The right medicine for alcoholics

Tanin · MIP Old Timer

More About Alcholism

mikef · MIP Old Timer

Thanx for article Tanin.............. smile

Pythonpappy · MIP Old Timer

In my humble opinion, ANY treatment & recovery for alcoholism without a 'spiritual awakening', will be 'temporary' ... I feel alcoholism is but a symptom of a much larger personal problem ...

Trust me, I have tried many others way to 'not drink' ... the list goes on and on, Naltrexone, herbs, nuts, diet, self will, moving, near death experience, etc. ... ... ... and absolutely nothing ever worked for more than a few months until I surrendered and came back to AA ... when I worked the program in earnest, then the promises did, in fact, come true in my life ... besides being the miracle that it is today, it has meant years of enjoying sobriety ... and THAT, my friends would never have happened in my life without the 'spiritual connection' I made in AA ...

Some of us may wish to believe that there'll be a 'magic' pill someday, but for me, I chose to seek the spiritual answer to my problems, not a chemical one where I have to get pilled up to get through every day ... (I know that there are some of us with other medical conditions that require the aid of pills to get us through whatever it is we're suffering from, I am NOT making light of, nor denouncing, that necessity ...)

2granddaughters · Senior Member

I knew big pharma would come up with a cure for my dilemma .....

I believe what Richard Rohr says that once you begin meds (alcohol/drug) you can't treat the root cause of the disease.

The recovery home I attended in 1989 (Brentwood, Windsor ON) was/is a spiritually based program and no meds were allowed.

I had to begin to feel my suffering un-medicated to begin to truly want to seek the "solution" (How It Work's 3 pertinent ideas)

All the best.

Bob R

AdamMoz · Senior Member

I'm on the same page as you, pappy. But this is a topic I struggle with a lot. I CERTAINLY think that meds that would help people stop drinking even temporarily are better than continuing to drink, but I also agree that getting to the root is the more permanent fix. I think a lot about this in regards to anxiety too. I am someone who struggles hugely with anxiety and have thankfully found tools to help me examine and manage it. At the same time, there are also people in my life who swear that taking meds has changed their lives for the better and allowed them the space to really grow. I guess I don't feel like I'm really in a space to judge what will or will not work for people, but I think where meds are concerned it seems like they are most effective when viewed as a tool and not a stand-alone solution. :

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Fyne Spirit · MIP Old Timer

I guess it's the old outside issue conundrum. By calling AA a behavioural treatment and stating that meeting attendance is inneffective (as if that's what the AA program is - meeting attendance) the writers demonstrate a complete ignorance bith of the disease as AA understands it and the spritual treatment. I imaging it has always been thus.

The to doctor in addiction in NZ has a contrary view and I am sure would support Pappy's view. He gave a talk last year on the latest thinking re alcoholism. He stated that it turned out AA was right all along and that the medical research was no further ahead now than it was in 1967.

He was careful to draw a distinction in terms of what constitutes an alcoholic also. The wider definition of alcohoilic s very broad. People we would call problem or hard drinkers, people who drink to dal with some emotionally painful event etc are all covered under this definition. And in the same way as Silkworth said, modern medical science can and has always been able to help most of these.

He sited the example of naltrexone as a drug they had high hopes for. In trials it was successful with both moderate and bad alcoholics. But, as with all previous wonder drugs, it failed completely with the really bad alcoholics. There was always this small group at the bottom with whom nothing medical ever worked. That's my group. That is the group that he openly acknowledges need some kind of "conversion" expereince, what Silkworth called a complete psychic change, and what we call a spiritual experience.

Perhaps AA has been a victim of its own success. Today it is exected that AA has the program to deal with any kind of alcohol problem and this is just not the case. Our book is very specific about the kind of alcoholic we can help, and our success rate with these, if they are willing to take the medicine, is still as good as it ever was.

But we are not a self help or group therapy or behavioral therapy organisiation. We have no qualifications in these areas and we don't claim to have the answer for all types of problem drinkers. We are here for those whose only final choice is to accept spiritual help, and I often wish those that have no need of spiritual help would stay the hell away..

God bless,
MikeH

Sober Strummer · Senior Member

It works if you work it.

This has not changed over the decades. It is a simple program.

We had a recovery center that brought a van to a certain meeting. Many unwilling participants. A different vibe when they were held hostage during the meeting. In time I came to Realize I did not enjoy those meetings as much. I chose other meetings. P

Mike D · MIP Old Timer

Hi Tanin, nice to meet you! I was looking at your post and, due to my own experience with alcohol treatment centers and doctors, I sort of had to chuckle a little bit at the idea that "Science is making great strides" in the treatment of alcoholics. Throughout the centuries, Science has always claimed to be "making great strides" regarding lots of things. No offense to you, or Science. But, let me tell you this: When I went to my first alcohol treatment center, the doctors told us that they had an 82% success rate with treating alcoholics and addicts. That greatly encouraged me and I felt pretty good as I put all my faith in the knowledge that those doctors and councilors had about my disease. In that hospital, I felt quite hopeful knowing I was surrounded by all that Scientific knowledge and power. But, alas, in that hospital, I also found myself surrounded by something else: I began to talk at length with the other patients who were also in treatment with me and I got to know them very well. Here's what I learned very quickly. Frank said this was his 9th treatment. Joseph was in his 13th treatment. For Susan, it was only her 6th time in treatment. Elaine had been in 16 different rehab centers. Jim had lost count after 10. One guy named Jerry told me that this was his 27th treatment!! It went on and on and on. As it turned out, I was the only person in there for the first time! After leaving that treatment center, I ended up in a different rehab about 7 months later. Guess what! The doctors there claimed that their studies showed that they had a 95% success rate!! Wow! Very impressive indeed! But, guess what I found myself surrounded with AGAIN while I was a patient there? A whole bunch of different people with the same old stories! Here we go again: 10 treatments. 5 treatments. 17 treatments. 15 treatments....etc. I then knew that all those treatment center's claims were pure BS. And, that's when I lost my faith in Science. With all the knowledge they claimed to have about alcoholism, they had failed to help any of those poor folks. I could clearly see what was going to happen to me, if I didn't do something different....and quick. I also knew that I definitely didn't want to get on that same "Treatment Center Merry-Go-Round". So, once I was released from treatment for my second time, I went directly to an A.A. meeting. That was 25 years ago, and today I'm still sober and happy. Had I not gone to A.A., I'd be telling you about my 25 treatment centers instead of my 25 years of sobriety. In my experience, God succeeded when Science failed miserably. And, here's why. Science is limited because it consists of the limited knowledge of limited human beings. But, God is unlimited. There is no limit to the Power of God. He can do what humans cannot. Oh, one more thing before I go. My last treatment center includes ME in their success rate statistics because I'm still sober! Isn't that a hoot? The truth is, they had nothing to do with the sobriety that I enjoy today. It was all A.A. and the Power of God. Like I say, I hope you're not offended by what I have to say about this. I just wanted to share a different point of view from the experiences I've had. Like you, I'm sure that Science will make plenty of advances. But, in the end, Science will never ever be able to out-do God. Thanks for letting me share. Blessings, Mike D.

Pythonpappy · MIP Old Timer

Thanks Mike D ... ... ... you just proved my point ... ... ...

Pappy

Fyne Spirit · MIP Old Timer

Thanks Mike D. Thoroughly appreciated your post.

It reminded me of a treatment centre (govt run) in whiich all patients are committed under the mental health act. The programme is 6 months gardening and one AA meeting per week. These are the last gaspers, the walking dead. Few survive more than two years after release. We don't have quite the same scale of treatment industry here but from talking to these folks I would unscientifically estimate about 3 treatments each would be the average.

My own experience of treatment, in my group of 10, 2 got sober immediately and continued AA. 20% success for the treatment centre. Two years later I went to AA and have been sober ever since. Only three of us went to AA in the end and all of us stayed sober. 100% for AA. The other 7 tried every imaginable remedy (other than AA) and all were deceased by the time I came to AA. Other methods 0%. None of us managed to stay drinking.. Carry on as we are 0%.

I heard another talk by an AA member quoting US public health statistics. Apparently in 1890, the percentage of drunkards who recovered was 1-2%. In 1990 the percentage of drunkards who recovered outside AA 1-2%. No doubt someone can check the voracity of these stats.

God bless,
MikeH.

Jerry F · MIP Old Timer

Tanin...for me being from the disease, in the disease, of the disease, college about the disease, membership in AA and Al-Anon, Behavioral Health Counselor both inpatient, outpatient, adolescent, adult, family, blah, blah blah one of the major things I learned is that you don't treat addiction to chemcials with other chemicals however science is always trying to prove some one or thing wrong in favor of their college education and superior thinking. The problem is about chemical addiction; using mind and mood altering chemicals which help the user to attempt to exist and live in an altered state and while attempting to reach and hold the altered state be physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritual altered to the point of insanity and/or death which is not the desired altered state. Science and scientist are working on both sides of the fence...those attempting to "other" alter the chemically altered person and those attempting to more efficiently alter that person. My own personal believe is that we are and were altered from the start as alcohol and drug addiction predates the life of the Christ by several thousands of years. Additionally recent archeaological digs have unearth victims of child offering rites who reveal that they were drugged and under the influence of alcohol during the killing rites. This stuff is more about alcoholism and I don't often bring it up in meetings or face to face unless I am talking with someone thinking that maybe in the future they will be able to drink safely because there is another drug they can add to their lives. Don't that beat all when we are working together to be entirely free of alcohol the chemical center of alcoholism which is a compulsion of the mind and allergy of the body.

It isn't only scientiest that will work to enable the disease to remain and grow. There are millions of other "smart" people who are striving to keep things as they are or worse. Just read that there is a newly concocted strain of extacy(?) cutely named MOLLY which as a result of purification will do a first time user in as China White did. Back then the chemical dreamers...those that scientifically put the chemical together (China White) pulled it off the market themselves because they count retain a customer base DUH. Like I said my college studies were with in our condition. For me I drank alcohol like water and didn't drink water and then found out in college that I didn't drink water because alcohol is a diuretic and creates thirst for....alcohol. DUH. Dumb as a stick until I reached the doors of recovery. Why college? I did that only for myself...I wanted to know why I drank the way I drank and had no reason to stop and why my skin was a yellowish/greenish color and why I would often get a hangover right at the start of my drinking rather than the next morning and I wanted to know also why when I was drinking with the guys they would get up to go piss and not me. They wandered about that also. I needed to know about alcohol/chemical tolerance and why crossing drugs and alcohol didn't work with me as it did with others...I needed to know. All of it came down to "No mind and mood altering chemcals at all" and a program to reprogram my thinking and behaving.

I guess that is some "more about alcoholism". I also know that there are some of us who just want or need to drink and as the lessons of submission vs surrender will believe that there will come a day when they can/will drink safely. At 16 years of age my drinking mates and I were introduced to "Neer Beer" and after a few sips all agreed that it wasn't about the taste that we drank but the drunk. That's what its about...that is what its always been about. Chemical altering...science...wonder how big a cut they will get from the industry?

smile

The right medicine for alcoholics

By Markus Heilig, Published: August 30, 2013