Alternative to Alcoholics Anonymous

goingpostal

CDfm wrote: »

If it provides an alternative for 5% of addicts -is that a bad thing.

So techlady as this is a thread about alternatives what recommendations do you have ??

The point is that 5% of addicts will just cop on and stop drinking or using on their own without any help or assistance or indoctrination into a stupid cult religion (AA/NA/any of the other 200+ groups which use the 12 steps). Therefore AA is no more successful at helping alcoholics than no treatment at all. The point is that every addict that attends a handful of meetings or gets their brain washed in a wildly expensive, wildy ineffective 12-step treatment centre is lied to and told that they are utterly powerless over the addictive behaviour that is killing them and that only a very specific version of god can save them. This fallacious idea causes a lot of very real harm to the 95% of people who leave AA within the first year.

Every good lie has a grain of truth in it. The grain of truth in AA is that if you don't take the first drink, you can't get drunk. My alternative would be for every alcoholic to hold on to this idea for dear life and get all the support and help they can from family, professionals (not 12-steppers in disguise, who hide behind anonymity to conceal the quack medicine they are endorsing) such as psychotherapists, doctors, psychiatrists and avoid handing your ability to think for yourself over to a cult religion.

Ask yourself this, are the 12 steps a blueprint for a quit-drinking program or the blueprint for setting up a cult religion? Why is alcohol mentioned only once in the twelve steps? Why is god mention in six of the twelve steps? Why, if you change only TWO words in the twelve steps, can you adapt them to any program of 'recovery' you want to set up? Emotions Anonymoushttp://www.emotionsanonymous.org/, Clutterers Anonymous http://sites.google.com/site/clutterersanonymous/Home?pli=1, Families (!) Anonymoushttp://www.familiesanonymous.org/, Homosexuals Anonymous, a group of people using a modified version of the 12 steps to help each other to live an ex-gay lifestyle (!!!!) http://www.ha-fs.org/14-steps.htm The list goes on and on. The last time a treatment claimed to have such huge powers to cure such a wide range of ailments and things that aren't even ailments, just the way some people are born, it was known as snake oil.

goingpostal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tPNgHrIkgo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uwx2P5LJgk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PjpOsE3xoY

CDfm

You have a bee in your bonnet about what works with addictions where a person does not have the willpower themselves.

The famous duo Iggy Pop & David Bowie decamped to Berlin in 1977 to give up drugs on the basis that they needed each others company. It echoes John Waters.

Dear Superstar: David Bowie



When Iggy Pop was in a psychiatric hospital in 1975, is it true that you brought him drugs to cheer him up?
TAFTROOT, KENT, OHIO
Yeah. I]Laughs[/I Did it work? Of course! Ah, that was so stupid. If I remember right, it was me and Dennis Hopper. We trooped into the hospital with a load of drugs for him. This was very much a leave-your-drugs-at-the-door hospital. We were out of our minds, all of us. He wasn’t well; that’s all we knew. We thought we should bring him some drugs, because he probably hadn’t had any for days!

Is it true you’ve quit smoking?
JMA1973, SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA
Yeah, but it’s one day at a time. I’m not going to talk about how long it’s been, because I’m superstitious. At the end of this tour, I need to look down at my hands and see that there isn’t a cigarette in them.

http://www.blender.com/guide/67026/dear-superstar-david-bowie.html

You seem to be very angry about something and lots of people say it works for some and not for others. 5% was the figure quoted.

Others have willpower, churches ,families and the like -all of which someone has posted are equally successful. Jung postilated that people who believed in God had an easier time beating an addiction.All attributing 5%.

So would the world be a better place if all those 5 per cents of people stopped doing what they are doing.

An interesting concept and experiment and, what is your alternative.

I reckon you have a beef because if it was on the theory of addictions you would be posting in the psychology forum and you are not.

EDIT

The point is that 5% of addicts will just cop on and stop drinking or using on their own without any help or assistance or indoctrination into a stupid cult religion

And which 5% cos someone said with scientology and religion and family and other motivations etc it adds up to 30 or 35% and then will power you have 40 %.

So you are talking about a lot of people here.

So it works for some and not others - so what and dont you think its those others who have the problem to sort themselves out.

Cmon goingpostal - now that you have me interested in what you have to say and your addiction theories you have to do better than that.

EDIT - reread your last post and your issue seems to Atheism and whats the big deal with being an atheist. Is that the issue you have here ?

Satanta

goingpostal wrote: »

Every good lie has a grain of truth in it. The grain of truth in AA is that if you don't take the first drink, you can't get drunk. My alternative would be for every alcoholic to hold on to this idea for dear life and get all the support and help they can from family, professionals (not 12-steppers in disguise, who hide behind anonymity to conceal the quack medicine they are endorsing) such as psychotherapists, doctors, psychiatrists and avoid handing your ability to think for yourself over to a cult religion.

Ask yourself this, are the 12 steps a blueprint for a quit-drinking program or the blueprint for setting up a cult religion? Why is alcohol mentioned only once in the twelve steps? Why is god mention in six of the twelve steps? Why, if you change only TWO words in the twelve steps, can you adapt them to any program of 'recovery' you want to set up?

First of all, Alcoholism is an addiction which is difficult to get away from because with every addition, there is a part of your brain that tells you that you will "be okay" this time if you take a drink. Bill W once said "The man I was drank, and the man I was will drink again". The 12 step program is a priogram for living, so that the alcoholic can overcome the mental obsession for drink and also to give him/her a better quality of life. Again... it is a program for living your life. Giving up alcohol or any other addicitive substance is about 1% giving up the substance, and 99% change of your attitudes. As for a cult religion... LOL. What a joke. You say that God is mentioned in 6 of the 12 steps. I believe that is "God as you understand Him". As long as you believe there is a power greater than yourself then you are sorted. I think this is pretty easy to grasp. Unless you are saying that you are the ultimate power in the world? Then there is no greater power than yourself? Many agnostics follow this program and go on to live really happy and content lives.

Also.. what "quack medicine" do people on a 12 step recovery program endorse?

goingpostal

First of all, Alcoholism is an addiction which is difficult to get away from because with every addition, there is a part of your brain that tells you that you will "be okay" this time if you take a drink.

Are you saying that alcoholism talks to people in their minds? That an alcoholic can hear it talking to him in his head? That sounds more like schizophrenia to me.

Bill W once said "The man I was drank, and the man I was will drink again".

William G. Wilson was a Wall Street hustler, a philanderer http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-otherwomen.html, a thief (he stole all the donations he collected to pay for printing the first edition of his so-called big book), and he pretended to be his own wife (he wrote Chapter Nine of the big book, To Wives, pretending to be his wife Lois, bear that in mind next time you read that execrable screed.) Why should I take a blind bit of notice of what he has to say about anything? He also begged for three shots of whisky on his deathbed!http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/5088.html

The 12 step program is a priogram for living, so that the alcoholic can overcome the mental obsession for drink and also to give him/her a better quality of life.

The 12 step program doesn't work. AA's own triennial surveys show that 95% of newcomers quit attending AA within the first year. A trustee of AA World services also inadvertently proved that AA is no more effective than NO TREATMENT AT ALL, and actually increases binge-drinking and death rates among those who attend AA and don't remain abstinent.

Again... it is a program for living your life. Giving up alcohol or any other addicitive substance is about 1% giving up the substance, and 99% change of your attitudes.

Giving up a substance is 100% about giving up a substance. Changing your attitude is 100% about changing your attitude. Separate issues.

As for a cult religion... LOL. What a joke.

Is that the best you can do to refute the patently obvious fact that AA is a cult?

You say that God is mentioned in 6 of the 12 steps. I believe that is "God as you understand Him".

Step Two: Power greater than OURselves
Step Three: God as WE understand HIM
Step Five: God
Step Six:God
Step Seven: Him
Step Eleven: God as WE understand HIM

Surrender to groupthink, y'all!!

As long as you believe there is a power greater than yourself then you are sorted. I think this is pretty easy to grasp.

If I was a practising Christian, I would have to believe that Satan is a power greater than myself. Would I be sorted if I handed my will and my life over to the Prince of Darkness?

Unless you are saying that you are the ultimate power in the world? Then there is no greater power than yourself?

I am saying that I refuse to believe in William G. Wilsons insane version of god. Bill Wilson love to misdefine atheism and to attribute strange beliefs to atheists. "Instead of regarding ourselves as intelligent agents, spearhead of Gods every advancing Creation, we agnostics and atheists chose to believe that our human intelligence was the last word, the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end of all. Rather vain of us, wasn't it?" Bill Wilsons Big Book of Bull, pg. 49. Atheism is the lack of belief in deities, end of story. I would consider any of my fellow primates, who considers himself to be an intelligent agent, a spearhead of gods ever advancing Creation (!), to be pretty arrogant and vain. People in glass houses and all that.

Many agnostics follow this program and go on to live really happy and content lives.

That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.

Also.. what "quack medicine" do people on a 12 step recovery program endorse?

12 step recovery programs=quack medicine=snake oil.
This is what the Journal of the American Medical Association had to say about AA's so-called big book in 1939:

The seriousness of the psychiatric and social problem represented by addiction to alcohol is generally underestimated by those not intimately familiar with the tragedies in the families of victims or the resistance addicts offer to any effective treatment. Many psychiatrists regard addiction to alcohol as having a more pessimistic prognosis than schizophrenia.

For many years the public was beguiled into believing that short courses of enforced abstinence and catharsis in "institutes" and "rest homes" would do the trick, and now that the failure of such temporizing has become common knowledge, a considerable number of other forms of quack treatment have sprung up.

The book under review is a curious combination of organizing propaganda and religious exhortation. It is in no sense a scientific book, although it is introduced by a letter from a physician who claims to know some of the anonymous contributors who have been "cured" of addiction to alcohol and have joined together in an organization which would save other addicts by a kind of religious conversion.

The book contains instructions as to how to intrigue the alcoholic addict into the acceptance of divine guidance in place of alcohol in terms strongly reminiscent of Dale Carnegie and the adherents of the Buchman ("Oxford") movement. The one valid thing in the book is the recognition of the seriousness of addiction to alcohol. Other than this, the book has no scientific merit or interest.

American doctors saw through Bill Wilson's hoax 71 years ago.

mazcon

The AA programme is essentially about changing one's behaviour and taking responsibility for past actions. The following article claims that AA has at its heart, the same concepts inherent in CBT:

By Clifford N. Lazarus, Ph.D. on July 20, 2010
"Most people think of AA as a spiritual process with its main emphasis on "giving it all up to God or a higher power." Implicit in this idea is a relinquishment of personal responsibility, free will, and self-determination. The truth is, however, that AA probably works because it shares many things with CBT such as thinking differently, acting differently, and actually taking personal responsibility for one's decisions.

Indeed, if we look closely at AA, we see that despite its spiritual underpinnings and focus on working the 12 Steps, it is a very behaviorally oriented process. For example, one of the core recommendations that AA makes is to change people, places, and things. In other words, to change one's routines, repertoires, and actions. Interestingly, this echoes the advice of Dr. Arnold Lazarus (who in 1958 was the first person to introduce the terms "behavior therapy" and "behavior therapist" into the professional literature) who often tells his clients to "do things differently and do different things."


Since it is a central tenet of CBT that thought and action can (and do) influence emotions and even brain chemistry, it is no surprise that changing what we think and how we act can have a powerful impact on how we feel, even to the extent of loosening the grip of powerful addictions.

Even the surrendering to a higher power aspect of AA is firmly rooted in a behavioral soil in that AA members frequently say "pray like everything depends on God, but act like everything depends on you," and "fake it ‘til you make it." Both of these bits of advice closely mirror the cornerstone of CBT, namely that how you act so shall you think and feel. For example, people who conquer fears, phobias, and even obsessive compulsive anxiety, do so by refusing to act afraid despite their fearful feelings and anxious thoughts. Over time, this leads to genuine shifts in thinking and feeling so that they come into alignment with the non-fearful behavior. Hence, people fake it (not being anxious or phobic) until they make it (getting over their fears).

What's more, working the steps further amplifies the corrective thinking and corrective action (i.e., CBT) components of AA because it encourages people to develop more self-awareness ("a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves"), face fears ("make amends"), engage in self monitoring ("continue to take a fearless inventory"), take responsibility ("when we are wrong promptly admit it"), and change ones' consciousness ("through prayer or meditation").

In addition, the AA group process - including self-disclosure, mutual support, and observational learning - parallels many of the features found in cognitive behavioral therapy groups.

Now this isn't to say that AA and CBT are synonymous or interchangeable, but that AA might owe its success to the parts of the program that are similar to CBT - one of the most empirically supported and evidence-based therapies in the psychological arsenal."

Lazarus, A. A. "New methods in psychotherapy: a case study". South African Medical Journal, 1958, 32, 660-664.

Copyright by Clifford N. Lazarus, Ph.D.



I know, through personal experience, that AA does work (for some people at least). My dh is sober thanks to AA. He went for treatment 7 years ago and once he completed his month of residential treatment he returned to his familiar life and his old drinking cronies. The only thing that changed was that he was drinking lucozade instead of Guinness. He resisted all advice to attend AA and to change the "people, places and things" associated with his drinking. His relapses were inevitable when all that had changed was that he had stopped actually drinking. He had to change his whole life and his mind-set in order to fully disassociate himself from his drinking. Eventually, when things got bad enough, he went back to AA, got honest with himself and he has been sober since. To him AA isn't a religion or a cult...it is a bunch of like minded people who provide mutual support in the battle to stay sober. He was a weekend drinker and loved the camaraderie of the pub. Now he bookends his weekends with a meeting on Thursday and Sunday and he enjoys the same camaraderie with his friends in the fellowship. It mightn't work for everyone but it works for him and I personally know of several families who now have peaceful homes thanks to one or both partners attending AA.

goingpostal

The truth is, however, that AA probably works because....

but that AA might owe its success

Nice work there, Mr Lazarus. Covering your ass. To argue in favour of a treatment, while give yourself get out clauses like "it probably works" and "it might owe its success" is incredibly dishonest. AA doesn't work, many properly conducted tests have proved that it doesn't work. Like this And this

How can these two concepts be reconciled?

got honest with himself

and

"fake it ‘til you make it."

AA meetings always start with a chapter which accuses anyone who disagrees with Bill Wilsons religious dogma, of being constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves, being born dishonest and tells newcomers that this program demands rigorous honesty. Anyone who objects to AA's religiosity and pressure to believe in god is told to fake it til they make it, and act as if they believe.
AA has a lot more to do with cult religion than it does with CBT or NCT or VAT.

I know, through personal experience, that AA does work (for some people at least).

It mightn't work for everyone but it works for him and I personally know of several families who now have peaceful homes thanks to one or both partners attending AA.

These are examples of proof by anecdote. I know plenty of people who went to AA, read the book, went to a lot of meetings every week and relapsed into drinking and died. Why does AA get to count and claim all the credit for people who quit drinking, but gets to discount and take none of the responsibility for those who don't quit drinking? Because AA lies with qualifers. "Rarely have we seen a person fail, WHO HAS THOROUGHLY FOLLOWED OUR PATH". "It works, IF YOU WORK IT". Who gets to decide if someone is working it, and thoroughly following AA's path? AA does!!

herosa

Check out the my way out forums. Its the single best resource on the web. www.mywayout.org

DublinWriter

goingpostal wrote: »

AA claims to work by the alcohol dependent acquiring a very specific belief in a very specific type of god who will do very specific things in an alcohol abusers life, see Steps 3,5,6,7,11. The two issues are one and the same.

A lot of AA people suggest that atheists read God as Good Orderly Direction when doing the twelve steps.

mazcon

You seem to have a major axe to grind goingpostal. I don't claim to offer any scientifically obtained proof of the efficacy of AA, all I can offer to the debate is my personal experience and that of several close friends and some family members, and in my personal experience AA has helped my husband finally achieve and now continue to maintain sobriety. So it has worked for at least one person;)

goingpostal

DublinWriter wrote: »

A lot of AA people suggest that atheists read God as Good Orderly Direction when doing the twelve steps.

I love this example of word redefinition/cultspeak that is common in AA. God no longers means god. God is an acronym, an abstract concept. Not an agent, not the conscious, omnipotent(or at least the rather powerful) deity required to grant the miracles-on-demand promised in the rest of the steps. How would a christian like having their holy trinity turned into a sat-nav system??

goingpostal

I don't claim to offer any scientifically obtained proof of the efficacy of AA

Nobody can offer any scientifically-sound proof of the efficacy of AA because it doesn't exist. AA offers a religious solution to what it calls a "mental, emotional, spiritual and physical disease."

all I can offer to the debate is my personal experience and that of several close friends and some family members, and in my personal experience AA has helped my husband finally achieve and now continue to maintain sobriety. So it has worked for at least one person

This is an example of confusing correlation with causation.
Alcoholics Anonymous has plenty of examples of confusion of causation and correlation, or confusion of coincidence with causation. The most obvious ones are:

* Assuming that attending A.A. meetings makes people quit drinking.
* Assuming that attending A.A. meetings makes people stay sober.
* Assuming that doing the Twelve Steps makes people quit drinking and stay sober.
* Assuming that many years of membership in A.A. causes people to stay sober.
* Assuming that praying makes people quit drinking and stay sober.
* Assuming that doing the Twelve Steps makes people more "spiritual", or more moral.
Just because some people sit in an A.A. meeting room and talk about God and not drinking does not prove that A.A. made them quit drinking, even if they believe it. Nor does it prove that A.A. is keeping them sober.

Using the goofy A.A. "cause and effect" illogic, we can happily declare that A.A. is totally unnecessary because mothers are the real cause of sobriety. How can we know that? Simple. Show me an alcoholic whose mother didn't tell him to quit drinking so much. Momma tells him to quit drinking, and then he finally does, so mothers are the real cause of sobriety. A.A. is irrelevant and unneeded.

DublinWriter

goingpostal wrote: »

I love this example of word redefinition/cultspeak that is common in AA. God no longers means god. God is an acronym, an abstract concept. Not an agent, not the conscious, omnipotent(or at least the rather powerful) deity required to grant the miracles-on-demand promised in the rest of the steps. How would a christian like having their holy trinity turned into a sat-nav system??

Look, it's subjective, not objective. What ever gets you through the night is OK.

mathepac

goingpostal wrote: »

... A.A. is irrelevant and unneeded.

I think I understand where your prejudices lie and the point you've been attempting to make pretty forcefully for some time now, but in line with the thread title, do you have useful "alternatives to AA" you'd care to post or are you just a one-trick pony?

goingpostal

mathepac wrote: »

I think I understand where your prejudices lie and the point you've been attempting to make pretty forcefully for some time now, but in line with the thread title, do you have useful "alternatives to AA" you'd care to post or are you just a one-trick pony?

Every good lie has a grain of truth in it. The grain of truth in AA is that if you don't take the first drink, you can't get drunk. My alternative would be for every alcoholic to hold on to this idea for dear life and get all the support and help they can from family, professionals (not 12-steppers in disguise, who hide behind anonymity to conceal the quack medicine they are endorsing) such as psychotherapists, doctors, psychiatrists and avoid handing your ability to think for yourself over to a cult religion.

I already gave my alternative to Bill Wilsons adaptation of Frank Buchmans crazy cult religion in post 213. While we are on the topic of things that might actually help the 95% of newcomers who quit AA within one year, instead of discredited 1930's hocus pocus, voodoo, black magic quack medicine, would you care to answer your own question:

do you have useful "alternatives to AA" you'd care to post or are you just a one-trick pony?

mikhail

mathepac wrote: »

I think I understand where your prejudices lie and the point you've been attempting to make pretty forcefully for some time now, but in line with the thread title, do you have useful "alternatives to AA" you'd care to post or are you just a one-trick pony?

From what I'm reading here, standing on one foot while you micturate is a useful alternative in that it'll have a comparable success rate and none of the religious junk.

CDfm

So goingpostal -what is your message here.

Are you promoting Atheism or what ??

goingpostal

CDfm wrote: »

So goingpostal -what is your message here.

Are you promoting Atheism or what ??

I am promoting the fact that AA/NA/12-step snake oil is no more effective at helping people quit drinking than NO TREATMENT WHATSOEVER. And that by teaching people that they have no power whatsoever to stop drinking themselves and that only slavish belief in Bill Wilson's and Frank Buchman's version of god can save them from alcohol dependency does huge harm to lots of people who are exposed to 12 step indoctrination, by increasing the incidence of binge-drinking and death, compared to a no-treatment control group. There is plenty about the AA program that members of any major church/faith should find heretical. The bottom line is, a persons belief/lack thereof in a deity, has and should have nothing to do with treating an addictive, destructive behaviour and teaching a person effective ways to control that behaviour.

CDfm

goingpostal wrote: »

I am promoting the fact that AA/NA/12-step snake oil is no more effective at helping people quit drinking than NO TREATMENT WHATSOEVER. And that by teaching people that they have no power whatsoever to stop drinkin.

So why can't you discuss it with proper academic references etc.

All I can see is a few you tubes and a lot of ranting about God and religion.

If you are discussing options and comparing them them with sucess rates back them up with facts and figures.

You may have something important to say but you are not putting it accross well and it comes accross as an anti-god discussion & I have a feeling that is not what you intend.

mathepac

goingpostal wrote: »

I already gave my alternative ... in post 213...

So no real alternative then, just the usual predictable rant.

mikhail

mathepac wrote: »

So no real alternative then, just the usual predictable rant.

Please give an alternative to my tshirt which keeps bears away.

If it doesn't work AT ALL, the "what's your alternative" argument is baloney. He's repeatedly offered the alternative of "do nothing" and argued for it.

CDfm

I joined in here because it seemed to be a bit of an atheist rant and i am a non drinker.

So is goingpostal saying do nothing or is he doing an atheist rant or is he saying do something else.

Assuming he/she is on the level and there are particular points he/she/she wants to raise lets here it.

If he/she is saying XYZ because I do not believe in god or any god -then that is a valid point of view.

If he/she is saying - controlled drinking techniques or other systems are useful then he she is entitled to say that too.

If he/she is saying there are dangers to it -then let him/her point them out.

I would like to see the debate anyway and lets here them argue properly the pro's or cons as they see it.

goingpostal

mathepac wrote: »

So no real alternative then.....

It would be very interesting to see someone prove exactly how a) stopping drinking and b) never again imbibing that first alcoholic beverage, while availing of effective professional assistance, FAILS to solve a persons problem with alcohol abuse and dependency.

It is also a nice example of the sly suggestion and the cult characteristic that AA is the ONLY solution to 'alcoholism', the only 'proven' remedy, and anyone that refuses to accept Bill Wilson's and Frank Buchman's bizarre, insane religiosity is a) not really an alcoholic, just a 'heavy drinker', b) in denial about their 'disease' or c) a mad 'dry drunk' who is lacking in Serenity and Gratitude. And that many years of drinking one's head off, followed by many years attending dreary cult meetings, reciting thought-stopping mechanisms and endlessly regurgitating drinking stories, is the only way one can gain the expertise needed to evaluate different ways to quit boozing.

In the interests of getting this thread back on track, here are a few more alternatives to 1930's cult religion/standing on one leg while taking a Wikileak/wearing a bear-terrorizing t-shirt, that people may find useful:
Smart Recovery, the Irish meetings are at the bottom of the page.
Women for Sobriety, especially useful for women who want to avoid the sexual predation and exploitation that is so common in AA/NA/the rest of 12-stepworld, that it has its own euphemism, 13th stepping.
Life Ring Ireland
Rational Recovery is also an alcohol abuse treatment method.
This post contains some useful links for addiction treatment in the Dublin area.

celticcrash

Why so bitter and angry postal.

CDfm

well postal - I am intrigigued too and I dont know whether or not it is an atheist agenda that you are pushing

there is a paralell debate in Atheism & Agnosticism where commited atheists have posted largely better experiences

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056110867

So is it a case that if religion and God is removed then you would have no problem or are there other aspects at work.

goingpostal

CDfm wrote: »

....... if religion and God is removed then you would have no problem ............

We can agree on this much. If religion and God is removed from AA, then we would be dealing with a hole in the donut situation.......

goingpostal

celticcrash wrote: »

Why so bitter and angry postal.

Because Goldilocks ate my porridge......

Uhuru

Hi,

In answer to the initial question re: SMART recovery, I don't know of any groups in Ireland. Overall, the story so far is that AA's religious component doesn't suit everyone, so Rational Recovery was formed by Albert Ellis to fill this gap. RA is essentially AA minus God. SMART came into being as a result of a split in RA, when Ellis decided that recovering alcoholics should not be dependent on groups or God. RA people were fond of their groups and moved to smartly. Apart from the spiritual aspect of AA, all three groups are mostly cognitive behavioural in technique, while AA and SMART also include social support.

You may be interested to know that all alcohol treatment programs are equally ineffective. Only a small percentage make it, but that small number of sober people make it all worthwhile. Ultimately, it's down to individual perseverance and determination. It doesn't really matter which group you join, you are the deciding factor.

CDfm

goingpostal wrote: »

We can agree on this much. If religion and God is removed from AA, then we would be dealing with a hole in the donut situation.......

And that is how donuts are supposed be -so thats alright so

celticcrash

Just watched Penn & Teller, funny men.
By the way Penn says at the start that he has never had
A drink of alcohol in his 49 years, says they dont know dick
About addictions.
Please why are you making these men out to be some
Kind of authority.
You sound very close to AA.
Tell the truth did you fall off the wagon, are you just a little bitter that
Some men stay sober and some dont.
Little do you know that your new religion is knocking AA.
Looking back over your posts it does not take a psychologist
To see that your full of hate.
Find something to love.