Seeking a support group committed to helping others can be a beneficial and cost-effective way for you to stay sober. You can explore your options for a support group while in addiction treatment. Many treatment providers offer suggestions to help you find the best fit for your recovery. The cornerstone of 12-Step meetings is admitting that you are powerless to your addiction. You are asked to surrender control to a higher power, which may or may not be based on faith. After a sober living program, the time it may take you to get back in the “real world” may vary in comparison to others. Recovery can be a linear process, yet you might need to go back if you aren’t ready to move forward. For example, you might complete a sober living program yet do not feel prepared to get back in the real world. A Walk Among the Tombstones , a mystery/suspense film based on Lawrence Block’s books featuring Matthew Scudder, a recovering alcoholic detective whose AA membership is a central element of the plot.
I know there are some that have gotten sober without program. For me though I needed to surrender to a higher power as well as the program of AA. Doing it on my own would mean that my will is enough and that is not good.
— DrudgeNYC (@Joe_njdm_nydm) July 1, 2022
Hanging on in life by a thumbnail, he came to us for advice. For me, getting sober really only required one rule — “don’t pick up.” A simple notion, not easy, but simple. No god, no praying, no need for the Lord’s prayer, or holding hands, or any such silliness. For the record, though some fall for my Satanist shtick , in reality I’m a strict believer in the separation of Church v. State, and my “religious beliefs” are non-existent. As an atheist, a militant one at that, I don’t sober without aa believe in god, , don’t believe in Satan, or anything along those lines. Four out of 1,400, or roughly 0.002%, of the meetings are for the non-believer. With those odds, good luck heathen getting sober. Out of those 1,400+ combined meetings, four meetings, just four, are for folks who self-describe as agnostics, atheists, etc. Recent Pew polling indicates about 20%+ of the US population isn’t religious in nature. 30 days into it, 50% of folks don’t come back to a meeting.
Just be careful that you are not questioning AA because you are developing a resentment for the people in AA. You must always remember, there a a lot of sick people in AA. Some of them have been “sober” for a long time, but have never been taken through the BB. For those people, AA is their life, and not an enhancer of their lives.
Still quite isolated and miserable, I joined AA for the social contact. I have got myself a sponsor and although fearless regarding my approach to this wonder why i should divuldge my inner most secrets to someone i dont know because i wouldnt expect it of her. Additionally, in my city, the new age positivity crowd started taking over meetings. If someone got cancer and shared about being scared, someone in the meeting would tell them it was a character defect to be scared, and they must have drawn the illness to them. It’s one thing to be accountable in one’s life, completely different to constantly degrade oneself and other people, telling them every misfortune in the universe is somehow their fault.
There are other ways, but AA have made it clear… we give you 1 week and you will be drinking. Also, how do I stop thinking about alcohol when its in my make up and its all they talk about? I wake up thinking about AA and go to bed thinking about it. And I have accepted that Im powerless over a mindset which only wants to destroy me… but no more. We need a positive belief system rather than brainwashing guilt fueling propaganda that strips us of any self-empowerment & feeling of self-worth. You will also be required to participate in the group and talk about intimate and painful details of your life in front of strangers. The last step calls for you to carry the AA message out into the world.
However, I know that it doesn’t take self-love for other people to love you. I also know that you do not have to believe in yourself 100% for others to believe in what you are doing. I don’t even think it’s possible to love and believe in yourself 100% of the time. In AA specifically, meeting people who have lived through relapse and recovery cycles is common.
As this tension is an integral part of AA, Rudy and Greil argue that AA is best described as a quasi-religious organization. I have been in AA for nearly eight years , I have been going to one meeting a week for years now, the same one. I was lucky to find a strong group, compassionate about the program and always willing to help new comers. I consider myself fortunate that my sponsor was well Sober Home versed in the program, and always stressed what it says and doesn’t say. But this group seems to be an island in a sea of poor meeting that are nothing more than echo chambers for bullshit. I love the program, it saved my life, but there is a noticeable difference between whats actually written in the big book and how the majority of the members that i encounter in my city conduct themselves.
Clean and Sober – an addict visits an AA meeting to get a sponsor. AA says it is “not organized in the formal or political sense”, and Bill Wilson, borrowing the phrase from anarchist theorist Peter Kropotkin, called it a “benign anarchy”. In Ireland, Shane Butler said that AA “looks like it couldn’t survive as there’s no sober without aa leadership or top-level telling local cumanns what to do, but it has worked and proved itself extremely robust”. Butler explained that “AA’s ‘inverted pyramid’ style of governance has helped it to avoid many of the pitfalls that political and religious institutions have encountered since it was established here in 1946.”
AA meetings encourage me to hang on to that label and at a cetrain point it becomes seriously counterproductive. I was becoming ambivalent and torn – knowing inside that there was something deeply wrong with the programme while staying quiet for fear of appearing like I was rocking the boat. Addiction which includes drugs , alcohol , sex ,gambling is an answer or better yet a symptom . Each person needs to find and then address what is pushing the addiction . Could be trauma , an anxiety disorder depression etc. or even a combination of things . Also no such thing as a personality exhibiting quote untreated alcoholism . This nonsense is being taught by fundamental AA groups. There is also an underlying set of beliefs taught in AA that constitute a philosophy that is unworkable by most human beings . If you decide after reading this article that it’s not for you, either, there is nothing wrong with that. There are plenty of alternatives and many, many treatment facilities offer these alternatives.
I have a great therapist today and I am finding new friends. However, today I can make healthier choices as to who I want to surround myself with. Also..its nice to have new people in my life that dont sit there and berate themselves or constantly inject the therapy-type talk throughout the convo. Its been a process and I am still learning as I deprogram. About 4 years ago I became more and more troubled by meetings, the constant self-abasement, the culty rhetoric, the falsehoods, the fear mongering.
I became an AA member because I thought it was the default. Everyone’s path to addiction is unique—so must be their recovery. I have always believed strongly in this philosophy. Some people attribute their sobriety to AA and the 12 steps. When I decided I would get sober on August 1st, 2015, I knew I would do so without Alcoholics Anonymous. I had tried the program in 2009, but hadn’t connected with it. I didn’t stay sober for long that first time—not because of AA, but because I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t taken the time to think about what might work best for me.
Your body already detoxes without the added “help” of lemon water. It breaks down toxins or excess nutrients in the liver and eliminates those molecules via the kidneys and out into the toilet in your urine. There is no evidence vitamin C helps this. So any claims lemon water detoxes you are untrue.
Bill Wilson wrote, “Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics”. Bill Wilson visited Towns Hospital in New York City in an attempt to help the alcoholics who were patients there in 1934. At St. Thomas Hospital in Akron, Ohio, Smith worked with still more alcoholics. In 1939, a New York mental institution, Rockland State Hospital, was one of the first institutions to allow AA hospital groups. Feeling a “kinship of common suffering” and, though drunk, Wilson attended his first group gathering. Within days, Wilson admitted himself to the Charles B. Towns Hospital after drinking four beers on the way—the last alcohol he ever drank. Under the care of William Duncan Silkworth , Wilson’s detox included the deliriant belladonna. At the hospital, a despairing Wilson experienced a bright flash of light, which he felt to be God revealing himself.
Whatever you choose, please talk to your sponsor about it before you make your decision. I had tried to stop drinking or control for years. I would go back to AA to sober up for awhile and something about it works. I would stop going and end up getting real drunk and doing something stupid or getting in trouble.
I finally got medications for my mental illness and poof the desire to use went away because I felt good and my head was not crazy anymore. I built a support network of people who were not addicts who supported me in becoming successful in my life. I changed careers to work in recovery and give back to the world not just “a program”. I learned cognitive behavioral therapy to learn how to change my thinking and actions so I did not have to depend on meetings and a 85 year old program that you never graduate from. I found a way out of my addiction I don’t talk about it anymore it is of no interest to the kind of people who are in my life today. I share my recovery story with people I work with who want to recover but that is the only time I bring it up. Hi my name is David I am a father, husband, a Christian, an artist, I love people, and most of all I love who I am today. Sometimes I miss the sense of community of having people to ring to just talk to about your problems, the chance to help others and the easy ability to meet people and go for coffee etc. and get deep quickly.
