AA and spirituality

Originally Posted by earllogjam

Originally Posted by bimale

Dude...just kick it or enjoy it...it's only pot...

Originally Posted by Phil Ayesho

You HAVE to replace pot with SOMETHING.

You have used pot as a method for dealing with stresses for a long time, and have failed to develop alternative methods of dealing with those stressors.

It does not have to be Xanax... it might be Rock Climbing... it might be reading...

But you are going to have to examine your life from the point of view of what drives your toward pot as a solution... and examine whatever that may be from the perspective of coming up with EFFECTIVE alternatives.


In my experience... the people who succeed at getting off of any external crutch are the ones with the intellectual strength to fashion an artificial limb to replace the crutch.


Don't look at it as a personal problem... look at it as a procedural problem in brain chemistry and organization.

Get yourself into a mental space where you can essentially sit outside of yourself and observe your own behavior dispassionately.

Out-think it.

Originally Posted by sugarandspice

Actually , I am a therapist and you need to re-read the post.
Gosh, Lady , You are such a negative and hateful person.
You really have problems.
Maybe you should get on some hormone therapy.
Or maybe Lithium.
Maybe you wouldn't be so bitter.
I wonder what you have been through that burned your soul and made you this way.
I feel bad for you and hope you can find the peace and tranquility that you desperately need.

Originally Posted by dannymawg

Thanks for the appearance, Earl. I miss ya.

Originally Posted by dannymawg

I'm really hoping that I can pull some longtime, salient LPSG members out of the shadows to discuss this thread, and not have it degenerate into silliness or empty comment. I'd like to gather some of the third party objectivism(?) that I used to see floating around here when I first joined in '06.

Last night I went to my first ever AA meeting. I should have approached a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, as my problem is more with marijuana than with alcohol, but under the advice of my recently sought-out therapist, I needed to hit some sort of 12-step program while the idea was fresh in my head.

I know upon reading the above, there's a bunch of you out there that are thinking, "pot has no physical addictive qualities", and are poo-pooing any psychological addictions with "if it's such a problem for you, then just quit". Not that easy folks, when it first began as a tool to enhance my only real hobby of creating/listening to music, and then turned into a daily escape mechanism for the last 15 years as I experienced two career flameouts which I had little control over.

I went to the meeting last night at 7:30 pm, participated, and came home with the "Big Book", which I read in bed until 5:30 am today. And here is the crux of my problem:

Spirituality. Supposedly, I cannot make the decision that God exists or not - that the billions of Christians who get along with having a God infinitely outnumber me, and that I must believe in a higher power in order for the 12 steps to work.

But isn't this about me? That only I have the power to control myself? To look squarely at my addictions, choices, decisions, and realize no one has done anything about this or put me in this place other than me? Yeah, selfish, I know, it flies in the face of the unselfishness that has made AA so successful in people's lives...

Part of my problem that I didn't have the time to present in the meeting last night was that I deliberately scoff/shun Christianity or a omnipresent God, due to religious devisiveness that tore my family apart before I was even born - my father's family are teetotalling Presbyterians (in fact, my grandfather was a pastor of a prominent church and religious editor of a major newspaper for 20+ years), and my mother's family are your average blue collar Irish Catholics. Excepting my grandpa (who died a year before I was born), my father's family cut off all communication with my dad for years, to the point where I am not acquainted with the family with whom I share a surname with. And I hate the whole concept of guilt driven Catholicism, and throwing money at Vatican City through my local church. And then there's the clergy preying on little kids all these years...

At the advice of my therapist, I looked into other programs similar to the 12-step method, such as the SMART Recovery program - but something told me that the popularity of AA might be a better choice. I should also mention here that my mother's sister was a prominent member of our community, as a APN nurse in the alcoholic ward of our local hospital for almost 30 years. She passed away in '03, and I really wish she was still here with us now. Seeing the light in people's faces when I dropped her name in the meeting last night was heartening, especially in those faces of the oldtimers.

I obviously have some deep thinking to do - and this might be my swansong from LPSG, as I feel I have to disconnect myself from all the time-sinks that I associated with my use of the sweet leaf - music is included, which is really fucking scary, as it's one of the few outlets I have anymore.




Thanks in advance for your posts, and if anyone out there has any AA or other experience they feel comfortable sharing, please - do so. I'm attending another meeting tonight, and looking forward to reading/answering replies over the weekend.



D-mawg

Originally Posted by mercurialbliss

You know my support is a PM, email or phone call away. Lemme know when you need it.

Originally Posted by earllogjam

Miss ya too big guy. Nice pics BTW. You loose some lbs?

Originally Posted by JustAsking

dannymawg,
I have had two very dear and close friends join AA. On both occasions I attended meetings with them and read the Big Book. One of them was quite agnostic, and the other one was religious, but a recovering fundamentalist.

Over long discussions with both of them, and as deep into Christianity as I believe I am, I have thought about AA, spirituality and Christianity for a long time.

I find that both AA and mainstream Christianity have a lot of similarity, as both of them have the same healing message about accepting your brokenness, and acknowledging that your brokenness is something that is inevitable (addicted or not). That acknowledgement is not a giving up. What it is is an antidote to the destructive notion that every aspect of your being is totally under your own control.

If you labor under the illusion that every aspect of your being is under your control, you have no choice but to consider yourself totally responsible for any of your failures and to judge yourself unworthy when they occur. This self-blame for every single failure leads ultimately to shame, which is probably the most destructive emotional force contributing to problems like addiction and depression.

Total self-blame leads an addict to the notion that curing the addiction is all about personal choices and will power and nothing else. Christian fundamentalists also think this is true about themselves, their faith in Christ and avoiding sin. Both the addict and the fundamentalist Christian who thinks it is all about total self-control sets themselves up for a boatload of shame and self-loathing when their actions do not live up to their standards. In summary, for both the addict and the fundamentalist Christian, they have set themselves up for failure and the failure leads to shame, which ultimately makes their situation worse.

On the other hand both mainstream Christianity and AA preach a truer message that is probably the most helpful and healing one for an addict or a depressed person. The message is that you cannot possibly be responsible for every aspect of your behavior and your actions. It is physically and mentally impossible to always make the right choices and always resist what you think you need to resist (sin or dangerous addictive substances).

Mainstream Christianity teaches something that is analogous to what AA teaches, that humans are somewhat bonded to do things that Christianity would consider sinful (like hurt themselves or others). AA teaches that (and medical science backs it up completely) that humans have different propensities to become addicted to certain substances, and that propensity is beyond their control. Similarly, their addiction makes them hurt themselves and others.

When AA says that you must rely on a "higher power", to help recover from your addiction, they are echoing what a mainstream Christian would say about "repenting", which for a mainstream Christian means to "rethink" your life under your new understanding that you are a somewhat flawed and broken organism, and you need the help of a higher power to keep you from hurting yourself and others.

Another similarity between AA and mainstream Christianity is the notion of a community of believers. Mainstream theology stresses the notion that God's influence on our lives is mediated through your relationship with others and not as much a private matter between you and God. AA also stresses that the community and fellowship of fellow addicts will be the most powerful force for your healing. In other words, they both would say that the community's power to heal you is far stronger than your own choice making or your own force of will.

So, in summary, both bodies of belief are saying that total self-reliance is a myth, therefore, you are forgiven for not having the strength of will to completely control your behavior by yourself. If you can recognize this and truly believe it, you can relieve yourself of the awful and destructive burden of guilt that comes with failure in respect to total self-reliance.

I believe that anyone can go to AA and reap the benefits of it whether you are deeply religious or agnostic. All you have to do is forgive yourself for being human and therefore flawed and somewhat broken somehow, rethink your guilt, shame, and sense of failure so you rid yourself of the myth of complete self-reliance and the awful burden that it is all completely up to you. Once you can completely accept that, you will be free to accept the help of the AA community of wounded healers.

Whether you think that it is God being mediated through the community or human compassion and fellowship that is being mediated through the community might not matter. Either one is a "higher power" in respect to your own (and everyone's for that matter) limited ability to be completely self-reliant.

Go to AA. It has saved the lives of two very dear friends of mine.

Originally Posted by dannymawg

I was gonna write a big long post, and answer everybody's PMs...

but all I know is this: if you are following this thread, dig up the song "I Wish I Was" by the Twilight Singers. Sorry but there's no handy video link.

This song consistently gives me the willies way more so than thinkin bout God's will...



strings of your death
tied to your breath
all that's been seen
cannot be unseen
unless

deeper you fall
the places you crawl
to find you're unclean, unsaved
defeated
by self and no one else, my love

tongue tied, obsessed
mesmerized
I acquiesce
and step into the machine
again
don't breathe, don't tell
my belle, listen

deep in the garden
I wait for you now
under the weight of
the leaves that
do bend on the bough
come save me



Understand the non sequiturs now, Jason?

and Earl: give me a day or two to respond. Tongue tied for now.