So, What Made Me an Addict?

paranoid android said:
Id definitely agree with you there most people who ive seen go to AA relapse so goddamn often it's not even funny. Hell the AA meeting place in my town is on the same street as a bar and ive seen people walk straight out of the AA meeting and go right to the bar and get drunk.
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I have seen this as well, and believe that there are many in AA/NA that are not really recovered. I have attended a few meetings and from what I gatther they actually believe that they don't ever recover, instead are forever "recovering." Its interesting, I just watched "Jesus Camp," and was actually in the midst of discussion on another thread as how religion can function as a drug as well (see here), as such obviously it would seem to help some people. I do think there is a certain level of self delusion and/or group delusion involved in many of these programs. What I would take issue with is how many times these AA/NA programs are court ordered, an obvious violation of the separation of church and state.
 
you shouldn't judge an entire group based up on a few people. just because you see people in one isolated group going to the bar after a meeting must mean everyone that goes to AA relapses all the time? so that would mean that because you see a bum sleeping on the sidewalk means everyone in that city is homeless? if you spontaneously recovered and are happy with your life good for you, you obviously didn't need any extra help. as for me(and millions of other people in the program), i wanted to stop badly but couldn't. but with the help of AA i've been sober and happy too. i don't really know what there is to argue about. different things work for different people. nobody ever said that any certain way is the be all end all of recovery, there is no pill to take that makes you not want to abuse drugs and alcohol (yet). whatever works for you, works. don't knock something just because it didn't work for you or you didn't need it. i don't agree with everything in AA, but its really helped me a lot
 
absent minded said:
you shouldn't judge an entire group based up on a few people. just because you see people in one isolated group going to the bar after a meeting must mean everyone that goes to AA relapses all the time? so that would mean that because you see a bum sleeping on the sidewalk means everyone in that city is homeless? if you spontaneously recovered and are happy with your life good for you, you obviously didn't need any extra help. as for me(and millions of other people in the program), i wanted to stop badly but couldn't. but with the help of AA i've been sober and happy too. i don't really know what there is to argue about. different things work for different people. nobody ever said that any certain way is the be all end all of recovery, there is no pill to take that makes you not want to abuse drugs and alcohol (yet). whatever works for you, works. don't knock something just because it didn't work for you or you didn't need it. i don't agree with everything in AA, but its really helped me a lot
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You're missing the point people are making entirely. I don't think there is a person on this board that thinks AA/NA shouldn't exist. What people are fucking pissed about is the idea that many people have, the government in particular, that it is AA/NA or bust. The government shouldn't be mandating a particular group(hell they shouldn't be mandating at all). If they're going to do it all they should tell you is to get treatment, HOWEVER YOU FEEL WILL HELP YOU.

All we really want is to see more options. Like you've said AA helps some, but for those it doesn't we would really like somewhere else to turn.
 
^^ Exactly, there's no arguement that it can help some people. Its just that there are other programs out there. Two good examples would be RR (Rational Recovery), which stresses recovery without religion and MDA (Moderate Drinkers Anonymous), which allows members to still drink occasionally, just not to excess. MDA of course is still a religous group like AA/NA, that doesn't exactly admit it. I quit drinking on my own, completely, with only a little help from my gf, and found AA not very helpful because of its "Higher Power doesn't have to be God" and then the whole "God this and God that" talking in there really turned me off. IMO, If you're a religous person, of course it can work for you, but I think its really wrong how forced on people like it is by the courts and in the jails where its often the only way for people to get out of their cells other than actual church services. There's always such an attitude that its the only way to quit, and to be honest, that whole attitude is another thing that I didn't like anout it. I gotta say, for someone like me, AA or NA would most likely not help, especially if it was forced on me. Years ago, they used to give tokens for attending those meetings, and some of the bars would give out free drinks for them.
 
Ok, I have a few things to say about this issue. I've gone to AA/NA (primarily AA) for years. I'm almost 22 now... was first introduced to the program when I was 18 and have had various stretches of sobriety and rehab in between.

I am currently using at the moment - after 10 months of sobriety I just couldn't take it anymore, I was just too bored and the cliches in the program were just getting me pissed... my sponsor and I never really saw eye to eye on lots of issues and it ended up in my taking a drink like a month ago. HOWEVER.

I beleive that you get out of AA what you put into it. If you're not actually WORKING the steps, and being honest, and turning it over, you're not going to see results. It says in the Big Book (which is an excellent publication) that "our sobriety, if any, will be precarious" unless we do these things. Now don't get me wrong I'm not a posterboy for AA because in the last few months I could hardly stand it anymore, but that was mainly just working the program. In terms of the friends I had in the program, it was great. We would just kick it on friday night, play cards, go to movies, just whatever. Talk about the old times.

Who wants to be rigorously honest? To admit defeat? To acknowledge their problems? Most people would rather avoid it.. and recovery isn't easy! THAT is why I started to deteriorate in my program, I just felt I couldnt do it forever...

But I did get on my knees and pray most every morning for a long stretch, and it most certainly helps. If you've never done it, then thats fine. But there is something about the act of it, that is just releiving. It makes you feel better.

As far as God being real or not, and people here trying to say there is proof that God is not real (Adrenochrome)... please. Are you serious? Who are you to say there is no God? I am thankful that AA has broadened my horizons in this respect. Just to be open minded.

Anyway I don't know if I'll end up going back in the future... I'd like to avoid it, though once again it did me a lot of good being there for the time I was. Right now my use isn't that terribly bad although I have been taking lots of stupid risks after drinking.
 
trancedeviate said:
As far as God being real or not, and people here trying to say there is proof that God is not real (Adrenochrome)... please. Are you serious? Who are you to say there is no God?
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Who am I to say there is no God? I am a person, with a brain. I cannot ever say that there is no God, but what I can say is that as things stand right this instant there is no reason(total, utter lack of evidence) to believe in a God.
 
trancedeviate said:
But I did get on my knees and pray most every morning for a long stretch, and it most certainly helps. If you've never done it, then thats fine. But there is something about the act of it, that is just releiving. It makes you feel better.
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And all this, which I'm sure is very true, goes right along with the arguement that religion is just as mind altering as many drugs. In fact studies show that practicing of religion actually does alter brain chemistry. ...Although not always for the better, as most evident in "Jesus Camp."
 
So, What Made Me an Addict?
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Most of the responses above are way off topic.
What makes someone an addict is the size of the 'parking spot' in their brain. It either stays and parks or moves on. Thats the only way I learned how to explain it.
 
^^Its not so far off topic after all, AA/NA just puts God in that 'parking spot', even if they don't admit it. But you, don't need religion to beat addiction, just something else to occupy your mind, a hobby, relationship, new job, new lifestyle, many of these things, religion included, alter brain chemistry in ways similar to the drugs we so often become addicted to. Ultimately, though, with an empty 'parking spot,' or an empt life will make way for addiction.
 
Broshious said:
Who am I to say there is no God? I am a person, with a brain. I cannot ever say that there is no God, but what I can say is that as things stand right this instant there is no reason(total, utter lack of evidence) to believe in a God.
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All I really meant was that you can just as easily beleive in God, as you can beleive against God. I mean, there is no evidence either way. I'll tell you one thing, it did make life a hell of a lot easier for me.

Mulberryman - You're exactly right. Just as drugs and booze brainwash alcoholics and addicts into thinking that it's okay, and preferable to live their lives perpetually fucked up, AA 'brainwashes' people out of that kind of thinking and back into a semblance of normality. Pretty simple really.
 
Well i think everyone who kicks drugs or booze just has to reach a point where they just don't want the shit anymore and that's that. If you get sick of whatever substance your taking you will eventually quit.

In the end alcohol was getting me into so much trouble that i was goddamn lucky i didnt end up doing a long stint in jail or end up dead. I just could not go out and have a drink or 2 i had to have as much drinks as i could put in me. Often id end up having 20 some odd drinks and keep drinking till after dawn. I used to drink myself sober for godsakes because id switch over to beer at the end of a binge and just kinda soften the crash.

I decided i didnt wanna end up as some stupid dead end jakey so i quit and that was that. I didnt need AA because i didnt need someone to tell me something i already know about myself. Some people do get some benefit out of AA though but the same thing doesn't work for everyone.

So im not judging a whole group of people just from what ive seen and experienced myself. It's just that kind of stuff isn't for me.
 
trancedeviate said:
All I really meant was that you can just as easily beleive in God, as you can beleive against God. I mean, there is no evidence either way. I'll tell you one thing, it did make life a hell of a lot easier for me.
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Are you forgetting evolution???

Oh ya god made the world with adam and eve, right

smoke anotherone alter boy
 
Wow, lots of diferent opinions here!

I attended AA for 5 years and remained completely drug/alcohol free for about 12 years.

I was told you could use the God thing as Good Orderly Direction if you had that much trouble with religion.

People can argue intil there is a blue moon but when the shit really hits the fan where do you go?

I chose AA over NA because at that time ('91) NA was just getting started in Canada. It worked for me. I found the main benefit I got from it was finding ways to fill the void left from using. I learned what 'normal' people did for fun. I went back to school and actually graduated with a degree.

I found the higher power thing was beneficial in the sense that it allowed me to relax and not try to control everything/everybody all the time. It was a relief for me and over time as my life improved I found I actually gained some faith that maybe there was something to all this.

Then I had a stillborn son. i became very angry (to put it mildly) at my 'higher power' and basically denounced it. Stopped going to meetings and eventually ended up relapsing after 12 years of clean time.
 
Addiction is a learned behavior, not a disease. I don't buy into that whole disease thing and how the people at NA and AA meeting say that your powerless. Thats a crock of shit. And fuck that God Orderly Direction and God shit they teach you as well. Where the fuck was God when I shot up in under street light after walking 4 miles at 1am for a fucking bag? The only good orderly direction I had was from my dealer that night as I made my way to his house in the dark. Sure there might be a God, but he's nothing but a kid with a fucking ant farm.
 
edarrin said:
People can argue intil there is a blue moon but when the shit really hits the fan where do you go?
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But they only can go to AA/NA because often there is nowhere else. There are other programs out there, like RR (Rational Recovery) which I mentioned earlier, but when the courts order people to go to AA/NA, and AA keeps growing and growing until there's millions of groups worldwide, the other groups often get left in the dust. Also, the attitudes I've seen from AA members is often that RR cannot work because they don't have God, and if GOD really means Good Orderly Direction. they still will say that RR doesn't have this, and so it can't help anyone. Of course, all this is flat out false, and mirrors religious attitudes of how only Chrisitans get to go to heaven, or how killing non-Muslims is not really murder, and so forth.

Bottom line, sure AA/NA can help some people, but probably only those able to accept religious ideas, and really should not be promoted by the state as it is, and definitly not forced upon people.
 
AA is just something I'd rather not have part of societ's image of drugs (and drug use); as much as drugs is a part of our culture so then are the rehabs (which predominately are '12-step' based), I think there are a lot of people in society who have the image they conjure-up when they think of drugs mottled by '12-step' archetypes.
(haha i just smoked a joint so i'm sorry if wasn't articulated right)
lol
 
^^ Well the problem, it seems is that AA is just all to prevalent, and all too often there are no other options, and AA or NA is usually the first thing suggested. From within the meetings they are adamant that alcoholism/addiction is a disease, and that the only way to cure it is to have God. I don't buy the arguement about God meaning Good Orderly Direction, anyone whos stays in the program long enough will become religous. Geez, they end those meetings with The Lord's Prayer, how much more obviously religious can you get. Now its been said that there are supposedly some meetings in NYC or wherever, where this is not the case, but I have never IME seen an "atheist AA" meeting anywhere I have been. The problem then is that they claim addiction is a disease, and then they say the only cure is God, but this is rediculous. You don't send someone with cancer to a church. I don't doubt that the roots of addiction can be identified with altered levels of brain chemicals, but if God is the only cure for neurotransmitter imbalances, then why is there no schitzophrenic's anonymous? Like I said before, I truly believe AA/NA is really not much more than a substituion program, a way to develop an obsessive behaviour pattern that takes the place of drugs. If a person can become passionately interested in flying model airplanes, for example, than they most likely can overcome their addiction, but someone who has no interest in flying model airplanes will not be cured this way. Likewise, someone who can become passionately interested in God and AA/NA will likely overcome addicition, but someone who doesn't beleive in God will most likely not succeed in this program.
 
Crazeee said:
Brilliant, so true. I never understand why all rehab programs insist on turning to religion and god for help 8)
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As Marx said,"Religion is the opium of the masses"; all they are doing is swapping one dependance (drugs) for another (God). Either way you're abdicating responsibility for your life, saying that anything negative that happens is because of ***** (my drug addiction, the will of god etc).

Just wondering how good CBT (cognative behaviour therapy) would be as it involves not dwelling on thoughts and acting on them. It's apparently hust about the best treatment for OCD, so I'd imasgine that it'd work for drug dependance as well
 
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