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AA gets downgraded

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by TigerVols, Mar 24, 2014.

  1. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    I have two close friends who have been sober for more than a decade.

    One, had a DUI scare and quit drinking the next day. No program. He swears he hasn't touched the stuff since.

    The other, goes to meetings on most days.
     
  2. SixToe

    SixToe Well-Known Member

    I quit drinking and driving more than 25 years ago after waking up one morning, thinking I had hit and dragged someone under my car and going out immediately to see if that was true. I even looked under the front of the car despite there being no indications of anything. Scared the shit out of me. I still drink, but I don't drive.

    If AA works for someone, more power to them.
     
  3. MisterCreosote

    MisterCreosote Well-Known Member

    Between 40 and 50 percent of people who attend AA drop out within a year.

    I'd bet the success rate among those people is almost the same as those who stick with it.

    None of that is directly attributable to either the program or the absence of one.
     
  4. bigpern23

    bigpern23 Well-Known Member

    I've attended AA meetings to support two people close to me and, while the reference to God may be "qualified," the religious element plays a big part of it. Unfortunately, that aspect served as an excuse for both of them to never attend another session.

    From an interloper's perspective, I wonder if the religion part of it hurts the process more than it helps. Addicts are already given the understanding they suffer from a disease (my views on this are a bit unfocused and complicated), so adding God as a "savior," upon whom they can rely to keep them from relapsing strikes me as another way for addicts cede responsibility for their decisions.

    Both of the people I attended AA with said they would have been more likely to go back if not for the pressure to accept God as a savior.

    Of course, both said they wanted to go back to the "good ol' days," when they could just drink socially and not get bombed every time they had a drink. Neither recognized the reality that no one else drinks socially at 7:30 a.m.

    Alcoholism is truly a bitch. I don't understand it. I see these two people, who have so much to lose because of it, and I can't fathom how they continue to choose to drink.
     
  5. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    Alcoholics Anonymous itself is a religion. And religions are shams.
     
  6. joe

    joe Active Member

    The folks who drink at 7:30 a.m. show up at the bright orange cinderblock Pasttime, aka The Jug, in Jacksonville at 6 a.m. for $1 cans until 9 a.m. Drinking that early makes the rest of the day all kinds of fuzzy.
     
  7. DanOregon

    DanOregon Well-Known Member

    Tell me what the second best program is and I'll listen. And Ted Williams failed six times out of ten and he's the greatest hitter who ever lived. All I know is that it has worked for people I know and perhaps its greatest contribution is that it never lets anyone think they are "cured." It isn't a spa you can can spend six weeks at forget about. You work at it the rest of your life.
    Believe in a higher power, believe in yourself I don't care - I know there are non-God groups - it's a support group for people who don't want alcohol to dominate their lives.
     
  8. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    Ted Williams is not the greatest hitter who ever lived.
     
  9. Buck

    Buck Well-Known Member

    If the success rate is 5-10 percent, then it's got a better success rate than dieting.

    Is there an affordable option for most people that has a better success rate?

    How are we defining success? Relapse? Dropping out of the program? What about people who come back?
     
  10. old_tony

    old_tony Well-Known Member

    I'd really like to know how they arrive at their numbers. If a guy joins AA and gets 25 years sober and then falls off the wagon and gets drunk, does that mean the previous 25 years were a failure of the program? And what if he then goes on for another 10 years of sobriety?

    I also get the impression that people who show up for one meeting and aren't committed to recovery are counted as failures.

    AA works for those who are truly committed to it working. But you get a shitload of people who go to a meeting or two either by court order or to appease someone and are not committed to stopping drinking.
     
  11. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    That's a very valid comparison. In both cases, there are people who are truly committed to succeeding and quite a few of them who are there because someone told them they should go and they're not committed to it.
     
  12. MisterCreosote

    MisterCreosote Well-Known Member

    Look at it like quitting smoking:

    Cold turkey has a success rate of around 10 percent.

    However, more than 90 percent of the smokers who successfully quit did it cold turkey.
     
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