Alcoholics Anonymous is...

submitted by JasonCarswell from self.Research

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[–]JasonCarswell[S] 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

No. It came up in passing conversation. IIRC, it worked for his one sibling but not for his other, and I said that AA has its pros and cons and that it's not all that it's sold to us as. Then he wouldn't hear anything critical or skeptical about it and said I was always negative, despite knowing that's not true. Either he was tired and cranky, triggered by something else, or is defending the AA institution for unknown reasons.

Saturday nights we have our Freedom Mingle, and to remain productive and clear headed I'm trying this year sober. He got pretty stumbling drunk, especially for a 75 year old in good shape. I'm pretty certain he doesn't have a drinking problem, but perhaps in the past, maybe. I didn't want him driving so I drove his car to his house and crashed in his Lay-Z-Boy in his livingroom instead of my comfortable bed - plus the next day I could use his computer a bit before going to the big auto-workers freedom meeting. This flare up was after that on the way to dropping me off so he could go on to his late shift.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Not worth fighting over AA unless someone is trying to send you imo, and even then I think it's worth checking out. Frankly, I think when people bad mouth AA without going they actually give ammunition to the AA supremacy crowd. There's lots of good criticisms about AA, but people who don't go often cite their issue with the reliance on a Higher Power in the literature, but I've never been to a particularly religious meeting. Nobody cared if you decided your HP was a coffee mug.

This issue with all these treatment programs is that people have been led to believe there's some method, some procedure, that makes quitting an addiction less awful than simply tapering, stopping and suffering till it passes.

Many addicts who have never gone see rehab as some sort of magical place that could fix them only if they could afford it.

That's why you can't make an addict quit. It's a constant unpleasant suffering that can last months or years, and you can fix it with "just one drink." (It's never just one drink) You need to want it bad enough to endure.

Wooo, writing that has made me downright thirsty.