Hey ya'll, First off - I'm okay. Still sober and exactly 28-days no cigarettes!
So, after my last relapse I stepped up my recovery efforts to include Intensive Out Patient Treatment and I had a light-bulb moment from putting 2+2+2 together and getting 6 that has stuck in my head for two days now and I'm looking for opinions and/or insight (or anything that will make me laugh. I like laughing.)
So, our species has blundered along as we more or less know ourselves now via trial and error for many thousands of years. What got us this far was the same drive as every other species on the earth; survive and multiply. We accomplished this with our great big complicated brains and two main evolved and/or designed (doesn't matter which one you believe as the end result is the same) methods of learning; 1) If it feels good...do it again. 2) Learn fast or die.
Examples of #1: Eating, being comfortable and having sex all feel good, so humans have learned many, many ways to feed, shelter and breed ourselves. We survived.
Examples of #2: It has been proven again and again (and is the cornerstone of all military training) that the human brain learns faster and deeper under stress. Swim...or sink. Climb...or be eaten by a tiger. Take the shot...or lose the prey.
These amazingly complex, unique and powerful abilities are the result of chemical activity inside our magnificient God-Given Think-Engines...
That We Alcoholics/Addicts re-tuned, de-tuned and wrecked when we super-charged The System via short-cuts and overloads with booze and/or dope!
In times of stress or under other perfect "training" conditions we learned really fast (like we're designed to) that booze/dope feels really, really good. So we did it again. And again. And again. And again. And again.
Until it either destroyed or threatened to destroy our lives, livelihoods, homes and relationships; the very things our brains were designed to create, achieve and preserve.
Cunning. Baffling. Powerful.
So whaddaya do? Well, like our distant ancestors, when they were faced with things that were unmanageable...
Came to believe that a Power Greater than Ourselves could restore Us....
1: unlike sex and other primal drives, getting drunk feels both good AND BAD...the hangover, the puking, the accidents...those are maladaptive and we as alcoholics do not learn from this like a normal person. We don't learn from the failed relationships and legal consequences...(until they get really really bad). That is why there is the story of the Jaywalker in the big book. It is my opinion that we are both hedonistic and self-sabotaging at the same time....We are complicated people and need a simple program. Hence, we strive for serenity as the best fix to our condition of always being at extremes in most areas of life. We must learn to just BE. Spirituality is the only way to accomplish this.
2. As far as learning to abuse substances due to a maladaptive stress response. Hell yeah. That's a no brainer. Of course we learned that checking out is a good way to deal with stress. BUT...somehow in our messed up childhoods or whatever, we lacked the positive experiences and faith that normal people seem to have which is that when under stress, a solution will arise or things will just get better if we try our best. Hence, learning to become intoxicated under stress is really maladaptive and not fitting with Darwinian thinking either because after years of drinking under every situation, we are then lacking coping mechanisms and find ourselves freaking out and drinking over the dumbest little stressors. Similarly, our brains get out of whack and create stress, we become prone to obsess over things...all so we can keep getting our ass whooped by our master: Alcohol.
Thank God for AA and a way out of this insanity. Good post. Made me think more about steps 1 and 2.
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
Here is a funny story, though true, it might make you laugh. This happened along time ago. I told my friend I thought about taking my life, which no that is not funny, but check out what she did to me and she knew I have a drinking problem.
She said I am going to take you to a meeting, she called it Suicide Anonymous. So off to the meeting we go. I started talking about suicide for about 35 minutes, when someone got up and said this is not a speaker meeting. I said I am sorry whatever that means, but my friend over here, and I pointed to her, told me this is Suicide Anonymous and I didn't know there was a limit on how long I could talk. He said this is AA meeting. I said what is an AA meeting. He said it is for people trying to stay clean from alcohol, I said oh, and my friend is laughing and so is everyone else. I said she tricked me, that made people laugh.
So that is how I found out about AA meetings for the first time.
aqua, you're a nice bloke and I like you, but it sounds like you are still desperately trying to rationalise and intellectualise.
why am I an alcoholic - because I am. it has nuthin to do with learned responses, familial upbringing, societal examples, learned behaviour, genes, or the fact that howler monkeys have a habit of getting pissed because they associate the scent of alcohol with perfectly ripe nutritious fruit. I is an alcoholic because I Just IS. it is InSideMe. all the foregoing may have helped to bring it into an active state, but I is an alkie, I'll always be an alkie, I always was an alkie and I'll die an alkie. (Hopefully sober and hopefully not for a long time yet.)
So i agree that dependance upon a Higher Power is a proven way to prevent active alcoholism and a proven way to stay sober and a proven way to enable a change of thinking that removes the compulsion to drink like a social drinker.
But for me it boils down to this. If i don't take the first drink i won't get drunk. (I know this as a logical fact) I have no defense on my own efforts against the first drink. (I know this through bitter experience). I need a higher power to not lift the first drink. (I know this through my experience and the experience of others so I believe it so then I have Faith in it.)Then and only then can i begin to get acceptance of my condition (in all forms of the word) and to work the steps to bring about the personality change needed to free myself from the pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization associated with active alcoholoism.
Acceptance is the answer. This is a straightforward program, complicated unecessarily by complex people.
Meetings Steps Sponsor Acceptance Change
It's working for me, it's working for thousands of others and has worked for millions more. I'm not about to re invent the wheel. all i need to do is polish the rims and pump the tyres up through taking action.
Seen on a sign in a Scottish Meeting - There are no lifts in AA - please use the steps.
(Lifts=elevators=picking up a drink, steps=stairs = the programme of AA)
heard at an AA meeting - there is no hole so deep that 12 steps can't take you out of it.
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It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you got. BB
Like my Grandma said if I don't buy beer, then I can't drink it, and that is true. If I stay out of bars I can't drink, which is true. So lets just say I wanted a beer now, which I do, if it was not in my house I would not be able to drink. If I wanted to go to a bar, but didn't go and stayed home, then I can't drink booze. I just have to stay away from that poison.
I do think about beer a lot..I need a new hobby. LOL.
But what I would like to know is how can I feel good, like when I drink? I don't know how to feel great like that without beer. The only thing that makes me feel calm and relaxed, and then I feel sociable, so I can talk, is booze. I can't get the buzz feeling, unless I drink. So I get scared because I am thinking what will I do, or handle life without a good buzz. This is fun to me, yet I don't have the money to drink and it is not good for my health, that is why I want to stop.
I don't want to end up dead because of my addiction to drink. All the money I just drank away that I could spend on something else. I also read drinking causes heart problems, liver problems, and causes cancer, yet I smoke ciggs on top of that, which we all know causes cancer and heart problems. I am a woman to. This means I am at higher risk for these problems, because I am female. Why does everything I enjoy too expensive, or causes illness? well accept for video games, that I enjoy, but do too much of.
Oh...yeah..I agree that you rationalize a lot. I like to wax philosophical too but it does not help me stay sober. All the things Bill mentioned were what works. The reason for this is that I can maybe come up with some brilliant friggin theory...and it could be right on the money for everyone else in the world, but it wouldn't change me and my alcoholism. I would still need the program and the tools because I can't think my way out of a drink...never could. I got 2 masters degrees before winding up in AA and was a substance abuse counselor already. Shows how much I know, right?
__________________
Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
Nice Rob. I agree with much of your thought process ona "psychological perspective"......... However.....
The spiritual malady is unique to humans. Animals do not continually do the same thing over and over that is counterproductive to survival. In comes "lemmings". They do what they do (follow eachotehr over a cliff) for a very good reason, actually. They multiply so quickly that their resources are limited (food, shelter), so they naturally "decrease their numbers"....
We become alcoholics, in my opinion, indeed because of genetic (and spiritual) problems. One cannot deny the scientific proof that our brains and bodies process alcohol differently than non-drinkers. The fact that we often die from it in one way or another if untreated, speaks to Darwin's theory, survival of the fittest. We are "defunct" and therefore would likely die off early, thereby leaving more resources for those who not have the defunct mechanism in play.
But because we are spiritual beings, we have a solution in spiritual principles. Our solution has nothing to do with physical biological "cures". We cannot, of any human aid, "unlearn" that alcohol feels good and that we "need" alcohol. In like manner, we can't learn that alcohol is bad and dangerous, either, not on a working level. We know it mentally but perform otherwise. Learned behavior/classical conditioning does not work for us regarding alcohol. They were already trying this, on some level (trying to TEACH people not to drink) before AA started.
Alcoholism is a spiritual malady (along with biological phenomena), based on selfishness and belligerence and ego. Intellectualism is one of our greatest enemies. Science has not found a way to alleviate our obsession. But the scientific method proves that 12 Steps work, by ways of statistics. While the underlying aspects of recovery cannot be explained scientifically, the results exist regardless of lack of scientific explanation. It talks about this phenomenon in the 12&12, Step 2 (or 3?)Chapter.
The 4th Steps talks about unmet needs. These are related to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Some of these needs are a need for love and belonging, esteem, self actualization (fulfillment). Being in AA actually provides these needs, through belongingness, esteem (through humility and amends), and eventual fulfillment of who we were supposed to be all along....
But alcohol robs us of our basic needs, which come before all else, according to Maslow. Those are needs for food, air, warmth. How often did we put alcohol before nutrition, before shelter (not paying the rent), warmth (passing out in the snow or the cold streets), belonging (abandoning others, treating them poorly)? How often did we put alcohol before personal safety? The 4th Step talks about our unmet needs, and how we used instincts in the wrong ways to try to fill those needs. We are simply a phenomenon... and spiritual changes are the only thing that can alleviate our obsession and the self-mutilation we practice on all levels.
Small wonder that it was our intellect that kept most of us from getting well, and it is the smashing of intellect and through humility, and the subsequent adoption of faith that gets us well.
Blah blah blah...... LOL
(I just wrote a big paper for school outlining psychological princlples a play in Bill Wilson's life from early childhood on. I got a 99% on it, and if anyone would like to see it, I will gladly email it to you. It is in no way counteractive to the AA program, and does mention the spiritual phenomenon that got him and others 'well".)
((((hugs))))
-- Edited by jonijoni1 on Friday 21st of May 2010 09:40:17 AM
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~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
This sounds like a conversation I had with my sponsor once. I went on for almost 1/2 hour before he stopped me, laughing and shaking his head. I couldn't understand why he would react this way. After all, I had a sound and reasonable problem here. He responded with 2 simple phrases that have stuck with me...
he told me I was horrible at keeping things simple, and that AA is a simple program for complicated people.
It suddenly made perfect sense to me. All I HAD to do was not take that first drink. I knew the program and knew I would choose the right thing to do if I DIDN'T pick up that first drink. I quit questioning and started living! I know for certain today that my state of mind directly reflects my spiritual condition. When I'm feeling "off" I know that there's some part of me getting in the way of my HP, and if I let that happen for too long I will probably end up drunk again.
Like the BB tells me, when I quit focusing on the problem and start focusing on the solution, the problem goes away. If I'm thinking about my problems they seem to get worse. When I focus on the solution, I feel better and can start doing the right thing today.
I don't know why I'm an alcoholic, and frankly don't care. I didn't learn it from parents, family, or friends because I never saw it. I accept the fact that I'm an alcoholic because that is the hand that was dealt to me, so what am I going to do about it?
Today I choose not to drink!
Keep it simple my friend, if only just for one minute at a time!
My best Sponsor, taught me so many things that I still cherish.
1. Don't Drink
2. Don't Think
3. She was the one that introduced me to the concept of, without the slightest smile on her face....."Your mind is like a real bad neighborhood, should never go there alone".
Personally after being on death's door, like many others, dont think I have ever tried to intellectualize the Cunning Baffling and Oh so Powerful Nature of this Disease.....
I just know I have got it, like Bill said, always will, only throught the Grace of God will I be able to do my life in the practices of AA and Sobriety, one day at a time....til there are no more.
Hugs and Love.. . Toni
Wanted to add an experience, I was diagnosed with In Situ Carcinoma in my brest in my forties, and one Day a great Doctor said to me, well if you HAVE to get it, you got the Best one......so I did all that was required, and the only thing I ever thought about the Carcinoma, was Well I got the Best one.
Same analogy, never did too much thinking, only the doing to have a long life....
Hugs again, Rob, sorry I could not find something funny to make you smile...........:) party pooper me.....
Toni
-- Edited by Just Toni on Friday 21st of May 2010 12:30:47 PM
I really wish that I could either delete this f***ing thread.
The point I was trying to make was 2+2 = the physiological mechanism of addiction and it's roots. Not my wild-assed theory but summarized straight out of my rehab material and a very good ensueing conversation in group.
The last +2 is the
CAME TO BELIEVE line. YES I owe my sobriety to my higher power and the basics of the program. YES I keep my PROGRAM to 5 meetings a week, daily humble prayers of gratitude and willingness as well as Service and Unity.
F***. Every time I mention science or thinking around AA, I feel like I'm about to be thrown in a cell with Galileo.
It's ok, Rob. The 12 & 12 mentions science, and talks extensively about how those of us who tend toward the "scientific" can see AA for its results and can use our scientific minds to actually understand and surrender more easily to AA. That's what I like about the 12 & 12. It can appeal to so many different types of people. I admit that I am NOT the most spiritual among us.... and that the 12 & 12 reaches me by discussing such things as how I think and what I need to do to bring that in line with the Steps and therefore GAIN that spiritual awakening (which I might add, we are ALL fledglings at).
There is all kinds of stuff in the 12 & 12 and in the Big Book which is science-based. While the spiritual awakening itself is not scientific, there is plenty mentioned about the physical and mental symptoms of the disease, and mentioned by scientific people, in the Big Book (doctors). Some people just don't like to talk about it, and would rather pop out catch phrases, or fear that some of us will get too wrapped up in it and miss the point. I think you got the point, Rob, I know I have, so I don't worry about it.
I have enjoyed having this conversation, and wish to continue it should you have the desire.
(((AA hugs)))
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~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
Sorta felt bad about your being so upset. All I ever have to offer is my own ES&H in how it was for me in my first years.
First, I have to say that in my opinion, I was so much sicker when I came in from a chronic relapse mode, and because I had spent so many of those years BS everyone, myself the most, when I found a really tough sponsor, had had about maybe 6 or 7 Sponsors before, and I would do the Step Waltz as they call it, 1,2,3, Drink....
When my tougher Sponsor and also the best, just for me, she sat me down, and said "This is how we are going to do the Steps", made a plan, and she set down some very rigid guildlines too. The best and the most critical one was that "Toni, if you relapse during this time, our relationdship will be over"......She knew my history, and I had a pretty keen memory of it too, so my whole year that first year, was fueled FEAR of ever returning to drinking, by following all suggestions and then she also had some other gems, these made me squirm a little, but I did them. For the next three months as we continued her instructions to me....go to a meeting everyday and listen only.....and at that point we can talk about you sharing at meetings....
Ok, to bring it back to you, I love all that you write, a great mind, and always love reading most of your Posts, always.
AA is so full of every single kind of person from different walks of like, also so many different stages in their drinking careers. I never judge anyone, but can make the observation that you are young, have a great family, have a good job, in others words you have made it into the rooms of AA without losing everything and that is no small task my friend....My life was at that other end, had lost everything, and then even losing my own health, and did not want to die anymore, so my motivations might have been a little different.
(Just so you know I was not directing my comment at you personally. and when I was told to Not Drink, and Not Think, it was because all I thought about was all the crazy mellow drama of my life, before and into real recovery, in other words I was a drama queen, codependant as any could be, and what was in my thinking and speaking was always so mellow dramatic.....VERY MUCH NOT LIKE YOU AND WHERE YOU ARE AT TODAY....
So this whole response was that I personally apologize to you if I was one of the ones that upset you.....
Yes we are all just a bunch of recovery alcoholics, and possible how we are when we are getting started in this program, might appear like apples and oranges.
For me and my own experience in early Recovery, when we all do dilligently work the 12 Steps, then the differences become so much less noticeable....and grow into the powerful WE Program together.
Hope you have a great day, and hope your little River Rose is doing well, and loving here new life and family....
Without the advances in the science of addictive disorders and disease process, we would not know as much as we do today about the relapse process and relapse prevention. These advances help people get sober, stay sober, and enjoy life sober...not as a substitution for or as a contradiction to AA and the 12 steps, but in a complementary and adjunctive manner that can only add to, not take away from.
Rob-I really enjoy it that you "think" things out on this board. Gives me something to think about and keeps me from getting too bored!! And you answered your own question perfectly:
'' Cunning. Baffling. Powerful.
So whaddaya do? Well, like our distant ancestors, when they were faced with things that were unmanageable...
Came to believe that a Power Greater than Ourselves could restore Us...."
