It works if you work it!!!

Bryan wrote:

It works if you work it!!!

It sure does my friend, nice to meet you. If you are ever passing through Hayti, MO feel free to drop on in.
:-)
PEACE
" YAWL "

a.a. is not for all alcoholics.

it is not a one size fits all.

a.a. is fear based, just as religion.

a.a. members are one sided about a.a. because it worked for them. it was a fit for them.

a.a. is not necessary to stop drinking.

20 years this august, so far so much better.

hi
I am FAR from religous, or even praying to anything
BUT this is meant to be kind of a stop???? for dummies the yellow book .
I wqas taught early on that if I had a prob. or lack of such in beleiving in a god or something to just inject what I thought good in those phrases
Pray to YOURSELF you are the one with the power in this deal and nothing else will keep a drink from your hand . I have 13 yrs and could have never made it through those first yrs. without a simple attitude ,I can count to twelve but not the high no,s that courts and all the other folks want you to count to .
I,m gratefull to one day at a time . Rick

And there you have it, Rick, one day at a time. Pass it on.

AA is elusive: to make peace with one's self and others is no simple or easy task in a small world with so many a holes who pretend to have something more valuable or even lethal than their mark.

Maybe that is why AA works for some and not for others because by the time a newcomer is in the room, the spirituality is already hoarded up.

Even AA members can be alcoholic A holes. That said: it is good to go to AA halls, therapy, doctors, other groups or take medicine when the need arises to address drinking issues.

Albeit, drinking issues are either issues or issues progressed to a disease called alcoholism. It takes alcohol a few more years to kill than other diseases, but sometimes: a split second.

Whatever the case: the thing about a holes is that everybody has got one, whether in company with the queen herself or in an AA hall. So, don't let anybody tell you different: it works if you work it!

I just wanted to share this twist I found,
http://www.topix.com/forum/who/illegal-aliens...

I tried AA and it did not work for me. I felt very uncomfortable at the meetings. I did read a couple of books and tried to go to two meeting a week, which probably wasn't enough. I did find something that worked for me. I know everyone is different, but I felt more comfortable dealing with my issues in the privact of my own home. If AA doesnt work for you try this http://tinyurl.com/59skfd
I have been sober for three months.

freenow wrote:

I tried AA and it did not work for me. I felt very uncomfortable at the meetings. I did read a couple of books and tried to go to two meeting a week, which probably wasn't enough. I did find something that worked for me. I know everyone is different, but I felt more comfortable dealing with my issues in the privact of my own home. If AA doesnt work for you try this http://tinyurl.com/59skfd
I have been sober for three months.

Whatever works, work it. I dabbled with aa&na for years and it didn't seem to work, then one day it did. I would recommend on any day you wish to return to drinking or drugging, go to another meeting, it may save your life.
One of the reasons it does work is simple the association with others of like mind, people to talk to on the ground.
Best of life to you, one day at a time.

"we are not alone, we have found a haven at last." work with others. No human power can releave or alcoholism but God could and would if he were sought. Try AA.

freenow wrote:

I tried AA and it did not work for me. I felt very uncomfortable at the meetings. I did read a couple of books and tried to go to two meeting a week, which probably wasn't enough. I did find something that worked for me. I know everyone is different, but I felt more comfortable dealing with my issues in the privact of my own home. If AA doesnt work for you try this http://tinyurl.com/59skfd
I have been sober for three months.

Good for you. AA does not work, period. It is nothing more than a cult religion, and it's teaching "powerlessness" is the worst thing you could teach someone.

Rogerg wrote:

<quoted text>
Whatever works, work it. I dabbled with aa&na for years and it didn't seem to work, then one day it did. I would recommend on any day you wish to return to drinking or drugging, go to another meeting, it may save your life.
One of the reasons it does work is simple the association with others of like mind, people to talk to on the ground.
Best of life to you, one day at a time.

It didn't suddenly work after 8 or 9 years. You just got sick of playing the game.
Addiction to alcohol or anything else will remain as long as the addict can imagine that they can have the pleasure of it without the pain. Once they realize that the only way to win the game is not play it, they stop.

Sorry, the 8 or 9 years was not applicable. I don't know how many years you meant.

Headhunter 300M wrote:

<quoted text>
It didn't suddenly work after 8 or 9 years. You just got sick of playing the game.
Addiction to alcohol or anything else will remain as long as the addict can imagine that they can have the pleasure of it without the pain. Once they realize that the only way to win the game is not play it, they stop.

Couldn't have made it without the program.

Rogerg wrote:

<quoted text>
Couldn't have made it without the program.

The only benefit to the program is that it does give newly sober people somewhere to go and a support system...but the long term success rate balances out to zero when you factor in the amount of people that do it on their own, with no program.
Glad you made it though.

Headhunter 300M wrote:

<quoted text>
The only benefit to the program is that it does give newly sober people somewhere to go and a support system...but the long term success rate balances out to zero when you factor in the amount of people that do it on their own, with no program.
Glad you made it though.

After 21 years of continues sobriety and still pop in to meetings to this day, I can say without a doubt your wrong about the long term success rate, My wife with 24 years also disagrees with you. We have many friend with over 20 years and they continue to go to meetings. There is no way to trace the success of the program, only the dropouts, in all those years no one has ever included anyone I know in a survey regarding their success. How would anyone know, including you?
What would be your possible motive to talk a program, that even worked for one man, down?

Rogerg wrote:

<quoted text>
After 21 years of continues sobriety and still pop in to meetings to this day, I can say without a doubt your wrong about the long term success rate, My wife with 24 years also disagrees with you. We have many friend with over 20 years and they continue to go to meetings.

None of this surprises me. There are many people like you and your friends that remain in the program, though statistically speaking, there are very few. The fact that you are sober is not proof that AA works, it's proof that you had the ability to stop drinking. YOU did it, Roger.

Rogerg wrote:

<quoted text>
There is no way to trace the success of the program, only the dropouts, in all those years no one has ever included anyone I know in a survey regarding their success. How would anyone know, including you?

That's a good question. You're right, controlled studies have been rare, mainly because most people don't want the answers. But some have been done.
The Harvard Medical School reported that eventually, slightly over half of the alcoholics do quit drinking, and of those successful quitters, 80% did it alone, on their own.
When A.A. was tested in stringent medical tests, A.A. was actually shown to cause:
a much higher rate of binge drinking,
a higher rate of re-arrests,
higher costs of hospitalization, and
a zero-percent improvement in the sobriety rate accompanied by a much higher death rate.

Rogerg wrote:

<quoted text>
What would be your possible motive to talk a program, that even worked for one man, down?

It doesn't work, period. It's steals the credit for the few that were going to get sober anyway, and puts the blame for failure back on the individual who didn't "thoroughly follow the path". It's destructive. It even drives some people to suicide.

Headhunter 300M wrote:

<quoted text>
None of this surprises me. There are many people like you and your friends that remain in the program, though statistically speaking, there are very few. The fact that you are sober is not proof that AA works, it's proof that you had the ability to stop drinking. YOU did it, Roger.
<quoted text>
That's a good question. You're right, controlled studies have been rare, mainly because most people don't want the answers. But some have been done.
The Harvard Medical School reported that eventually, slightly over half of the alcoholics do quit drinking, and of those successful quitters, 80% did it alone, on their own.
When A.A. was tested in stringent medical tests, A.A. was actually shown to cause:
a much higher rate of binge drinking,
a higher rate of re-arrests,
higher costs of hospitalization, and
a zero-percent improvement in the sobriety rate accompanied by a much higher death rate.
<quoted text>
It doesn't work, period. It's steals the credit for the few that were going to get sober anyway, and puts the blame for failure back on the individual who didn't "thoroughly follow the path". It's destructive. It even drives some people to suicide.

I would love to see some links to this blather, produce proof or give it up. Your nothing but wrong and you either are an atheist bent on disproving reality or an unemployed counselor trying desperately to drum up work. Which is it?

Rogerg wrote:

<quoted text>
I would love to see some links to this blather, produce proof or give it up. Your nothing but wrong and you either are an atheist bent on disproving reality or an unemployed counselor trying desperately to drum up work. Which is it?

Your starting to sound angry there, Roger...are you capable of having a polite conversation with someone you disagree with?
Remember where resentments lead...
Yes, I am most definitely an Atheist. "bent on disproving reality" is not even close, however. I am interested in the truth, even if it's not what I wish it to be. I am not now nor have I ever been a counselor...I prefer to make an honest living.

Professor George E. Vaillant of Harvard University is a Class A member of the Board of Trustees of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.. He is one of the leaders of A.A., and one of the biggest promoters of A.A..
While working at the Cambridge-Sommerville [Massachusetts] Program for Alcohol Rehabilitation (CASPAR) back in the 1970s and 1980s, Dr. Vaillant conducted an 8-year-long clinical test of A.A. treatment of alcoholics, enthusiastically trying to prove that A.A. works and is a good, effective treatment for alcoholism.

Much to his dismay, Dr. Vaillant instead clearly showed that A.A. kills alcoholics.
And Dr. Vaillant candidly reported those results in his book The Natural History of Alcoholism: Causes, Patterns, and Paths to Recovery, in 1984.(He had to accurately report the results; his work was funded by the U.S. Government.)
It included:
To me, alcoholism became a fascinating disease. It seemed perfectly clear that ... 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....
... 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.
...
Not only had we failed to alter the natural history of alcoholism, but our death rate of three percent a year was appalling.
...
Once again, our results were no better than the natural history of the disorder.
The Natural History of Alcoholism: Causes, Patterns, and Paths to Recovery, George E. Vaillant, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1983, pages 283-286.
The same text was reprinted in Vaillant's later book, The Natural History of Alcoholism Revisited, George E. Vaillant, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1995, on pages 349-352.

Vaillant's A.A.-based treatment program had no better a success rate than several other treatment programs that he examined, or even a group of alcoholics who got no treatment at all.
As Vaillant plainly stated, his A.A.-based treatment program "failed to alter the natural history of alcoholism." ("Natural history of alcoholism" means what usually happens to untreated alcoholics.)
A.A. didn't work; it didn't save any alcoholics. A.A. was no better than no treatment at all.
And it was even worse than that, because, after 8 years of A.A. treatment, 29% of Vaillant's patients were dead. That is nearly one out of every three patients, dead.
Vaillant's A.A.-based treatment program had the highest death rate of any treatment program that he examined. Even Professor Vaillant called the A.A. death rate "appalling".

The Natural History of Alcoholism: Causes, Patterns, and Paths to Recovery George E. Vaillant
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, and London, England, 1983.
ISBN: 0-674-60375-3
LC: number RC565.V33 1983
Dewey: 616.86'1