Not enough coffee 
. I was fairly confused for a second
About what exactly? Now you’re confusing me
I thought you said condemn and not condone so I was really confused.
Well yeah condemning wouldn’t be helpful either
I’ll have a latte with 2 sugars btw
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I have absolutely no idea what any of that is. We are obviously from different parts of the world lol
Correct. In order to accomplish anything, one must possess BOTH the will to do so, and the means to do so. Tools, such as this app, meetings, counseling, medication are the means. The fewer of these one has, the harder it can be. The a strong will can overcome a paucity of means, but the inverse is not true. All the means in the world cannot substitute for a lack of will.
This is the way of things.
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If nothing changes, nothing changes. If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’re going to keep getting what you’re getting. You want change, make some.
“I’m 30 days but went to the pub to watch the Superbowl and ended up drinking!” Why? Duh!
" I’m 30 days in and went to a restaurant and ended up drinking!" Why? Duh!
Change the way you live your life to actually make the difference people, otherwise, nothing changes!!!
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I think this one is my favourite
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Except that you can change all of those things and still drink, if you do not address what is the root cause within. Everyone can poke at the sober-curious and those trying to find their their way. But for many people, they don’t know that there is anything spiritually, mentally and physically wrong with them. Drinking is often the only tool they have to cope with life and it just gets a little sideways. How can you fault someone when they don’t know any better? They have never seen another way. Just like a child, they have to be shown that there is another way before they can understand that it may be a better way. That is why it is important to talk about what you did and why — to show them that another way of life is possible and can be just as rewarding as the bottle. Talking at them is generally only going push them further away from where they need to be.
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Flavored creamers. Drool. We don’t have those in my part of the world.
ANYWAYS.
Loving this thread. Tough love. Very much how I think which is why I get so mad at myself when I relapse. I’m drowning myself in sobriety materials at the moment, but also doing the work of putting on my boots and getting to work.
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If they’ve read this site for anything longer than a day or two they can no longer claim ignorance as a defense. The forum is littered with stories of people doing exactly what everyone cautioned against. Remember, there’s more ways to sobriety than your way. Truth and tough love work for plenty of people. You don’t see me jumping over to your thread and pointing out the irony of worshipping a hippie who died of a drug overdose.
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Willful ignorance is an art form, and I am a past master of it.
There is a fair amount of posting here along the lines of “Consequences are starting to pile up. I gotta quit! But I don’t know what to do! But I don’t want to change anything!” And most telling, the OP doesn’t reply on that post or any other. This was my MO - with the twist that it was other people and conditions that had to change, not me.
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I was a nihilist. I knew the consequences and welcomed them. I had always figured my disease would kill me. When it didn’t kill me, that was the consequence I couldn’t live with. I didn’t have it in me to kill myself, and it was pretty clear that my disease was going to keep me alive and miserable. That’s when I started to follow suggestions.
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Duuude! Yup, that’s exactly how it went for me. I was too fucking scared to take that bottle of xanax. So I quit it all, since it wasn’t getting me the outcome I so craved.
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I think its a feeling that most alcoholics know all to well. Wanting to die but too pussy to pull the trigger.
Gosh I’m glad we are alive pals!
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Yeah, so am I! I’m seriously living life on lifes terms lately. Shit is piling up one me, mostly emotionaly, and I can’t tell you how well I am handling it. Well, relatively well. Being a quitter was the best choice I ever made!
The first rule in any helping profession is DO NO HARM.
Some things that are said to newcomers here do harm. They just do. They make people not want to come back and be scolded and disparaged… For me, this is not how we carry the message. I am not trying to derail the topic…just asking for thought about what truth and tough love is.
You know that I belong to the same fellowship as many here. You know how seriously I take my sobriety. And yet on this thread I read
You can spare me all the excuses you may be thinking that you have. I’ve heard them all, and they are all bullshit.
I don’t even know what the hell you are trying to say, but what I see is people coming here with minimal effort and achieving minimal sobriety. We can argue semantics all day long, but if you half ass sobriety you won’t get it. Just like anything worth having in life, it takes work to get it. You can’t half ass anything and expect maximum results.
If someone here or in a meeting had said to me “You have to change your playmates and your playground.” “You need to stay out of restaurants if you don’t wanna get drunk” “You have to attend 90 in 90, etc - or you are not taking your recovery seriously.”. “You went to a bachelorette party three days sober? What the hell did you expect?”. I never would have logged on or come back again.
We cannot speak in generalities and slogans and expect that they will apply to every person and situation. We cannot take broken people - who may just be reaching out for understanding at this point - and flog them into submission, expecting it to work immediately. If I care enough to help someone get sober, I have to care enough to first understand where they are.
The title of this thread reads Pro AA material included. Sentiments expressed here would send me running from that fellowship, had I not already formed my opinion. This is not representative of the fellowship as I understand it. Truth and tough love, as I know it, means meeting people where they are and helping support them until they can stand on their own. Me standing around with other sober people, patting ourselves on the back for being sober AF, does little to actually help someone who is fragile and scared.
Remember, there’s more ways to sobriety than your way. Truth and tough love work for plenty of people. You don’t see me jumping over to your thread and pointing out the irony of worshipping a hippie who died of a drug overdose.
Here’s the difference. That thread is about all kinds of music that is meaningful. Not one thing on that thread has ever done harm to someone here. It has not alienated people. If anything, it has brought people together and helped them find some beauty in a world that seemed pretty bleak.
This forum has been a lifeline for me. If someone here had jumped me when I was newly sober, I would have run. If I had read this thread with this title, I would never have attended a fellowship meeting. I didn’t have the knowledge or the strength to take it. I didn’t know what I was doing wrong until I felt it on my own…and had people to pick me up when I saw how broken I was and crumbled. They met me where I was…yes, with honesty and experience…and also compassion and understanding.
Until I know someone cares and listens, what they say means nothing.
That…for me…is truth and tough love.
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If they’ve read this site for anything longer than a day or two they can no longer claim ignorance as a defense. The forum is littered with stories of people doing exactly what everyone cautioned against. Remember, there’s more ways to sobriety than your way. Truth and tough love work for plenty of people. You don’t see me jumping over to your thread and pointing out the irony of worshipping a hippie who died of a drug overdose.
So you had it all figured out after a day or two? You knew that alcohol and addiction was a threefold disease that we could just think our way out of it once someone told us DRUGS BAD. DRINKING BAD. DUMBASS. If it were that easy, Nancy Reagan and DARE would have had us all not drinking and not doing drugs and we could all be living that Ozzie and Harriet life.
If it were that easy, I wouldn’t have bounced off the bottom a number of times, trying to see how much lower I could go before the pain got to be too much. If all it took was to have someone yell at me and tell me that I was a drunk and needed to clean my act up, I would have been sober a long time ago. I wouldn’t have had to lose what I lost to get where I am now.
I have never said my way or the AA way is the only way. There are those here that haven’t done it my way or the AA way that I respect and believe I can learn from to help another alcoholic. I have never said that tough love is never appropriate. My thread doesn’t take on the AA mantle and claim that my way is the truth and the light and if you don’t like it fuck you.
AA saved my life. I don’t hesitate to tell anyone that. It is for that reason-- I will not stand idly by and let a newcomer think that this thread is AA and what it is like, a locker room to make fun of and deride others who don’t see it your way or that stumble. I don’t want that person searching for help, not to make a meeting that could save their life because they believe that AA is like this. My experience, strength, and hope have shown me that AA is the exact opposite. Yes, sometimes showing that love is shown by telling them the hard facts in a loving manner. But AA isn’t openly making fun of people and deriding them when they stumble. We take in anyone and will love them until they can love themselves – even when the message they carry is not one that I want.
And as to your comments concerning Jerry* and Brent and Pig and Janis and Jimi and all the others that suffer or suffered from the same disease that we both do, just bolsters my point above about this thread. They didn’t make it and get help — fucking loser hippies. Just like one of my good friend’s son who didn’t make it. Guess he is a fucking loser too huh?
I get it – easier to make fun of people and call them names than to look at them as people. It’s even harder to love them. And yet harder to identify with them. I get it b/c I used to be that person, I lifted myself up by putting everyone else down. Thankfully today, I don’t have to live that way today. You, however, can do you boo, that’s your prerogative. But when you put on the mantle of AA and risk taking out a newcomer, it isn’t just you anymore.
*As an aside, Jerry didn’t die of an overdose. He died in a rehab trying to get clean and died from a heart attack from all the drugs and drinking. It serves as a reminder that all we have is today. We have no promise that we can get clean and sober tomorrow.
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I’ve seen the caring meet you where you are at type in the rooms, I’ve also met the truth and tough love type, and the hybrid who is in between those 2 sentiments. My IOP counselor was a hybrid, he was stern and adamant but able to relate so well and show me how he was living sober and the benefits that it had.
This thread is appropriately named in my view, there’s so many threads, look for one until you find it. Make a new “my story” thread and get all the back patting you desire.
He’s allowed this place, if you don’t like it I’d suggest you mute it.
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