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I'm of the opinion that there's no wrong way to get and stay sober or to moderate... which is best done as two drinks max per day.
I have yet to see anybody forced at gunpoint into A.A. What I have seen is probation officers, judges, etc. Say go to jail or attend a few A.A. meetings. A.A. does not work with the courts but some of us do cooperate with them... by signing those papers. But when you look at the facts, meetings are a choice.
What is not a choice is the fact that charged criminals haved lost their right to drink booze and to do drugs. This pisses some of them off.
If you want to drink, I think that's fantastic. I wouldn't recommend going to A.A. meetings to compare your life to those people to get your self esteem pumped up. Maybe go to church for that sort of thing. But hey, that's just me.
What we talk about in A.A. meetings is sort of our business but, if you feel the need to dog it here, oh well. We do talk about booze in A.A. We talk about the way we drank and we listen to you talk about your drinking. This is called identification. It's our credentials. We try to help you determine if you belong or not. We don't talk about politics, religion, current events, the weather, nor rocket science. If you lie about your drinking, that's your problem. If you don't identify, we'll know... but it's all up to you.
Identifying is only half of the equation. The other big part of the equation is "Do you want to stop for good and all?" If not, do something else, drink, whatever you gotta do. We're fine with it. Really! Now your wife and children and probation officer may not be, but oh well. They ain't gonna save you neither.
If you can do the about-face and drink like a gentleman or a lady, "Hat's off to you."
I've been sober for a long time and do not attend AA meetings. I am studying to be a substance abuse counselor and I will certainly suggest clients go to 12 step meetings but not require them to do so. I am one of the few that feel sitting around talking about drinking is a waste a time though - for me. In fact, hearing drunk-a-logs made me want to drink! So I left and it has been great...I found that God has mercy and took the craving away. Not so different from AA - I just skipped the formality and went straight to the Lord. There is one thing...you just can't set it aside and deal with it later...it will turn into a monster that is very hard to control
Good luck!
I received my A&D Certification in 2003. Glad to hear you are open minded about referrals. One of the most important concepts I learned in my training was that there is a big difference between a real alcoholic and a hard drinker and how to spot the earmarks of both types of drinkers.
The recovery you say you experienced sounds like a psychic change that is clearly detailed in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. It even says that some people had "spiritual awakenings" long before AA was founded. Carl Jung stated that back in the 1930's. He also said he didn't know how to bring about that process through therapeutic means. That is the purpose of the steps - to enable a psychic change which, unlike you, most drunks cannot experience through their own will power or self-knowledge.
I use to go to some meetings like you described and was also bored to death. Then I was told that it is customary in AA to share "What it was like, what happened and what it is like now." When I follow that directive most of my story is about recovery, not my drunk-a-log. Newcomers don't need to hear a lot of drunk-a-logs - they already know how to get drunk. They need to hear the message of the 12th. Step - To help other alcoholics achieve sobriety. They desperately want to learn how to recover and it is the job of the older members to show them the way as outlined in the Big Book. (First 164 pages)
Good luck in obtaining you credentials and more importantly in continued sobriety.
I was sober for 3 years after drinking pretty much constantly for 10 years. I now have a couple of glasses of wine, once or twice a week. I was in hospital due to drinking too much quite a few times, I used to drink 24/7. However, there was a lot of madness going on in my life. I had lost my father suddenly, I had an abusive mother, a partner who was in and out of prison and a job I hated and I did not know what was going on in my life - all I know is, is that alcohol helped me to forget the crap. I have now had a lot of counselling - bereavement and regular - and I am now a mum and really happy with the way life is. I now have hardly any stress in my life, I am grateful to what I have got and I am able to have a glass of wine every so often. I no longer live my life wondering where my next drink is coming from, I know when to stop. Yeah I know, if my life was so great now then why drink at all? It's because I can. However, I am sure that I am in the minority as I know many alcoholics who have tested to see if they can control it again and it has led to disaster so I would imagine the best thing to do is abstain if there is a chance that everything can backfire on you. I am incredibly lucky in being able to drink moderately, you may not be and it's probably not worth the risk.
Last edited by Cricketgirl; 06-20-2013 at 02:19 PM..
Reason: Bad grammar
I used to have a major drinking problem. I somehow got lucky and didn't experience half the consequences I potentially could have. I mean it when I say that there were probably 50 times when I drove completely blacked out, but never landed in a ditch or got a DUI. I shudder to think about it. I'm also fairly certain that I experienced a minor seizure when I was withdrawing from a prolonged period of drinking. It woke me up in the middle of the night. I never checked myself into a hospital because I didn't want my parents to know.
I used to go to AA meetings and I'm well aware of the arguments for and against. I think that AA provides some good group support and tips for people who are trying to stop drinking. However, if you get fully entrenched in their dogma, I feel bad for you.
Not everything is as black and white as AA tells you. There isn't some group of "alcoholics", another group of "problem drinkers", and then normal people, "normies." Some people go through phases where drinking negatively affects their life, and then they learn to moderate when they drink, or they stop completely, or cut down the frequency of their use to once every month even though they usually binge on that one occasion. And if statistics say anything, AA or any other "treatment" is just as effective as no treatment. The vast majority of people quit their unhealthy habits simply by realizing that they aren't getting where they want to be in life.
20 pages later. I just wanted to say thank you to all those who told their stories. It's good to hear how it is on the other side, as I'm involved with a recovering addict of too many things (in which, all his addictions just shifted - but they at least they're no longer endangering him or anyone else). Being a person who doesn't think she has any addictions (I could be wrong), it's hard to understand his need for things. I think this thread was eye-opening to say in the least. Thank you.
Have any of you personally gotten past the 'phenomenon of craving' problem and moderated your drinking? Or do you know somebody who you've observed do so successfully?
I don't mean drinking successfully a few times in a row and then losing it and binging or otherwise drinking heavily, but rather having gone from drinking alcoholically and being driven by the 'phenomenon of craving', to being able to 'take it or leave it', not drink every single day, and not binging when you do drink.
I understand that AA and other outlets preach total abstinence and that an alcoholic can never drink safely again, but let's be open minded. If you're an alcoholic and you've decided you can never safely drink again, so be it. Do what works for you. But for the sake of this thread, let's be open minded.
This talented Cardiologist claims the use of the prescription drug Baclofen can turn some alcoholics--including himself--into social drinkers never exceeding 3 drinks in a night. And he was a hardcore alcoholic that used to have falls, break bones, and when not drinking for a period, go into seizures and end up in the ER.
"After years of battling uncontrollable addiction, I have achieved the supposedly impossible: complete freedom from craving."
Dr. Olivier Ameisen was a brilliant cardiologist on the staff at one of America’s top teaching hospitals and running his own successful practice when he developed a profound addiction to alcohol. He broke bones with no memory of falling; he nearly lost his kidneys; he almost died from massive seizures during acute withdrawal. He gave up his flourishing practice and, fearing for his life, immersed himself in Alcoholics Anonymous, rehab, therapy, and a variety of medications. Nothing worked.
So he did the only thing he could: he took his treatment into his own hands. Searching for a cure for his deadly disease, he happened upon baclofen, a muscle relaxant...
This talented Cardiologist claims the use of the prescription drug Baclofen can turn some alcoholics--including himself--into social drinkers never exceeding 3 drinks in a night. And he was a hardcore alcoholic that used to have falls, break bones, and when not drinking for a period, go into seizures and end up in the ER.
This reminds me of a terrific book I just read. The actress Claudia Christian released a memoir recently, and she discusses her struggle with alcoholism.
AA didn't work. Rehab didn't work (the rehabs she went to really were worthless). She was desperate. She read an article about The Sinclair Method and read this book:
which also included a section on The Sinclair Method.
She was intrigued because they were claiming an 85% success rate! You know how low the success rate for rehab is -- very low. She couldn't conquer the intense cravings for alcohol -- especially wine.
The whole trick with The Sinclair Method is to continue drinking, or it won't work. She takes the prescription drug Naltrexone an hour before she drinks. The first time she took it, she only drank one glass of wine instead of the whole bottle. It only works if she takes the pill before drinking, which she must do the rest of her life.
It was also cheap. She would only pay $10 for the medicine, although she had to go to a compound pharmacy to get the pills.
The pill did have side effects, and she was still thinking alcoholically for about a year after she started the medicine. By the time she wrote the book, she was only having wine on weekends on social occasions.
Anyway, I can't vouch for this method, but it apparently worked for her!
I used to drink heavily almost every night in my 20's, but when I hit around 30 I cut back big time on the amount that I drank. These days I drink almost every night, but it's a 24 ounce can of light bear or a bloody mary
This reminds me of a terrific book I just read. The actress Claudia Christian released a memoir recently, and she discusses her struggle with alcoholism.
AA didn't work. Rehab didn't work (the rehabs she went to really were worthless). She was desperate. She read an article about The Sinclair Method....
The Sinclair Method is interesting. When I read about it a couple years ago, a drug called naltexone was discussed. Naltrexone, I believe I read, basically blocks opioid receptors and thus cravings. And apparently there's an experimental drug right now that combines naltrexone and bupropion to treat overeating and obesity, which sounds promising. Anyway, I hadn't heard of baclofen, but it also sounds interesting!
This reminds me of a terrific book I just read. The actress Claudia Christian released a memoir recently, and she discusses her struggle with alcoholism.
AA didn't work. Rehab didn't work (the rehabs she went to really were worthless). She was desperate. She read an article about The Sinclair Method and read this book:
which also included a section on The Sinclair Method.
She was intrigued because they were claiming an 85% success rate! You know how low the success rate for rehab is -- very low. She couldn't conquer the intense cravings for alcohol -- especially wine.
The whole trick with The Sinclair Method is to continue drinking, or it won't work. She takes the prescription drug Naltrexone an hour before she drinks. The first time she took it, she only drank one glass of wine instead of the whole bottle. It only works if she takes the pill before drinking, which she must do the rest of her life.
It was also cheap. She would only pay $10 for the medicine, although she had to go to a compound pharmacy to get the pills.
The pill did have side effects, and she was still thinking alcoholically for about a year after she started the medicine. By the time she wrote the book, she was only having wine on weekends on social occasions.
Anyway, I can't vouch for this method, but it apparently worked for her!
Of course, this method is not popular with some doctors and rehab centers, because they would lose a lot of money!
Never heard of this, thanks for introducing me to these books. I'm going to see if they are in my local library system.
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