Can someone guide me through the steps!

Lillen · #1 8th November 2010, 07:41 PM

I need help to quit drinking beer. I am one of those Homer kind of guys without kids and the stomach. I love guzzling beer.

I only drink the weakest kind of beer that they sell in the grosery stores here in sweden, - 2.8%. But it is often i do it. I never mix beer with pills i get prescribed. I dont get drunk and have bad manners it is not that that bothers me, I wouldn't say i get drunk at all, rather softly intoxicated. - But it is often.

I don't have the book, so i was wondering if someone can tell me what 12step program is?

It is a habit rather then an addiction i think!? I do it because i can't find anything else to do with my days off or sparetime!

And a question around 12 step program... When am i done with them? i mean sometimes when i meet people from AA or NA the 12 step program becomes an inconvinient behaviour, they cannot say, "hay i am free, i'm done with the twelve steps and now i can move on to something else" they are still on the 12 step program. or am i wrong? I guess you can see it as a communion or church. If not they need to work on step 13 as a bridge over to a church or communion!

TigerKanga · #2 9th November 2010, 04:10 AM

The following pertains to alcoholics.

If you do it you don't feel compelled to drink alcohol. If you don't do it you usually end up drinking alcohol and it wrecks your life in any number of ways.

madison1101 · #3 10th November 2010, 12:19 AM

The reason you see 12 Step people still involved in the program is because of the 12th step itself. It says, "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we carried the message of recovery to the still suffering alcoholic." We attend long after we stop drinking to make sure that AA is there for the next person coming in. We can't keep our sobriety, unless we give the program away to the newer person.

You can read about AA and the books, "Alcoholics Anonymous," as well as the "12 Steps and 12 Traditions" at www.aa.org

The best thing would be to attend an AA meeting, actually go to about six of them, and find a sponsor, who can guide you through the steps.

God bless.
Trish

Lillen · #4 11th November 2010, 12:28 AM

Am i an alchoholic, if i drink to get softly intoxicated and because i got nothing else to do?

Three days sober...

madison1101 · #5 11th November 2010, 07:51 PM

Originally Posted by Lillen

Am i an alchoholic, if i drink to get softly intoxicated and because i got nothing else to do?

Three days sober...

Only you can decide if you are an alcoholic. Intoxicated is drunk, no matter how you describe it. For this alcoholic, being a little drunk is like being a little pregnant. I cannot handle life with one drink in me.

Read the AA Big Book at the AA website I gave you. The Doctor's Opinion is a great place to start.

Trish

Lillen · #6 12th November 2010, 01:52 PM

I didn't find any text on that link. I read some of the criterias, but my life was in chaos even before I started to drink, I have had severe sleepingproblems ever since my Father died, making it impossible to accoplish school even at junior high. There was a time in the biggining of my twenties, when i only overslept one day a week, and were able to complete highschool and some college level courses at adult age (In sweden we have something called Komvux, Adult Municpality School). But i fell into old sleeping habits and a chaotic living even though drinking wasn't a problem. Now if we should trust in the scientifical studies around alcoholism my father was a periodic alcoholic, that means that i should have it in my genes. Otherways to see it as a family curse and so on are available.

In the end I guess i was frightened by AA as they see alcoholism as a disease. - Outcast, poor, afflicted, yes!- But not a disease!

And to add, i look at alcoholism in contrast to drunkards, drunkards never attend to AA, as they see the brewerage, alcoholic drinks as 'their' drink and usually hides it so well noone would argue that he needs help. To explain clearer, drunkards are wicked and wicked people are not afflicted by the wicked one, rather supported by him, Alcoholism on the other hand is not what i call wicked, since they usually are outcasts, poor, naked, ashamed, burden with guilt and afflicted. Jesus hung out with latter kind of people!

Lillen · #7 12th November 2010, 02:21 PM

Ok i read some of it, and I think i gonna try stay sober with the help of freinds and Jesus rather then AA. Wóuld you Trish like to be my freind?

madison1101 · #8 12th November 2010, 04:49 PM

Originally Posted by Lillen

Ok i read some of it, and I think i gonna try stay sober with the help of freinds and Jesus rather then AA. Wóuld you Trish like to be my freind?

Lillen,
I would be honored to be your friend.

I will share a little bit about the disease concept of AA. It is not excuse making, but rather solutioin finding. Alcoholism effects the mind and body. There is a genetic factor to it. It is listed in the psychiatrists' manual called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 4th Edition Revised.

Doctors and therapists say it fits the qualifications of a disease in that it is progressive. That means unless a person stops drinking, they will get worse rather than better. It is deadly. It can kill a person, either slowly, by destroying the brain and liver, or rapidly, like in a car accident. It can be arrested, like cancer, if a person is totally abstinent.

The solution in AA is the 12 steps. They are spiritual, and can help a person find freedom from the twisted thinking that goes with alcoholism. Also, they help a person stop being ashamed, and start living productively.

I hope this makes sense.

Trish

Lillen · #9 12th November 2010, 05:50 PM

I don't share doctors views. You can never convince me that you suffer from a illnes or disease. I am aware of DSMIV and DSMV. These are patented personalities that psychiatrist use to stimulate creativness, there is another system called ICD10 that trains the preson in survival skills, or so to see partisans.
Parahaps the reason why i don't want to see me as a drinking person as ill and thus also you, is because it is tabu to be ill here in sweden. You can even be taken away your freedom without being convicted for a crime or been in a trial under the permiss that the doctor sees you as ill.

Personally i have another term for your condition, parahaps it is synonmous with ill - I rather see you as afflicted. And the bible has alot of promises for people being afflicted:

Job 34:28
So that they caused the cry of the poor to come to Him;For He hears the cry of the afflicted.

Psalm 82:3
Defend the poor and fatherless;Do justice to the afflicted and needy

Psalm 119:71
It is good for me that I have been afflicted,That I may learn Your statutes

Psalm 140:12
I know that the LORD will maintainThe cause of the afflicted, And justice for the poor

Proverbs 22:22
Do not rob the poor because he is poor, Nor oppress the afflicted at the gate;

Proverbs 31:5
Lest they drink and forget the law, And pervert the justice of all the afflicted.

Isaiah 54:10-12 (New King James Version)

10 For the mountains shall depart
And the hills be removed,
But My kindness shall not depart from you,
Nor shall My covenant of peace be removed,”
Says the LORD, who has mercy on you.
11 “ O you afflicted one,
Tossed with tempest, and not comforted,
Behold, I will lay your stones with colorful gems,
And lay your foundations with sapphires.
12 I will make your pinnacles of rubies,
Your gates of crystal,
And all your walls of precious stones.

2 Corinthians 1:6
Now if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation

And also, i read the netiquett on these forums, that we should not try to sound like an expert. Now my grandmothers partner has a Ph. d in psychology at umeå universitet, he disputed in memory and wrote an essey on how we get a clue. He is now a scientist at Luleå Technical University researching artificiall intelligence and how to simulate human behaviour in robots.

The reason why i might try to sound like an expert, is because i have been his client wihtout knowing it for 24 years. And i apologize for this, since psychology or psychiatry is not my proffession. But still i have learnt alot from him by being his labrat! I been raised with therapeutic instruments applied on me since i was three. It is hard trying to avoid sounding like expert when all your life is based upon psychological instruments. In the end it's just I who look silly by doing it.

madison1101 · #10 12th November 2010, 07:53 PM

Originally Posted by Lillen

I don't share doctors views. You can never convince me that you suffer from a illnes or disease. I am aware of DSMIV and DSMV. These are patented personalities that psychiatrist use to stimulate creativness, there is another system called ICD10 that trains the preson in survival skills, or so to see partisans.
Parahaps the reason why i don't want to see me as a drinking person as ill and thus also you, is because it is tabu to be ill here in sweden. You can even be taken away your freedom without being convicted for a crime or been in a trial under the permiss that the doctor sees you as ill.

Personally i have another term for your condition, parahaps it is synonmous with ill - I rather see you as afflicted. And the bible has alot of promises for people being afflicted:

Job 34:28
So that they caused the cry of the poor to come to Him;For He hears the cry of the afflicted.

Psalm 82:3
Defend the poor and fatherless;Do justice to the afflicted and needy

Psalm 119:71
It is good for me that I have been afflicted,That I may learn Your statutes

Psalm 140:12
I know that the LORD will maintainThe cause of the afflicted, And justice for the poor

Proverbs 22:22
Do not rob the poor because he is poor, Nor oppress the afflicted at the gate;

Proverbs 31:5
Lest they drink and forget the law, And pervert the justice of all the afflicted.

Isaiah 54:10-12 (New King James Version)

10 For the mountains shall depart
And the hills be removed,
But My kindness shall not depart from you,
Nor shall My covenant of peace be removed,”
Says the LORD, who has mercy on you.
11 “ O you afflicted one,
Tossed with tempest, and not comforted,
Behold, I will lay your stones with colorful gems,
And lay your foundations with sapphires.
12 I will make your pinnacles of rubies,
Your gates of crystal,
And all your walls of precious stones.

2 Corinthians 1:6
Now if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation

And also, i read the netiquett on these forums, that we should not try to sound like an expert. Now my grandmothers partner has a Ph. d in psychology at umeå universitet, he disputed in memory and wrote an essey on how we get a clue. He is now a scientist at Luleå Technical University researching artificiall intelligence and how to simulate human behaviour in robots.

The reason why i might try to sound like an expert, is because i have been his client wihtout knowing it for 24 years. And i apologize for this, since psychology or psychiatry is not my proffession. But still i have learnt alot from him by being his labrat! I been raised with therapeutic instruments applied on me since i was three. It is hard trying to avoid sounding like expert when all your life is based upon psychological instruments. In the end it's just I who look silly by doing it.

No need to worry about changing my mind. I have a Masters in Social Work and am licensed to practice psychotherapy here in the US. I have worked in rehabs and psychiatric hospitals. If alcoholism is not a disease, then a person could not get their medical insurance to pay for the treatment of it. I did extensive research in the field of alcoholism in women during my graduate studies, and am very comfortable saying it is a disease. I also am bipolar, so I have a dual diagnosis here. My bipolar disorder is not a personality issue, but a serious mental illness, which without medicine, I would not be stable.

I have also been in a psychiatric facility for my bipolar disorder, and then an alcohol rehab for treatment of my alcoholism. I needed to be there for therapy and groupo work for 12 days. It was not a vacation, but treatment for the disease of alcoholism.