.I am not criticizing AA, as an entity but giving the reasons why it has a terrible 'success' rate these days and IMHO, we have to save it. 

We HAVE to tell the "my weedwhacker broke today" guys to shut up and talk about recovery.

AA has changed so much since those words were written. 80% or so success rate then compared to 5 % these days. 

Talking stats is a slippery slope. 80% this and 5% that.

 

I will try to point out a few factors.

 

I will assume you mean the 80% is from the early early days. Perhaps from Doctor Bob and the Old Timers. You actually had to be invited to the meeting and basically do the first 3 steps and agree to the rest of them before going to a meeting so of course the people who did that had a higher chance of success. What about the 70 people who failed to stay sober before Bill met Bob. Yes today anyone can just walk in “check it out” or get funneled through to a meeting from a court, a rehab, a doctor, or anywhere really. Many of this people why not even want to be there, many people go there to prove to whoever sent them there that AA doesn’t work and they prove that to themselves to show how it doesn’t work.

 

There are other stats such as, people who go to 100 meetings a year, 200 meeting a year and it is amazing how the success rate shoots up!

 

 

I believe my main point is, what is the point of talking about stats? The question is, is it working for you? There millions of people in AA staying sober. If you want to stick with the big book “Rarely have we been a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path… “  It turns out AA works if you want it too and if you don’t want it to work it won’t.

 

Back to the point with throwing out dismal stats (which are not proven), how is that helping a new person reading this forum.

 

Back to the literature, the daily reflections from just a few days ago, October 7.

[MrPatrickThai]

3 minutes ago, Wilson Smith said:

Back to the point with throwing out dismal stats (which are not proven), how is that helping a new person reading this forum.

This thread is not for the new person. 

 

Yeah the 80% is from around 1940. 

 

Before Bob met Bill, there was no AA. Even after they met there was no AA but they went to Oxford groups. The first AA meeting was started in Cleveland by a guy named Clarence. 

[rucus7]

2 hours ago, Neeranam said:

Well done, how did you do it?

Will power?

I made the self commitment of one year without alcohol. After that one year I realized I feel good not drinking. However I did replace one addiction with another. I became an exercise fanatic and middle distance runner. Some use AA and the support it gives them. I found another path.

[Wilson Smith]

4 minutes ago, rucus7 said:

I made the self commitment of one year without alcohol. After that one year I realized I feel good not drinking. However I did replace one addiction with another. I became an exercise fanatic and middle distance runner. Some use AA and the support it gives them. I found another path.

and our hats are off to you. AA is not the only way to stay sober, it is one way.

[impulse]

15 minutes ago, MrPatrickThai said:

21 minutes ago, Wilson Smith said:

Back to the point with throwing out dismal stats (which are not proven), how is that helping a new person reading this forum.

This thread is not for the new person. 

 

It's always for, and about the new person.

 

[al007]

Some observations

 

I drank from 17 to 45, and yes alcoholically a lot of the time, I was 19 yrs sober ( i did not pick up a drink from that first meeting) and went to meetings worldwide, I went back to alcohol ten yrs ago, (When surprise surprise I stopped going to meetings,)  I can not and do not drink like I used to

 

Today by the Grace of God and a very good caretaker wife  I still drink and sometimes too much

 

AA will work if you go to meetings regardless of what anyone says

 

I have been to many funerals of alcoholics, we do have choices

 

The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking, if we go back further it said an honest desire to stop drinking, the word honest was taken out because it was too onerous and scared people away

 

God Bless

 

[MrPatrickThai]

On 10/15/2017 at 4:56 PM, al007 said:

I drank from 17 to 45, and yes alcoholically a lot of the time

It's my understanding that an alcoholic drinks alcoholically all of the time.

Or do you mean when you were young, you didn't drink alcoholically but when you reached a certain age you did?

 

Do you drink alcoholically now?

 

 

Going to meeting doesn't keep an alcoholic sober. 

[gerryBScot]

AA was never about definitions and criteria in my experience. What use is there for me knowing why I am an alcoholic or indeed of what variety? I hear the catch phrase 'Analysis is paralysis' ringing in my ears from back in the day when. Really, if I say I am an alcoholic, it is an act of surrender and of faith. I remain grateful to an unknown street drinker in central London who opined that I was better off in AA pretending to be an alcoholic than in a bar pretending not to be. That may have saved my life.

 

Back in London I heard another tribe member cite a well known Californian circuit speaker, not the jet-setting would-be head alcoholic, but another guy who, in discussing the danger of alcoholics having views on anything ,likened likened this matter to playing with a hula hoop: whatever is outside of that hoop is none of my business when it hits the ground including whether someone else is or is not an alcoholic. My alcoholism is my concern and mine alone: if I say I am in, then I am in.

 

There are other reasons for the fellowship's sad decline, notably the 'cult' element, the 'personality cult' folk who  are allowed to dominate and become instant experts on any range of issues such as, for instance,  medication and who have the temerity to tell us what our founders really meant. Some of these people are virtual celebrities no longer protected by anonymity. Then there are those  meetings which run  according to interpretations of the literature  that may be at variance with AA official conference approved literature - they even produce and use their own literature. AA, having the sort of loosely defined structure it commits itself to, is effectively powerless to rein in such groups and they cause damage, directly or indirectly.

 

The willingness of some groups to allow  courts and social services to compel people to attends meetings under the penalty of incarceration is a further example of AA allowing itself to serve other interests than those of alcoholics with a  desire to stop drinking. I loved the meeting chair who, at the beginning of a meeting, invited anyone so compelled to come forward with their dockets; the chair duly signed off all the dockets to confirm attendance and sent these guys on their way. The reality was that most were so impressed by this magnanimous gesture that they hung around to check out what happened. 

 

It is my experience we find AA the way we are meant to - most crawl in and sulk, some walk in, most never make it. I am amazed and grateful that I ever made it and that I remain sober today. And if a latter day Carl Jung told me I could drink safely again then today I would choose not to drink because I know deep down in my psyche whatever problems I may have, that my life in sobriety is infinitesimally better.

 

Yours in trudging. Chok dee na krup!

 

 

[Kadilo]

I made the self commitment of one year without alcohol. After that one year I realized I feel good ......I became an exercise fanatic and I found another path.

 

Great pun

 

 

Well done for the change in lifestyle.

 

Sent from my iPad using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[al007]

On 10/16/2017 at 7:23 PM, MrPatrickThai said:

It's my understanding that an alcoholic drinks alcoholically all of the time.

Or do you mean when you were young, you didn't drink alcoholically but when you reached a certain age you did?

 

Do you drink alcoholically now?

 

 

Going to meeting doesn't keep an alcoholic sober. 

We all have different views

 

In my earlier years I drank every day, was a functioning practicing alcoholic, I would binge on top, some alcoholics only binge drink

 

I drank alcoholically from the beginning

 

Do I drink alcoholically today , occasionally, but can today walk away from bottle with some still left, a good caretaker helps, regardless of whether we are drinking or not my wife always drives home, hence I do not drive drunk

 

Am I sill an alcoholic today, honest answer I am not sure sometimes yes and sometimes no

 

Is alcohol a problem in my life no, do others complain about my drinking NO

 

What keeps an alcoholic sober none of us really know, I personally believe going to meetings and SHARING can work, some use the meetings as their sponsors

 

The first step I did was thirteen, and had 14 years very happily married

 

Today I do not attend AA meetings, but that could change any time

[pearciderman]

On 9/19/2017 at 11:01 PM, MrPatrickThai said:

The reason that AA's success rate has fallen due to too many heavy drinkers or drunk drivers going. Please, if you don't suffer from the disease of alcoholism as stated in the 4th tradition, stay away you are killing real alcoholics.

And yet on their webpage it says this;

 

"Membership is open to anyone who wants to do something about his or her drinking problem."

 

No mention of having to have the disease.

 

https://www.aa.org/pages/en_US/what-is-aa

 

Or this from the AA Thailand page;

 

"The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. "

 

http://www.aathailand.org/

 

 

Maybe concentrate on yourself and let others be.

[Deserted]

Well you have to convert to god also.

[ding]

MrPatrickThai < I hear ya, I really do. But I disagree in the end.

Planting seeds ain't so bad. I don't sweat the stats.

Also - If someone is there getting a court slip signed and that runs another member off ...were they really ready?

 

I never went to treatment and never slipped in 32 years. I didn't have a court slip - and those that did never had a chance of running me off.

Nut up and deal with it, is how I figured it. I went through a purist phase as well and that too passed.

[MrPatrickThai]

On 10/19/2017 at 11:08 AM, pearciderman said:

And yet on their webpage it says this;

 

"Membership is open to anyone who wants to do something about his or her drinking problem."

 

No mention of having to have the disease.

 

https://www.aa.org/pages/en_US/what-is-aa

 

Or this from the AA Thailand page;

 

"The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. "

 

http://www.aathailand.org/

 

 

Maybe concentrate on yourself and let others be.

I guess you have never heard an non-alcoholic telling a real alcoholic not to work the steps, forget about the Big Book, just go to meetings etc and see that real alcoholic drink again and die. 

I've experienced a non-alcoholic go to a step meeting for newcomers and tell them that they don't need to do the steps, as he had stayed "sober" and happy for years without doing them. He never mentioned to them , like he did me that he was taking anti-depressants and tranquilizers, wasn't an alcoholic but we were stuck with him as he had a desire to stop drinking. 

[MrPatrickThai]

On 10/19/2017 at 10:40 AM, al007 said:

Do I drink alcoholically today , occasionally, but can today walk away from bottle with some still left, a good caretaker helps, regardless of whether we are drinking or not my wife always drives home, hence I do not drive drunk

 

Am I sill an alcoholic today, honest answer I am not sure sometimes yes and sometimes no

 

Is alcohol a problem in my life no, do others complain about my drinking NO

 

What keeps an alcoholic sober none of us really know, I personally believe going to meetings and SHARING can work, some use the meetings as their sponsors

What a heap of nonsense. Alcoholism is a progressive, fatal disease. 

 

You do not have it, obviously. 

 

[al007]

I see from your profile you were born 1/1/98, so you must be around 20 yrs old

 

Very seriously good to see you have found AA at such a young age

 

May I suggest the slogans Live and Let Live, Think Think Think, Easy does it, Keep an open mind to quote but a few

 

Taking your own inventory is healthy, taking other peoples not to be recommended, a fast way to relapse

 

Remember it is a disease of denial

 

A recommendation to you young sir, worry about your own recovery as you very correctly say the disease kills

 

Read the big book a bit more there is a passage that begins Rarely have we seen a person fail

 

[MrPatrickThai]

On 10/23/2017 at 3:30 PM, al007 said:

I see from your profile you were born 1/1/98, so you must be around 20 yrs old

 

Very seriously good to see you have found AA at such a young age

 

May I suggest the slogans Live and Let Live, Think Think Think, Easy does it, Keep an open mind to quote but a few

 

Taking your own inventory is healthy, taking other peoples not to be recommended, a fast way to relapse

 

Remember it is a disease of denial

 

A recommendation to you young sir, worry about your own recovery as you very correctly say the disease kills

 

Read the big book a bit more there is a passage that begins Rarely have we seen a person fail

 

lol  - are you serious? Easy does it my arse. A non-alkie, who is drinking, telling a sober member of AA what to do! 

 

Have you ever had a spiritual experience? Ever wonder what working the steps promises?

 

https://www.recoveryaudio.org/aa-speaker-tapes/lets-chat-about-these-war-stories-huh

 

 

[pearciderman]

On 10/23/2017 at 2:18 PM, MrPatrickThai said:

What a heap of nonsense. Alcoholism is a progressive, fatal disease. 

 

You do not have it, obviously. 

 

 

You come across as a stupid young person - you almost think that you are special because of your drinking. You are NOT, you are just another statistic, get over yourself !

[MrPatrickThai]

15 hours ago, pearciderman said:

 

You come across as a stupid young person - you almost think that you are special because of your drinking. You are NOT, you are just another statistic, get over yourself !

You know what I think do you?

 

 

Some people get upset when the truth is spoken. Some impostors go to AA and know they don't need that special spiritual experience necessary for the real alcoholic. Yet they go for years, taking and never giving anything. Too damn cheap to get a good therapist. AA is NOT a therapy group, meetings are not a place to go and talk about your chicken-shit week, but a place to go and share how you got a spiritual awakening and recoverED from alcoholism.