Replies

God and Jesus were my main supports, and I have now come to regard my blazing alcoholism not as a curse, but as a blessing from God, as it helped me grow toward God and within myself. It was my personal blessing, and that is another reason why I get so disgusted when I see nanny-staters who would presume to take that opportunity God gave me to grow and become close to Him away from me and try to "cure" it with their own counselors and medical "understanding."

But other than that, you are so terribly, awfully wrong when you say "the alcoholic can't do it alone." IT'S THE ONLY WAY THE ALCOHOLIC CAN DO IT. You come into this world alone, and you go out alone. It's you and God and NOBODY ELSE.

Moral support from friends and family is nice if you can get it, but sure as heck is NOT a requirement. AA may or may not help -- I've seen it do both. AA doesn't work for everyone; for some (I've seen them), it's merely trading one addiction for another and still letting alcohol control one's life -- the presence or absence of alcohol decides where you go, who you socialize with, etc. etc. That's bullpuckey, no way to live. I determined early, and prayed about it, that if I wanted to go shoot a game of pool at the local bar with my brothers, if I wanted to go to a rip-roaring bbq where folks drank and were merry, if I wanted to go to a New Year's Eve party, then I was going to go -- the days of alcohol controlling my life were OVER.

And they were. I went to the bars and shot pool with my bros, and drank soda to their beer. I went bar-hopping and dancing with my friends just like always, but drank soda to their cocktails, and was even the "safe" driver. It was MY problem, not theirs. Trading war stories with other alcoholics is entertaining and informative, but that's all. The alcoholic becomes recovered when he/she stands UP and faces alcoholism in the face, knocks it aside, and moves forward without dragging other people into it. It's you and God, nobody else.

A loving God had EVERYTHING to do with my recovery. A loving God who told me to love myself (if He tells me to love others as I love myself, then I must take it as a commandment to love myself) and act on it.

But when a person stops drinking, that person deserves the credit -- not AA, not Schick Hospitals, not counselors. It is a very, very sad and tragic thing that people who quit drinking give others the credit for it. They -- and God -- deserve 100 percent of the credit.

I’m glad you’re sober. However it is you that are wrong not me. The alcoholics way of doing things brings them to the point of utter isolation and fearful loneness and without help, without surrendering one’s will to a Higher Power and the willigness to allow the 12 Steps to work it’s too much for one alcoholic alone. . AA is not a religious program. We ask only that you believe in a Higher power, be it God or the AA group but an alcoholic alone is in a bad neighborhood. The AA symbol is a triangle. At the top is God and at each side is AA as a whole and as a single group, the dot in the middle is the alcoholic. I never considered alcoholism a curse or a blessing. It was something I was born with. I come from a long line of drinkers. And being in AA is not about an alcoholic being alone but being part of a group and carrying the AA message to the still suffering alcoholic.