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No One to Rescue Me from My Drinking

nytimes.com

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Re: No One to Rescue Me from My Drinking

#71

Post by gigamuflon »

billjings wrote: post #47

I have a short list of books that I recommend that have changed my worldview. First and foremost on that list is Bruce Alexander's _The Globalization Of Addiction_: http://www.amazon.com/The-Globalization-Addiction-Poverty-Sp... If you've got the bug, that book is not going to help you. It'll just tell you how screwed you are. If you don't have the bug, I think that book might help you understand the problem.

Sorry for going off-topic but I'd be interested seeing your reading list. Care to share it?

Re: No One to Rescue Me from My Drinking

#72

Post by tsotha »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #19
Animats wrote: post #8

Note the total lack of self-blame, or taking responsibility for one's own problems. Even the title, "No One to Rescue Me from My Drinking", puts the blame on someone, anyone, else.

That's the first thing that struck me too. Total abdication of personal responsibility, and her self-important, solipsistic attitude is found all throughout her writing.

No... you missed the whole point of the article.

Re: No One to Rescue Me from My Drinking

#73

Post by dmgbrn »

blazespin wrote: post #49
mdip wrote: post #42

I don't know how effective Alcoholics Anonymous really is (not saying one way or the other), but having the accountability placed on you by friends is a helpful thing in many other tough situations in life. You can see it underlying many useful bits of advice ("Have a cofounder" always comes to mind -- someone to motivate you when you're unable to do so yourself, perhaps?) Addiction is no joke and anything that can p…

Alcoholism isn't so much about addiction as it is about binge drinking. Lots of people have a couple of drinks everyday and function quite well. It's the four manhattans in quick succession where things go awry.

As a recovering alcoholic, I can confidently say that this is not correct. Although many alcoholics get in trouble by drinking too much too fast (this seems like an acceptable definition of binge drinking that takes tolerance into account), the key feature of alcoholism is addiction -- that in the face of the consequences, alcoholics do not stop. At the height of my drinking, I was going through about two liters of vodka a day. Despite this, I tried and usually succeeded not to lose control of my behavior. After all, getting in trouble jeopardizes your ability to get drunk, and as an addict, every action I took and decision I made was driven by a simple principle: don't let anything come between me and booze.

Re: No One to Rescue Me from My Drinking

#74

Post by dmgbrn »

mdip wrote: post #42

I don't know how effective Alcoholics Anonymous really is (not saying one way or the other), but having the accountability placed on you by friends is a helpful thing in many other tough situations in life. You can see it underlying many useful bits of advice ("Have a cofounder" always comes to mind -- someone to motivate you when you're unable to do so yourself, perhaps?) Addiction is no joke and anything that can p…

In the recovery community we call this state of being "dry", as in "dry drunk". The concept is that while she's managed to stop taking the pills, she hasn't addressed the underlying problems. It's especially likely when someone is getting clean in order to accomplish something (getting one's kids back, for example) other than freeing themselves from addiction.

Re: No One to Rescue Me from My Drinking

#75

Post by dmgbrn »

speeder wrote: post #44
siliconc0w wrote: post #37

On a similar topic - AA actually isn't that effective: http://www.salon.com/2014/03/23/the_pseudo_science_of_alcoho... I haven't read the book the above article is covering but it seems Dodes argues psychotherapy is a better alternative as 'addiction' is usually just a manifestation of self-destructive/self medication behavior ultimately due to untreated psychological issues. In this OP's case this is looks like it w…

I clearly have some kind of vice related to caffeine... In the hardest periods of my life I managed to guzzle 6 liters of coca-cola every day, plus eating lots of chocolate, and drinking lots of coffee and tea, of course this also ruined my overall health. I recently managed to "get clean", but I also stopped working, then I gave up, decided to buy 1 liter of red-bull style energy drink (not redbull itself because I…

Just a suggestion, but if you ended up with a caffeine problem, you're very likely to end up with a Ritalin problem. I don't know exactly what the laws are like where you live, but running out of Ritalin is a much harder problem to solve than running out of coffee.

Re: No One to Rescue Me from My Drinking

#76

Post by dmgbrn »

siliconc0w wrote: post #34

On a similar topic - AA actually isn't that effective: http://www.salon.com/2014/03/23/the_pseudo_science_of_alcoho... I haven't read the book the above article is covering but it seems Dodes argues psychotherapy is a better alternative as 'addiction' is usually just a manifestation of self-destructive/self medication behavior ultimately due to untreated psychological issues. In this OP's case this is looks like depr…

This article attacks a straw man AA. I could go on, but suffice to say, if what you know about recovery consists entirely of this article, you don't know much.

Re: No One to Rescue Me from My Drinking

#77

Post by dmgbrn »

siliconc0w wrote: post #34

On a similar topic - AA actually isn't that effective: http://www.salon.com/2014/03/23/the_pseudo_science_of_alcoho... I haven't read the book the above article is covering but it seems Dodes argues psychotherapy is a better alternative as 'addiction' is usually just a manifestation of self-destructive/self medication behavior ultimately due to untreated psychological issues. In this OP's case this is looks like depr…

This article attacks a straw man AA. I could go on, but suffice to say, if what you know about recovery consists entirely of this article, you don't know much.

Re: No One to Rescue Me from My Drinking

#78

Post by dmgbrn »

siliconc0w wrote: post #34

On a similar topic - AA actually isn't that effective: http://www.salon.com/2014/03/23/the_pseudo_science_of_alcoho... I haven't read the book the above article is covering but it seems Dodes argues psychotherapy is a better alternative as 'addiction' is usually just a manifestation of self-destructive/self medication behavior ultimately due to untreated psychological issues. In this OP's case this is looks like depr…

This article attacks a straw man AA. I could go on, but suffice to say, if what you know about recovery consists entirely of this article, you don't know much.

Re: No One to Rescue Me from My Drinking

#79

Post by dmgbrn »

thedufer wrote: post #45
Devthrowaway80 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've had this discussion ad nauseam on other addiction threads here. The TL;DR of the literature is that in the short term, most methods have the same "success rate", where success here is defined as successfully achieving abstinence from the problem substance. Participation in AA or other support groups (eg. SMART/Rational Recovery) is associated with substantially increased rates of continuous abstinence at the 1,…

> Participation in AA is associated with substantially increased rates of continuous abstinence at the 1, 3 and 5 year marks after quitting It's been shown, as much as is possible, that that's all selection bias. People rarely fall off the wagon and then keep going to meetings. AA's rules around anonymity and consent make it conveniently impossible to run good studies, so they are able to (rightly, for the most part)…

I'm not sure why you are so vehement in attacking AA. Members (such as myself) who have access to other forms of treatment (medication, therapy, and sober housing) use them. What AA gives me is a powerful source of support. Let me offer a recent example:

A couple of days ago, I stepped off my back porch wrong and broke my ankle pretty badly. I was in a lot of pain, and I definitely needed to go to the hospital. A part of me was actually quite excited at the possibility of obtaining a "legitimate" supply of opiate painkillers. Luckily, I called a friend from AA and took his much more reasonable advice not to take the chance. Once I'd made that decision I realized that I'd been greatly exaggerating the pain to myself, and that it was nothing OTC painkillers couldn't handle.

Scary stuff, right? I had come up with a way to convince myself that it'd be ok to take score some drugs, which could very easily have sent me off into a relapse. It's when things like that happen that you need to listen to a "higher power": someone who isn't having your crazy addict thoughts and can assess your behavior rationally and objectively.

Since I'm laid up, AA people have been helping me get groceries, rides to meetings, and just stopping by to say hi. I can't really see a recovery professional doing that.

Re: No One to Rescue Me from My Drinking

#80

Post by aaron695 »

This article to me is about depression not alcohol addiction as the author points out -

> The absence of alcohol revealed that my “dark soul” was the manifestation of a decades-long depression. Booze had masked its diagnosis while also egging it on.

They to me are more talking about binge drinking.

I'm not sure an addict can just go to one AA meeting and stop. Sure it's possible, but to me they didn't sound like an addict, more self destructive.

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