Where are your statistics, then? Do you have any?
Treating the compulsions of modern life as "disease events" is actually a way of avoiding dealing with reality. But facing lifes challenges is too hard-- its easier to dismiss excessive drinking as a "disease", and become indoctrinated with the idea that we are not active agents in our addiction, but passive victims of a disease. What kind of psychology is that?
This ideology has led to our entire society decaying to the point where nobody is ever accountable for egregious behavior--- Tiger Woods didn't do anything wrong, he's simply addicted to sex. He has a disease.
I'd venture to guess that roughly 100% of the people who walk thru AA's doors for the first time tried to quit drinking on their own first. Probably a number of times. The fact that AA manages to help 85-93% (based on the studies Mr. A. Orange sites) of problem drinkers who were unable to quit on their own would seem to suggest some sort of success rate
I'd venture to guess that 25% of people in AA shouldn't even be there in the first place ie mental patients, teenagers, family members.
It's not enough for AA to pathologize non-alcohol related behavior, but family members of problem drinkers are "sick" too? Are you kidding me? And teenagers should not be any where near an AA meeting. There are too many predators and they are very vulnerable and the vast majority of them are not "alcoholics" they just did some experimenting and had a bad experience. Making them wear a scarlet letter in perpetuity is child abuse, pure and simple. I've been to numerous AA meetings with mental patients who didn't drink in excess or have any dependency whatsoever, they were just mentally ill and needed a free cup of coffee. How are people who admittedly need help going to get help in an environment like that?
Another 50% are court ordered, that's why they are there. Some are sincerely trying to stop drinking, but alot of them are just nuisances who don't want to be there and are filled with resentment. Again, how does this help the person that wants to be there to have to listen to somebody share and talk all sorts of jibberish when they are just laying some con down?
Another 20% are the hang arounds--
These are the people that keep "slipping" and then come back and tell all their "war stories". It makes them feel like celebrities for the first time in their life, and they get all sorts of negative attention.
The remaining 5% are the people who have actually "made it" they are the ones who put 5, 10, twenty years in AA "once day at a time" "through the grace of God" who tell the same stupid corny stories ad nauseum and lay their BS guilt trips on all the hang arounds "slippers". These people have joined the cult and have totally x'ed out there own ego and what keeps them coming back each and every night is they get to brow beat some vulnerable kid.
Alcoholism is a myth perpetuated by A.A. that lies to vulnerable people and brainwashes them to believe that that:
Alcoholism is waiting to prey on anyone who has a few drinks
Total BS because Alcoholism is BS. But even if we are talking about medical diagnosis like Alcohol dependence or Alcohol abuse, not everybody who drinks either acutely or chronically is susceptible to become dependent. Some people get bombed only at weddings. Does that make them an "alcoholic"? According to AA it does. Some people make the mistake of driving after having one too many ****tails. Does that automatically make them an alcoholic? According to AA it does, because they brow beat every DWI court ordered pleeb in the room. And on and on.
Alcoholism is an an inherited, incurable disease to which we are all equally susceptible
I'll go this far as to agree there is an alcohol gene (our medieval ancestors lived to breed because they drank alcohol, not water, which was full of bacteria), so imbibing can be a nature thing as well as a nurture thing. I totally reject the "disease" concept. It's total balderdash.
Once diagnosed as alcoholic, you remain alcoholic forever
More self defeating BS that is propogated in AA meetings. It's not enough to stigmatize people and call them an alcoholic (again, whatever that is) but now you have to tell them that there's a monster living inside of them and if they don't keep coming to AA, they will start drinking again, and die. God forbid somebody tells the problem drinker, "You know what? You drink too much, and when you do, you make bad choices. Why don't you just stop, or slow down?" Well what AA does it tells the problem drinker they can't stop or slow down because they are "powerless" and unless you attend meetings FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE and flagelate yourself before mother group, the monster will get you!
You must abstain from alcohol - the only effective treatment - or lose everything.
More self defeating BS. The lifers in mother group will brow beat you "If you stop going to meetings YOU WILL START DRINKING AGAIN!" Which is just more self fulfilling prophecy. In essence they are telling you to start drinking again, just so you can inevitably come crawling back to mother group and grovel while they say "See, I told you!"
Do I think AA is good for a very select group of people? Yes, people who are physically dependent on alcohol or who have abused alcohol to the point that they can't hold a job, a family, etc. who wind up on skid row--- THEN AA IS IDEAL FOR THEM.
But putting a bunch of kids who got a DWI in an unhealthy environment like an AA meeting is not ideal.
I've seen people lie, just to fit in, about there drinking. You see, you have to qualify your alcoholism by always saying "I was bad, I was really out there" and then go on about having "blackouts" and other things WHEN NONE OF THAT EVER ACTUALLY HAPPENED TO YOU.
I think the statistics show alot of things--- once, the vast majority of people who attend AA meetings shouldn't be there in the first place, and another far more unfortuanate group, who went their looking sincerely for help with their drinking problem, wind up with a headful of self defeating BS that actually makes them prisoners of alcohol, makes them less self-sufficient, and far less likely to outgrow the problem, and more likely to relapse.
But I guess that is what AA lifers want-- A perpetual revolving door of "relapsers" to brow beat because in the end that is what keeps the lifer sober, at the expense of another human being.
I do not believe abstinence should be enforced, either at the end of a gun or through fairy tales and lies, I believe we are morally responsible for our own actions.
AA indoctrinates the new comer with the self defeating mantra that once you have a single drink you are unable to control your drinking, and you will go berserk. That is total nonsense. I don't care how drunk I am, that next drink, that very well may be the one to kill me--- whas a choice being made. Period.
