First off you need to clarify a little more. Your saying AA but talking about classes. Alcoholics Anonymous has nothing to do with classes. AA doesn't give homework or assignments. I doubt your going to get any answers to your question, whatever it is. It sounds to me like your asking us how you can "beat the system". AA is a fellowship of people that got honest with themselves and others to solve their drinking problem. I (and almost all the AA's I know) won't give out advice, but if it were me, I would do what the court tells me I have to do. I guess it depends on your priorities.

B....

jfad12 wrote:

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Hello,

I registered here to get some answers if anyone could help me it would be greatly appreciated. First off I am not an alcoholic , i have not drank in 3 years due to a life changing altercation when i first turned 21 when i obtained a DUI. It was mandatory i was to go to these classes for drug and drinking , by law you have to go to them where i live. Eventually i became overworked and stopped attending my classes, 3 years have passed i have not recieved any notification and or call from the DMV, infact they gave me my license back and i have been pulled over once due to a headlight being out, and had my licence ran by a cop that pulled me over for hte headlight. And now 3 years later somehow the courts get ahold of me regarding  the classes i skipped on and they are making me go to AA meetings as well.

Now the question i have here is they are giving me problems inregards to not saying im an alcoholic and im afraid it will hinder my classes that i am about to finish. Has anyone else had a similar problem or could tell me if by law you have to admit to being an alcoholic for something in the past when you dont , nor ever had an attention of drinking again?  They give all this classwork / homework on explaining how your going to stay sober.. how do you write a paragraph summary to something you no longer do??

 

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Don't confuse court ordered classes with AA, AA meeting attendance is part of your sentencing, all you have to do is go, sit for the hour, then get your slip signed

My experience with the classes is tell your truth and do the work and eventually it ends, no one HAS to admit they are an alcoholic to graduate from these classes, they just wanted me to write out my plan for not drinking and driving

They give all this classwork / homework on explaining how your going to stay sober.. how do you write a paragraph summary to something you no longer do??

Why not just tell the truth?

tell them you quit drinking because of a life changing event and then elaborate about it, that's all they want to see, I suspect if you put 10% as much effort into doing what they tell you as arguing about it with yourself and others about whether you are an alcoholic or not and how unfair the system is, and how "put upon" you are you'd be done already and would have moved on

I suspect AA will see you again someday, just because aint no one as stupid and stubborn as an alcoholic defending a point, but until then, just finish your classes and AA meetings and have fun, grats on 3 years by the way

 

Here's an idea:

If you're not an alcoholic, a couple of meetings won't bother you. Sit in the back, bring a book, get your court slip signed and consider it a really short term sort of jail with doughnuts.

All you've lost is a some hours. Probably less than you'd have to do if sentenced to community service. As a matter of fact, why not think of it as community service? Learn a little about alcoholism, and then if you know someone who IS an alcoholic, you can tell them where the meetings are, and be helpful to them.

Note: If you are alcoholic and drinking, meetings will likely annoy you. Sorry.

-- Edited by Rainspa on Monday 20th of December 2010 06:18:30 PM

Asap classes are privately owned DUI Programs not affiliated with AA although many people who run their court mandated program and curriculem are sober in AA

I logged in because I found this discussion while researching mandatory meetings, and felt the original poster didn't really get a full reply. A person convicted of a DUI can be required to go through a rehab program, but every court that has looked at the question (including several federal Courts of Appeals) has held that because of the repeated references to and emphasis on a Higher Power, God, etc., requiring attendance at A.A. meetings violates a person's rights under the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Unless people (including those in prison) are offered one or more secular options, they cannot be required to go to meetings at all. So whether there's a remedy in Jfad12's situation would depend on whether the requirement was to go to some type of addiction treatment meeting or specifically A.A. meetings, and whether Jfad12 found going to A.A. meetings to violate her religious/nonreligious beliefs.

I don't understand the previous responses to the question that seem based on a "just do it because you're told" or "how can it hurt to sit in the back for a hour." How many people who are devout Christians would unprotestingly spend significant time in mosques, temples, Scientology get-togethers or whatever just because someone told them to? Moreover, I can't see how it helps A.A. to have people there who do not have any desire to stop drinking. Because my husband was ordered to attend A.A. meetings because of "suspected alcohol abuse" as a condition of his receiving assistance from the state in getting his prosthetic leg so that he can return to the workforce (and because without the prosthetic, he can't get to meetings or navigate well in them without my participation), we're both getting twice weekly doses of religion that certainly violate my spiritual beliefs. I'm moved by the stories we've heard, and I'm glad that the program has worked for the people who tell them, but we don't identify with those stories. We aren't those for whom A.A. is intended--and neither we nor anyone else in our position should be forced into it.

(BTW, before someone posts a reply that my husband and I are in denial, please know that the "suspected alcohol abuse" was based solely on the fact that almost thirty years after receiving two DUIs, my husband continues to drink (though now moderately and safely). Apparently if you drank too much back in your twenties, the state will forever brand you an alcohol abuser, even if you have a stable work history and no problems with the law after that time. The government must believe that the only correct response to youthful indiscretions is becoming a life-long teetotaler.)