What methods or programs have you or others used to get and stay sober?

[skipos]

If you want to just answer that question, I'd appreciate it. The more information the better. If you want to see why I am asking, read below.

I need advice for helping an alcoholic friend of mine. I am not looking for some simple solution to her problem, because I am pretty sure it doesn't exist. I am wondering if there are methods or approaches that she hasn't tried that may be more helpful. Here is what I can tell you about her:
- she is 40, and has struggled with alcohol since she was a teen
- the last 10 years she has been in and out of various inpatient and outpatient progams, homeless shelters, AA, etc
- her family has given up
- she has no money
- she is very intelligent and skilled, but at best can only get minimum wage type jobs because of her problem
- she usually loses that job because of alcohol
- doesn't drink every day, but does get obliterated on alcohol once a week
- she doesn't blame any one else for her problems
- she isn't in denial about her problems
- she knows there isn't a quick fix to this
- she has been able to stay sober for months when she has no choice (inpatient programs, working on some farm in the middle of nowhere, being in prison) but she doesn't do well once she is out in the real world
- she admits that she does better when someone else is making decisions for her and telling her what to do
- she seems to genuinely want to beat this, but doesn't know what to do

My feeling (and hers) is that she enters these hardcore programs for a couple of weeks or months and gets sober, but as soon as she is on her own she can't handle it. I think she needs to follow these dedicated programs with something else that continues to give her structure, support and discipline, but AA hasn't been enough.

Any ideas or suggestions would be very appreciated.
Thanks.

[Junkdrawer]

1. AA n/t

[Tikki]

6. My adult son and his SO...

are clean and sober through help from AA and their dedication...6 years each.
I decided 5 years ago to drink no more alcohol in honor of their sobriety. Haven't missed it at all.


Tikki

[michreject]

64. 16 years for me

And 12 on cigarettes.

[jmowreader]

36. Let me understand this:

The OP stated very clearly that she wasn't helped by AA, and the first thing that came out of your fingers was AA?

[Iggo]

41. The OP asked....

"What methods or programs have you or others used to get and stay sober?"

And immediately after that said: "If you want to just answer that question, I'd appreciate it."

Relax.

[jmowreader]

47. And toward the bottom...

"Any ideas or suggestions you have (for dealing with someone for whom AA ain't doing it) are welcome."

Translation, at least to me: "Is there anything besides AA?"

My initial recommendation would be to find a sympathetic cop. Take the person to a bar, get her totally wrecked, then have the sympathetic cop throw her ass in the drunk tank over a weekend. But since the woman has been in jail and it doesn't seem to help o a long-term basis, that won't work.

The only thing you could do at this point for her, from my POV, would be to figure out some way to structure her life so she's never left to her own devices and she's worked so hard she doesn't have time to drink. Taking away her money won't work; a serious alcoholic will find liquor money somehow. The question is, does the OP really want to have to spend every moment acting as his brother's (well, sister's) keeper?

[EFerrari]

92. Even it that were possible, it doesn't work. n/t

[Junkdrawer]

80. See post #5

It's a rare bird that gets sober in AA the first try.

[EFerrari]

91. Lots of people aren't helped by AA the first times out.

It took my mom about 7 years and after she tried or didn't try everything else.

[Hansel]

123. I was never helped by AA.

Some people do not fit into AA's stringent definition of being an alcoholic nor does it have the answers for everyone. Alcohol never had control over me and I was not powerless nor did I need to let go and let God. I used alcohol as medication. I needed to resolve a very traumatic personal experience I had gone through when I was a teenager and the additional problems that piled up because of my attempts to self-medicate by drinking.

It was not until I stopped blaming my drinking for my problems and started confronting and addressing the problems that I used alcohol and drugs to try to escape from that I began to heal. Focusing on the drinking and pretending it was my primary problem served only to avoid addressing the real issues I was having.

Once I started going to counseling to address the horrific incident that started me drinking I was able to start to overcome the drinking. Switching from alcohol and drugs to antidepressants as a more rational medication and then spending years in one-on-one therapy addressing not my alcoholism but the traumatic experiences that had piled up in my life saved me from dying in a gutter due to alcohol poisoning.

Different personalities of the drinker and different causes for drinking need to be evaluated before a person can be adequately treated. AA is great for a certain subset of people. It can also be a death sentence for others. I do have a drink or two a year without ANY fear of becoming an alcoholic. Some years I don't drink at all. I drink if it sounds good only, not because I need it.

When I was at my worst, I drank over a 6 pack of beer and a pint or more of gin a day. I drank before I went to work, during lunch and after I got off work. One day I tried to chug a gallon of gin. I also no longer take antidepressants and have developed very good coping skills. If I ever again feel the need to medicate neither alcohol, cigarettes or street drugs will be my drug of choice. Most likely I will set up some counseling sessions to determine what it triggering my subconscious choice to disregard good coping mechanisms.

My fiance died at a young age because he kept being told that all of his symptoms were the result of his alcoholism by his AA group. He finally succumbed to a late stage brain tumor that was discovered once his symptoms were so advanced there was no longer anything they could do for him.

I also had a neighbor who I tried for months to convince to go to a psychiatrist to address his depression caused by horrific issues in his childhood. He had been in and out of treatment many times for alcoholism and was told never to take antidepressants because of risk of addiction. He died in a fire caused by passing out in a drunken stupor with a lit cigarette in hand a couple of weeks after my last attempt to get him to go to a medical doctor.

This is not an effort to dis AA for I know many people who have saved their lives through the program. My son is a drug and alcohol counselor and says it works very well for some but definitely it is not the cure all for everyone. My recommendation would be to get this person professional counseling and medical help. Her issues might not be ones that can be addressed by AA or RR (Rational Recovery). She might have clinical depression, deep traumatic issues or physical medical problems that need addressing.

[vadawg]

2. the only thing that works is that she wants to beat it, if not then you are wasting your time

are you sure that she wants to stop drinking.........

[Junkdrawer]

5. Yep. I tried AA three times(over a period of 10 years) before it "took"

The 1st time, I was convinced it was just a "cult"...

The 2nd time, I knew AA was OK, but that I wasn't finished yet...

The 3rd time, I was scared shitless and was willing to do "AA on AA's terms"...


Sober since 1988...

[vadawg]

8. yup i got a lot of drunks in my block, i can always tell the ones who will make it sober

just by the way they talk about the program, i honestly think its all about getting to that point were you are scared enough to do what you need to do....

[Warpy]

18. Twenty one years is a great achievement

done one lousy day at a time. The only good part is that the days get progressively less lousy the more of them you pile up.

Congratulations!

[Junkdrawer]

19. Thanks

:hi:

[astral]

39. me too

It doesn't matter how many times one has tried and failed so long as they are willing to try one more time. I have seen MIRACLES. It works, the person must want it bad because a program doesn't do anything for you, you do the program to reap the benefit.

One day at a time
one minute at a time sometimes

don't drink between meetings

Do the program, stay with the people who are practicing it, get phone numbers, REPLACE your social hours with time doing sober stuff with sober people. It's not easy to quit obviously.

It can be hard to really really hang on with both hands if you are not suffering that much from not quitting. There are people known as 'maintenance drinkers' who don't seem to go downhill but don't stay off it, maybe they just drink a little every day, maybe they drink alot on occasion, well, that's a little different from a maintenance drinker.

I do believe, however, the only person who can really help an alcoholic is another alcoholic, when it comes to the long haul. Someone who knows what it's like, who understands what's so hard about stopping AND staying stopped.

You do have to replace the old behavior with new behavior.

[Th1onein]

106. God bless the ones that it does work for, but.......

statistics show that you have less of a chance of quitting drinking if you go to even one AA meeting than if you don't go to any at all.

About a decade ago, AA commissioned a firm to do a study on the efficacy of their program. But, when the results were shown to them, they chose not to publish them and forbade the company that did the study to published them, as well. Wonder why?

[FreakinDJ]

3. Jail works pretty good

Hate to say it but it is people like you enabling her behavior that allows her to keep going down that same path.

Alcholics left to their own devices will crash and burn quite readily and in short order. Most do not wake up to the consequences of their actions until looking at doing some serious jail time.

[Hekate]

21. A single overnighter on a DUI helped my ex tremendously

Before we moved here he had been pulled over several times, warned, pointed toward home and let go without consequences.

When we moved to SoCal he got pulled over, cited, and put in jail overnight to sober up. As far as I know, he never drank before driving again, and that was 30 years ago. I don't know how long after that it took him to give up the sauce entirely, but he finally did it.

That one night in jail kept our kids from becoming orphans, as far as I'm concerned.

Hekate

[Iggo]

42. Jail's a start for some.

Me included...lol.

[Obamanaut]

48. Yup. 1978. And Miz O said quite clearly "Fix yourself. We're

not living like this anymore." And we haven't, and it's been good.

edited to remove an extra word

[sam sarrha]

50. yea..me too.. i blacked out on my first drink and woke up 28 years later to that.

[Swamp Rat]

4. "she seems to genuinely want to beat this"

From what I gather after reading your post, I do not believe this to be true.

[grasswire]

7. I am sorry for your friend..

...and I have no experience in telling people how to deal with the disease. All I know is that it is very hard to be a caretaker for an alcoholic and I urge you to be careful there.

I also would ask about her diet. The reason? I learned a few years ago that managing sugar sensitivity had a lot to do with managing addiction. A counselor found that she had far better success with alcoholic clients who ate the meal plan she recommended, and wrote books and developed programs around this phenomenon. Getting rid of sugars and white flour and eating regular meals is desirable when fighting addictions. Some people are endorphin-deficient, and fill that hole with addictive behavior to sugar (alcohol is metabolized as sugar). The body only makes endorphins through sugar, exercise, or sex.

Does she exercise? Far better to be addicted to that.

[jacko_be]

9. easy on

because she is broke and has no job
she has no money to by alcohol
I think i just found the solution
don't give her money just food...

[Coyote_Bandit]

10. Ummmm......

As much as I frickin LOVE a good buzz I've never had a problem with drugs or alcohol. I think there are two reasons for that: (1) I prefer to remain in control of my faculties and my circumstances to the extent possible and (2) I choose sobriety.

I realize that I may not be the best one to ask but I don't think you can make those choices for her - and I think whatever method is ultimately successful will require her to make those two choices.

I wish you both well. Addiction/alcoholism is an insidious disease.

[present and past]

23. Be Careful Using The Word "Disease."

<< Addiction/alcoholism is an insidious disease. >>

That justifies kleptomaniacs saying they have a disease. If you give them an inch, then other people will ask for 100 miles. Bernie Madoff, his wife and children will call themselves kleptomaniacs.

Alright, put aside those who directly hurt others. (Forcing your loved ones to watch you when you're drunk is less direct. Stealing is a direct cause of pain for the victim.) What about people with OCD? Are they entitled to say they suffer from an "insidious disease?"

Let's stay in the category of hurting yourself but not others. You can cite debilitating condition after debilitating condition even while you stay in that category. You can forgive (and thereby condone) a lot of behavior that is self - destructive but not directly harmful to others. What about people with sexual fetishes that are so strong they have to stay home as much as possible so they don't say inappropriate things to strangers who are holding fetishistic objects or wearing fetishistic clothes? Are they entitled to say they suffer from an insidious disease? With a recession going on, ANY condition that interferes with your getting or holding a job should be classified as a disease.

All of this shows you what irritates me about advocates for alcoholics and addicts and media talking heads who preach about them. (Linda Ellerbee is one.) They miss the fact that many alcoholics and addicts can get new jobs more easily and function at them much better than people with OCD and sexual fetishes.

Getting back to the person who started this thread, remember that that person's friend gets very drunk once a week, but he / she still has trouble functioning on the other six days of the week. That sounds like a possible learning disability. Just because a learning disability is not diagnosed during one's childhood doesn't mean it isn't there.

Let's have sympathy for adults in their 30s and 40s who might have learning disabilities that have never been recognized by a schoolteacher, psychological tester or medical doctor. A neurological exam or Wechsler IQ test is only as effective as the person who administers it. If a female administers the Wechsler test to a young, good-looking male, and if she vacillates about whether something is a sign of trouble, she is more likely to overlook it. She is more likely to think his possible problem is an example of him not being quite ready to become a man. So she tells the young man or his parents that nothing is wrong, and for years thereafter he cannot understand why he has so much trouble at job interviews and at the workplaces themselves.

"But we already had him tested for mental problems! It was years ago, and the nice lady said there's nothing wrong with him!" exclaim the elderly parents while they still support the son who is now in his 40s." Alcoholic or not, this happens a lot and it leads to homelessness. Advocates for alcoholics and addicts try to lump everyone together -- those who function beautifully with those who can't find a place to live because they don't understand what the potential landlord's lease says.

[rd_kent]

31. Agreed. A disease is something that one has no control over. Its a choice, not a disease.

Now, there may be addictive personalities, but thats not a disease. One can beat this "disease" by choosing not to drink. What other "diseases" can one beat by sheer willpower alone?

[FreakinDJ]

33. Many millions of successful Sober AA members can't be wrong

and they live sober by the "Disease Concept"

[rd_kent]

34. Hey, if believing it is a disease helps them, I'm ok with it.

But lets be real, it does not fit the definition of a disease. You dont "catch" it. Taking that drink is a CHOICE. Granted, it can be a difficult choice for some, but it is a choice. Name one other "disease" where a personal choice "cures" it.

[astral]

45. I firmly believe alcohol addiction is a disease

Some people can quit, some people can struggle to control it, some people die, some people drink and drink forever and don't seem to die even past the time you think they are going to.

Do you think living miserably addicted to alcohol, a substance which can kill you from the withdrawals if you are in the later stages of it, is a CHOICE? No, people do not choose to let alcohol slowly kill them and make them nonfunctional human beings. They have no choice.

Some people can decide to get help and succeed, some people need a physical intervention, and of course not everybody gets what they need nor even understands that alcohol is the problem.

If you are not an alcoholic, you don't know what it is like to want to stop and not be able to stop. Not everybody follows the same pattern, obviously, so it's a fuzzy line between not being able to make a choice and not choosing to make a choice to try to help yourself.

Not everyone is affected by alcohol the same way. Diabetes is clearly a disease, but for Type II diabetes, if you don't eat the wrong stuff you will probably be fine, in fact you can get diabetes from diet and life style choice while someone else doing the exact same thing does not get it.

Does that make Diabetes a non-disease because it is a 'choice?' Some people can drink alcohol without any issues and some people can not drink it without it taking over their lives. Is it a "choice" to be affected by alcohol more so than the next person?

It is a disease, no doubt. The Bible (I know, VERBOTEN topic!) tells that some people should not drink alcohol. It does not say, obviously, that NOBODY should drink alcohol.

[present and past]

63. You're carelessly trying to prove addiction is a disease by ...

using just one analogy, that of the careful diet people with Type 2 diabetes must follow. That is just one of many, many diseases.

Other than Type 2 diabetes, is there any other disease that goes away if the patient uses sheer willpower and nothing else?

No. Therefore, people who call addiction a disease are standing on a shaky foundation.

Many, many diseases are caused by careless behavior, including sex with strangers, but once they attack your body you need medication, intravenous chemotherapy at a doctor's office or surgery. In between doses of meds you need barium enemas or other tests so doctors can see if and how the meds are working. It is physically IM - possible for any form of cancer or HIV infection to just go away if the sick person stays away from all doctors and medical personnel.

It is physically POSSIBLE, on the other hand, for alcoholism to go away as long as the "sick" person uses sheer willpower to avoid alcohol. What about cirrhosis of the liver, you say? When an alcoholic gets that, then cirrhosis is the disease, not alcoholism. At that point you and your medical team must live in the present. Don't speculate on what would have happened if only you had done this or that differently. When cirrhosis (or esophageal cancer, etc.) happens, medical treatment is necessary. Should the sick person recover from the cirrhosis, then he/she must say hello to sheer willpower.

If you say chemical addiction is a disease, then what about addiction to shopping that becomes stealing? Call that a disease and then you have to call white-collar stealing a disease. Should Bernard Madoff and his wife be allowed to live in hospitals watching whatever cable TV channels and DVD discs they like? Victims of Madoff are truly suffering right now. How much do you suffer when you see your spouse or parent walking around drunk and vomiting?

[rd_kent]

114. If I take an alcoholic to a deserted island

where there is no booze and make him stay there, is he "cured". If I go to that desert island to check up on him, can I "catch" his disease? Some people are more perceptible to addiction, I agree with that, but one does not HAVE to consume alcohol. If there is no booze to drink then there is no more disease. How can THAT be a disease?

[laughingliberal]

82. Well, you don't 'catch' heart disease, either but it's no less a disease

there does seem to be a genetic predisposition to alcoholism and addiction. I would say just because we have not nailed down the myriad causative agents that may be involved does not mean they aren't there. They did, at one time, believe seizures were signs of demonic possession. In some areas we haven't moved much beyond that.

[rd_kent]

115. Yes, you can.

The choices one makes has an impact on whether one "catches" heart disease, ie. smoking, drinking. eating unhealthy and fatty foods, not exercising, etc. The heart disease is a result of behavior, much like cirrhosis is a result of a behavior.

[laughingliberal]

130. A deliberately obtuse response

There are plenty of people with genetic conditions that cause heart disease regardless of life style. Genetically based cardiomyopathy tends to affect people even when their life style does not suggest it and, often, at a very early age. My best friend who did not smoke, drink, eat fatty foods, and who did exercise and maintain an excellent weight and body fat ratio dropped dead of a heart attack at 48. We don't know why. Also, we have recently found a lot of cirrhosis is the result of hepatitis C infection (you can 'catch' that). In the past doctors were baffled by the fact that many alcoholic patients never developed cirrhosis while others, who drank no more than this group, did get it and often died of it. We now know that, in a large number of cases, the infection with hepatitis C was the difference. For many years, people with CFS or fibromyalgia have fought against labels of being lazy or malingerers. Just this past week our local news carried a story of the discovery of a retrovirus they have found in an overwhelming number of patients with these diagnoses. In the past year there was a study linking smoking related lung cancer to a genetic connection. Of course, if you don't smoke you won't get smoking related lung cancer but you won't get it without the genetic connection if you do smoke. And I have treated a number of lung cancer patients who neither smoked nor lived with smokers. One of the downsides to medical advances is we start to think we know it all. Many of the sacred cow medical 'facts' I learned in nursing school are now known to be false. I try not to judge. As for illnesses or conditions about which there are still questions it is best to keep a little of an open mind.

[jmowreader]

40. You know AA has a failure rate of about 95 percent, correct?

This is admitted to by the AA General Services Office itself. They claim that five percent of all the AA members who make it through the "trial period" of AA--where AA doesn't even acknowledge their presence because the dropout rate over the first few months is astronomical--make it to their second anniversary in the organization.

In other news, five percent of all alcoholics outside of AA quit drinking on their own. Something happens to them--they get thrown in jail for something they did while drinking, they get injured while drunk, their spouse walks out, whatever--that wakes their asses up, and they put the glass down once and for all.

If five percent of all alcoholics who join AA quit drinking, and five percent of alcoholics who never go to AA quit drinking, does AA work? I don't really think so. The secret is the "sincere desire" to quit drinking that AA talks about. This much is true--you must WANT to quit drinking before you WILL. If you have this sincere desire you will eventually quit drinking whether you're in a 12-step program, a non-12-step program, a one-step (just don't drink anymore) program or you just say "fuck it, I'm not drinking anymore." If your desire to stop drinking is NOT sincere, you won't stop no matter what you try.

[astral]

54. That 5% makes for alot of people.

AA works for some people. Maybe not all people. Would some of those who make it have been able to do it without AA? Probably. Would that mean they could have done it "alone?" Maybe some.

It is impossible to 'keep books' on the rate of alcohol recovery. Staying with the program but not being able to stay 100% free of alcohol would be a success in some people's 'book,' a failure in others' -- it is common for people to drink again between five and tens years totally sober. Many of those people do not give up just because they drank. Are they a success or a failure? Depends on how many times they drank? What happened to them when they did drink?

Rational Recovery believes that people can drink 'normally' after getting ahold of themselves. Are they successes? I do not understand that alcoholism has a 'cure' nor that anyone who could not drink normally before can change and drink normally later. Yet some people seem to do this.

If AA is such a failure why do so many treatment centers use the steps and tell people to continue in AA after they get out?

I tell you what, when someone is sober today and wants to remain sober, it is a miracle and a joy. Whether they have a day, a week, or 20 years, and never do you know whether that means they will stay sober for the rest of their life. It is still a miracle.

[DaveinJapan]

96. That comment on Rational Recovery is not accurate.

Perhaps you're thinking of some other program, but Rational Recovery demands complete abstinence forever, nowhere does it promote "drinking normally".

[FreakinDJ]

57. Doctors and Quacks alike know nothing else has as HIGH a SUCCESS RATE

Doctors and Quacks alike are scratching their heads trying to figuar out how to put it in a pill still

As for your statistics - they probably came off the "Scientology Website" - Good Luck on that 1

[jmowreader]

126. I can think of a doctor who is a quack who likes AA a lot

This gentleman's name is George Vaillant, MD, and he's a very high ranking member of AA World Services. In Vaillant's "The Natural History of Alcoholism: Causes, Patterns and Paths to Recovery," he describes a two-year study comparing eight studies of alcoholics. Three were "no treatment" studies--no AA, no nothing; four were treatment studies that did not include AA (which are unusual--most clinical alcoholism treatment systems include a 12-step component), and the last was purely AA. After two years:

Number in initial sample:
AA: 106 alcoholics
No treatment: 245 alcoholics
Non-AA treatment: 963 alcoholics

Number followed up:
AA: 100 alcoholics
No treatment: 214 alcoholics
Non-AA treatment: 685 alcoholics

Number who had become abstinent or gone to social drinking:
AA: 20 percent
No treatment: 17 percent
Non-AA treatment: 21 percent
This statistic has a problem: AA defines "success" as total abstinence. Because they have the two lumped together, we can't tell if all 20 percent are abstinent, five percent of the total population (which would be one person) or none at all.

Number who had cut down on their drinking, but who weren't abstinent or "social" drinkers:
AA: 13 percent
No treatment: 15 percent
Non-AA treatment: 16 percent

Number who were still abusing alcohol:
AA: 67 percent
No treatment: 68 percent
Non-AA treatment: 63 percent

This is at http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html#powerless_binge

At eight years, they also looked at the number of dead alcoholics. AA was at the top of the list--29 percent of all the alcoholics who went to AA treatment were dead, compared to around 20 percent of the ones who didn't.

This isn't a "high" success rate, and it's not something you need to work hard to put in a pill--a Finnish scientist named David Sinclair has it figured out. Naltrexone, an endorphin antagonist, is the key to the whole thing. Most of you guys and ladies who drink know the feeling of a good drunk--when it starts, you get all warm and happy. Then you might get irritable and excited, maybe violent...it all has to do with your individual endorphin response. Alcohol causes the body to release endorphins. These enter your endorphin receptors in the brain and cause the mental state of drunkenness. And then you drink more, and your neurological functions start to become affected. (If you want to know what your endorphin response is like without drinking a bottle of Jim Beam, go get a tattoo. If it hurts all the way through the process, you don't have any endorphin response and when you get drunk, all that will happen to you is you'll get numb and sleepy.) To use Sinclair's method, take some naltrexone before you drink. When you drink, you'll just get numb and sleepy. Since numb and sleepy isn't any fun, your drinking will taper off and eventually end. Sinclair's technique promises a 90 percent success rate--not five percent like AA gets, but 90. Sinclair does something AA does not do, and it's something that must be done if you're going to get someone to abstain from a fun thing: he makes the fun thing not-fun.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Alcohol,-Naltrexone,-and-the-Magic-of-Pharmacological-Extinction&id=2441191

I close with this anecdote about Bill W's final days. This is from Susan Cheever's "My Name is Bill: Bill Wilson, His Life and the Creation of Alcoholics Anonymous"--a very pro-AA book:

On James Dannenberg's log for December 25 — Bill Wilson's last Christmas Day — at six-ten in the morning, after a long night, the patient "asked for three shots of whiskey," Dannenberg noted. He also noted that Wilson was quite upset when he couldn't have what he asked for. There was no whiskey at Stepping Stones. A few days later he became belligerent and tried to punch the nurse. ...
On the seventh of January, Nurse Dannenberg noted that Bill had been visited by some family members and that after the visit he and Lois had an angry argument. The next morning Bill again asked him for whiskey. ...
By the fourteenth of January, Bill Wilson, a man who hadn't had a drink in almost thirty-seven years, a man who had discovered what is still the only successful way to treat alcoholism, was asking for whiskey again.

Apparently it doesn't work.

[michreject]

66. And most of those 95%ers

Come back, and keep coming back until they're either dead or part of the 5%. Those are the only options.

[jmowreader]

81. There's a third option that AA will not tell you about

Get away from their Buchmanite cult religion and just stop drinking.

Let me show you something. These are the Twelve Steps. You know them well, but let me put them up again.

Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol--that our lives had become unmanageable.
Step 2: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Step 3: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Step 4: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Step 5: Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Step 6: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Step 7: Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Step 8: Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Step 9: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Step 10: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Step 11: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out.
Step 12: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

That's a plan for a religious cult. It's not a plan for recovery because it fails to mention one very crucial Step:

Step...oh, one and a half: We decided to stop drinking the shit.

You guys in AA keep saying there's no possible way to quit drinking other than your group. I don't believe that's true. Nicotine is FAR more addictive than alcohol--NIH rates nicotine as the most addictive drug and alcohol 10th. (There's a fairly big difference, and I'll freely admit it: no one ever killed anyone with their car, beat the shit out of their wife or committed murder while they were high on Camels.) Every scientific study that's ever been done says nicotine is THE most addictive drug in the world. People do quit it, though, and 12 Stepping is probably the least popular way to do so. (Yes, there is a 12-step program for it.) What's the most popular way? Cold turkey. Put the cigs down and walk away. If it will work for tobacco it will work for alcohol.

[laughingliberal]

85. Ah, not all of us say there is no other way but our group

It is freely acknowledged even in the text of Alcoholics Anonymous that there were some rare cases that did recover even before AA was in existence. Most of the ones known about in those days had done it through affiliation with some sort of religious program. There were those who recovered through the old Oxford groups. The key, wrote the man speaking of it, was that these people seemed to have had some sort of spiritual experience which resulted in a total rearrangement of attitudes and ideas. The AA book, itself, does not say we have the total answer. It does state there will be those who require the full range of the healing sciences to recover.

[Warren DeMontague]

101. If you're interested in this topic, you might want to check out the following book:

http://www.amazon.com/Family-Secret-Fundamentalism-Heart-American/dp/0060559799

Goes, rather extensively, into the background and connections between the C Streeters of today and Moral Re-Armament, the so-called "Oxford Group", etc.

Sharlet never explicitly draws a connection to the genesis of the 12 step movement, but anyone who is familiar with the history will probably find it intriguing.

[laughingliberal]

84. I believe the failure rate is nowadays skewed by the huge numbers who are there by court order

In the days when I started the courts were not in the business of ordering people to AA, at least in my area. Now, it is SOP. When almost everyone who came in to AA was self referred (or pushed by family/friends) the odds were better. This, I suppose, is a reflection of the fact that it is more successful for those who have come to recognize a problem with their lives/drinking. I would think if you take out all the people who are forced in the success rate would still be about what it was 32 years ago when I started.

[woo me with science]

110. This is a very interesting point.

Thank you for posting this. I never thought about this before re: failure rates.

[cabluedem]

112. Bingo!!

[rd_kent]

118. But they are STILL making a CHOICE

not to drink. DO meth addicts have a disease?

[sam sarrha]

37. addiction is not a choice, it is a behavior that is repeated regardless of the knowledge that it

will kill you the next time you do it..

the word "Choice" is not found in the definition of Addiction. there is no choice, some people are lucky that they have a moment of 'Clarity' when bouncing on Rock Bottom... the VAST majority aren't that fortunate... only 7% of Tobacco smokers ever Quit.. 1200 a day die because of that addiction, 1080 were addicted as children, 540 were addicted at 12 years old or younger. they did not chose to die...

[rd_kent]

117. SO lets call it what it is, addiction, not a disease.

AN addiction and a disease are two different things.

DO people with an addiction to cocaine or meth have a "disease"?

[MilesColtrane]

76. Except you never "beat the disease" when you are an alcoholic.

You're either a drunk alcoholic or a sober alcoholic.

[FlyingSquirrel]

72. I'd suggest not jumping into conversations when you don't know what you're talking about.

n/t

[present and past]

107. I Know What I'm Talking About. ...

... I have seen people drink too much. I have seen people do community service after they were arrested for DUI, and they say they're not alcoholics. All anyone knows is how well they performed at their community service jobs. Employers are not allowed to set up surveillance cameras in their employees' favorite bars.

I have known men with learning disabilities that were never diagnosed by female psychological testers who tested them. These men have more trouble in the job market than many functioning "alcoholics." What about learning - disabled adults and THEIR issues?

[fishwax]

77. people w/ fetishes have difficulty finding jobs? Females are ineffective test administrators?

The things you learn on DU :shrug:

[present and past]

108. That's right, sexual fetishes can compel people to screw up ...

... their jobs just like the "disease" of alcoholism can. The person with the fetish does not necessarily have to find a consensual sex partner in order to have trouble. The person can respond sexually to various objects in a workplace or to the clothing worn by a certain co-worker or customer. That can distract the person to the extent that he/she cannot work fast enough. Hello, unemployment.

Yes, female psychological testers can behave very differently around male subjects than around female subjects. If a psychotherapist who has regular sessions with a patient for many months can lose his or her objectivity, then so can a psychological tester who meets each subject just once.

I've seen a female barber cut off a lot more of her male customer's hair than he requested. I've heard a female psychology major working at the campus suicide hotline tell a male phone caller to "man up."

People aren't perfect. That includes people whose job it is to label a total stranger "alcoholic" or "learning disabled" -- often in a letter to a health insurance company or Department of Vocational Rehab. Giving a man a short pep talk is part of many a woman's nature. That should take care of his problem.

Why is a male mental health worker more likely to believe everything a "troubled" woman tells him? Because female low self-esteem confirms a lot of what he has been taught.

How do you define "alcoholic" or "learning disabled?" Someone whose health insurance company or whose Medicaid case worker has received written confirmation that a label is accurate. "Sexual fetish?" That often gets transformed into "schizoaffective."

All of the above suggests what the best "treatment" for the "disease" of alcoholism is. Here's that "treatment." ANYONE whose life is going downhill for any reason -- soaked by booze or not -- must learn to take care of himself or herself. Only you can take care of you. Even your own mother has herself to worry about. Malcolm X, who used a lot of drugs and alcohol as a young man, said it best: "The first law of nature is self - preservation." Does Malcolm deserve the label of "recovering addict?" Forget that issue and repeat what he said about nature over and over.

[Coyote_Bandit]

90. There is considerable research

that shows that addiction and alcoholism often are accompanied by certain physical characteristics. As well as certain behavioral characteristics.

You oversimplify. Disease processes can and do influence behavioral choice. You might acknowlege that if we were talking about the exaggerated startle response of those with PTSD. Or the fearful and self protective behaviors of the paranoid. Choices are influenced by many factors - including physical condition and disease.

[present and past]

122. Choices "are influenced by many factors?" So drunken driving is just something that ... happens ?

<< Choices are influenced by many factors - including physical condition and disease. >>

Yet they are still choices. As long as you are over the age of 18, you are responsible for choices you make. You are you and somebody else is somebody else.

In a thread about drinking, we don't want to delve into the excuses of successful career people who have committed murder in a sudden fit of anger, do we? Dan White killing George Moscone and Harvey Milk. Jean Harris killing Herman Tarnower. White was not a problem drinker, nor was Harris. What about the physical characteristics that influenced THEIR behavior? Their sudden fits of anger? Once you say an "alcoholic" with three DUI arrests has a disease, then you're opening up the can of worms regarding murder.

[Coyote_Bandit]

124. Ummmm......

Choices are influenced by many factors - including physical condition and disease.

You infer that I excused those choices as haviing no consequences. That was mot what I said. It was, howewver, apparently what you wanted me to say and what you attributed to me. Learn to frickin read.

[MH1]

11. I wish I could tell you

I recently tried to help a friend with this, long distance. But he has decided the only help for him is AA combined with being with the person who is responsible for breaking up his marriage and destroying his relationship with his kids. Who also gave him the choice of being with her or talking to me (long distance, as in over a thousand miles, and I was an old friend who he'd said was helpful to him ... and I supported their relationship until this ... but not knowing the timeline and consequences of her influence then either).

So I won't know for awhile, if ever, if he's successful but I highly doubt it. The only thing I can take from the experience is that the addict needs to remove themselves from destructive relationships. But they don't necessarily have an objective view of which relationships are destructive to them.

On a more positive note, I know someone who is an addictions counselor and they recommend medical intervention, such as craving-suppressing drugs - she mentioned a specific one but unfortunately I don't remember the name. My friend (described above, not the counselor) was sold on AA, which I now think is a load of crap.

[Warpy]

12. That's what AA is for

Most addicts can't make it on their own. They need a social support system, people who know what they're going through that they can call when it gets rough. The steps are good self help and the higher power is whatever you make it, but the real guts of the program is the system of sponsorship and support.

Once she associates only with healthy people, she'll find herself more firmly on the road to recovery.

Just be aware that addiction does kill some people. AA is her best chance at survival, but it's not a foolproof one.

[sam sarrha]

49. is the failure related to how many times you start AND restart..?? because if so i have been counted

about 15 times.. how can they get Stats like that.?? people come and go, i went to 4 different meeting depending on the type and where i was at what time of day..quit a year re started, moved joined another, AA didn't stop me from drinking, it gave me tools and information to use when i found what worked for me.. Meditation.

i have absolutely no idea how they got valid stats about AA. i don't think it is possible. recovery is a long road, it never ends. it is ludicrous to ask an alcoholic if they have recovered for good..

[Warpy]

55. That's one thing meditation does

is tell you that you can't do it if you've got any sort of psychoactive drug in your system. It really screws up the process.

Still, you can't beat the social support AA offers most people. It's a way to learn how to live without alcohol, even at parties where it is served.

I don't think there are any real stats about AA, it's an anonymous program.

I've seen it work real miracles. That's the only reason I suggest it.

[sam sarrha]

58. AA is great.. i was just saying how stupid it was to try to determine how many people fail it, the

stats are too fluid, many people go for a couple years then don't go back, and don't drink.. like myself and others i know. do we get counted as failures.. just stupid cynical bad Fuck'n science, by people with an agenda.. it wouldn't be such a huge world wide bustling organization if it didn't work. there are 20 big active meetings where i live

[jmowreader]

129. Y'know, Amway is a huge worldwide bustling organization too

[Iggo]

60. I don't see how it's possible, either.

[sam sarrha]

68. it's Voodoo Science from the Alcohol Producers... dont wanna lose customers

[NYC_SKP]

13. I recommend DBT, but you should also post in the DU forum: Addiction/Recovery.

Here is a link to that DU Group: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=336

Different programs seems to be more well suited to some personalities than others.

On DBT:

Check out this treatment manual by Marsha Linehan:
http://www.amazon.com/Training-Treating-Borderline-Personality-Disorder/dp/0898620341

This is a cognitive-behavioral approach that challenges the patient to become more aware of the thought processes that lead them to make choices, good and bad, on a moment by moment basis.

Some inpatient and outpatient programs administered by hospitals and clinics use this approach in conjunction with attendance at AA meetings, you or she might want to research what is available in your area.

Best wishes, she can find success.

:hug:

[quiller4]

14. Your friend goes from a very structured life in early recovery to no

structure at all. What I've seen work much better is inpatient followed by life in a recovery house like Oxford where all residents of the house become a recovery community with structure to life that includes 12 step meetings in the house, house governance meetings and the requirement to give clean tests, UAs or breathalizers, to maintain housing. Start using again and you lose your housing. Some remain in Oxford Houses for years. Others move out and live on their own after several months in this environment.

Under those circumstances I've seen both alcoholics and addicts live a clean and sober life and learn tools to maintain sobriety when they are eventually living on their own.

My spouse now has 23 years sober.

[Subdivisions]

15. - doesn't drink every day, but does get obliterated on alcohol once a week

This one is confusing to me. My understanding of alcoholism does not include this trait. However, I am willing to be advised differently if I am wrong in my thinking.

Now, if this is truly the case, then it would seem to me that somehow persuading her to skip that first "once a week" alcoholic obliteration would go a long way towards beginning a physical recovery. Managing the urge to drink in the meantime is another thing entirely and is the real challenge here.

[Happyhippychick]

16. There are many forms of alcoholism. Bottom line: an alocholic cannot stop drinking

No matter how much people beg them, no matter how many jobs they lose, no matter how many times they embarrass themselves...they will continue to drink. It can be once a day, once a week or once a month.

[Liquorice]

28. Binge alcoholism can be the hardest to treat from what I've heard. This type of

alcoholic also does more damage to their health (liver problems, etc) more quickly than the every day drinker.

[astral]

59. I never drank every day.

When I would wake up wishing I were dead, I would swear I would never, ever drink again! How soon we forget! Towards the bitter end I learned for the first time in my life that a drink can cure a hangover. Thank God I did not know this sooner, I think I may have gone downhill faster like some others had.

I too believed the 'alcoholic' was the wino in the street with a paper bag with booze in it, dirty clothes, nowhere to wash up or go home to. That's what I thought an alcoholic was. I thought I drank simply because I liked to drink. I did not know shit about alcoholism and I had no reason to want to try to quit it for a long, long time. I would 'black out' which means you do not remember the next day some or all of what happened to you the night or day before. You will never remember those blackout moments. Maybe parts of them will flash on you later, but you may not know what the setting of the memory was from. You may wake up from a blackout while still drunk. This never happened to me.

This is a very interesting topic to see all these perspectives. I never would have gone into 'dt's' without a drink, but I simply had not progressed to that stage yet. For me, and for many others, we say "To Drink Is To Die." Does not matter if you die immediately or not, it still carries the same meaning. One More Time to try to stop sometimes doesn't come. Sometimes you just can't try to quit one more time. That is why AA works the way it does -- you don't want to try to take your chances trying to "control" your drinking. You admit that alcohol is more powerful than you are, and you respectfully live your life learning how to leave it alone.

Simple, but not easy. Not at first. For some not for a long, long time.

[Happyhippychick]

17. Antabuse is quick and effective

http://www.drugs.com/antabuse.html


As far as structure, support and discipline I can only recommend daily meetings.

[Hekate]

20. Did a quick search: there's also a DU group that may help

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=336
the DU Addiction/Recovery Group will surely have some members to help with your questions

Best of luck. It's really, really hard to stand on the sidelines while someone you love behaves self-destructively.

Hekate

[timo]

22. AA

Sober 10 years this december, it works if you work it but it don't if you won't!

[Warren Stupidity]

24. It probably isn't much help, but I just stopped drinking.

Same way I stopped tobacco. I just stopped. I just didn't have another drink. No programs. No steps. No groups. No meetings. No buddies checking up on me.

I realize that this is not a solution for many.

[Warpy]

26. It's not a solution for a true addict

Chances are you were a problem drinker and not an alcoholic.

For an alcoholic, the cravings are overwhelming, as they are for any addict.

Problem drinkers can get sick of having their lives fouled up by their drinking and walk away. Alcoholics can't.

[Warren DeMontague]

51. Not true. Different people -different alcoholics- have success through different means.

It is one of AA's self-validating tautologies that "only" AA works for "true" alcoholics- that if you are able to quit some other way- and stay sober- you either aren't "truly" sober (i.e. a 'dry drunk') ...or you weren't a "true" alcoholic to begin with.

Not true. People DO quit on their own, people stay sober through systems like Rational Recovery (which does not involve a lifetime commitment to meetings, etc.) people get and stay sober through AA and the 12 steps, and people get & stay sober through secular programs such as LSR/Lifering ( http://unhooked.com)

I don't want to get into the whole AA/anti-AA thing, and I don't want to denigrate anyone's particular method of getting and staying sober- the important thing is that people find what works for them. But this 'there's only one REAL way to do it' dogma is not borne out by the facts.

[astral]

61. This is not true that AA says that.

"It is one of AA's self-validating tautologies that "only" AA works for "true" alcoholics- that if you are able to quit some other way- and stay sober- you either aren't "truly" sober (i.e. a 'dry drunk') ...or you weren't a "true" alcoholic to begin with."
__________________________________

Some PEOPLE in AA say that. They talk about 'real' alcoholics. The book absolutely does not say that. It says that it is just a little chip of a book put out there to help people, and if someone finds another way that is great. It was never the intention of the founders of this program to claim that it is the only, nor that it had all the answers and that it was the 'bee all, end all.' It was found to be working for people and it spread like wildfire. It is a self-help, help-each-other, VOLUNTARY program. You can't be kicked out by doing it wrong. Nobody but you can decide whether you belong there.

Anything that helps people get sober, and stay sober if staying sober is what they want, should be an option for people to look at, to try, to consider. Because the one thing I think we do all agree on here is that alcoholism IS a killer. Killer disease or just killer behavior, we don't have to agree on that part.

[Warren DeMontague]

"Some PEOPLE in AA say that. They talk about 'real' alcoholics."

Exactly. I never claimed it was in the book. There is the book, and then there is the time-honored, 'shop worn wisdom' that is taken as gospel by some members at some meetings.

I generally stay away from this topic, particularly here, because for every 3 or 4 AAs who will say "that's not what AA says" another will come along and say something like "sure, try whatever you want, but until you're ready to really do the steps, "let go and let god", whatever-- you're not ready to get sober" or some such thing.

And I'm sorry, but that may be the truth for some people, but it is clearly not the capital-T Truth for everyone.

My dad got sober through AA, it saved his life. I think I clearly stated that I'm not interested in criticizing anyone's personal path to sobriety. My problem comes in when people (or courts, for that matter, because then you're getting into a 1st Amendment/Establishment Clause issue) try to argue that it's the ONLY way.

If you're not doing that, hey, kudos.

[madamesilverspurs]

62. No.

Speaking from 31 years in AA I can tell you that the groups I've attended over the years have insisted that AA is NOT the only way to get sober and stay that way. From the organization's beginnings it has been acknowledged that there are other paths. I am among those who can assert that it is the only way that has worked for ME. Your assertion of our 'tautologies' is innaccurate, you won't find the claim made anywhere in AA's abundant literature.

[intheflow]

88. I see "Ignored" is being his ignorant self again.

My, my. What a surprise. :sarcasm:

[Warren DeMontague]

97. How would you know?

I mean, if you're so afraid of what people write that you have to ignore them, you forfeit the right to comment on what they have to say.

[Warren DeMontague]

99. I never said it was in the books. Are you saying, in 31 years at meetings, you've never heard

anything remotely resembling "AA is the only way that works for real alcoholics"?

(I mean, leaving aside the part about 'we thought we could find an easier, softer way')

Like I said elsewhere, my dad got sober and stayed sober for 15 years through AA, at least until the smokes killed him. I'm not interested in criticizing how anyone gets and stays sober. The important thing is that they do.

[jmowreader]

127. I love one of the AA stories

The one about the cake, that is. Apparently someone made a cake using his grandmother's special recipe, but he only put in the ingredients he liked. The result was a terrible cake.

The moral to this story is, if you don't do the WHOLE AA program it won't work at all.

Well...let me tell you about what we think is Granny Pucci's secret ravioli recipe--secret as in "none of us are exactly sure what's in it." There are five different versions of this thing floating around, but what we ARE sure of is there's lettuce in it. COOKED lettuce. Everyone leaves that out, and the ravioli is much better for it.

So...while using the whole thing may be critical to AA, it's not necessarily critical to cooking.

[Warren DeMontague]

128. My point wasn't about what some people have to do to make the 12 steps work

It was that other things work for many people besides the 12 steps. That the 12 steps and AA are one way that works for some people, while for some other people (Atheists, for example) they may not be well-suited at all.

For the record, not that I think this is where you're coming from- I am not interested in having a lengthy debate about how a Higher Power- that most people in AA nevertheless call "God"- can be a tree or a doorknob. I am not not interested in discussing how an inability to reconcile one's lack of belief in deities or higher powers represents a "constitutional incapability of being honest with oneself", or reflecting on alcoholism as "fundamentally a spiritual disease".

See, that paradigm works- for some people. The problem comes in when it is presented as the ONE AND ONLY capital-W WAY.

It's not. And many people- sober without any involvement with the 12 steps at all- are living, breathing proof that it's not.

Fortunately, these days, in addition to AA there are many other options, from secular help groups to Rational Recovery, etc.

[Warren Stupidity]

65. that is a no true scotsman argument.

the definition of alcoholic is not: requires AA. As I said, I understand that what worked for me does not necessarily work for you. However, at the very essence, stopping is in fact not having that next drink, that next cigarette, that next shot.

[Warpy]

75. It's easy to stop

It's a hell of a lot harder to stay that way, which is the original point.

[Warren DeMontague]

95. I agree with that.

My only point is, there are different roads which work for different people.

[Warren Stupidity]

103. easy never entered into it

[Iggo]

46. Ultimately, that's the only solution: Stop and don't start again.

Some people just need more help than you did.

[Morning Dew]

25. some people use Rational Recovery

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_Recovery

[sam sarrha]

27. meditation.. "shamatha- vipassana" ..i started with Pema Chodron'., When Things Fall Apart. >Links>>

Pema saved my life.!!! 28-30 years of Hard alcoholism.. i had given up trying to quit. i was just waiting to die from it. i was in bad shape. a chain of events led me to Soundstrue.com the title 'when things fall apart' just grabbed me was exactly what was happening. i could listen to a walkman tape at work with 1 ear bud.. i listened to that tape set over and over and over for weeks, then a couple more of hers.. Tonglin was what really helped me quit, when i quit drinking the shame and regret of what i had done and LOST for 2/3's of my life was too much to take.. that drove me back to drinking.. i learned how to deal with that thru Pema's lecture's. i'm sober 10 years now, no cravings, never think about it. no response when i see or smell alcohol.

i really got into meditation, couldn't find a group tho, West Texas. i got lots of audio books, reading is difficult for me.. alcohol just fell away. meditation diss- associates the emotions from thoughts images, etc.. you start seeing cravings for what they are, transient desires. in meditation when thoughts flow in you recognize them as tho you touch a soap bubble with a feather it bounces and floats away ..you recognize them as "Thoughts" or "Thinking" and let them go.. . after meditating a while you start doing this when not meditating.. meditation physically restructures the dominant regions of the brain.. here's my personal annology.."it's like after fooling around with your computer adding and changing things to the point it nearly stops working, you just hit.. "Default Settings".. all the crap goes away.. but it is still on hard drive and its still crap.. you may never overwrite it all.. but, you always have a central starting point every day, at at any time to go back to what works."

i meditate in line at the grocery store, doing dishes, if you lay down and meditate you do a 'Theta Jump', instead of going to 100% Alpha brain waves, you go directly to Theta and skip off that into Delta and you are asleep.. my wife says i fall asleep in 3 heart beats.. I also quit smoking using meditation.. not a good idea to do both at the same time, baby steps.. meditation is a slow and steady process, but you will make changes within a month or 2.. i noticed changes in weeks, but it takes time.. it took a long time to get as messed up as we are, it takes time to fix it.

after meditating 2 months i ran into a Tibetan Monk... he invited me to attend meditation studies at his Chinrezig Buddhist Center, i attended 3 meetings a week for 4 years, i taught meditation at a juvenile prison and am now teaching meditation at the Homeless Shelter as a United Way volunteer.. Pema's tapes have really changed my life.

it isnt necessary to sit cross legged, use a dining room chair eith a padded seat. or a backless meditation bench i made out of 2x8's 16 inches tall, i have a bad back and knees, i have made benches for 10 years, i havent made one since i lost my hand 2 years ago, but i have been picking up some nice wood.. i'll get back to it soon

it really helps to hear Pema's voice, and easy for someone to start who is in a dark pit. and hasn't the energy to do it..
Book/CD-- http://www.amazon.com/When-Things-Fall-Apart-Difficult/dp/1590305450/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255196528&sr=1-1

this is good..
http://www.amazon.com/Start-Where-You-Are-Compassionate/dp/1570628394/ref=pd_sim_b_1

another good one
http://www.amazon.com/Places-That-Scare-You-Fearlessness/dp/1590302656/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255196035&sr=8-8


http://www.pemachodron.org/

her comment on Addiction
http://www.pemachodron.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insight_Meditation_Society

http://www.audiodharma.org/talks-intromed.html

i found Jack Kornfield, a wonderful Meditation teacher.. i have many of his audio books
http://www.jackkornfield.org/index/audio PM me if you want more info on Jack.. Pema is a good place to start


PM me anytime...

edit:: A.A is really a good program, 30 meetings in 30 days to to start.. organize a group to ferry her toll she gets with the program.. GOTTA GET A SPONCER OR 2 OR 3 IN CASE YOU CANT CONTACT THE 1ST.. THEN REGULAR MEETINGS AND A 12 STEP WORK BOOK MEETING... ESSENTIAL

[omega minimo]

67. Beautiful post

I like the computer analogy.

"it's like after fooling around with your computer adding and changing things to the point it nearly stops working, you just hit.. "Default Settings".. all the crap goes away.. but it is still on hard drive and its still crap.. you may never overwrite it all.. but, you always have a central starting point every day, at at any time to go back to what works."

Like setting your Preferences! :think: :pals:

[sam sarrha]

79. in Buddhism your concept of "Self" is the Chains that bind you to Samsara, th world of suffering

cyclical rebirth, old age and death.

your concept of Self resides in a specific region of the brain connected to anger, prejudice.. meditating moves dominate brain activity to another region.. where Compassion and a world view dominates.. instead of the 'Self-ish' region. one learns to become aware when the Evil Twin tries sneaking in..

after a couple years training in Meditation in the Chenrezig Center i had a revelation that Buddhism was a lot like an 8 step AA program for people Addicted to Conventional thought.

meditation is a method to train the mind. "a negative thought continues and increases exponentially until replaced by a Positive thought. However the Positive thought must be cultivated."

Tibetans have a method called Lojong.. if you stop practicing the mind reverts fairly quickly to self based format, tho some people are born with a Compassionate Gene and are by default caring helpers. Boddhisavtas..?

"Preferences" are relative to what region of the brain is dominate, could be to help others, or be a Wealth Hoarder Republican campaigning to cut funding to AIDS patients because they are sinners and deserve what they got... then funnel the money to a tax cut for themselves.

there are doors in your brain to different parallel universes all residing at once. it's like the scene in the Matrix where the hero is in the final battle with his Nemesis. the walls are made up of TV screens, each with a different possible response to what is going on in the confrontation.. he has to consider all the potential cause and effect consequences to win. meditation will help you dis-associate emotions from thoughts, concepts..etc

[ljm2002]

29. She is a binge drinker...

...the upside is she already knows she can go days at a time without alcohol. Some alcoholics simply cannot go without it.

One thing she might try, is to really delve into her own mental processes when deciding to drink. I suspect that part of it is boredom. It's a pattern of course, but at age 40 it will be an ingrained pattern. Why did she start drinking as a teen -- to avoid problems at home? or was it a matter of having fun with peers? This will provide insight into the mental state that sends her to back to drinking. Sometimes, people who drink think they will never, ever have actual fun again without drinking. Often most or all of their friends drink too, maybe not to the point of having a problem -- but that will tend to reinforce the perception that drinking equals fun.

What does she like to do? Does she read, write, sew, hike, draw, anything at all that gives her satisfaction? If so, I would recommend that she begin to actively pursue it, preferably in a group setting so she begins to cultivate friends with similar interests. Also, I would recommend that she not think in terms of "stopping drinking" because this leaves the mind focused on drinking, on what she wants to do but is trying not to do. It's like telling someone to not think of a wolf. Try it -- you'll see what I mean. Instead, anytime drinking pops into her mind, she should try replacing it with thoughts of things she is starting to do -- making new friends, hiking, whatever it is. And make that activity a substitute. So: find an activity; use it to enlarge her circle of friends; think in terms of what she *is* doing and what she *is* succeeding at; stop expending energy on thinking about not drinking but instead replace those internal tapes with thinking about her new activities and lifestyle. She may also need to dump some of her current friends, if that is contributing to her drinking. It's hard, but it may be a necessary part of breaking the pattern.

As another poster pointed out, diet may be playing a role. Also I would say that depression may be playing a role. If you ask about her interests, and she doesn't really have any -- then depression is likely. Alcohol may provide temporary relief, but for some of us, it deepens depression. If she does have depression and lacks interests, she probably needs more help than you can provide on your own.

Support is needed. Giving her moral support is not enabling her. Giving her money might be. I'm all for tough love; just don't forget the "love" part.

Good luck to both of you.

[sam sarrha]

30. the only programs that work at her level are 180 day programs.. but, this is new research,..>>Link>>

this book isn't about religion, it is 'pure' science.. the book is about how meditation restructures the brain, she will be living in a new and improved "World".. there are brain scan photos that show "organic change".. you wanted EASY.?? HOW ABOUT 10 MINUTES A DAY HUMMING 4 MUSICAL NOTES WHILE TOUCHING 4 FINGERS WITH YOUR THUMB ONE AT A TIME..!! they have the proof in brain scan photos. and patient interviews. the book is pretty easy to read.. the intro part is some science.. just don't worry about the details, take an overview.. later is the real interesting stuff.. i have seen this work with my hard core juvenile delinquents.. TOTAL TRANSFORMATION IN MONTHS.

get her to walk briskly a half hour a day to.. that will really help.. what works is art music repetitious exercise and Meditation.. the walking will help aerobically, help clear and open the mind.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Changes-Your-Brain-Neuroscientist/dp/0345503414/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255204200&sr=8-1

i will keep your friend in my prayers.. put me in your friends list, keep me informed as to how she is doing... good luck

[cally]

104. For awhile, I did a moving meditation

where I touched each finger with my thumb and said something like sha na ma ta. Is this what you are referring to with the four musical notes and touching fingers?

I've looked at each of your links and am going to buy at least one of the audio cds you recommend. I appreciate that you took the time to write it.

[proud patriot]

32. Life Ring - A secular AA

http://www.unhooked.com/?gclid=CJmR9Yals50CFRkpawod83c8iA

[BeHereNow]

35. This may sound simplistic, but there is ONLY one way.

Don't take the first drink, no matter what.
Hopefully she can be convinced to make a call to you BEFORE she drinks
and you can help her through the urge.
If she can make it long enough to feel better,
and has you to remind her how she feels when she does drink, what happens etc-
She may have a chance.
Some one to offer support before she takes that first one,
whether an AA buddy, or just some one who loves her and
supports her desire to stop, CAN make a huge difference.
As long as she keeps trying, she may be able to live a life without
alcohol. She needs to stay away from people who chastise her
for falling off the wagon, and seek support from people who
offer encouragement when she succeeds, if only through one urge.
BHN

[Iggo]

44. My usual smartass answer to this question...

...is also simplistic. But the logic is unassailable.

How do I quit smoking? Stop and don't start again.

How do I quit drinking? Stop and don't start again.

How do I quit drugs? Stop and don't start again.

You gave the long form answer, but the truth of it is in the first sentence: "Don't take the first drink, no matter what."

No matter what.

[Obamanaut]

53. I agree with what you said. So many times people would say

"Let's go have a drink."

I discovered that for some of us there is no such thing as "A" drink. There is either "no" drinks, or "all of them." No in between.

[BlooInBloo]

70. No more practically useful than answering "how do you make money in the market?" with ....

"buy low, sell high".

The OP is looking for assistance on GETTING from point A to point B. Everybody already knows what point B *is*.

[Iggo]

38. Hanging out with people who don't drink or use drugs.

And going to a lot of meetings, 'cause that's where those people tend to be in large numbers.

Never did a program because I don't lie in or about recovery, and the steps just aren't written for atheists.

But hanging out with people who don't drink or use other drugs...exclusively and for as long as it took (years, to tell the truth)...that's what got it done for me.

[sam sarrha]

56. there is scientific proof that just contemplating the existence of a higher power as a Koan actually

physically restructures the dominate areas of the brain.. but meditation works better.. this is new research

the book isn't about religion, it is about how contemplative practices reset the brain to a Default Setting, after its been fucked up. my experience with training in Tibetan Buddhism follows what they say, they even use similar terms as the Tibetans, like the concept of .."Skillful Means". the world view and universal compassion.. i guess there should be a warning label on it to warn Republicans

it describes a phenomenon.. christians say it is the power of god, but actually it is just what happens if anyone did, whether they believe it or not doesn't matter, it happens.. you become a Liberal..

the information in this book is cutting edge science backed up by brain scans over a period of time to evaluate behaviors
http://www.amazon.com/How-Changes-Your-Brain-Neuroscientist/dp/0345503414/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255210752&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Change-Your-Brain-Life-Obsessiveness/dp/0812929985/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255210904&sr=1-1
all based on pet scans

[UndertheOcean]

43. Could Ibogaine be of any use for Alcoholics ? Maybe it is worth a try.

[sam sarrha]

52. supposed to work well if the ritual is done properly.

[Scout]

69. we tried AA and Al-Anon, with my first husband....

we were both in our mid thirties ... it did not work for us, i don't know if we didn't work hard enough or it just didn't work.

i hated Al-Anon ... i didn't want to learn to live with his alcoholic ways. and he continually blamed me and others, and would get all into the program for a while, then eventually go back to same old drinking ways.

i ended up divorcing him. i'm now happily married to a non-alcoholic "normal" man.

[Colonel Bat Guano]

71. Please read this

thesinclairmethod.net

There's a lot of information, and a support board, about the Sinclair Method for beating alcoholism.

The method has been in use in other countries for years, in the US in a limited fashion for a while, and it's just now starting to blow up via the internet.

It sounds crazy, like an "ice cream diet" or something, but the basic notion is this. When you drink, if you're an alcoholic, your brain gets hit with rewarding endorphins. It's part of the physical addiction. When you take a drug that blocks endorphins -- naltrexone -- before you drink, your brain does not get the endorphins. So if you take the drug, and drink an hour afterward, you don't get the same high. If you follow this regimen for a few months, eventually your brain gets trained to not care at all about drinking.

Essentially, when you take this approach, you have to take the endorphin blocker before you drink -- forever, for the rest of your life. In a few months, you won't care about drinking at all. You only take the pill when you drink. If you have days or weeks without drinking, you don't take the pill. But you must take it every time you drink, for the rest of your life, or you deepen the physical addiction.

The success rate for this approach is over 80%. (I got no gripe with AA, but their success rate is a small fraction of that.) Go to this website and look at the message board. A lot of the people there could not get better on AA, and they're getting better via this approach. If you go back months on the message board, you'll find people who are nearly suicidal, who are drinking a half a gallon of vodka a day, but after they do this for a few months, they're fine -- the physical addiction is gone and they can take it or leave it.

Please send your friend over to read this website and message board, and to buy the book involved.

[laughingliberal]

87. I believe this has some promise. Same principle as Chantix which has helped a lot of smokers

I do think, however, there should be some emotional support or other because I can see a person who is still looking for release in alcohol or someone not convinced they can not drink safely simply ditching the pills when they want to tie on a good one.

[Colonel Bat Guano]

93. SInclair Method + counseling

There are a few clinics in the US doing Sinclair Method + counseling. In the online forums I mentioned above, people are kind of doing a DIY version of this, where they take the endorphin blocker to treat the physical addiction, and additionally talk it out with others to discuss habitual triggers (my boss chewed me out, my husband is an asshole, stressing from family or traffic or whatever makes you take the drink).

The trigger talk always reminds me of Christopher on THE SOPRANOS, when he was hooked on heroin: he's sitting in the living room with his girlfriend, watching TV. He's itchy and jumpy. "Where's the remote?", he bellows. GF has no idea, is puzzled by his vehemence. He sees there's no remote and he explodes, "F*** it, I'm getting high!!"

[laughingliberal]

94. ah, interesting. not to be irreverant but the Soprano story reminds me of an old joke I heard in AA

A normal man goes out in the morning and finds he has a flat tire. He goes back in the house and calls triple A. An alcoholic man goes out in the morning and finds he has a flat tire. He goes back in the house and calls suicide prevention. Was very funny to me because I could sooo relate to it.

[Scout]

102. it's not my friend, it's my ex-husband and i haven't seen or heard from him

in over 17 years.

:shrug:

we learned all about how alcoholics have a different brain, and it makes THIQs or something that other people's brains don't make. he very briefly tried taking antabuse to keep from drinking, but just quit taking it after the first time he got sick from it.

personally i think the whole "alcoholism is a disease" is used as just a cop-out for not trying.

[pitohui]

73. my friend it's a disease it don't matter how intelligent she is it's a disease

i honestly don't know what to tell you

80 to 90 (I've even heard 95)percent of alcoholics never recover, it's a disease and you don't overcome it by going to meetings, going to jail, getting yelled at your friends, whatever -- you don't overcome a disease that way, for those who think they did, really it was just chance and it was their time to recover, and we all know this in our hearts

the real answer to your question is NO ONE KNOWS how to break this addiction


and as that answer isn't helpful, and your friend has already lost 40 years of her life to the disease, then she doesn't want truth, she wants witchcraft and witchcraft consists of "well go back to AA, do this and do that"

the real answer is NO ONE KNOWS

if anyone on DU knew the answer to your question, that person would be the new jesus christ savior of the world

NO ONE KNOWS

you are not going to find out on the internet because NO ONE KNOWS

if your friend had terminal cancer you would accept her as she is but because it's alcohol you want to pretend there's something you can do

you don't want to accept NO ONE KNOWS

believe me, i don't either but it's still the reality

NO ONE KNOWS

we need better science, the best results (and they're shitty percentage wise) is still from AA and like support groups which means you're going to have to be satisfied with a 5 to 10 percent recovery rate -- which is NOT satisfactory, as many as 95 percent being uncurable despite losing everything and destroying everyone who loves them is NOT satisfactory

but right now we don't have the science to cure alcohol and NO ONE KNOWS

[Colonel Bat Guano]

74. "My Way Out"

As an alternative to AA, please, please read about the Sinclair Method. It really seems to be working.

And also go to "My Way Out" -- google it, there are great forums there. Many of the people there are are trying an approach invented by a European doctor who was addicted to alcohol, and found that he was able to beat the physical addiction by taking controlled amounts of a muscle relaxant called baclofen. There are many helpful, supportive forums there for people who are trying a variety of approaches: total abstinence, moderation, and use of drugs like baclofen and naltrexone to combat physical addiction.

This and sinclairmethod.net are excellent alternatives to AA, if AA isn't doing the job. (Again, not knocking AA -- some people in both forums are clearly going to AA and using these forums/methods in combination to beat the odds).

[FlyingSquirrel]

78. If she really wants to beat it, then she can.

But if she really doesn't want to beat it, she won't.

There's nothing you can do that will be guaranteed to help her. She shouldn't discount A.A. though, because many people I know have relapsed several times before finally having the willingness to complete the program in its entirety. And although even completing the program is not a guarantee that the person will not ever drink again, it may give them several years of a better life before the next relapse. That's better than the alternative. There's still no cure for alcoholism.

If you want some specific advice, you might wanna send her the link to this forum:

http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?forumID=42735

If she wants answers, she can get some there.

[laughingliberal]

83. I can only say what worked for me

I attended my first AA meeting on December 30, 1977 and have never had another drink. I was 22. That said, and a lot of AA members through the years have disagreed with me, I have rarely met an alcoholic that did not have at least a little underlying depression. Your friend sounds a lot like many friends I have had in AA through the years. I knew they wanted to be sober and I knew they worked their programs at least as well as I worked mine. But they just kept relapsing. It was insidious. As we say, "cunning, baffling, powerful." I did see several of these successfully recover once they got help for some of their other issues. So, a little search on resources in your area for mental health care might be in order. Not a lot of help, I know, but it's all I've got.

[snagglepuss]

86. I just came across an article in Pyschology Today about addiction that I've never read before.

The country's chief addiction expert argues that the propensity to drink, overeat and take drugs is a matter of attention gone awry.



http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200411/addiction-pay-attention?page=2


Best of luck to your friend.

[laughingliberal]

89. One thing they are finding in people of variuos addictions is noted in this article

Some people have fewer dopamine receptors. This was shown when it was noted that Wellbutrin was helping people quit smoking. They went back and studied hard core smokers who can't seem to quit no matter what and found their dopamine levels were lower than normal. Wellbutrin was working because, as an atypical antidepressant, it worked directly on Dopamine as opposed to working indirectly through serotonin as most antidepressant meds do. They found the conventional wisdom that said all the withdrawal symptoms of smoking were over in a few days and the rest was all in your head was not true of this group of smokers. In fact, the longer they went without smoking, the worse they sank into depression. The nicotine would stimulate the release of dopamine and keep the depression at bay. I have long thought science would eventually find a key to treating addictions along some lines such as this.

[snagglepuss]

100. Perhaps you can clarify something. Does Wellbutrin increase

the amount of Dopamine that is released or increase the number of receptors? Or does it do both?

[laughingliberal]

113. A tough question and I am not sure the entire mechanism of action is known. What is believed is...

it is a dopamine and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor. In essence, it keeps the dopamine and norepinephrine in place. There are some authors who dispute this as they believe this action to be too weak to be of significance. In other words, like a lot of our medications, the mechanism of action is not fully understood. But it is known that it has more of an effect on dopamine than other antidepressant medications and, given the low levels of dopamine in hard core smokers, this is believed to be the reason it has worked for some smokers for whom nothing else has been effective.

[lunatica]

119. That's how I quit smoking

I was part of the double blind study using Wellbutrin and I was able to quit. Up to then I was close to being a three pack a day smoker and had smoked for 30 years. It was a very different experience because the physical addiction (the craving for nicotine) went away very quickly. It made it really quite easy to say no to a cigarette every time the brain set off what I call the timer. It's the synaptic response the brain has when it's 'time' for that cigarette, like immediately after a meal, with a cup of coffee or a drink, driving, etc. Those times when smokers reach for the cigarette quite automatically since it's set up in their brain functionl.

The harder part was the emotional addiction. It's the comfort that smoking gave. The 'reward' after a task is done. Smoking as part of getting the day started. Smoking as something to calm you down. Smoking as security. That cigarette is your absolute best friend and never lets you down.

But I found that after having a major confrontation with my thoughts each time these 'timer' synapses went off they diminished markedly by the second or third firing and quickly died off after that. The reason it was possible to stop smoking was because the thought that it was time for a cigarette didn't trigger the craving response. It made it much easier to choose not to have a cigarette. Funny thing is cigarettes also started to have an acrid odor that felt like it was burning my mucous membranes and if I just took one drag the taste it left in my mouth was really horribly bitter and oily and stale and wouldn't go away with any amount of mints or brushing my teeth. And the smell of the mixture of sulfur and tobacco when cigarettes are first lit never worked on me again.

That was 15 years ago. Not a day goes by that I'm not grateful for quitting. I hope they find something that works that well with drinking.

[Peanutz2]

98. Wow, what a question.

I'm closing in on 60 and have battled with the bottle for most of my life. I did the AA thing but never could get into the God thing they have. I did stay away from booze for seven years with if though. Mainly from the fact that I was hanging around a bunch of non-drinkers at the time.

I eventually lost interest in AA and "slipped." I went through a period of proving them right and went on several binges. After a while, I realized that if I ate properly and stayed away from drinking before eating, my abuse of alcohol diminished.

While this is a simplistic answer to your question as it also took a couple of years of psychotherapy in my case, there are many reasons why many people choose to drink too much. Those reasons are as multiple as there are people. The idea that one program to quit drinking is the only way is hubris at best.

Your friend needs to want it for herself. She may need to reach her "bottom" to acquire this new want.

There are no simple answers here and there is no "higher power" that can relieve your friend of her problem. There are no panaceas.

This is a complex problem and if you love her, help her and try to steer her towards her own truths.

Good luck.

(BTW, this is my 1st post here and your post is the reason for it)

[Brickbat]

121. Welcome to DU!

I wish you continued strength. :)

[Th1onein]

105. I drank every other day (fifth of whiskey)

And I got a boyfriend who drank EVERY DAY. And, he was abusive UNLESS I got drunk with him. I got so sick of it; the smell of the booze, being hungover everyday, I said enough, and I quit for three months. (Got rid of him, too.)

I don't know what happened to my liver during that three months, but luckily for me, something did. (I am convinced that changes in the metabolism of the liver lead to alcoholism, but the liver can be healed.) I am now a social drinker and have a drink or two about once every 3 to six months. The feeling of the "buzz" coming on now makes me feel really sick, so I usually never go beyond that second drink.

On edit: heal the liver, and you heal the alcoholism.

[Lochloosa]

109. Small help. Speaking to my Doc the other day he said that Chantix has helped a lot of his pts.

They get it to quit smoking and tell him they also loose the urge to drink.

[the other one]

111. Smoke pot instead

Trade a dangerous nasty buzz for a safe pleasant non-addictive one.

Legalize it!

[lunatica]

120. Are you being serious or snarky?

I'm not criticizing. I really want to know.

[Warren Stupidity]

125. other than the legal issues it is a good substitution

Pot smoking (again outside of the legal issues) rarely if ever causes the sort of life-wrecking problems that alcohol does. Of course there is no reason to believe that a person would actually substitute pot for alcohol rather than merely augment an alcohol problem with pot use.

[Justpat]

116. AA

sober 28 years.