231–240 of 243 posts
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Not at all. You can take Ritalin and Adderall, but that will give you the personality of an accountant and take away your creative problem solving skills.
It doesn't do that to everyone. If anything it makes me more creative. Pity that after a couple of weeks, they stop doing anything, and the withdrawal is so unpleasant.
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Not at all. You can take Ritalin and Adderall, but that will give you the personality of an accountant and take away your creative problem solving skills.
It doesn't do that to everyone. If anything it makes me more creative. Pity that after a couple of weeks, they stop doing anything, and the withdrawal is so unpleasant.
I don't know if you'll see this, but I hope you do. I've struggled with addiction and I've made decisions that I'm ashamed of and disgusted with. There was a period of my life when I was also hopeless. I thought that I had lost everything. In a sense, it was true. (Rather, I destroyed most of what I had and subsequently lost the remaining pieces.) Despite all of that, it does get better. It took me far too long to ac…
>Alcohol withdrawal can kill late stage addicts This is correct and very very important. Your brain is physically changed. Alcohol's primary effect is the increase in stimulation of the GABAA receptor, promoting central nervous system depression. With repeated heavy consumption of alcohol, these receptors are desensitized and reduced in number, resulting in tolerance and physical dependence. When alcohol consumption…
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Biggest thing for me was learning to get up early, and sticking with a schedule even on weekends. A lot of us have the privilege of working flexible hours and for me that meant getting hammered and showing up to work at 11am still a bit hungover. I now show up to work at 9 and leave by 6, and don't go out with my old drinking buddies. Likewise I don’t try to pull crazy hours because that shit stresses me out and I co…
> I still drink sparingly and am not sure that makes me an authority. Don't worry, there are a number of ex-problem drinkers that can and do practice moderation. Some can, some can't. Some need abstinence, some don't. Your experience is not abnormal.
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No, please don't. http://skepfeeds.wordpress.com/2009/02/04/alcoholics-anonymo... There are more effective, non religious, evidence based treatments for addiction. Edited to add: Penn and Teller covered AA here: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yUG9dr6SZSY Also: http://www.psmag.com/navigation/books-and-culture/75-years-a...
My apologies for my harshness, but wow, those links were horrible. The non-video links are really the most vapid kind of argument-free partisan blogspam, filled with guilt-by-association logic, and overstating their conclusions. However, by walking the link-graph for a while from one of your links, I found this, which seems to contain some useful detail, and seems to agree with the bias of the articles you linked: ht…
What on earth makes you think they're the success stories?
That'd be like saying "this physical therapist is awesome; there's a guy who sprained his ankle 4 years ago who's still seeing her regularly for treatment."
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>can be divorced from the idea of the supernatural, and actually boil down to an effective cognitive/behavioural therapy. So lets stop it with all the mumbo jumbo crap and go to real CBT.
The one part of AA that can't be simply transferred to a professional therapeutic setting is the peer support. There is absolutely no substitute for a large enough number of people who've been there, done that and puked on enough T-shirts that a sizable handful can tell you your very own story (with the dates, times and names altered somewhat). Learning how to live after the drinking (or other addictive behaviour) go…
Have you ever been to CBT or DBT? I have (not for addiction, for psychiatric illness). It is specially and absolutely practiced in a group setting, with peer support. There is also a one-to-one part too, with a professional. I was in inpatient hospitalization, outpatient hospitalization, and less intensive treatment.
>Most "treatments" only take you to the point of feeling better.
Wrong wrong, couldn't possibly be more wrong. I have personal experience, as I've said. Stop it with the scare quotes around treatment.
>treat the substance abuse as a separate concern from the rest of life.
This absolutely positively does not happen in a clinical setting. I've been in "behavioral health" treatment (which includes addiction) for many years. There have been addicts in my CBT/DBT groups. People don't stop getting help unless they want to stop. If they need more CBT, they stay. If they need it again, they will start it again. If they need to see a therapist (one that specializes in addiction mind you) more often then they are, they do. Treatment is entirely up to what the patient wants and needs. Nobody progresses at the same pace.
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Nope. http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/en_bigbook_chapt4.pdf "if that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experi- ence will conquer. To one who feels he is an atheist or agnostic such an experience seems impossible, but to continue as he is means disaster, especially if he is an alcoholic of the hopeless variety. To be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis ar…
That's a paragraph not a 'section to unbelievers'. The chapter is titled "We Agnostics". Theism, agnosticism, and spirituality are not synonymous. It's sad that you find AA to be such a threat that you created an account exclusively to 'refute' the comments in this thread with vitriol and militant secularism.
What are you talking about? My account is 254 days ago with 1658 karma.
I am not using "militant secularism", I am presenting AA as it is, a religious organization. People like to pretend it isn't one. AA can and does work for a lot of people. That is good! It also doesn't work for a lot of people. The only thing I object to is saying AA is a cure-all or saying AA is the only game in town when it comes to addiction.
Religion isn't the cure for everyone. That's all I am saying. Some people will get behind it and it works very well for them. Some people will find it vial. We are all different.
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>You should find those people, meet them and get out of drinking I don't mean to be offensive but... This can work, however it might not work depending on who you find. Many former addicts I personally know have replaced their drug habit with a religion habit. They are actively preaching religion at almost all times. This is probably due to the twelve step programs. If you aren't into religion or being preached at, y…
> "It quotes the bible excessively" Absolutely false. I can't locate a single instance. Care to provide some page numbers?
It does however have its roots in The Oxford Group.
You may find this of interest though:
http://healthland.time.com/2010/09/23/how-religion-was-edite...
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My apologies for my harshness, but wow, those links were horrible. The non-video links are really the most vapid kind of argument-free partisan blogspam, filled with guilt-by-association logic, and overstating their conclusions. However, by walking the link-graph for a while from one of your links, I found this, which seems to contain some useful detail, and seems to agree with the bias of the articles you linked: ht…
"but I realize that maybe that's just because the success stories stick around and populate meetings for 4 or 40 years." What on earth makes you think they're the success stories? That'd be like saying "this physical therapist is awesome; there's a guy who sprained his ankle 4 years ago who's still seeing her regularly for treatment."
First, because that's how most people, measuring these things, define success. For example, the Penn&Teller clip the parent post linked explicitly treats cessation of attendance as failure, and uses this as its sole justification for claiming that AA "does not work". You're welcome to see this as evidence that P&T are full of bullshit.
Second, those people declare themselves to be successful, by their own lights. They might be wrong, but I suggest that our first approximation should be to believe them.
But the third and more-important reason is more complicated. I don't claim to be an expert on AA on any level, but with my very limited data, I'm starting to believe that a better analogy than yours is this: "this gym is awesome... people keep coming back to maintain their muscle tone and cardiovascular health!" And for me - as a non-drinker - the alcoholism part is just the tip of the iceberg.