I get you struggle with addiction to alcohol cman.
some do.
i think we live in a soiciety that has many vices.
I crave a smoke. that is as close to addiction as I want to be.
it (smoking) is disgusting smelly expensive and will kill ya. I hate it , yet here I am smoking one with a cough no less.
the thing with alcohol is it messes with your mind , NOw drinking is much more acceptable than smoking smoking is out lawed in all of New YOrk state except in your own home and then only if you pruchase that home.
alcohol is still socialy acceptable and it is tough to find a new place and thing to do , my point is many of us do already and always have.
so it is possible to live in an alcohol free world , i know I should quit smoking but i do not chose to.
alcoholics have no choice because it messes with your mind and your functionalityand your health to a point you may have no choice now.
no do not go back to having just one. why would you even tempt fate like that?
it isnt worth it . life is good without booze . yet consider I do not desire alcohol Im not a drinker never have been.
I know reformed smokers who have "just one" next day they buy a pack and then they are doing the whole a pack a day thing very quickly.
but and you wont like this... Im not an anti drinker I think if people want to drink they should have the right to drink alcohol. if they want to smoke it is up to the individual .
when it is time to stop each can and should make their own choice because i do not think anyone can make another stop a behaviour or an addiction, it just makes them go deep into the denial of the problem to people please.
I can't believe how much you've contradicted yourself, Pond/MJ, in just less than 24-hours.
This is almost funny.
I'm impressed that someone with their head up their @ $ $ can still talk out of both sides of the mouth.
And I find it hysterical that you're a smoker. You're an addict! You're in denial! And yet, you're so ignorant about other addictions that I find it hard to believe you've been on this planet for long. So, put down the cigs for a day and tell me you don't think of them - even once. C'mon. Do it. Yeah, that's addiction - but you'd cut your nose off to spite your face and claim otherwise.
You come in here and insult a decent size of the population and take no ownership for it. You spew stupidity and ignorance like it's your gospel and then turn around to cover it up like a cat in a litterbox. You know nothing about the subject - but you've obviously done a little reading as of late - and you continue to post on.
I don't get how you consider AA to be a "club" - good grief! Like there's a password, secret handshake, and little photo i.d. with a decoder ring you get when you join.
You claim alcoholics need attention - but that's really your reflection of your own flaw on others - you know that?
WHY?
Why do you care? Why do you continue to post about this? You're posts and thoughts are a waste of time - you know that? You do this for attention, like Belle said. Why do you give a rodent's anus about any of this? Really? Or do you just like showing your @ $ $ to everyone - because you do it a lot MJ?
Y'know, everyone, Pond is extremely blunt and frequently she is wrong when she generalizes her experiences to represent truth for all of mankind. But if you can get past the knee-jerk reactions to her directness long enough to ponder what she says, you'll often find pearls of wisdom mixed in there. I had to learn to put anger aside for a minute and read past the parts that pi$$ me off to be able to spot those gems.
This doesn't mean I agree with the sweeping, uninformed statements you're prone to making, pond, cuz I don't. But I also don't think you're the heartless, compassionless shrew so many GSers have perceived you to be. Like I said, you're blunt. Sometimes wrong, but sometimes right and almost always blunt. And you must have thick skin, because you keep coming back after people say things to you that would devastate me. That's not necessarily a bad thing.
I understand blunt but, personally, I seldom go there in cyber communications because being extremely direct is so easily misconstrued in this medium. It hurts people's feelings and makes honesty sound like arrogance when it's not intended that way.
Just my thoughts...feel frree to lob rotten tomatoes at me. I'll just duck behind my sign.
pond has admitted to being an addict to cigs good pond that is the first step to over come your addiction now if you will only admit you seem to be a an addict to narrow mindedness and an addicted to being an ........ well i won't say what i am thinking..... maybe you could take your first step to recovery take the blinders off!!!!!
Linda - This isn't a rotten tomato - honest - but where were the "gems" 24-hours ago? I mean, really? Be honest.
I usually don't bother to respond to posts I disagree with - I just add counter points and go along my merry way. I prefer to keep the peace than to stir up trouble and try to be quick to apologize when I have stepped in it.
But pond/mj has yet to apologize for some of her comments or take any ownership of them. She makes a 180 turn-around and starts "getting it" the next day, but that's only after many have spoken up. I won't get into the other threads where she tells a poster to get council for anger management or she'll turn into a child abuser. (based on WHAT?) And we're supposed to embrace this?
Sorry, but I don't think so. I respectfully disagree. No rotten tomatos. Promise.
AA is a fine program or club or whatever to find support and others with the same goal.
Alcohol is a drug and can be addictive if abused.
bad things can happen when folks abuse drugs and alcohol.
the only thing I see we could disagree on is I do not believe prohibition will ever happen or be a reality and even if alcohol is outlawed it will always be available to those who seek to drink it esp. if addicted.
I also do not believe every person who drinks alcohol is an alcoholic.
As far as the poster drama well now some live in this little cyber box just a tad to seriously for my taste but to each his own ya know?
the only thing I see we could disagree on is I do not believe prohibition will ever happen or be a reality and even if alcohol is outlawed it will always be available to those who seek to drink it esp. if addicted.
never brought up ... well till now
and you are ignorant of aa, it shows in how you have spoken about it
have you ever even read anything in this thread?
is your mind so hardened against anyone receivng something that you don't understand
are you so dense that you cannot change your mind?
Let me clarify. I went back and re-read pond's posts. There wasn't much I agreed with in her first post, but she's stating her opinion (and that's all it is) in her typical blunt way. She has just as much right to her opinion as anyone else, and everyone else has the right to disagree with her. But people would do well to do just that, rather than assuming things about her life and concluding that her motives are evil and heartless.
In her first post she did say something I agree with:
I think that is why it is so difficult to stop drinking. because the keys to living successfully are absent.. and a bad habit of being drunk is what they know how to do well. so they do that instead.
I think for many people that's absolutely true. The drinking is a symptom and stopping drinking only scratches the surface. It's a VERY good place to start, but that's what it is, a starting point toward getting healthy.
It also appears from her first post that pond thinks that we all have the same level of temptation to drink. Tha's her opinion, but I think she's wrong.
I also don't think there's a one-size-fits-all solution, as pond appears to. Some people DO need a support group like AA, and there's absolutely no shame in that. Other people, equally addicted, wake up at some point and decide they've had enough and they tough it out and quit on their own, never to look back. That doesn't mean everyone can do that.
I see something similar with quitting smoking. I know people who have quit cold turkey. Last time I tried that I wanted to pull my hair out or pull someone's arm off and club him with it. So I used a crutch--nicotine patches. I wanted to quit so badly that I decided I'd use all the help I could get. Those who quit cold turkey and those of us who used the patch all got to the same destination. Hooray for us! :) Hooray for anyone who quits drinking, no matter how they do it, if it's interfering with their being their best.
In a subsequent post, pond said:
As long as it fills your thoughts as much as it is you must you battle it.
that is not recovery. it is a steel grip on surviving one more day without drinking.
I think there is a a lot of truth in that, and I don't mean that in a hard-hearted way in the least. I think AA is great for getting a leg up on the problem. I applaud the program for giving people that opportunity and the AA members for facing their problem via AA. But it can become (note, I don't say it always or even usually does) simply a new addiction. I've seen it in friends and family members. After many years, they're obsessed with drinking. They're obsessed with AA. They think their poo doesn't stink and that anyone else who has a couple drinks is an alcoholic. They can become extremely judgmental. I'm sure clay won't fit into that category, but I have seen it.
I see so many parallels with this and with recovery from abuse at the hands of clergy and with people recovering from eating disorders or any other addictive behavior.
For example: I used to go to Weight Watchers because I wanted a support group where I could learn to make better choices and for mutual encouragement. All they talked about was food! I know the discussion varies from meeting to meeting, because I've belonged a number of times over the years--but the last time food was the constant topic. And not just new, healthy ways to prepare it so it still tastes good, but stuff like, "I went on a cruise, and here's a photo of all the food I couldn't eat." I left there wanting to eat!
We're all different in how we deal with challenges in life. And I'll tell ya what. Within the mental health field there are plenty of detractors of 12-step programs. They just state their opinions more diplomatically than pond does.
I guess the reason for my post is that it seemed to me that a lot of people were ganging up on pond, and that usually gets my goat. Like I said, I sure as heck don't think she's always right, but I do think she has as much right to her opinion as anyone else in this place.
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol--that our lives had become unmanageable.
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
having admited 1 is the hardest thing to do
but some have lost control
i am one of them
#2 my way has not worked-a power greater then me must intercede
cman, I agree with you that it's helped lots of people. No doubt about it. And I'm sure it can help you, too. I'm rooting for you, big time.
I know sometimes people attach a bad connotation to the term "crutch," but I don't understand why. I had no shame in using nicotine patches as a crutch when I was quitting smoking. And there was nothing wrong with my using a crutch when my Acchilles tendon got injured--I couldn't walk without that crutch.
Is it because it's associated with weakness in some people's minds? Because I think it takes courage and strength to face the fact that you need help--in any area of life. Nothing weak about it!
"As long as it fills your thoughts as much as it is you must you battle it.
that is not recovery. it is a steel grip on surviving one more day without drinking."
"I think there is a a lot of truth in that, and I don't mean that in a hard-hearted way in the least. I think AA is great for getting a leg up on the problem. I applaud the program for giving people that opportunity and the AA members for facing their problem via AA. But it can become (note, I don't say it always or even usually does) simply a new addiction. I've seen it in friends and family members. After many years, they're obsessed with drinking. They're obsessed with AA. They think their poo doesn't stink and that anyone else who has a couple drinks is an alcoholic. They can become extremely judgmental. I'm sure clay won't fit into that category, but I have seen it."
I tend to understand exactly what these two poster are trying to express.
The reason I was marked and avoid by the ministry was that I had my alcoholic/drug addict brother living with me. I took him after I found him one night depressed, suicidal, and drunk in a flea-bag hotel, just lost his manager job because of his depression. This was about his fifth time of "falling off the wagon" and about the fifth time that I had taken him in and taken care of him. He had been to AA meetings for at least 2 decades and here he was once again. But nonetheless, he was my brother and I loved him and I was going to do whatever it took. Years ago, he had taken the original PFAL class (one of the times I was trying to save him from himself). When I told the HFC about the fact he took the class back in the early 80's, he encouraged me to bring him to fellowship. He came a couple of times and then they wanted him to take the new WAP class but he wouldn't. As long as he was attending fellowship, it was okay that he lived with me. Once he made a final decision not to take the class, they had a meeting with me and confronted me and told me that if I continued to let him live with me than I was "off the word". I chose my brother over the ministry. From that night on I was marked and avoid.
At the same token, I often felt that my brother used the AA program as a crutch itself. I am not here judging or condemning because I truly understand that my brother had a true addiction to alcohol and cocain. His nose still bleeds to this day from the frequent snorting over the course of 20 years. But you know, during my time in TWI it was always, "confession of belief, yields receipt of confession". That is what I believe pond and Linda Z are trying to say. Say you are sober for 15 years, yet you still have to go to AA and confess that you are an alcoholic. The fight to stay sober is a constant reminder of your alcoholism. You are never truly delivered. At some point if it is truly of God, shouldn't you be delivered?? At least according to my thinking because of the exposure to the ministry beliefs. Then a person goes to the meeting and all they do is drink one cup of coffee after another, and chain smoke. The addiction is still there, only instead of alcohol it is coffee and cigarettes. Addiction is addiction.
In addition, there is nothing worse than a "born again" non-drinker, non-smoker". I have both in my family.
My brother has been now 6 years sober, but I really think that he could fall off the wagon any day when the pressures of life become to overwhelming to him. I really think to this day, had I chosen TWI over my brother he would have died somewhere. He needed love and support and over a 20 year period I could have given up on him, but somewhere deep down in my heart I knew the kind of great guy he was without the alcohol and drug medication.
it's hard to talk on a subject when someone like cman is so wonderful and doing so great and it's so personal
but it's out here as a thread you know ?
i've been trying to remember what the shrink said about my father years and years ago. it was something along the lines of..... now he's a sober insane person...... ha ! i'll let you know when i remember the actual words
i had a smoke and a few drinks with some buddies/coworkers after a good days work and talked about spiritual things and nature and trees around a fire and laughed and had a good time!? lovin life and thanking God!!??
the problem seems to be in peoples minds.....NOT the bottle....the bottle is inanimate until someone animates it
Jesus did turn some nasty water into the best wine of the night for the newly wedded couple......didn't he?
it's not the alcohol...i'm with you pond, no great achievement in not drinking and being the asse that you are anyway....mel gibson blaming the tequila....effin jews.....passion of the christ...mark foley blaming the drink and a priest.....ted haggard.....jeezus........it's mind boggling if you try too hard to figure it all out.
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cman
it's not just a feeling
it's a mental and physical craving
an addiction
a disease that runs through every part of your mind and body
past the point of no return
although i have heard of one instance that one person could go back to just having one
i doubt that will be me
it's been a problem off and on for years for me
so i can't take that chance
or i'm a dead man
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pond
I get you struggle with addiction to alcohol cman.
some do.
i think we live in a soiciety that has many vices.
I crave a smoke. that is as close to addiction as I want to be.
it (smoking) is disgusting smelly expensive and will kill ya. I hate it , yet here I am smoking one with a cough no less.
the thing with alcohol is it messes with your mind , NOw drinking is much more acceptable than smoking smoking is out lawed in all of New YOrk state except in your own home and then only if you pruchase that home.
alcohol is still socialy acceptable and it is tough to find a new place and thing to do , my point is many of us do already and always have.
so it is possible to live in an alcohol free world , i know I should quit smoking but i do not chose to.
alcoholics have no choice because it messes with your mind and your functionalityand your health to a point you may have no choice now.
no do not go back to having just one. why would you even tempt fate like that?
it isnt worth it . life is good without booze . yet consider I do not desire alcohol Im not a drinker never have been.
I know reformed smokers who have "just one" next day they buy a pack and then they are doing the whole a pack a day thing very quickly.
but and you wont like this... Im not an anti drinker I think if people want to drink they should have the right to drink alcohol. if they want to smoke it is up to the individual .
when it is time to stop each can and should make their own choice because i do not think anyone can make another stop a behaviour or an addiction, it just makes them go deep into the denial of the problem to people please.
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cman
you are getting closer pond
i can go to work after smoking a cig and function normally
i can't go to work after drinking and function normally
alcohol is more powerful then cigs
more impairing of the mind
more addictive
and worse consequences
you are arrested for drinking then driving
not for smoking then driving
it's ALTERING AFFECTS ARE DEADLY AND SOMETIMES IRREVERSIBLE
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ChasUFarley
I can't believe how much you've contradicted yourself, Pond/MJ, in just less than 24-hours.
This is almost funny.
I'm impressed that someone with their head up their @ $ $ can still talk out of both sides of the mouth.
And I find it hysterical that you're a smoker. You're an addict! You're in denial! And yet, you're so ignorant about other addictions that I find it hard to believe you've been on this planet for long. So, put down the cigs for a day and tell me you don't think of them - even once. C'mon. Do it. Yeah, that's addiction - but you'd cut your nose off to spite your face and claim otherwise.
You come in here and insult a decent size of the population and take no ownership for it. You spew stupidity and ignorance like it's your gospel and then turn around to cover it up like a cat in a litterbox. You know nothing about the subject - but you've obviously done a little reading as of late - and you continue to post on.
I don't get how you consider AA to be a "club" - good grief! Like there's a password, secret handshake, and little photo i.d. with a decoder ring you get when you join.
You claim alcoholics need attention - but that's really your reflection of your own flaw on others - you know that?
WHY?
Why do you care? Why do you continue to post about this? You're posts and thoughts are a waste of time - you know that? You do this for attention, like Belle said. Why do you give a rodent's anus about any of this? Really? Or do you just like showing your @ $ $ to everyone - because you do it a lot MJ?
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cman
Chas,
This is where many start. Confused and lost.
Needing direction.
Of course that direction is suggestions.
because it is up to the individual.
Don't be to hard on ignorance.
Everyone is ignorant of something.
Pond posted and that is worth something.
And I can handle it.
Not saying for others to not respond.
But talking is good.
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Linda Z
Y'know, everyone, Pond is extremely blunt and frequently she is wrong when she generalizes her experiences to represent truth for all of mankind. But if you can get past the knee-jerk reactions to her directness long enough to ponder what she says, you'll often find pearls of wisdom mixed in there. I had to learn to put anger aside for a minute and read past the parts that pi$$ me off to be able to spot those gems.
This doesn't mean I agree with the sweeping, uninformed statements you're prone to making, pond, cuz I don't. But I also don't think you're the heartless, compassionless shrew so many GSers have perceived you to be. Like I said, you're blunt. Sometimes wrong, but sometimes right and almost always blunt. And you must have thick skin, because you keep coming back after people say things to you that would devastate me. That's not necessarily a bad thing.
I understand blunt but, personally, I seldom go there in cyber communications because being extremely direct is so easily misconstrued in this medium. It hurts people's feelings and makes honesty sound like arrogance when it's not intended that way.
Just my thoughts...feel frree to lob rotten tomatoes at me. I'll just duck behind my sign.
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coolchef
pond has admitted to being an addict to cigs good pond that is the first step to over come your addiction now if you will only admit you seem to be a an addict to narrow mindedness and an addicted to being an ........ well i won't say what i am thinking..... maybe you could take your first step to recovery take the blinders off!!!!!
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ChasUFarley
Linda - This isn't a rotten tomato - honest - but where were the "gems" 24-hours ago? I mean, really? Be honest.
I usually don't bother to respond to posts I disagree with - I just add counter points and go along my merry way. I prefer to keep the peace than to stir up trouble and try to be quick to apologize when I have stepped in it.
But pond/mj has yet to apologize for some of her comments or take any ownership of them. She makes a 180 turn-around and starts "getting it" the next day, but that's only after many have spoken up. I won't get into the other threads where she tells a poster to get council for anger management or she'll turn into a child abuser. (based on WHAT?) And we're supposed to embrace this?
Sorry, but I don't think so. I respectfully disagree. No rotten tomatos. Promise.
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pond
What exactly am I ignorant on ?
You are struggling with staying sober.
AA is a fine program or club or whatever to find support and others with the same goal.
Alcohol is a drug and can be addictive if abused.
bad things can happen when folks abuse drugs and alcohol.
the only thing I see we could disagree on is I do not believe prohibition will ever happen or be a reality and even if alcohol is outlawed it will always be available to those who seek to drink it esp. if addicted.
I also do not believe every person who drinks alcohol is an alcoholic.
As far as the poster drama well now some live in this little cyber box just a tad to seriously for my taste but to each his own ya know?
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cman
never brought up ... well till now
and you are ignorant of aa, it shows in how you have spoken about it
have you ever even read anything in this thread?
is your mind so hardened against anyone receivng something that you don't understand
are you so dense that you cannot change your mind?
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cman
aa offers support and answers to those who want to quit alcohol
alcohol is addictive and abusedbad things do happen
I agree, but here is a warning to those who drink.
There is even one on the bottles.
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Linda Z
Let me clarify. I went back and re-read pond's posts. There wasn't much I agreed with in her first post, but she's stating her opinion (and that's all it is) in her typical blunt way. She has just as much right to her opinion as anyone else, and everyone else has the right to disagree with her. But people would do well to do just that, rather than assuming things about her life and concluding that her motives are evil and heartless.
In her first post she did say something I agree with:
I think for many people that's absolutely true. The drinking is a symptom and stopping drinking only scratches the surface. It's a VERY good place to start, but that's what it is, a starting point toward getting healthy.It also appears from her first post that pond thinks that we all have the same level of temptation to drink. Tha's her opinion, but I think she's wrong.
I also don't think there's a one-size-fits-all solution, as pond appears to. Some people DO need a support group like AA, and there's absolutely no shame in that. Other people, equally addicted, wake up at some point and decide they've had enough and they tough it out and quit on their own, never to look back. That doesn't mean everyone can do that.
I see something similar with quitting smoking. I know people who have quit cold turkey. Last time I tried that I wanted to pull my hair out or pull someone's arm off and club him with it. So I used a crutch--nicotine patches. I wanted to quit so badly that I decided I'd use all the help I could get. Those who quit cold turkey and those of us who used the patch all got to the same destination. Hooray for us! :) Hooray for anyone who quits drinking, no matter how they do it, if it's interfering with their being their best.
In a subsequent post, pond said:
I think there is a a lot of truth in that, and I don't mean that in a hard-hearted way in the least. I think AA is great for getting a leg up on the problem. I applaud the program for giving people that opportunity and the AA members for facing their problem via AA. But it can become (note, I don't say it always or even usually does) simply a new addiction. I've seen it in friends and family members. After many years, they're obsessed with drinking. They're obsessed with AA. They think their poo doesn't stink and that anyone else who has a couple drinks is an alcoholic. They can become extremely judgmental. I'm sure clay won't fit into that category, but I have seen it.
I see so many parallels with this and with recovery from abuse at the hands of clergy and with people recovering from eating disorders or any other addictive behavior.
For example: I used to go to Weight Watchers because I wanted a support group where I could learn to make better choices and for mutual encouragement. All they talked about was food! I know the discussion varies from meeting to meeting, because I've belonged a number of times over the years--but the last time food was the constant topic. And not just new, healthy ways to prepare it so it still tastes good, but stuff like, "I went on a cruise, and here's a photo of all the food I couldn't eat." I left there wanting to eat!
We're all different in how we deal with challenges in life. And I'll tell ya what. Within the mental health field there are plenty of detractors of 12-step programs. They just state their opinions more diplomatically than pond does.
I guess the reason for my post is that it seemed to me that a lot of people were ganging up on pond, and that usually gets my goat. Like I said, I sure as heck don't think she's always right, but I do think she has as much right to her opinion as anyone else in this place.
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cman
having admited 1 is the hardest thing to do
but some have lost control
i am one of them
#2 my way has not worked-a power greater then me must intercede
aa helps you find that power within
i made the decision #3
working on the rest of them
probably for life
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cman
i'm not promoting this as a bible or something
but these are real and true documentations of help received
aa is a help not a crutch
http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/en_tableofcnt.cfm
also God as we understood or understand
can change
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Linda Z
cman, I agree with you that it's helped lots of people. No doubt about it. And I'm sure it can help you, too. I'm rooting for you, big time.
I know sometimes people attach a bad connotation to the term "crutch," but I don't understand why. I had no shame in using nicotine patches as a crutch when I was quitting smoking. And there was nothing wrong with my using a crutch when my Acchilles tendon got injured--I couldn't walk without that crutch.
Is it because it's associated with weakness in some people's minds? Because I think it takes courage and strength to face the fact that you need help--in any area of life. Nothing weak about it!
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cman
thanks Linda.
What I mean by crutch is that aa can't do it for you.
Just like the patch didn't do it for you.
You decided to get help and use the patch.
So it is you who did it not the patch.
I hope this is understood.
You decided to do what was needed not the patch.
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cman
plus you didn't take it off
or smoke
which you could have done
and even if you did you can try again untill it's beaten
people who have quit smoking
i've often heard
still have the craving for one
yet even past the patch
they use that inner strength to not do it
a person at one meeting talked about her friend who was trying to persuade her to go to a bar
but she didn't, she decided not to because she knew what would happen
she beat it that day
it was hard for her to resist but she beat it
she won
one day at a time
that day she won
4 months without a drink and she beat it another day
4 months of days she won
4 months of moments she won
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outofdafog
"As long as it fills your thoughts as much as it is you must you battle it.
that is not recovery. it is a steel grip on surviving one more day without drinking."
"I think there is a a lot of truth in that, and I don't mean that in a hard-hearted way in the least. I think AA is great for getting a leg up on the problem. I applaud the program for giving people that opportunity and the AA members for facing their problem via AA. But it can become (note, I don't say it always or even usually does) simply a new addiction. I've seen it in friends and family members. After many years, they're obsessed with drinking. They're obsessed with AA. They think their poo doesn't stink and that anyone else who has a couple drinks is an alcoholic. They can become extremely judgmental. I'm sure clay won't fit into that category, but I have seen it."
I tend to understand exactly what these two poster are trying to express.
The reason I was marked and avoid by the ministry was that I had my alcoholic/drug addict brother living with me. I took him after I found him one night depressed, suicidal, and drunk in a flea-bag hotel, just lost his manager job because of his depression. This was about his fifth time of "falling off the wagon" and about the fifth time that I had taken him in and taken care of him. He had been to AA meetings for at least 2 decades and here he was once again. But nonetheless, he was my brother and I loved him and I was going to do whatever it took. Years ago, he had taken the original PFAL class (one of the times I was trying to save him from himself). When I told the HFC about the fact he took the class back in the early 80's, he encouraged me to bring him to fellowship. He came a couple of times and then they wanted him to take the new WAP class but he wouldn't. As long as he was attending fellowship, it was okay that he lived with me. Once he made a final decision not to take the class, they had a meeting with me and confronted me and told me that if I continued to let him live with me than I was "off the word". I chose my brother over the ministry. From that night on I was marked and avoid.
At the same token, I often felt that my brother used the AA program as a crutch itself. I am not here judging or condemning because I truly understand that my brother had a true addiction to alcohol and cocain. His nose still bleeds to this day from the frequent snorting over the course of 20 years. But you know, during my time in TWI it was always, "confession of belief, yields receipt of confession". That is what I believe pond and Linda Z are trying to say. Say you are sober for 15 years, yet you still have to go to AA and confess that you are an alcoholic. The fight to stay sober is a constant reminder of your alcoholism. You are never truly delivered. At some point if it is truly of God, shouldn't you be delivered?? At least according to my thinking because of the exposure to the ministry beliefs. Then a person goes to the meeting and all they do is drink one cup of coffee after another, and chain smoke. The addiction is still there, only instead of alcohol it is coffee and cigarettes. Addiction is addiction.
In addition, there is nothing worse than a "born again" non-drinker, non-smoker". I have both in my family.
My brother has been now 6 years sober, but I really think that he could fall off the wagon any day when the pressures of life become to overwhelming to him. I really think to this day, had I chosen TWI over my brother he would have died somewhere. He needed love and support and over a 20 year period I could have given up on him, but somewhere deep down in my heart I knew the kind of great guy he was without the alcohol and drug medication.
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cman
just for the record
aa is not to be an addiction itself
what is learned there and experienced can stay in your life
without the meetings
but the meetings are important
they sre there for you not you for them for life
the things learned there can be with you without the meetings
i'm learning
and there are non-smokers and non coffee drinkers there too
in the beginning go as much as possible
my friend who first recommended aa
sober for 3 years still goes to meetings sometimes
to help and to be helped
it is a PROGRESSIVE 'approach'
not a one size fits all cure
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excathedra
awww foggie and brother
i understand too what pond and linzee are saying
it's hard to talk on a subject when someone like cman is so wonderful and doing so great and it's so personal
but it's out here as a thread you know ?
i've been trying to remember what the shrink said about my father years and years ago. it was something along the lines of..... now he's a sober insane person...... ha ! i'll let you know when i remember the actual words
peace be with you all
and with your spirit ;)
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cman
my friend has no more desire to drink
but still goes because she wants to
friends are made and progressive relationships-friends
it's not there to look for a mate
there is a bond there that has happened
and not a bond that is an addiction
but one that is not forgotten and appreciated
hi exc,
good to see ya
i'm not doing great
i have ups and downs still
bad times and good
it's part of life
how we deal with them is the subject
dealing with problems or even good times with alcohol
it's not the answer for me anymore
love
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excathedra
love
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frickafrack
careful wit dat
cuz i smell a rat
or a cat
or a man
or a do?
d u?
i dunno...i've been wrong before
back to topic:
i had a smoke and a few drinks with some buddies/coworkers after a good days work and talked about spiritual things and nature and trees around a fire and laughed and had a good time!? lovin life and thanking God!!??
the problem seems to be in peoples minds.....NOT the bottle....the bottle is inanimate until someone animates it
Jesus did turn some nasty water into the best wine of the night for the newly wedded couple......didn't he?
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frickafrack
yeah....that's close to what i was saying
it's not the alcohol...i'm with you pond, no great achievement in not drinking and being the asse that you are anyway....mel gibson blaming the tequila....effin jews.....passion of the christ...mark foley blaming the drink and a priest.....ted haggard.....jeezus........it's mind boggling if you try too hard to figure it all out.
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