Side effects of AA

[coalfire]

Side effects of AA

"I think that if it's okay to talk about the side effects of baclofen and what it all means, it should be just dandy fine to do the same with AA - without people feeling like they are being personally attacked."-Tracy I agree 100%. I have already congratulated otter on bringing this up.

I am sorry about your brother. You are obviously going to feel very strongly about this.

Tracy. I think there is no doubt AA needs some serious updating. Telling someone to shove cotton in their mouth is downright rude. I said in an earlier post that I think AA seriously needs to deal with the way it deals with newcomers. Saying at the start of a meeting"rarely have we seen someone fail etc is wrong wrong wrong. I mean if I thought about it I probably could come up with 10 things. However I honestly believe that if we throw out AA we throw out the baby with the bath water.I would like every city in the world to have a central clinic for alcoholics. It would have doc to prescribe meds,a nutritionist to talk about supplements,diet etc,a psychiatrist to assess for underlying mental health problems and a support group that is largely based on AA wisdom but yes,an updated 2011 form of it. I think that many of the current AA sayings were written by a crowd of men in the 1800s who were a bit rough round the edges. I just try and take the best of it. I had/have a huge problem recently of feeling so sad because my friends could go to pubs and I couldnt. I posted a thread called thoughts on resentment and a lot of the AA doctrine really helped me. It didnt get me sober but it might just help keep me that way. I hate to see us all fighting this way. This is not the MWO that I know.

[TracyA]

Side effects of AA

Cassia;1076635 wrote:
At the end of the day, people have to take responsibility for their personal choices and the medical profession does have to take alcohol seriously. If alcohol does cause an allergic reaction in people as there is evidence to show then it's pretty simple. You don't drink.
Thanks for that very simplistic summary. It's entirely wrong BTW, given what we know about where addiction comes from, but - the allergy proposition is accepted AA dogma, so, whatever.

Thanks for the personal testimony too. You understand, don't you, that it changes nothing. Why not address anything else written in this thread? Why not address how AA is a monstrosity in the addiction treatment field, entirely wrong on so many levels, so fundamentally religious that *the* entire premise is that a physical disease can only be treated spiritually? But it's such a powerhouse that there is virtually nothing else out there. I guess you must be okay with that. I am not.

TracyA - I am terribly sorry for what happened to your brother but I don't think its entirely fair lay the blame at AA's door - surely the medical professionals who treated him are partly to blame.

Well, he died of cancer. I think the medical professionals did everything they could. They referred him to AA because there was no where else for him to go - because AA COMPLETELY RULES the treatment industry. Can you understand that. I can't decide if you really are ignorant of that fact or if you are just choosing to ignore it.

I can absolutely blame AA for what happens in AA. AA kills people. How, you ask? You could start with the assumption that "to drink is to die." You could move on to the idea that someone decades removed from drinking any alcohol will resume as if they had never stopped (and then you could throw in all the treatment BS that has been it's now tsunami ripping through AA). From there you could go to the idea that a person keeps drinking because God has not chosen to remove the obsession (that is not only emotional abuse, that is spiritual abuse). The next conclusion would be that a person who still drinks is "constitutionally incapable of being honest." Then, after going through all that a dozen or more times, you start back at step one. "You are powerless . . ."

Really, Cassia, how dare you defend that? How dare anyone of you defend something so obviously ugly and horrid. What is wrong with you?

[one2many]

Side effects of AA

DRINK kills people...AA does NOT kill people. What a completely ridiculous statement.

[coalfire]

Side effects of AA

"*the* entire premise is that a physical disease can only be treated spiritually? "

Well you can add that to my list of things that I dont like either. You do make some valid points Tracy.

[TracyA]

Side effects of AA

Otter;1076634 wrote: I have every respect for Bill Wilson and what he set out to achieve.
I can't say that I have "every" respect, but after reading a non sanitized version of what he was like, I like the man - flawed human being that he was (and aren't we all?)

AA has helped and does help a lot of people but it is outdated in light of advances in neurosciences.
Massive understatement, but I very much agree. Five years ago, I was at an AA "event" where the speaker, who was paid to fly in from somewhere back east, all expenses paid, gave a big speech about the evils of anti-depressants. His theory was that it was a spiritual malady . . .

Bill Wilson recognized that more had to be done on the medical front.

He did. But he did watch AA become what it became, and he was happy to go along for the ride. So what happened to Bill?

This as overtones of a religious dispute.

I suppose that it is. What other highly-respected treatment for a physical disease involves the 12 steps? It is not only religion, it is very fundamentalist Judeo-Christian in origin and in practice.

We are all trying to find the good in AA so maybe AA needs to embrace Baclofen.

I am not trying to find the good in AA. I would be very happy to see AA knocked off its golden throne and go back to being what it always should have been. Until that happens, I'm very happy to knock AA until the cows come home.

[TracyA]

Side effects of AA

one2many;1076653 wrote: DRINK kills people...AA does NOT kill people. What a completely ridiculous statement.

No, it's actually a completely accurate statement, verified by a non alcoholic doctor who serve on the AA Board of Trustees. Also, I think I've covered in every possible way I know how, the destructiveness of AA. But thanks for that one line retort backed up with nothing in the way of fact and for questioning my intelligence.

Why are you here in this thread? Why would you want to be? Why don't you just go back to AA land where people won't upset you?

[TracyA]

Side effects of AA

coalfire;1076637 wrote: I hate to see us all fighting this way.

I'm not fighting with you coalfire, or with anyone else. I'm fighting against a nasty institution. I could do it all day. I like debate anyway. I am getting annoyed with the AA folk popping in because - why do that? I wouldn't be caught dead in an AA thread. Why would they want to come into this one? Perplexing.

[coalfire]

Side effects of AA

I just wish that they would invent an alternative to alcohol then we could all pack up and go home. They keep hinting at it(see David Nutt synthetic alcohol.) I have 3 words for him. Hurry up please. Knowing my luck I would become a synthaholic too.Ex drugs tsar claims we could be drinking healthy alchol in 3 years | The Sun |Features

[one2many]

Side effects of AA

I am here because I am grateful.

I had a pretty shitty childhood due to having a chronic alcoholic father, I lived with the lying in vomit, the rows, the abuse and the things a kid should never see....

I never thought my father would get sober, not in a million years but he did, with the help of AA.

I am sure he would be dead otherwise.

Unfortunately he did not go to AA until I was in my 20's but he has 16 years sober now, we have a great relationship and my kids have a sober Grandad.

So yes, I am here because I am grateful to AA for helping my Dad get sober, he still goes to meetings every week and is a Dad to me at last.

So it actually saved his life....and made his family's a lot better.

I have every right to come here and post my thoughts.

AA does NOT kill people, nobody makes us pick up a drink except ourselves.

[one2many]

Side effects of AA

Oh and for the record, i am not an AA person, have never been to a meeting in my life and have no intention of going...I am sober tho.

[Cassia]

Side effects of AA

TracyA

You asked simply for anyone had anything good to say about the institution of aa and I did. In your eyes i am ignorant. Fair enough. If you believe that aa kills people, that's fair enough too. The great thing about this place is that we can express our opinions.

[Greg]

Side effects of AA

coalfire;1076661 wrote: I just wish that they would invent an alternative to alcohol then we could all pack up and go home. They keep hinting at it(see David Nutt synthetic alcohol.) I have 3 words for him. Hurry up please. Knowing my luck I would become a synthaholic too.Ex drugs tsar claims we could be drinking healthy alchol in 3 years | The Sun |Features

I have long dreamed of an alcohol substitute, and found a partial one in a cannabis+Xanax nightly routine, but a few problems have occurred with my nightly use of these...tolerance probably being the major problem, and unwanted side-effects as these two substances wear off the next day being a secondary problem. I may post a thread about this soon, not sure however since it's controversial.

David Nutt would find that any alcohol substitute based on benzodiazepines would have a tolerance problem, although very short-acting benzos like triazolam (Halcion) or one of the so-called "z drugs" (zolpidem, zopiclone, eszopiclone) could do the job with less tolerance.

Other possible alcohol substitutes could include GHB (the closest to alcohol by many reports), sedating anticonvulsants (eg. pregabalin, gabapentin, tiagabine), or simply one of the old-school general sedatives like a barbiturate, chloral hydrate, and so on. Obviously each substance would have some problems, but compared to alcohol they sound not quite as bad!! Another that comes to mind is the Pacific herb "kava kava".

[TracyA]

Side effects of AA

Sheri;1076686 wrote:
It's really a pity that some people on this thread feel the need to bully others to get their points across. We should all feel welcome to express our opinions and testimony without being shamed, mocked, and told not to post here because our views and experience happens to be different.

Sheri, your post is dishonest. I have not shamed anybody, mocked anybody or bullied anybody. I never told anybody not to post here. Why would say such a thing? Is that not dishonest and blatantly accusatory, insulting, etc.? But I guess it's just dandy to defend an institution that is fundamentally shame-based, centrally dishonest, incessantly bullying and mocks any attempt to have any other solution, eh?

People should feel welcome to express their opinions. They should not assume that their "opinions" will not be challenged.

[TracyA]

Side effects of AA

Greg;1076689 wrote: I have long dreamed of an alcohol substitute

Synthahol, a la Star Trek.

[one2many]

Side effects of AA

Why are you here in this thread? Why would you want to be? Why don't you just go back to AA land where people won't upset you?

I am getting annoyed with the AA folk popping in because - why do that? I wouldn't be caught dead in an AA thread. Why would they want to come into this one? Perplexing.


So did you not say this Tracy?