Had anyone read this book? I’m guessing it is very controversial among 12 step/rehab/recovery groups because it is essentially debunking everything these programs teach.
I found this book while I was in the process of looking for a group to join, and now I think I’ll skip the group. I had a really quick turn from feeling like I was a “helpless addict,” afraid to go out and see friends or be around alcohol. After reading I realized I just wanted to drink a lot. Now I don’t. I have experienced everything that would be considered a “trigger” and even had a taste of wine on 2 separate occasions. I didn’t want to keep drinking either occasion.
I guess the point is, I was fully prepared to live my life in despair about a “disease” I thought i had. Now, I think I would rather just weigh the cost/benefit of my choices, and then own the costs.
Has anyone else given up the Addiction/Recovery rhetoric?
I prefer the SMART program because it doesn’t paint you as a helpless victim. It makes you realize that everything that we do is a choice, and we are in Co trol of the choices we make. I am not a victim, I was just failing myself before. Now I am in charge and taking care of myself.
I can be around alcohol as much as I want, which is not often. My life is better as a result of being in AA. I’m also one of them real ones. I have the disease of alcoholism/addiction. It’s been diagnosed a doctor. Who’s been to medical school. I don’t feel any despair or hopelessness. That was what I felt when I was using. Now I have a life beyond my wildest dreams because of AA
None of the AA meetings I go to have any helplessness talk. We are empowered to make our own choices, which includes lots of mutual love and support for each other.
I judged AA before I ever got there too. It was ego, pride and fear that kept me away. I thought I was so smart and better than people. I was deadass wrong. I wish recovery just meant choosing to put the drink down, but I had lost that choice the first time I picked up a drink. That book will probably end up killing a lot of people by suggesting that addiction is a choice. It’s not. And pretty much all doctors agree.
I like AA bc they offer a clear and simple solution. Wanna get sober? Do these 12 steps in your daily life, go to meetings and help other drunks. It’s worked for 82 years for millions of seemingly helpless drunks.
I was discussing and comparing. You felt the need to discuss AA in your original post so I’m definitely ok with researching the book and discussing it. Bc the fact that the disease model is accepted by doctors pretty much debunks your book…
http://www.thecleanslate.org is the website run by one of the authors Stphen Slate. I started by watching his Ted Talk and reading his blog posts. It seemed to make a lot of sense and continues to do so. It is a “radical” viewpoint, and one that I definitely was not comfortable accepting for a long time, until I actually read what he was saying. Happy learning.
I experienced this. Drank just one, a number of times without feeling tempted for more in the moment or even for a few days or weeks after. Guess what happened when I kept doing it.
I hope your alcohol relationship is vastly different from mine, because if it’s not, you’re playing liquid Russian roulette whether the gun feels empty or not – the minute whether you find out if you’re right or wrong about it in the long run is the minute you come crashing down and no earlier.
I guess what I’m getting at is that the test of a recovery approach is staying sober, not “sober so far” because we have no clue what the future might hold.
I do think it’s good to look at the choices you have to fight a problematic relationship with alcohol and not view oneself as a victim. But I’m wary of abandoning the disease model and acceptance of having a problem. Having a disease doesn’t make me a powerless victim, knowing I have a disease gives me knowledge and power to address and treat it.
Yes but the point is that if, in the future, I end up getting obnoxiously drunk, it will not be because I couldn’t control it. It will be because I knew the costs and chose drunkenness.
I am currently choosing not to drink. If I later choose to drink it will be because I perceive some benefit from drinking.
Ok. What I’m wondering here is which parts of the situation you see as being under our own control. For me that’s taking the first drink. I may only have 90% chance of control after over future consumption after that first drink, which means it’s not really under my control at all. For some it’s 0% and first drink always leads to blackout. But if someone has the disease, it’s because they do have some loss of control, otherwise we wouldn’t drink despite ridiculous consequences.
What you’re saying about having a choice makes sense to me if applied to someone who’s not an alcoholic. But in the case of an alcoholic, I think it’s incomplete, just look at all the relapse posts about “I knew it would be terrible/could kill me/etc. and I didn’t have to but I did anyways”. I don’t know how you see that, but to me I see pretty clearly that people had the information to make a choice and weren’t planning to accept the consequences of blackout drinking, but they did because alcoholism is real.
I’m not here to debate this topic, because I’m obviously not an expert, and haven’t done research beyond the book, which I have ready 75% of the way through. I am also not here to tell you that your life experience is “right or wrong,” because I can not make judgements on someone else. I simply wanted to see if anyone else had read a book or was interested in reading a book. If you have not/are not, then this is a fruitless conversation.
Check out the book, if you like. If you don’t like, that’s your choice.