@Robketts is a SMART guru.
I don’t use any formal program to stay sober. Disease or addiction is for me, semantics. What I know is alcohol has had a deleterious effect on my life in the past, and since I want to be better, it can hold no place in my present or future.
It is this simple reality that keeps me from drinking. I may hit some rough patch in life someday, which overwhelms my will to be sober. If this happens, I will promptly carry myself to my first AA meeting, and will keep going forever. My reasoning is since “my way” alone wasn’t enough, this “new way” will have to become the plan, unless and until this new way fails to be sufficient, at which time I will add something else.
Or at least that’s the plan, on day 673. I will do whatever it takes to keep those chains off of me.
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Wasn’t his first choice though. They asked him to leave the foot fetish meeting.
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My father is an alcoholic, used his own program. I was in 3rd grade when he stopped…so, 30+ years sober
My uncle is an alcoholic, used the Sinclair method…40+ years sober.
My Grandfather was alcoholic. 50+ years sober no AA
I use AA. As my sponsor, 50 years sober 2 months ago states, “none of us know what it takes to get anyone sober, except ourselves”
Moral of the story, do what works for you. If what you are doing keeps you sober…keep on keeping on.
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That’s badass. I’ve only met one person with 50+ years in any capacity.
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This!!! All day, every day!!!
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Hi @Quinny251 i run a weekly smart meeting. I come from a science background so a higher power was not something that I could relate to…but many can and are very successful.
Smart for me helps me make constructive plans to live a sober life…an important part of smart is living a balanced life. So early in sobriety you focus more of your time on learning useful smart(CBT) tools which after a while become ingrained. As you progress you need can focus on other aspects of your life… always keeping sobriety as the foundation but building new better healthier habits…smart attendance is not expected to last much longer than 18 months then you can either start facilitating or just dip in and out of meetings when required…
What i have found at my meetings is a gradual turnover of attendees so the meetings stay ‘fresh’. I hope that the meetings feel that they belong to everyone and we are all the same regardless of how long we have been sober…smart works for me… it’s worth giving it a go 
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You know… Everybody is diving in the whole issue of it being a sickness or a disease. And if AA is It for you or not. What I am reading is an addict who is on day 67 losing that stretch of dopamine for now. Addiction is both mental and physical. That is a proven fact.
So all that matters (in my opinion) to get true this period of unnerving sentiments and crappy feelings is accepting the mentioned before and trusting that your body has the strength to recover the dopamine system and after that make sure you get healthy replacements for your dopamine needs.
Arguing with your brain is a vicious circle… Since it’s your own brain doing it.
*Dutch zo might have f’d a couple words up
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I lost faith in AA when someone told me a doorknob is their higher power.
JK.
There are many facets to addiction. AA offers a pretty convenient route to a support group. But it absolutely is about religion. I’ve listened to the entire Big Book. Plenty of meetings online and some in person. It just is. Which is great for some.
I think the key fallacy in their literature is too much putting addiction at your doorstep and not recognizing the immense role neurochemistry plays. The “allergy” they describe is just this. Why do we not wallow in guilt and pity and pray for Deliverance from other types of illness?
What about an insanely entrained and engrained physiological drive for alcohol is a moral failing?
Society in general does not understand the mechanisms behind mental health. We try to personalize it too much and blame the victim. Depressed? Go outside!
Drunk? You didn’t work the steps!
Sure, you “choose” to relapse but if all the common sense in the world would say that it’s completely irrational to do so, and you do, obviously there’s more to the story than meets the eye.
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I find it fascinating that some people just can’t get away from the religious aspects of AA and for others (atheists/agnostics) it’s a complete non-issue. I wonder if it is because the groups are all very different or if it’s about our attitudes/opinions.
I also don’t think it’s fair to describe the fallacy in the programme. Or to talk about our fellow community members as wallowing in guilt and pity. It’s just not an accurate representation of the intelligent, kind, positive and supportive people on this forum who go to AA and give so much back.
I’m not saying don’t disagree with AA or say why it doesn’t work for you. But there are ways of doing that without making the people who do find AA helpful sound like idiots.
We all have to find the thing that works for us. It sounds like you are on the right track for you and that is awesome 
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I will gladly be an idiot if it keeps me sober lol. In fact for a while I always tried to outsmart my addiction. It never worked for me. When I went to AA it was because I was all out of answers. Probably for the first time in my life I went “I dunno, I’m stumped”. Currently the mind set of keeping it simple and not knowing is working for me. These days I am pretty well-read on the issue of addiction due to my job and general curiosity. But all the knowledge in the world won’t keep me sober without putting action in to recovery. That’s why I think any program is a good one. Because they all require action.
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Sounds like you figured out it was a psychological addiction and retrained your brain. That’s awesome!
Not after a quick fix. After a perminant solution that doesn’t reauire a life long support network.
Been reading a lot about cognitive re-alignment. Absolutely fascinating. It has been proven that we can train out certain habits. They have found that parts of the brain can take over tasks from damaged parts of the brain. We see this with stroke recovery. The don’t fix the damaged parts, they just train up other areas.
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People take such offense to critique. Especially these days. I get there is a personal and emotional aspect but I’m trying to give my objective experience.
And if that translates to calling others idiots, I guess I missed that memo.
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I am just giving my perspective in return, I’m not offended 
I suppose I am defensive of this forum, and truly believe in it being a place where people support each other. To that end I don’t really understand why anyone feels the need to critique other people’s recovery methods. There’s a difference between talking about how you have experienced something (very subjective) and making claims about what is right or wrong about it (I don’t really believe in the idea of objectivity, but that’s another conversation!).
As above I am so pleased that you have found something that is working for you. That’s really awesome, there is space for everyone
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For me, I take offense to the fact that to make this work we have to be open to try anything.
By running down one type of program it could be putting someone else off it that would really benefit from it.
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I will look it up. Had a quick look on Wikipedia but it’s too much for my brain to take in before bed!
I feel like we can learn things that help us shift perspective but we have to keep on practicing them. Like with yoga and/or meditation, you get the best results from daily practice. But I’m sure there are other ways, at the end of the day the only thing I’m sure of is that nothing is certain 
I also think the idea of a life long support network sounds pretty awesome. But I guess it depends who’s in it 
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I hope it did not come across that I was making light of mental health ilnesses. On the contrary, as someone who has struggled with depression for many years now, I can say from experience it’s hard to deal with. Fortunately am slowly overcoming my depression by re-training my brain through repition. Little things like writing down every night 3 things I am grateful for.
First step is understanding the problem. That’s where my view and AA view (the ones I have been to anyway) differ. They call it an incurable disease. I believe it to be a curable mental illness.
If a support network works for you, fantastic. My goal is to be able to overcome this issue one day without the support network. Of course it’s good to have in the beginning and I thank everyone on this forum for their advice and support. As mentioned, AA just freaks me out that people still need external support years later. And the group’s I have gone to so far people make it clear they will be going for the rest of their lives!
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Sign me up! Exactly what I was talking about. Sounds like you treat it like a mental illness and introduce tools to manage the illness. After a while these tools become habit, eventually little effort is required to maintain good habits.
Theres a SMART group near me. Going!
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