Addiction in America

[€uroMeinke]

You know, now despite your disclaimer it looks like you are picking a fight. AA was founded by at least one minister (my program knowledge is not to be relied on) and was based on a religious program. It thus bears those artifacts - like our pledge, words on money, opening prayers in Congress. Yup God and religion are there - I'm not sure what you are trying to prove with this?

There are atheists in the program - I don't know how they reconcile these passages, but I assume not everyone takes it so dogmatically as it is written (though certainly some do).

But if you feel so strongly about this, you can always choose jail time on your next DUI. Perhaps recovery statistics for doing time have a better sobriety success than AA.

[FEJ]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

YAA was founded by at least one minister (my program knowledge is not to be relied on) and was based on a religious program. It thus bears those artifacts - like our pledge, words on money, opening prayers in Congress. Yup God and religion are there - I'm not sure what you are trying to prove with this?

There are atheists in the program - I don't know how they reconcile these passages, but I assume not everyone takes it so dogmatically as it is written (though certainly some do).

Actually it was founded by a stockbroker/ con-artist (Bill Wilson) and a doctor (Dr. Bob). It was based off of the Oxford Group which did have religious connotation but was changed to be open to anyone. Also instrumental in helping/influencing those 2 with the start of the program were Dr. Silkworth, Carl Jung, and Emmet Fox.

[€uroMeinke]

Originally Posted by FEJ

Actually it was founded by a stockbroker/ con-artist (Bill Wilson) and a doctor (Dr. Bob). It was based off of the Oxford Group which did have religious connotation but was changed to be open to anyone. Also instrumental in helping/influencing those 2 with the start of the program were Dr. Silkworth, Carl Jung, and Emmet Fox.

Thanks, I knew there was someone out there to help get past my own laziness to do some research.

[FEJ]

OK,
I had a long response to many points that once I hit submit, it kept asking me to log in (even though I was) so I am taking it as a hint from a higher power (even if that is a SQL database) that I am not supposed to respond to Alex point by point. (I lost the post twice)


Bottom line is this:
It looks like you think treatment centers and court ordered programs to be AA. They are not. Read AA's traditions:
"An A.A. group ought never endorse, finance or lend the A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose."
You call AA a "farce" yet you have know personally many people whom it has helped who would not have a chance had it not been for AA.
If you consider something that has saved many of your personal friends lives a farce, than that seems like a slap in the face of those friends.
It looks t me like you are picking a fight based on closed mindedness and misinformation, and I for one do take it personally.

[Not Afraid]

I'm fairly open about my experiences here on LoT but I never have shared what a very serious struggle getting sober was for me and how it took me over 10 years to get to where I'm at now. I'm not inclined to do that here because, frankly, if you haven't been through it you wouldn't understand. That's where AA meetings are so helpful. You don't have to "prove your point" first, you can just concentrate on getting and staying sober. It saved my ass and literally my life.

The end.

[innerSpaceman]

Hey, I have to wonder if I'm sorry I brought this up. I know several people here have struggled with addiction, and I had hoped we could have a reasoned discussion about it ... although I assumed passions would come to fore.

I myself have always been fascinated with the subject. I have friends and family members who have sufferered terribly from it ... and my own seeming immunity has boggled my mind at times.


I can see both sides of the coin here ... and I don't see the harm in going so far as to say AA is no more helpful than any other program, or indeed no more helpful than no program at all (if Alex is correct that just as many people stay sober through their own efforts as do via participation in a program).

That's NOT to say AA is not helpful. It may not be as helpful as anything else, but it's obviously helpful and we have first-person "testimony" right here on the LoT to demonstrate that.


I also don't care that it's got religious undertones or doctrine. Um, has it been around for more than 50 years? If so ... almost anthing in the country that's been around for more than 50 years has got religious undertones or doctrine. I don't see what the big deal is.

Yes, the criminal justice system coerces people to participate. As pointed out, it's cheap and easy, and the government makes you do it. Yes, it's not the most fair and just thing on earth. Can we just accept that and stop railing about it. There are tiny injustices everywhere.

Perhaps this one isn't exactly "tiny." Frankly, it was beyond stupid for Mr. "Some" to be forced into AA. It was a waste of his time. It was also, by the way, not experienced by Mr. "Some" as a religious program.

But being that there are thousands of independent AA meetings every hour in this country, I'm sure their are religious ones ... and political ones, and medical ones, and pizza-eating ones, etc., etc.


* * * * *

Personally, I think the more interesting discussion is not an argument about whether AA is effective or religious ... but rather why it is effective (to whatever degree it is). Why is acceptance of a power beyond yourself useful to combat addiction and relapse.


As I've pointed out before ... there's the obvious of not being able to trust yourself or rely on yourself as a basic condition of addiction. While I would hope that addicted persons could call up extraordinary resources within themselves to combat their addiction, I don't see why they should have to. Employing the idea of an outside "power" (whether it be fiction or truth) seems to be a reasonable tactic for potential success.


* * * *

For myself, though I'm not an addict, I've been pummeled by brain chemistry quite a bit (not surprising, considering all the things I've ingested that mess with brain chemistry). I've been fortunate in that in simply gaining the knowledge about particular brain chemistry functions and reactions was also gaining the power to combat them. Just knowing that feelings or cravings or emotions were the result of unusual brain chemistry that would normalize over time - enabled me to override or ride things out.

I didn't much like the thought of being at the mercy of my chemistry. And I was able to find inner resources to battle that ... resources that I might never have sought if I thought, as addicts must have for eons, that my depressions and cravings and crazy emotions were "real."

Of course, it's unlikely things ever progressed far enough to impair my basic cognitive abilities. If they had, then perhaps I would not have been able to put up a fight or would not have thought of doing so.

From what I've read recently and over time, it's the impairment of basic cognitive abilities that really fux addicts over. But - for those who don't become addicts via their cognitive disabilitie - these abilities mostly return over time ... perhaps a year or more. That's why those who don't relapse for a year or so end up with better results - - and why the longer you go between relapsing, the more successful your sobriety or abstinence will be.

If AA helps to go that important year or more without relapsing, who cares if it's got god in the mix? Who really cares if it's applied a little unfairly by the DUI system, or if it doesn't work any better than anything else?

[€uroMeinke]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Personally, I think the more interesting discussion is not an argument about whether AA is effective or religious ... but rather why it is effective (to whatever degree it is). Why is acceptance of a power beyond yourself useful to combat addiction and relapse.

This is all my opinion as someone on the periphery of the program, but I think what makes that useful is the acknowledgment that you, the alcoholic, are not in control of the things you think you are. That enables you to focus on what you can control - getting to a meeting (i.e. doing something other than drinking). A lot of people (and not just alcoholics) mess themselves up projecting far in the future worrying about things they have very little control over. In that respect the od thing could be seen as a thought experiment to keep you in the now, and keep you focused on recovery.

I think there are a lot of great tools that can be learned from AA (again, not just for alcoholics or other addictions). Perhaps it's all sympathetic magic - stuff people could do without AA - but it seems enough people lack those tools that they are a revelation to many who enter the program.

[Morrigoon]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Personally, I think the more interesting discussion is not an argument about whether AA is effective or religious ... but rather why it is effective (to whatever degree it is). Why is acceptance of a power beyond yourself useful to combat addiction and relapse.

Quite possibly because people will do for others what they won't do for themselves. A person whose lack of self love has led them down this path in the first place (eg: willingness to do something they KNOW isn't good for them, but it's their choice to make and they make it) might not care enough about themselves to face the struggle. But when you bring "other" into it, now they acknowledge how their behavior affects those who do not have control over (the original person's) behavior. Now they have some responsibility to others whom they may love more than themselves, or at least not want to be the cause of harm to others.

Can't atheists' "higher power" be logic? Natural law?

[JWBear]

Originally Posted by Morrigoon

...Can't atheists' "higher power" be logic? Natural law?

Why, yes! Good point.

I just want to comment on Penn & Teller... I used to find them entertaining; back when they actually entertained. For that last few years, all they seem to want to do is debunk everything. I now find them strident, humorless, and boring.

I have very little patience with people who take their beliefs to the extreme - be they religion, politics, or whatever. Extremism and narrow-mindedness in the name of rational thought is just as bad as extremism and narrow-mindedness in the name of irrationality. It is just as impossible to change the mind of someone who fervently dis-believes as it is to change the mind of a fervent believer; because neither have an open mind. Dogma, is dogma, is dogma.

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Hey, I have to wonder if I'm sorry I brought this up.

I've been meaning to say that your icon choice in the OP was bloody brilliant!