Alcoholism

[Ronstang]

Lack of self control and will power are character flaws, not a disease. If you can't handle alcohol and you know it but choose to drink anyway then it is your own fault, you are not a victim. You can develop self control and will power if you desire but not if you continue to paint yourself as a victim claiming you have a disease. Alcoholics Anonymous' program is flawed from the beginning convincing people they are victims.

 

[meltdown75]

Originally posted by: SphinxnihpS

Originally posted by: meltdown75

Originally posted by: SphinxnihpS
This was my reply to THAT reply. Tool.

woah, ad-hominem attack on aisle three!

even if AA has only helped 1% of the people that enrolled, no one could question its usefulness to society. HOW it helps alcoholics is beside the point. if your life became a cesspool of despair and addiction, and someone convinced you to believe in something that completely turned your life around, would you really care what that something was? maybe we should ask the family members of alcoholics if they care. Perhaps they would throw away all the progress their loved one has made simply because of metaphors that are used to help their loved one along. it doesn't matter how it works, the fact of the matter is that it works, and if you have nothing better to do than sit there and insult the how & why for no apparent reason, then we know who the tool is.

edit: i spelled hominem wrong

My position is that it does not work. My position is that if you take 1000 alkies and stick 500 of them in AA, and 500 of them in a night club, you will have the same recover rate. There is no statistical link between AA long-term sobriety, ZERO.

I exaggerate! There is nothing to suggest that AA is more helpful than other methods of recovery. AA just happens to produce more zealots (despite their motto of attraction rather than promotion), and just plain batshit crazy lunatics, than the other less religiousish methods.

IMO that last thing the planet needs is more people walking around who believe in fairy stories and other voodoo BS. From a personal perspective I would choose lobotomy over religion for myself or anyone. AA is a religion. Fuck AA.

you sound like the most batshit crazy lunatic I've ever come across on these boards. what is it that made YOU insane? n/m, i'm sure it's personal. take care.

 

[Kirby]

Originally posted by: meltdown75

Originally posted by: SphinxnihpS

Originally posted by: meltdown75

Originally posted by: SphinxnihpS
This was my reply to THAT reply. Tool.

woah, ad-hominem attack on aisle three!

even if AA has only helped 1% of the people that enrolled, no one could question its usefulness to society. HOW it helps alcoholics is beside the point. if your life became a cesspool of despair and addiction, and someone convinced you to believe in something that completely turned your life around, would you really care what that something was? maybe we should ask the family members of alcoholics if they care. Perhaps they would throw away all the progress their loved one has made simply because of metaphors that are used to help their loved one along. it doesn't matter how it works, the fact of the matter is that it works, and if you have nothing better to do than sit there and insult the how & why for no apparent reason, then we know who the tool is.

edit: i spelled hominem wrong

My position is that it does not work. My position is that if you take 1000 alkies and stick 500 of them in AA, and 500 of them in a night club, you will have the same recover rate. There is no statistical link between AA long-term sobriety, ZERO.

I exaggerate! There is nothing to suggest that AA is more helpful than other methods of recovery. AA just happens to produce more zealots (despite their motto of attraction rather than promotion), and just plain batshit crazy lunatics, than the other less religiousish methods.

IMO that last thing the planet needs is more people walking around who believe in fairy stories and other voodoo BS. From a personal perspective I would choose lobotomy over religion for myself or anyone. AA is a religion. Fuck AA.

you sound like the most batshit crazy lunatic I've ever come across on these boards. what is it that made YOU insane? n/m, i'm sure it's personal. take care.

someone touched him in the naughty place.

 

[yours truly]

once an alchy, always an alchy. theres almost no exceptions. i have met many many people who have tried to rid themselves of the drink. even after a few dry years later, the booze creeps back into their lives.

my old man used to nail a bottle of scotch a night right until his liver blew

heres to you, well done :wine:

 

[CRXican]

Originally posted by: hopeless74
once an alchy, always an alchy. theres almost no exceptions. i have met many many people who have tried to rid themselves of the drink. even after a few dry years later, the booze creeps back into their lives.

my old man used to nail a bottle of scotch a night right until his liver blew

heres to you, well done :wine:

how old was he when he died?

 

[alkemyst]

unless diagnosed too many are quick to judge someone an alcoholic and oddly many think they are one when they are just trying to brag in some sick way.

Only on with a drinking problem is someone that can't handle their booze. Should stick to shirley temples instead of talking about Stella.

 

[techs]

Originally posted by: rudeguy

Originally posted by: jemcam
Rudeguy, remember it's attraction not promotion. These discussions never end well.

Agreed.

Agree also.
Yet, just posting about it may get some people to thinking.

And for those who have disdain for AA you should understand that no one in AA ever makes you go, and that if a judge sends you to AA its not AA's doing.
If you don't like AA, fine and dandy.
And if someone in AA has pissed you off with their "zealousness", well, that's not AA talking, that's that particular person.

If anyone gets the idea from this thread that maybe they should look at how much and how often they drink, then its been a success.

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: meltdown75

Originally posted by: SphinxnihpS

Originally posted by: meltdown75

Originally posted by: GodlessAstronomer
You say it's not a sign of weakness that you can't control your drinking. I would contend that your reliance on a "higher power", the need to consult a being that exists entirely in your crippled mind is a sign of weakness. A mental weakness that manifests itself in both your reliance on a fairy tale to get you from day to day, and your tendency to overindulge in alcohol. Flame me if you will, but this is my opinion.

if it saves his life, it's a good thing, and also none of your business.

When he posted it here, it became everyone's business.

AA is an organization of the self-deluded. The "Big Book", A has been utterly watered down (find and read a first edition), and B. has always been one man's fantasy about how he Came To Believe he no longer needed to drink; it's filled with gibberish, circular logic, and paradox about how relying on god is independence.

If AA works for someone, it has nothing to do with the 12 steps. It is simply that when you put many people in the same room with the same challenge, some of them are bound to form relationships for which the desire to maintain outweighs the desire to drink (which would end the relationship).

Even in AA, only a very low percentage will ever never drink again.

see my reply to GodlessAstronomer.

It's not worth it. The "cool internet atheists" base their logic on "South Park," the most logical and intelligent source of information that their feeble minds have ever been able to comprehend.

 

[manowar821]

Originally posted by: clamum

Originally posted by: IGBT
..the failure occurs with the desire to intoxicate. if you desire to intoxicate, you have a problem.

But isn't that kind of the point? I'm not talking about getting shitfaced, but intoxicated. The point of drinking coffee or pop in the morning is to get a caffeine buzz right (usually)?

No, never. Not for me, anyway. I love coffee because of the taste, I enjoy the thousands of flavors. I rarely ingest anything that has alcohol. If I do, it's because I enjoy the taste of said drink, as well.

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

Originally posted by: manowar821

Originally posted by: clamum

Originally posted by: IGBT
..the failure occurs with the desire to intoxicate. if you desire to intoxicate, you have a problem.

But isn't that kind of the point? I'm not talking about getting shitfaced, but intoxicated. The point of drinking coffee or pop in the morning is to get a caffeine buzz right (usually)?

No, never. Not for me, anyway. I love coffee because of the taste, I enjoy the thousands of flavors. I rarely ingest anything that has alcohol. If I do, it's because I enjoy the taste of said drink, as well.

Yep. I don't even like drinking the shitty beer at frat parties. Forcing yourself to swallow that crap is just torture. I'd rather get wasted off of trashcan margaritas.

 

[Zim Hosein]

Originally posted by: hopeless74
once an alchy, always an alchy. theres almost no exceptions. i have met many many people who have tried to rid themselves of the drink. even after a few dry years later, the booze creeps back into their lives.

my old man used to nail a bottle of scotch a night right until his liver blew

heres to you, well done :wine:

How big of a bottle if you don't mind me asking hopeless74?

 

[SlitheryDee]

I quit drinking in February after 4 years of nightly drink-till-I-passed-out boozing. I didn't miss a single night's drunk except for one or two family holidays a year during that entire time. I'm pretty sure that I was an alcoholic, or maybe I was just on the dangerous side of consumption. Whatever. What caused me to quit was mental degradation. I was having more and more trouble remembering things. I couldn't wrap my mind around problems that I would once have had no trouble with. I found it increasingly difficult to put ideas into words and form logical sentences. I lost interest in things that once gave me more pleasure that alcohol ever could just because my sodden brain would no longer retain enough information for me to follow them. I've found out that one of the reasons it's so hard to quit is that heavy nightly drinking turns you into an unthinking hungover zombie during the hours that you aren't drinking. How can you marshal your willpower to any end when you can barely think? All it took to quit was for me to rise up out of what was becoming a 24 hour stupor one time and see the inevitable end to what I was doing. I could keep drinking and kiss any hope of further joy in my life goodbye, or I could quit and face the short term consequences. I chose the latter.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Slitherdee, if you don't mind me asking, what prompted you to want to get drunk 7 nights a week? I'm a 23-year-old student and I love to get on the chop with my mates once or twice a week, but I can't see myself drinking every day. Were you doing it because it was fun? Or did it have more to do with depression or some other nasty mental state? Or if I'm prying too much just tell me to eff off

 

[SlitheryDee]

Originally posted by: GodlessAstronomer
Slitherdee, if you don't mind me asking, what prompted you to want to get drunk 7 nights a week? I'm a 23-year-old student and I love to get on the chop with my mates once or twice a week, but I can't see myself drinking every day. Were you doing it because it was fun? Or did it have more to do with depression or some other nasty mental state? Or if I'm prying too much just tell me to eff off

Everyone asks that. I don't have a good answer. The best one I've come up with is that it was just something to do. I don't really have many worries in my life, but what worries I have didn't bother me when I was drunk. That could be part of it. At first it was fun I guess, but it turned into being just how I expected to feel when I was home. Home = drunk and that was all there was to it. It sorta loses that special something when being drunk becomes an every day thing. Eventually I was passing all my waking hours in a hungover daze or drunk and didn't want to exert myself mentally or physically. It seemed just fine to go on as I was forever. Anything else, including quitting, felt like work and possibly beyond my ability. After a while you just stop thinking more than a few hours into the future because you lose the mental capacity to do so. In that state you need no reasons, because you quickly forget what it is you're trying to prove.

 

[skyking]

Originally posted by: GodlessAstronomer
Slitherdee, if you don't mind me asking, what prompted you to want to get drunk 7 nights a week? I'm a 23-year-old student and I love to get on the chop with my mates once or twice a week, but I can't see myself drinking every day. Were you doing it because it was fun? Or did it have more to do with depression or some other nasty mental state? Or if I'm prying too much just tell me to eff off

GodlessAstronomer, I think you are discounting the genetic predisposition for compulsive behavior. Since you lack that component, you don't understand it. You can decide to get a buzz on with your friends or not. My dad, some of his brothers, my brother, and I could not do that.
An alcoholic does not even think about it. He/she stops at the bar or the store and gets started. For them it is like smoker with a cigarette. It just gets smoked.
It takes a conscious effort to NOT get started.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Originally posted by: alkemyst
unless diagnosed too many are quick to judge someone an alcoholic and oddly many think they are one when they are just trying to brag in some sick way.

Only on with a drinking problem is someone that can't handle their booze. Should stick to shirley temples instead of talking about Stella.

Man, that was barely coherent.

Spoken like a true Alky...

 

[rise]

Originally posted by: GodlessAstronomer
You say it's not a sign of weakness that you can't control your drinking. I would contend that your reliance on a "higher power", the need to consult a being that exists entirely in your crippled mind is a sign of weakness. A mental weakness that manifests itself in both your reliance on a fairy tale to get you from day to day, and your tendency to overindulge in alcohol. Flame me if you will, but this is my opinion.

haha, that's messed up. i know many people, very successful people, family members who "rely" on a higher power who aren't drunks. they have the "on/offf" switch when it comes to booze. they can have a couple, several or none and it doesn't matter. me, different story.

i don't expect any non-alcoholic to understand it, it's something that you can't pretend to understand.

and not everyone in AA is a bible thumping preacher. i ask my understanding of God for help in the morning and thank Him at night.

so you're above that, good for you elephant.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Originally posted by: skyking

Originally posted by: GodlessAstronomer
Slitherdee, if you don't mind me asking, what prompted you to want to get drunk 7 nights a week? I'm a 23-year-old student and I love to get on the chop with my mates once or twice a week, but I can't see myself drinking every day. Were you doing it because it was fun? Or did it have more to do with depression or some other nasty mental state? Or if I'm prying too much just tell me to eff off

GodlessAstronomer, I think you are discounting the genetic predisposition for compulsive behavior. Since you lack that component, you don't understand it. You can decide to get a buzz on with your friends or not. My dad, some of his brothers, my brother, and I could not do that.
An alcoholic does not even think about it. He/she stops at the bar or the store and gets started. For them it is like smoker with a cigarette. It just gets smoked.
It takes a conscious effort to NOT get started.

That's an interesting way of putting it, I'd never considered that before. However, I am a smoke so I suppose I can understand the compulsion to some degree.

 

[skyking]

Originally posted by: GodlessAstronomer

Originally posted by: skyking

Originally posted by: GodlessAstronomer
Slitherdee, if you don't mind me asking, what prompted you to want to get drunk 7 nights a week? I'm a 23-year-old student and I love to get on the chop with my mates once or twice a week, but I can't see myself drinking every day. Were you doing it because it was fun? Or did it have more to do with depression or some other nasty mental state? Or if I'm prying too much just tell me to eff off

GodlessAstronomer, I think you are discounting the genetic predisposition for compulsive behavior. Since you lack that component, you don't understand it. You can decide to get a buzz on with your friends or not. My dad, some of his brothers, my brother, and I could not do that.
An alcoholic does not even think about it. He/she stops at the bar or the store and gets started. For them it is like smoker with a cigarette. It just gets smoked.
It takes a conscious effort to NOT get started.

That's an interesting way of putting it, I'd never considered that before. However, I am a smoke so I suppose I can understand the compulsion to some degree.

Yes indeed. Think about it next time you light up. I quit drinking, but the idea of drinking in moderation is ridiculous to me.
Try smoking a few cigs a couple of nights a week. I would bet that would be a real bummer!

 

[thirtythree]

I quit drinking for a little over a month recently, but that's my record since turning 21 (granted, I'm only 22, about to turn 23). For the most part, I don't drink more than a few drinks in a day, but sometimes I get up to, say, 8. Not terrible, but I'd rather not feel compelled to drink every day.

 

[rise]

Originally posted by: Ronstang
Lack of self control and will power are character flaws, not a disease. If you can't handle alcohol and you know it but choose to drink anyway then it is your own fault, you are not a victim. You can develop self control and will power if you desire but not if you continue to paint yourself as a victim claiming you have a disease. Alcoholics Anonymous' program is flawed from the beginning convincing people they are victims.

jeeebus, the ignorance is strong in this one.

 

[rudeguy]

Originally posted by: techs

Originally posted by: rudeguy

Originally posted by: jemcam
Rudeguy, remember it's attraction not promotion. These discussions never end well.

Agreed.

Agree also.
Yet, just posting about it may get some people to thinking.

And for those who have disdain for AA you should understand that no one in AA ever makes you go, and that if a judge sends you to AA its not AA's doing.
If you don't like AA, fine and dandy.
And if someone in AA has pissed you off with their "zealousness", well, that's not AA talking, that's that particular person.

If anyone gets the idea from this thread that maybe they should look at how much and how often they drink, then its been a success.

Thanks man. I didn't mean for this to be a thread about AA. I purposefully put that anyone who thinks they have a problem should seek help however they see fit. I fucking hate alcoholism. It tears families apart and kills many great people. I meant it when I said I would do anything I could to help someone in need. That includes putting myself out there for flaming.

 

[djheater]

I would propose that there are no effective litmus tess for alcoholism. While there are levels of alcohol dependance we can all agree on there are probably levels of actual dependance that we can not all agree on, thus the aphoristic 'functional alcoholic'.

We are geared, from an elementary, evolutionary, level to enjoy things. Some more than others.

I find this Drunk Monkeys video very informative.

 

[CRXican]

Originally posted by: thirtythree
I quit drinking for a little over a month recently, but that's my record since turning 21 (granted, I'm only 22, about to turn 23). For the most part, I don't drink more than a few drinks in a day, but sometimes I get up to, say, 8. Not terrible, but I'd rather not feel compelled to drink every day.

sounds like you're off to a dangerous start

hard to stop I know

 

[rise]

,