xrayman7040 Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 I've been a recovering alcoholic for 15 years and of cousre the big line spoken at AA meetings is the fact that we can't maintain sobriety withour our "HIGHER POWER." Needless to say I don't attend AA meetings. They say they are a non religious oranization, but that's Bullshit. The meetings end with the Lord's Prayer and people are always talking about all this help they get from God. Well I started a thread on a recovery addiction board and wanted to see if anyone out there maintained their sobriety without the "HIGHER POWER." Surprisingly I have had a couple Atheists come out of the woodwork already. I just started it today, and it's going to be very interesting. This is a very busy message board. Are there any atheists out there on this board who are recovering from substance abuse? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lizard Posted March 22, 2006 Share Posted March 22, 2006 Hmm..interesting, xrayman..I went to a few AA meetings, years back. I don't recall any prayers though.. The higher power, yes. They told me if I wanted, the light switch could be my "higher power".. Gave up after a while..have not had a need since. Was about 15 or 16 years ago, I think since I last walked into a meeting. Then again, I'm not a fully convinced "atheist"..not really a theist or deist either..guess I'm just in the "I don't know" category..and at this point the "I don't care" one too..(as to beliefs, that is) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lycorth Posted March 22, 2006 Share Posted March 22, 2006 That's pretty screwed-up, that your AA branch was trying to push Xian crapola like that. Combatting one addiction by with another isn't the way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tiffany Posted March 22, 2006 Share Posted March 22, 2006 Are there any atheists out there on this board who are recovering from substance abuse? I've been trying to quit alcohol for 3 years now, not doing so good but I sure would love to know what site this is that you go to? 15 years! I can't make it more then a week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Celsus Posted March 22, 2006 Share Posted March 22, 2006 That's pretty screwed-up, that your AA branch was trying to push Xian crapola like that. Combatting one addiction by with another isn't the way. AA is a Christian outreach ministry, it always has been one. All you have to do is look at their chartering documents and the literature. Interestingly, the sucess rate for people "Trusting in a higher power" to quit drinking and quitting drinking one their own is the same, approximately 5%. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fweethawt Posted March 22, 2006 Share Posted March 22, 2006 Yeah, Cliff Walker (I think that's his last name), the author of Positiveatheism.org was sent to jail for refusing to take part in an AA process. He knew that it was a Christian based program, and being an atheist himself, he knew what it was all about. Anyway, if anyone is having problems with addiction and know that they need to rely on themselves in order to straighten themselves out instead of leaning on their imaginary friends, give this link a look. You might find what you're looking for. http://www.rational.org/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
All Gods Fail Posted March 22, 2006 Share Posted March 22, 2006 I've been a recovering alcoholic for 15 years and of cousre the big line spoken at AA meetings is the fact that we can't maintain sobriety withour our "HIGHER POWER." Needless to say I don't attend AA meetings. They say they are a non religious oranization, but that's Bullshit. The meetings end with the Lord's Prayer and people are always talking about all this help they get from God. Well I started a thread on a recovery addiction board and wanted to see if anyone out there maintained their sobriety without the "HIGHER POWER." Surprisingly I have had a couple Atheists come out of the woodwork already. I just started it today, and it's going to be very interesting. This is a very busy message board. Are there any atheists out there on this board who are recovering from substance abuse? Yep - I've also been sober for about 15 years, without the 12-Step shuffle. And I'm atheist to the core (although I was agnostic while I was going to AA). I did start out with AA, but quit going after the first few months. Depending on what group you go to there can be a huge xtian bias, which is ironic because one of the founders of AA was a hardcore agnostic. It was because of him that AA isn't a straight-up church, and there's lots of caveats regarding god and the bible and whatnot. I really like that guy! Unfortunately, a lot of people ignore that and pretend AA is church. I really feel kind of sorry for them - in my experience with AA/sobriety, religious drunks struggle the most. They still think Jesus will stop them from taking that first drink, without realizing that at some point they have to stand up and make their own decisions. Invisible sky-pals don't seem to care that much if you drink or not. But still, I won't slam AA too badly, because the group-therapy aspect of it really does help. Just knowing there are others dealing with the same problems is therapeutic (like this site). And if helps keep you sober, why not? I won't point fingers. Of course, I was already a doubter/agnostic by the time I tried AA, so my higher power was 'free will'. That rubbed some of the more religious members the wrong way, implying heavily that biblegod was supposed to be everyone's higher power. Anyway, 15 years later and I'm still sober, without one single slip. I guess freedom of choice was a high-enough power. : Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asimov Posted March 22, 2006 Share Posted March 22, 2006 The problem I see with AA is that it doesn't promote discipline, but extremism on the opposite side of the fence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xrayman7040 Posted March 22, 2006 Author Share Posted March 22, 2006 To All God's Fail. Well it looks like you and I are in the same boat. I really did get some help from the AA program when I first stopped drinking. I did buy into the higher power thing back then, when I was more or less an agnostic. I guess the best line of advice I ever got from those meetings was from people who were sober for many years and then later fell off the wagon. They always stated that you will go back to where you once were if you ever try to drink again. I never have had a slip either. Even putting the religios aspect aside, I guess I just wasn't a fan of the twelve step system what so ever. To whomever asked for my reocovery link go to healthboards.com and click on the addiction and recovery section. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garrisonjj Posted March 22, 2006 Share Posted March 22, 2006 I've been a recovering alcoholic for 15 years and of cousre the big line spoken at AA meetings is the fact that we can't maintain sobriety withour our "HIGHER POWER." Needless to say I don't attend AA meetings. They say they are a non religious oranization, but that's Bullshit. The meetings end with the Lord's Prayer and people are always talking about all this help they get from God. Well I started a thread on a recovery addiction board and wanted to see if anyone out there maintained their sobriety without the "HIGHER POWER." Surprisingly I have had a couple Atheists come out of the woodwork already. I just started it today, and it's going to be very interesting. This is a very busy message board. Are there any atheists out there on this board who are recovering from substance abuse? Im recovering from fuckin religion all my 48 years. Religion probably caused me to drink too much,,,,,,,,start smoking and worry about the guilt induced hell i was brought up to believe in. As I read these boards and abandon religion more and more everyday,,,,I have never felt so frr in my life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Celsus Posted March 22, 2006 Share Posted March 22, 2006 AA is a Christian outreach ministry, it always has been one. All you have to do is look at their chartering documents and the literature. Interestingly, the sucess rate for people "Trusting in a higher power" to quit drinking and quitting drinking one their own is the same, approximately 5%. I'm interested in the 5% statistic. Where did you find that? ~ Angela ~ Treatment of Drug Abuse and Addiction -- Part III, The Harvard Mental Health Letter, Volume 12, Number 4, October 1995, page 3. Professor (and Doctor) George E. Vaillant of Harvard University is an enthusiastic advocate of Twelve-Step treatment, and is currently a Non-alcoholic -- Class A -- member of the Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (AAWS) Board of Trustees. In 1983, he published his book The Natural History of Alcoholism: Causes, Patterns, and Paths to Recovery, where he described the natural healing process associated with individuals addicted to alcohol -- "spontaneous remission" -- where some of the people who are addicted to alcohol will simply quit, and choose to stay abstinent of their own volition, without any Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, or any therapy program, or any other outside intervention at all. Dr. Vaillant's question was: does the A.A. program improve on the percentage of alcoholics who undergo spontaneous remission? Following the passage of the Hughes Act, the U.S. government -- the NIAAA to be specific -- funded studies of alcoholism treatment. Dr. Vaillant participated in the Cambridge-Sommerville [Massachusetts] Program for Alcohol Rehabilitation (CASPAR). It featured 24-hour walk-in services with medical treatment for detoxing. It treated 1000 new patients per year, did 2500 detoxifications per year, and had 20,000 outpatient visits per year. To study the effectiveness of various methods of treating alcoholism ("treatment modalities"), Vaillant compiled forty years of clinical studies. Vaillant and the director William Clark also conducted an eight-year longitudinal study of their own where Vaillant reported having followed 100 patients who had undergone Twelve-Step treatment. (That was an unusually large and long-term study.) Vaillant compared those people to a group of several hundred other untreated alcohol abusers. The treated patients did no better than the untreated alcoholics. [/color]Fully 95% of the treated patients relapsed sometime during the eight-year period that Vaillant followed them. Professor Vaillant candidly reported: When I joined the staff at Cambridge Hospital, I learned about the disease of alcoholism for the first time. My prior training had been at a famous teaching hospital that from past despair had posted an unwritten sign over the door that read "alcoholic patients need not apply." ... At Cambridge Hospital I learned for the first time how to diagnose alcoholism as an illness and to think of abstinence in terms of "one day at a time." ... To me, alcoholism became a fascinating disease. It seemed perfectly clear that by meeting the immediate individual needs of the alcoholic, by using multimodality therapy, by disregarding "motivation," by turning to recovering alcoholics [A.A. members] rather than to Ph.D.'s for lessons in breaking self-detrimental and more or less involuntary habits, and by inexorably moving patients from dependence upon the general hospital into the treatment system of A.A., I was working for the most exciting alcohol program in the world. But then came the rub. Fueled by our enthusiasm, I and the director, William Clark, tried to prove our efficacy. Our clinic followed up our first 100 detoxification patients, the Clinic sample described in Chapter 3, every year for the next 8 years. ... Table 8.1 shows our treatment results. After initial discharge, only five patients in the Clinic sample never relapsed to alcoholic drinking, and there is compelling evidence that the results of our treatment were no better than the natural history of the disease. In table 8.1, the outcomes for the Clinic sample patients are contrasted with two-year follow-ups of four treatment programs that analyzed their data in a comparable way and admitted patients similar to ours. The Clinic sample results are also contrasted with three studies of equal duration that purported to offer no formal treatment. Although the treatment populations differ, the studies are roughly comparable; in hopes of averaging out major sampling differences, the studies are pooled. Costello (1975), Emrick (1975), and Hill and Blane (1967) have reviewed many more disparate two-year outcome studies and have noted roughly similar proportions of significantly improved and unimproved alcoholics. Not only had we failed to alter the natural history of alcoholism, but our death rate of three percent a year was appalling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
All Gods Fail Posted March 22, 2006 Share Posted March 22, 2006 Fascinating stuff - has anyone done research on non-AA treatments like RR, and their success rate? I'd love to know if it's any better than 5%. It would be very cool if it was. Personally, I think there's some valuable stuff in AA if you strain out the xtianity, and you seriously want to sober up. But in the end, I think it's just group therapy and re-training yourself, and forming a new habit over time. After 3 months or so of sobriety, I found it getting a lot easier. Eventually, it just became a habit and every day I stay sober just reinforces it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xrayman7040 Posted March 22, 2006 Author Share Posted March 22, 2006 Yea I hung around the meetings for a while and got some good advice, and then learned to stay sober all by my lonesome. You get used to it, and it becomes second nature after a while. There are times when I miss it, but the beauty of my drinking problem was the fact that I was so bad, that there was no way I could function in society and continue to drink. I was a hardcore nonfunctional drunk, so if I start drinking again, away goes the job and marriage. I kind like them both. I am not a big fan of the ONE DAY AT A TIME creed either. My motto is, "I can never drink again, period." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spamandham Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 Are there any atheists out there on this board who are recovering from substance abuse? No. I'm still enjoying mine with no intent to try to recover. I suppose if I ever start to worry about liver damage I might take a different perspective. But the way I see it is, as long as it isn't killing me, or causing me unacceptable problems, if I enjoy it, why not? It's not like I can't afford it. Don't take that as advice. It sounds like it is/was more of a problem for you than me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snookums Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 Yea I hung around the meetings for a while and got some good advice, and then learned to stay sober all by my lonesome. You get used to it, and it becomes second nature after a while. There are times when I miss it, but the beauty of my drinking problem was the fact that I was so bad, that there was no way I could function in society and continue to drink. I was a hardcore nonfunctional drunk, so if I start drinking again, away goes the job and marriage. I kind like them both. I am not a big fan of the ONE DAY AT A TIME creed either. My motto is, "I can never drink again, period." That's sounds like me except I didn't go to AA - we don't insist on that in AUst - I went to a couple of drug&alchol counselling sessions but I gave up on my own, cold turkey after binging away - conducting a life. I think I was probably emotionally addicted as soon as I first got pissed.....umm..yea years ago (more than 20)...anyway I've been off it for 7 years now....its a long time. I kinda miss the lifestyle..but not the way I felt totally possessed by the drug..oh I did other shit as well ...but isn't that the way it goes. anyway...to cut this short...I'd like to pass on this web page - its a great effort - masses of info collected..in case anyone has any doubts what AA is...or whatever? http://www.orange-papers.org/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tiffany Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 "Trusting in a higher power" to quit drinking and quitting drinking one their own is the same, approximately 5%. I better just pack it in then, I can't even win at poker when it's a 3 person game! Gimme a hit of juma, and keep em' coming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I Broke Free Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 Are there any atheists out there on this board who are recovering from substance abuse? Yep, I’m one! After a four year stint as a cocaine addict, I sought help through Narcotics Anonymous in September of 1989. I had been an atheist since I was 18 years old in 1978. I “used” NA for about two years. I found that being with other addicts and learning about why I was using was useful, but I NEVER did any of the steps. They are not as religious as AA, but they did claim that anyone who leaves the group must have went back to using again. As far as they were concerned it was impossible to stay clean unless you stayed brainwashed. I knew it was a bunch of crap. I have been clean for over 16 years without any help from the supernatural. IBF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Entgegen Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 I seem to remember an episode of South Park with the whole Christian-AA thing. It also had a statue of a Virgin Mary that they thought was bleeding out of her ass but was really bleeding out of her vagina. It was a pretty funny episode. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pandora Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 Are there any atheists out there on this board who are recovering from substance abuse? Yep, I’m one! After a four year stint as a cocaine addict, I sought help through Narcotics Anonymous in September of 1989. I had been an atheist since I was 18 years old in 1978. I “used” NA for about two years. I found that being with other addicts and learning about why I was using was useful, but I NEVER did any of the steps. They are not as religious as AA, but they did claim that anyone who leaves the group must have went back to using again. As far as they were concerned it was impossible to stay clean unless you stayed brainwashed. I knew it was a bunch of crap. I have been clean for over 16 years without any help from the supernatural. IBF I notice that too. Funny how it paralells Christianity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lizard Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 My husband was also a nonfunctional drunk..he did three days in a detox hospital and has been sober ever since. No AA at all. That was ten years ago. Oh! There was one AA meeting. My BIL goes for the social aspect..and talked my DH into going..to get a ten year coin..so he did. They didn't like what he said much though. He told them: "Ya wanta quit drinking? Let me tell you how I did it. You don't buy it. That's the first step. If you have it, you don't open it. Second step. If its already open, don't bend your elbow and drink it. Third step. Follow these steps and stay sober." End of his speech to get the coin. They gave it to him..but they've never invited him back.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
All Gods Fail Posted March 24, 2006 Share Posted March 24, 2006 "Ya wanta quit drinking? Let me tell you how I did it. You don't buy it. That's the first step. If you have it, you don't open it. Second step. If its already open, don't bend your elbow and drink it. Third step. Follow these steps and stay sober." Right on! So many drunks never seem to get it - it's really simple. Your hubby cut right to the chase! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spamandham Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 "Ya wanta quit drinking? Let me tell you how I did it. You don't buy it. That's the first step. If you have it, you don't open it. Second step. If its already open, don't bend your elbow and drink it. Third step. Follow these steps and stay sober." Right on! So many drunks never seem to get it - it's really simple. Your hubby cut right to the chase! I can stop anytime I want. I've done it dozens of times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michelle Posted March 27, 2006 Share Posted March 27, 2006 I am an atheist and also a member of A.A. I have been to many A.A. meetings throughout N.Y. state and every city has at least a few agnostics and atheists that are A.A. members. It's not common but we do exist. I use to bash A.A. when I first lost faith in a higher power. But then I went back when I realized that I was not the only atheist in the room. I'm not a big fan of A. A.'s 12 Steps but I've also heard of people re-writing the steps to fit their own needs. Thanks for your topic, I got alot out of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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