AA DoubleSpeak: How AAs misuse the word "drink"
I often hear AA members admitting that they have addictions other than alcohol, but they have a lot of respect for AA, so when they attend AA meetings they refer to themselves as alcoholics (a word the medical profession refuses to use), and they talk about their problems with drinking.
Drinking is something I do with water and fruit punch to quench thirst. But I used alcohol... the same way an addict uses his or her drug of choice.
I do not have a lot of respect for AA. Respect has to be earned through good institutional decisions. AA is giving in to the current bias against drug abuse rather than staying true to its message of helping others with our stories of redemption. Many people cite the failed experience of the Washingtonians to justify keeping AAs message on helping people with alcohol – only! The Washingtonians did not fail because they expanded their efforts to help those suffering from other vices; all indications show that the group was co-opted (taken over) by religious prohibitionists. The situation is the same today with AA. AA is sucking up to the drug prohibitionists and denying its higher calling of helping others. All reasons for denying AA membership to addicts do not hold any weight.
Alcohol is legal...
But alcohol was illegal during Bill Wilson and Dr Robert Smith's drinking careers. The early AAs did most of their drinking when alcohol was against the law, drinking bathtub gin bought from moonshiners and speakeasies. More importantly, thinking back over our drinking careers, how many times did we break the law by climbing behind a steering wheel. Aren't we all criminals to greater or lesser extent? So why are we trying to climb up on top of addicts in this bottom of the barrel deal we have going?
Alcohol abuse is a single and separate disease...
Current research has identified several genes connected with addictive behavior. A person may have some or all of these indicators. This might explain why there seems to be so much variance in the different types of drunkalogs heard at AA meetings. My major problem was with alcohol, but I feel more kinship with the way some of my heroin addict friends used their drugs than I do with some of the alcohol-only drunks. If being able to relate is one of the key components to breaking down the isolation of a newcomer, then it was these drug abusers that I related to that were more important to me than the drunks that didn't use the way I did.
Many AAs bring up the nearly insignificant number of newcomers that only abuse alcohol, stating that these newcomers must be protected from feeling out of place at an AA meeting because of shares which include mention of drug abuse... but what about the vast number of alcohol abusers who did other drugs as well? If easy tolerance of others is an important lesson to learn in sobriety, we should explain to these hypothetical thin-skinned drunks that they should look at the similarities rather than the differences, and take what they want from the shares about drug dependence and leave the rest.
Alcohol abuse is different from drug abuse...
All medical research indicates that there are broad commonalities between the physiology and histories of both types of addiction. The only major funders of alcohol-specific research are alcohol companies – everyone else seems to understand that the addictions should be treated as a common problem. I've heard of people with a chronic marijuana habit picking up their 15-year AA chip – their conscience clean because AA does not have an official opinion about marijuana dependence. But a person who has had problems with alcohol should be warned that the compulsion to irrational flight from reality may take many dangerous forms other than alcohol. A person freshly released from the physical compulsion to use alcohol will find many other dangerous mental obsessions to take its place. Thrillseeking, rage, religious fanaticism, dangerous sexual activities, abusive relationships, unhealthy diets, legal medications, and foolish spending are some of the substitutes that newcomers need to be warned about.
CONCLUSION... for now...
People who suffer from alcohol dependence suffer from an addictive compulsion. They use alcohol for the same reasons that other drug abusers use their drugs. It's time AA grew some balls and told the prohibitionists that prohibition doesn't work. It's time AA welcomed our addict kindred into our fold.
Drinking is something I do with water and fruit punch to quench thirst. But I used alcohol... the same way an addict uses his or her drug of choice.
I do not have a lot of respect for AA. Respect has to be earned through good institutional decisions. AA is giving in to the current bias against drug abuse rather than staying true to its message of helping others with our stories of redemption. Many people cite the failed experience of the Washingtonians to justify keeping AAs message on helping people with alcohol – only! The Washingtonians did not fail because they expanded their efforts to help those suffering from other vices; all indications show that the group was co-opted (taken over) by religious prohibitionists. The situation is the same today with AA. AA is sucking up to the drug prohibitionists and denying its higher calling of helping others. All reasons for denying AA membership to addicts do not hold any weight.
Alcohol is legal...
But alcohol was illegal during Bill Wilson and Dr Robert Smith's drinking careers. The early AAs did most of their drinking when alcohol was against the law, drinking bathtub gin bought from moonshiners and speakeasies. More importantly, thinking back over our drinking careers, how many times did we break the law by climbing behind a steering wheel. Aren't we all criminals to greater or lesser extent? So why are we trying to climb up on top of addicts in this bottom of the barrel deal we have going?
Alcohol abuse is a single and separate disease...
Current research has identified several genes connected with addictive behavior. A person may have some or all of these indicators. This might explain why there seems to be so much variance in the different types of drunkalogs heard at AA meetings. My major problem was with alcohol, but I feel more kinship with the way some of my heroin addict friends used their drugs than I do with some of the alcohol-only drunks. If being able to relate is one of the key components to breaking down the isolation of a newcomer, then it was these drug abusers that I related to that were more important to me than the drunks that didn't use the way I did.
Many AAs bring up the nearly insignificant number of newcomers that only abuse alcohol, stating that these newcomers must be protected from feeling out of place at an AA meeting because of shares which include mention of drug abuse... but what about the vast number of alcohol abusers who did other drugs as well? If easy tolerance of others is an important lesson to learn in sobriety, we should explain to these hypothetical thin-skinned drunks that they should look at the similarities rather than the differences, and take what they want from the shares about drug dependence and leave the rest.
Alcohol abuse is different from drug abuse...
All medical research indicates that there are broad commonalities between the physiology and histories of both types of addiction. The only major funders of alcohol-specific research are alcohol companies – everyone else seems to understand that the addictions should be treated as a common problem. I've heard of people with a chronic marijuana habit picking up their 15-year AA chip – their conscience clean because AA does not have an official opinion about marijuana dependence. But a person who has had problems with alcohol should be warned that the compulsion to irrational flight from reality may take many dangerous forms other than alcohol. A person freshly released from the physical compulsion to use alcohol will find many other dangerous mental obsessions to take its place. Thrillseeking, rage, religious fanaticism, dangerous sexual activities, abusive relationships, unhealthy diets, legal medications, and foolish spending are some of the substitutes that newcomers need to be warned about.
CONCLUSION... for now...
People who suffer from alcohol dependence suffer from an addictive compulsion. They use alcohol for the same reasons that other drug abusers use their drugs. It's time AA grew some balls and told the prohibitionists that prohibition doesn't work. It's time AA welcomed our addict kindred into our fold.
posted by Troy Spears at 3:46 PM
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