What was your Alcoholics Anonymous Experience like?

Comments

1. Tara J says:
   November 1, 2011 at 6:59 am

   i went to AA a few years back and it was pretty fooked up. there was always a bunch of rummies there and a the messed up stories that you hear there is out of this world

   Reply
2. George says:
   November 1, 2011 at 7:36 am

   I am TT purely by choice too many of my relatives were drunks I just could not live like that and feel for you.

   Reply
3. Meine Ehre Ist Meine Treue Es Lebe Deutschland says:
   November 1, 2011 at 7:37 am

   i believe their success rate is very low

   in my opinion

   AA- can help
   but its mostly
   all mental
   if you want to quit drugs you can
   i dont think anyone is forever a drug addict.
   AA gets people to think in terms of AA

   http://mywordlikefire.wordpress.com/2009/09/23/the-inconvenient-truth-about-alcoholics-anonymous/

   http://www.positiveatheism.org/rw/ofcourse.htm

   http://www.alternatives-for-alcoholism.com/alcoholics-anonymous.html

   Reply
4. Danny S says:
   November 1, 2011 at 7:37 am

   It was my first day in AA and I had gone to a Saturday morning meeting. There I heard a story that blew my mind. It was the story of a down and out stockbroker who drank his way off Wall Street and lived to tell it. Lived to write a book about it apparently. It shocked me. I was a stockbroker too – an Investment Banker – and it was as if I was hearing my own life read back to me. It brought me to tears and now here I was attending my second meeting in Little Neck, Queens, New York City. There were several meetings going on at once in this little Lutheran church on Glenwood Street. I wanted to go to whichever one where I could just sit , listen and not be noticed – where everyone would just leave me alone while I conducted my research. The rest is here:

   http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com/search?q=%22tony%22

   Peace and Love,

   Danny S – RLRA
   Real Live Recovered Alcoholic
   http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com

   Reply
5. raysny says:
   November 1, 2011 at 7:54 am

   I was diagnosed with depression in the early 70s, unsuccessfully treated, and later found that drinking took just enough of the edge off of it that I wasn’t suicidal.

   After a hospital detox in the early 80s, members of the staff convinced my lady friend and I that if it was not followed immediately by rehab, I had just thrown away my money. Rehabs are basically indoctrination centers for AA. I incorrectly assumed that I’d be given tips, taught coping skills that would help me remain sober, but what I found was religious programming; I’m an atheist and left halfway though it.I later heard that this particular rehab was tough and dogmatic, that I should give AA a try, so I did.

   AA was the same. I found it very cult-like. Many had a far off look when they talked about God and The Program. People kept telling me that even atheists can get sober through AA, what they don’t admit to is that atheists are expected to find a “Higher Power” to pray to, one who will answer those prayers, in other words, a god. I made the mistake of asking how I, as an atheist, could work the program. Most shunned me, the rest made it their personal mission to convert me. I was told repeatedly that if I refused to find God, I would die drunk in a gutter. Any mention of the depression that fueled my drinking was denounced as “being on the pity pot”.

   And the anti-medication, anti-therapy faction of AA didn’t help either. Although a minority faction, about 1 in 8 will tell newcomers that if they take medications of any kind, they’re not ‘really sober’.

   Not much support from a “support group”.

   What I picked up in AA was that I had a disease, one that I was powerless to do anything about. The first step is: “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.” I became convinced I was broken, that I couldn’t stop on my own, that the only way to be sober was to be in AA. I also knew that I couldn’t do AA. But every few years, life would become tough enough that I’d give sobriety another try, sometimes with AA, sometimes without. Each time I’d manage about 6 months before returning to the bottle. I’d be suicidal and think that alcohol was the better alternative for the moment. I guess no one knew about the neurotransmitter rebound effect at the time.

   I bounced in and out of the rooms for years and never managed more than a few months of AA at a time, my depression seemed much worse after being around the rooms. I just kept getting deeper and deeper.

   I thought that if I could get help for the depression, I’d be able to stop and stay stopped, but the psychiatrists and therapists I saw all wanted me to be 3 or 6 months sober first before they’d take me one as a client. They all thought that drinking caused my depression and when I told them I had be diagnosed before I started drinking, they ignored it as the ramblings of a drunk.

   I suppose that the people who get the most out of AA are those with an external locus of control and don’t examine the program too deeply.

   AA made staying sober harder because it taught me I had a disease, that I was powerless,.not to trust myself, that once I had a ‘slip’ I had to go on to a full blown relapse, and by being so dogmatic and judgmental that I never wanted to go back. That if the only way to be sober was to be like them, I’d rather die a drunk.

   I finally found a therapist that had no preconceived notions about AA.

   Once I turned my back on AA and took responsibility for my addiction, I was able to take responsibility for my recovery. I’ve been sober now since 8/4/01, gone back to school, gotten married, and now work in mental health, primarily with those with coexisting substance abuse issues.

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