Mekong Posted July 21, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 21, 2005 I have always viewed AA with cynicsm, but the reason I enquired was two-fold. Firstly I have exchanged emails with AA councellor 2-3 times now, and seeing this happening has given my partner a faint glimmer of hope that this is not another false start. Secondly, it was a way of opening dialogue in the forum. I admitted my problem, and you have come back with messages of support and success stories of your own experiences, either personaly or of a close friend / relative. Just knowing that there are good people here prepared to share, what are deep personal experiences, with a complete stranger in order to lend a hand of humanity, has made me even more determined that this time will be for good. Thanks Guys You are Gems Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sukhumvit Posted July 22, 2005 Report Share Posted July 22, 2005 Couple of mates are or were alkies. One guy turned his car over when he drove off the motorway, drunk at 7.30am. Ended up with a fence post impaled through the front windscreen. He came out of it with barely a scratch. He hasn't had a job for almost 3 years now. Luckily for him his wife works and is very understanding so he can stay at home and get sloshed on wine and beer. She's forbidden spirits in the house. He came to pick me up from my office a few years ago, whilst he was still working. I didn't know he had a real problem then although I guessed he had. As I was walking towards the car as he pulled up he drove into the back of the car in front. Another geezer told me that he was drunk every day for 4 years. Held down a job. Apparently he'd sometimes go out and drink all night and end up sitting on benches with winos drinking till morning. Now he's cleaned his act up and is totally sober although he has become a fitness freak. There's an AA meeting in Pattaya if you're over that way which meets down in by the Skaew Beach hotel just off 2nd Road. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest lazyphil Posted July 22, 2005 Report Share Posted July 22, 2005 My neighbour died of alcaholism about 2.5 years ago. She lived alone with her young son, always seemed ok to me though looked a bit haggered, I heard she was told 6 months before her liver packed up by her Dr if she didn't stop drinking she would die. I saw the ambulence arrive one morning, taken out on a stretcher, that night died of liver failure at 38 years old Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happyfarang2547 Posted July 22, 2005 Report Share Posted July 22, 2005 Good one. I know you can do it because I've done it for 15 years now and strength of will is not one of my strong suits. I don't mean to over simplify but it boils down to this: Do not drink no matter what. Yes there are tough times and that's what the people you meet in AA are for. If you want to drink, call someone. Collecting phone numbers should be your first point of business. Your second is to find a sponsor. Go to meetings and keep an eye out for someone you relate to and approach the person and ask them to sponsor you. Then you'll need to begin working the steps. One rule I suggest you set up for yourself is if someone pushes you to drink once, explain you don't drink. If they continue to push, they're an asshole who doesn't respect your rights as an individual to choose whats right for yourself and is very likely in denial about his or her own situation. You gotta get that type of person out of your life...period. Take no prisioners, this is your life were talking about. I'll be in BKK next week if you want to hang out we can do that sober. I promise you it is possible to have a lot of fun sober and you always remember the details. If you want to talk we can do both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiery Jack Posted July 22, 2005 Report Share Posted July 22, 2005 Sukhumvit said:Another geezer told me that he was drunk every day for 4 years. Held down a job. Apparently he'd sometimes go out and drink all night and end up sitting on benches with winos drinking till morning. Now he's cleaned his act up and is totally sober although he has become a fitness freak... This tends to happen. By definition, alcoholics are incorrigibly obsessive by nature so, when the boozing vanishes from our lives, we need to find something else quick to obsess on to replace it. To be frank, that's why I think Alcoholics Anonymous thrives and gets so many "born again converts": "not drinking" (and hectoring every other cunt in earshot loudly and smugly about it 24/7) becomes their new obsession. Life and goodness and a renewed optimism are my new obsession. I have become passionate and vehement about living life to the full and being happy and prolific and positive. I don't need a rule-book based on pseudo-mormonism as a prop to guide me through the maze. I don't need to make alcoholic strangers cry in a room full of smoke by telling them how wretched I've been to fill in the hole. I do need the support of close friends, with whom I have been honest about my illness, but I can get that without sitting in a meeting once a week at the end of which prayers to a God I don't believe in are offered as par for a course I don't subscribe to. Some people maybe can't fill in the void near to home, because of whatever, and AA is a chance for them. In principle, AA is a good idea. What irks me is the supercillious manner in which its righteous advocates presume to monopolise sobriety and steadfastly dogmatically declare that AA is the only way out of the woods. It's not. At worst, being cynical, I believe that AA preys on vulnerable people in need of a port in a storm. At best, AA saves lives which might otherwise have been lost. Each to his own. If AA works for you, run with it, and the very best of luck. But there is other strength closer to home in many cases and if you can do it in fashion closer to home, I think that, in the long run, you'll be a better person and more at one with yourself, rather than at one with insidious religiosity and a calvanistic textbook. Rant over. Cheers, jack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Hippie Posted July 22, 2005 Report Share Posted July 22, 2005 Fiery Jack said:Oh, without getting misty-eyed and windswept, I should also add that communicating with fellow piss-artists who are struggling to stay on the wagon is an essential supportive thing. Old Hippie and I have been exchanging private mails for over a year, swapping stories of how we're on the wagon or off it as the case may be, and (I don't know about him but...) that's been really helpful to me. Problem shared is a problem halved and all that. (We're not poofs, like.) (Well, I don't know about him....). :: jack Yep, it does help, and Thanks to Jack and a few others for all the help and supportive words, it is an on going battle. As for being poofs, not US! but just out of curiosity, how many times would you have to have sex in a San Francisco bathhouse, like the one over on Market street, or the nicer one on Castro street, (the one with the blue rugs in the locker room,or the place across from there) before one would actually be called an official poof...? not that I have any experience on this of course, I'm just asking for a friend, as a generel topic of discussion... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
short-time Posted July 22, 2005 Report Share Posted July 22, 2005 ?I met an AA counsellor privately and chatted, and it sounded like a bunch of bullshit to me, a narrow ace away from the Jehovah's fucking Rovers. You need something to replace the boozing, but for fuck's sake find something more interesting than formalised paint-by-numbers madcap Christianity.? That?s the problem with AA, their one and only solution is based on substituting bible study for boozing. I had a roommate almost 20 years ago who joined up and followed through with the bible thumping, I guess it helped him, at least for awhile ? he died at 43. Guess it worked for George Bush and his wifey though... But, unless you are looking to become a born again Christian, look elsewhere for help. ST Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happyfarang2547 Posted July 22, 2005 Report Share Posted July 22, 2005 Besides a seeming inability to accept much on faith, we often found ourselves handicapped by obstinacy, sensitiveness, and unreasoning prejudice. Many of us have been so touchy that even casual reference to spiritual things make us bristle with antagonism...... http://www.recovery.org/aa/bigbook/ww/chapter_4.html Should anyone want to read what is really in the AA program about religion, here's the link. AA is not usually bible thumping or born again Christianity. I know because both of those make me puke and I almost never puke in a meeting. You will find thumpers in AA, same same, as you will find them anywhere else. Let those that thump, thump; those that rant, rant, and those that puke, puke. But at the end of it all, lets all walk out the door sober men and women. As far as counting on friends and family to help you get and stay in recovery (assuming they are not problem drinkers) is about the same as calling your brother the plumber when you can't pee. If they are problem drinkers themselves...well, lets just misery loves company. Blood is thicker than water, but it certainly isn't thicker than Johnny Walker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nervous_Dog Posted July 22, 2005 Report Share Posted July 22, 2005 <<I did fall off the wagon last LOS trip,>> Sorry about that but I always push people who sit on the edge of their bar stools! My mate in Aus has a wife whose a alcoholic, but was a moderate drinker. When she finanally joined AA, he quite cold turkey, and even though not a huge drinker, hasn't touched a single drop since, I like them both a lot, and a real nice thing he did to help his wife. Mind you he probably drove her to drink in the first place! DOG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Hippie Posted July 22, 2005 Report Share Posted July 22, 2005 "...Sorry about that but I always push people who sit on the edge of their bar stools!..." Oh right, that was you I was drinking with last trip, it is comming back to me... Regarding AA...ah, what ever works I guess, frankly, I don't need to sit in a room full of people with stories of fucked up lives...I did some counseling, then quit that as well, used theOxazphem to cut tremors and cravings, and curb the mood swings/temper tantrums, and did o.k. for a long time. There is the occassional binge, and I just try to cool it...so far, so good! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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