If when you finish a paragraph, you hit [Enter] twice instead of just once, it leaves a blank line in between that and the next paragraph. Those blank lines help a lot.
I guess my thing with saying AA doesn't work even though people may feel like it does is that sometimes something happens and we think we know the reason for it, but the thing we decide is the reason isn't really.
One of the things we went over in college was they'd put a cat or a rat or a pigeon in a box, and they'd put a lever in the box, or a button, that would open the door and let the critter out of the box.
Well, eventually the critter would accidentally hit the lever or the button and get out of the box.
It turns out that if you keep putting the critter back in the box, it doesn't learn to go right over and push the button or move the lever. What it does is goes through a little ritual where it does over and over again the sequence of events that happened right before and up to when the box opened (including hitting the button or moving the lever).
The pigeon thinks*** that turning around in circles pecking in a little dance is part of the process that opens the door and is essential to getting the door open.
The cat thinks it's got to rub up against the pole in the middle of the box, then roll over on its back, then....etc. until it hits the button.
And so forth--the animals develop these rituals that they clearly think are helping them open the box and are part of opening the box, but they're not.
You could put an animal in a box that didn't have the button or the lever and it would keep doing the whole ritual until it gave up.
The difference with humans is that we're a little more savvy about noticing there are such things as buttons or levers, but we're still prone to superstitious behaviors the same way cats, rats, or pigeons are.
Sometimes the superstitious behavior is purely personal, like a lucky sweater. Or attending a certain kind of meeting.
What I think happens is that people who are already motivated to quit drinking go to AA, and the people that keep going are the ones that are *still* motivated to quit drinking. I think the ones that are in remission would be in remission anyway without AA---or would be doing just as well with a garden variety support group or a couple of good friends that would encourage them. Which is kinda what the people who stop drinking *without* going to AA do.
I have a friend who recognized he was an alcoholic and stopped drinking because he saw a movie on TV. The movie had some guy whose life was a mess sitting in a pshrink's office and the guy asked something like, "What am I going to do?" and the pshrink said, "First, stop drinking."
For some reason those words stuck for my friend, and he stopped drinking. Spontaneous remission.
He stayed in remission for the rest of his life. He ended up dying last year in a car wreck that was the other guy's fault (yes, my friend was sober).
My friend *did* get, after several years, to the point that he could have one drink and then stop. He would, very rarely, if it was a social occasion where drink was appropriate, have that one drink. And then he'd stop. He never went back to getting drunk.
Just because you're in remission and you're in AA doesn't mean AA did it or even helped do it.
I don't care if you go.
I don't care if practically everyone with a drinking problem goes.
Let me share a personal story:
When I'm off my meds, and I feel bad---particularly before I was diagnosed and knew there was anything wrong---I would come up with all sorts of reasons why I was upset and hurting and feeling bad. I would come up with all kinds of things that upset me, or made me feel worthless, or made me feel guilty, or made me mad, or made me sad, or made me not want to get out of bed and face the day, or made me giddy, etc.
But the reactions I had were *disproportional*---and that's the key---to the "reasons" I found for why I did what I did.
The "reasons" were wrong.
I felt those ways, disproportionately, because I had a mental illness and my brain chemistry and physiology was screwed.
I found this out when they got me on the right medicines and my reactions started being proportional to the events.
*Most* people, when they see themselves in the mirror and don't like the way they look that day, or they have a squabble with a friend, or a friend blows them off (for something totally unrelated to them, it turns out later), or even when a loved one dies----*Most* people do not get so unable to cope with that and feel so overwhelmed by feelings about those things that they go crawl inside a bottle for months.
*Most* people don't go out and get trashed, a lot, when they feel good and have something to celebrate
The reaction (getting drunk a lot) is disproportionate to the stimulus, and sometimes misinterprets events in a negative, personal way when they're nothing to do with the person. Or goes to excess getting over-giddy about a party or celebration or whatever.
What I'm saying is the events are not why people drink, just like the events I was experiencing were not why I was having depressed feelings or manic feelings.
The screwed up brain biology is why people *overreact* to events by getting drunk, over and over again. Until they're trapped in a vicious cycle of getting drunk because they feel worthless because they're a drunk.
Alcoholics don't all have such tragic lives when they start drinking too much. They're not "driven" to drink by events---plenty of people live through similar events and *don't* start drinking too much. Pretty much whatever tragedy or success you can come up with, plenty of non-alcoholics have been there, too.
The drinking is an excessive reaction to events.
The events aren't why the alcoholic reacts excessively. The events aren't causing the drinking.
Once the brain problem is triggered, it's the brain problem causing the overreaction that causes the craving (compulsion). And failing to control the compulsion *that time* causes the drinking.
"One day at a time" is, at least, an AA saying that is a pretty fair statement of how to cope with a compulsion.
Anyway, that's what I think.
I think the people who get better at AA get better because they decided to stop drinking and started finding ways to not overreact to events in their lives, not because of AA.
Timoclea
