Is Alcohlics Anonymous run by christians?

[cnx37]

This thread goes on & on & on.

I considered it to be quite simple - I could well be wrong.

AA works (if you work it).

"A simple program for complicated people" - you are not wrong there.

Just get on with it - "One day at a time".

Don't stuff around - it will kill you.

[big carl]

It's my eleventh birthday today which I shall celebrate quietly at home with my family. I was up at 0430 to go birdwatching this morning. No one had to tell me what I did last night. I didn't drive home legless. My wife and kids are relatively happy people and if they are getting support to be able to live with me then I don't know about it. I didn't wet the bed last night and the house wasn't stinking of piss and shit this morning. It wasn't like this 12 years ago. I quit drinking and have been able to stay stopped because of AA.

If they said to me today:" look Gerry there's been mistake, you're not an alcoholic, you can drink" I'd like to think I'd stay stopped cos my life is so much better.

In a forum it's easy to be rational and logical about something like alcoholism and about the choices a drunk has. Pull yourself together man/woman take control of your life. ...... just what you want to hear when you're in year six of a vodka drip and have a preference for the solitude of your own room where you can develop your negatives and piss and shit in a bucket because it's too much of an effort to go. .....

At this stage you don't care if AA is run by Al Qaeda.

AA brings people back from this and much worse. We are by no means perfect. But we are a good option if you want to try quitting drinking.

Thanks for love.

Sent from my GT-S7270L using Tapatalk

AA never ceases to amaze me. I had no intention of replying to any thing else on this thread but I was wrong

Congratulations.

Eleven years is a long time to be living a life mostly free from problems. Chances are you would not have made the eleven years. Good Job. Keep up the good work.

If your story is like mine I have to offer your wife some congratulations for staying with you through some of those dark years.

Happy that it works for you and all. The important thing is to realize that different things work for different people. I like the support, thus I make my daily visit to http://www.reddit.com/r/stopdrinking. Lots of people there, doing AA, RR, or their own thing. Sharing there gives me strength, especially if I can help somebody else.

Allen Carr's book, the Way to Control Drinking is amazing. He does bash AA a bit for the way it forces people to feel they are helpless victims of their own disease and never able to be free of regular meetings. The book itself is amazing, it somehow created a paradigm shift in my thinking and I have never looked back. Sure I get urges, but I quell them with logic and various coping skills and diversions that are healthy choices.

Are big book tells us that there are other ways. It just offers us the way that the original members did it. More power to you if you can think your way out of the desire to drink I couldn't. I have found a new way to live far superior to just not drinking and I don't have to fight it. Which is a very positive point in my recovery. I have no reason to believe I could fight it today I do have two years of trying to fight it. But I lost the fight every day .Why fight it if you can not afford to lose. I can't afford to loose.

Check through this forum there are several other methods being suggested. I have no problem with any of them. I have found an answer that works for me and I have no intention of playing games with it. My story is not a pretty one. Nobody but nobody wanted me around and I was physically on my way out. I had lost the ability to do a days work. Mentally I was even worse off. No I am going to stick with a proven method that works for me.

I am however curious why you sagest other ways when you have found a way that is working for you. You should be carrying that message to people who have not found away not to people who have found a way. If you feel your way is really not that good try the course of miracles it works well for my brother and sister in law.

[tominbkk]

It's my eleventh birthday today which I shall celebrate quietly at home with my family. I was up at 0430 to go birdwatching this morning. No one had to tell me what I did last night. I didn't drive home legless. My wife and kids are relatively happy people and if they are getting support to be able to live with me then I don't know about it. I didn't wet the bed last night and the house wasn't stinking of piss and shit this morning. It wasn't like this 12 years ago. I quit drinking and have been able to stay stopped because of AA.

If they said to me today:" look Gerry there's been mistake, you're not an alcoholic, you can drink" I'd like to think I'd stay stopped cos my life is so much better.

In a forum it's easy to be rational and logical about something like alcoholism and about the choices a drunk has. Pull yourself together man/woman take control of your life. ...... just what you want to hear when you're in year six of a vodka drip and have a preference for the solitude of your own room where you can develop your negatives and piss and shit in a bucket because it's too much of an effort to go. .....

At this stage you don't care if AA is run by Al Qaeda.

AA brings people back from this and much worse. We are by no means perfect. But we are a good option if you want to try quitting drinking.

Thanks for love.

Sent from my GT-S7270L using Tapatalk

AA never ceases to amaze me. I had no intention of replying to any thing else on this thread but I was wrong

Congratulations.

Eleven years is a long time to be living a life mostly free from problems. Chances are you would not have made the eleven years. Good Job. Keep up the good work.

If your story is like mine I have to offer your wife some congratulations for staying with you through some of those dark years.

Happy that it works for you and all. The important thing is to realize that different things work for different people. I like the support, thus I make my daily visit to http://www.reddit.com/r/stopdrinking. Lots of people there, doing AA, RR, or their own thing. Sharing there gives me strength, especially if I can help somebody else.

Allen Carr's book, the Way to Control Drinking is amazing. He does bash AA a bit for the way it forces people to feel they are helpless victims of their own disease and never able to be free of regular meetings. The book itself is amazing, it somehow created a paradigm shift in my thinking and I have never looked back. Sure I get urges, but I quell them with logic and various coping skills and diversions that are healthy choices.

Are big book tells us that there are other ways. It just offers us the way that the original members did it. More power to you if you can think your way out of the desire to drink I couldn't. I have found a new way to live far superior to just not drinking and I don't have to fight it. Which is a very positive point in my recovery. I have no reason to believe I could fight it today I do have two years of trying to fight it. But I lost the fight every day .Why fight it if you can not afford to lose. I can't afford to loose.

Check through this forum there are several other methods being suggested. I have no problem with any of them. I have found an answer that works for me and I have no intention of playing games with it. My story is not a pretty one. Nobody but nobody wanted me around and I was physically on my way out. I had lost the ability to do a days work. Mentally I was even worse off. No I am going to stick with a proven method that works for me.

I am however curious why you sagest other ways when you have found a way that is working for you. You should be carrying that message to people who have not found away not to people who have found a way. If you feel your way is really not that good try the course of miracles it works well for my brother and sister in law.

. Hi, I am very happy with my method. No fighting, just dealing honestly with myself. However, different people may find different ways better for them.

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[cnx37]

Hi tominbkk

As it is said: "Horses for courses".

It ain't a competition to "corner" the market. Whatever works for you I am SURE will be find by all - one day at a time.

[big carl]

AA never ceases to amaze me. I had no intention of replying to any thing else on this thread but I was wrong

Congratulations.

Eleven years is a long time to be living a life mostly free from problems. Chances are you would not have made the eleven years. Good Job. Keep up the good work.

If your story is like mine I have to offer your wife some congratulations for staying with you through some of those dark years.

Happy that it works for you and all. The important thing is to realize that different things work for different people. I like the support, thus I make my daily visit to http://www.reddit.com/r/stopdrinking. Lots of people there, doing AA, RR, or their own thing. Sharing there gives me strength, especially if I can help somebody else.

Allen Carr's book, the Way to Control Drinking is amazing. He does bash AA a bit for the way it forces people to feel they are helpless victims of their own disease and never able to be free of regular meetings. The book itself is amazing, it somehow created a paradigm shift in my thinking and I have never looked back. Sure I get urges, but I quell them with logic and various coping skills and diversions that are healthy choices.

Are big book tells us that there are other ways. It just offers us the way that the original members did it. More power to you if you can think your way out of the desire to drink I couldn't. I have found a new way to live far superior to just not drinking and I don't have to fight it. Which is a very positive point in my recovery. I have no reason to believe I could fight it today I do have two years of trying to fight it. But I lost the fight every day .Why fight it if you can not afford to lose. I can't afford to loose.

Check through this forum there are several other methods being suggested. I have no problem with any of them. I have found an answer that works for me and I have no intention of playing games with it. My story is not a pretty one. Nobody but nobody wanted me around and I was physically on my way out. I had lost the ability to do a days work. Mentally I was even worse off. No I am going to stick with a proven method that works for me.

I am however curious why you sagest other ways when you have found a way that is working for you. You should be carrying that message to people who have not found away not to people who have found a way. If you feel your way is really not that good try the course of miracles it works well for my brother and sister in law.

. Hi, I am very happy with my method. No fighting, just dealing honestly with myself. However, different people may find different ways better for them.

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

You say

"Sure I get urges, but I quell them with logic and various coping skills and diversions that are healthy choices."

Then you go on to say in your next post

"Hi, I am very happy with my method. No fighting, just dealing honestly with myself. However, different people may find different ways better for them."

I am confused but you seem happy with it so carry on with it.

In AA we learn a way of life that does not need those coping skills and thinking are way out of it. We have a program that removes that way of thinking. [This of course depends on if we use the program] I know people who just having the fellowship is good enough. It takes different lengths of time but it becomes natural for us to say no thank you when a drink is offered us. One of are founders fought the desire for 2 years.

No logic or running to a computer to look up a line where some one says I have not had a drink in 35 years and not a word about how they did it or if there life has improved. No special coping skills we just don't have to fight it. We enjoy a social life that we had cut are selves off from. Some of us with just other non drinking people some with normal people. I even have people in my life who need help. All of this is possible and as easy as falling of a log when I learned and used a few simple principals.

If you are happy with your method carry on. I looked up that support link and it reminded me of a friend who used to post incouraging sayings all over his house. He went to AA also and lived a happy life and died sober.

Edited June 2, 2014 by big carl

[cnx37]

Went to a meeting this morning - 1st for quite a while! About 20 in attendance - a surprising number of women. I knew one guy only. The faces change but not the program. They come - they go. Maybe on holidays - in LOS for a visit. Maybe back on the "slops". Maybe a better way?

When I mentioned that I had not been for a period, the majority were agasp. Did you have a drink? No. Agasp again.

I still luv AA - with all its peculiarities.

[ding]

Went to a meeting this morning - 1st for quite a while! About 20 in attendance - a surprising number of women. I knew one guy only. The faces change but not the program. They come - they go. Maybe on holidays - in LOS for a visit. Maybe back on the "slops". Maybe a better way?

When I mentioned that I had not been for a period, the majority were agasp. Did you have a drink? No. Agasp again.

I still luv AA - with all its peculiarities.

Do you mean to say the Christian AA President didn't toss you out?

:shock:

:grin:

:wink:

:sarcasm:

I still love it too. I guess we're all here cuz we're not all there.

[Jessi]

AA being run by Christians???? What a load of crap. If that were the case I would have run out of my first meeting.

Way back in my early days of my AA there was a guy called David, he disappeared from meetings. I bumped into him one day and he told me he had found God, became a born again Christian and no longer needed AA. At his church they told him God had got him sober not AA. I just replied "Good luck" with what may help you. About a year later he turned up at AA meeting "DRUNK" I had to ask him what happened?

He went to his usual Church meeting DRUNK and they kicked him out, so it was back to AA for some Tuff Love and understanding. That was over 30 years ago and to my knowledge he is still sober and going to meetings.

This was a good lesson for me not to stray away from meetings.

"Its the FIRST drink that does the damage"

[cnx37]

I MUST be really "sick". I may even attend another meeting today - "one day at a time" - 2 days in a row! Maybe I should start another meeting - advanced sobriety group?

In CNX, not much "Lord's Prayer" or "I luv you Jesus" stuff.

Just the usual "power plays", "character assassinations", "my sobriety is better than yours".

My desire - BP Petroleum - "the quiet achiever".

I don't luv JC - but I do luv AA. The politics is a bonus.

[Neeranam]

AA being run by Christians???? What a load of crap. If that were the case I would have run out of my first meeting.

Way back in my early days of my AA there was a guy called David, he disappeared from meetings. I bumped into him one day and he told me he had found God, became a born again Christian and no longer needed AA. At his church they told him God had got him sober not AA. I just replied "Good luck" with what may help you. About a year later he turned up at AA meeting "DRUNK" I had to ask him what happened?

He went to his usual Church meeting DRUNK and they kicked him out, so it was back to AA for some Tuff Love and understanding. That was over 30 years ago and to my knowledge he is still sober and going to meetings.

This was a good lesson for me not to stray away from meetings.

"Its the FIRST drink that does the damage"

I bumped into a guy called David too about 12 years ago who said he gave up AA for God. He was an artist.

[tominbkk]

If I don't like one meeting, I don't condemn the entire (time tested) program. I find another.

Have you ever tried other methods?

Why would I?

BTW, in 10 years in China, I never went to a single meeting. The closest one to me was a 4 hour round trip car ride. Kind of pokes holes in the "never free of regular meetings" claim. In fairness, I'd go to some meetings when I went back to the States every 6-12 months, so it wasn't 10 years in a row- usually 6-10 months at a time.

You tried 2 of the 10's of thousands of groups in the USA. Did you try a 3rd or 4th before condemning the program? There are lots of meetings I tried once and never went back. Other people loved them. I didn't care for them. So I found others.

Edit: I don't go to meetings out of a sense of need. I go to meetings because I love them. If I'm going back the the USA, I can't wait to get to my old meetings where I used to hang out. I look forward to them for months. I go to meet people, and catch up with friends and go out to dinner before the meeting or coffee after the meeting. I get to hear how other people have dealt with life's problems, a lot of which I've either faced, or will face eventually. I get to watch people come in bruised, battered and beaten down by alcohol and watch them grow and reconnect to estranged families, and get jobs and become pretty great people. It's hard to explain that to people who think AA is just about "putting the plug in the jug" and tolerating life without alcohol.

I'm sure it's possible to stay sober out of a book. You seem to be proof. Could I stay sober without ever going to another meeting? I did for many years, and have no doubt I could do it again if I had to. But then I would be missing out on the best part of life.

It's possible I had not gone as far down the rabbit hole as others in regards to drinking. For me, it was something that was getting int he way of me having a great life, though I was still managing to have a pretty good life. Quitting was like washing myself off, and starting over. I rarely even think about alcohol, it pops up once in a while but now for me it is very easy to brush aside and get on with my life. I do stop by my forum every couple days to keep myself grounded, but I never had to white knuckle it or anything like that. Every day I wake up clean and sober is a blessing, that's all I really need to keep me away from that idiotic drug.

[tominbkk]

It's my eleventh birthday today which I shall celebrate quietly at home with my family. I was up at 0430 to go birdwatching this morning. No one had to tell me what I did last night. I didn't drive home legless. My wife and kids are relatively happy people and if they are getting support to be able to live with me then I don't know about it. I didn't wet the bed last night and the house wasn't stinking of piss and shit this morning. It wasn't like this 12 years ago. I quit drinking and have been able to stay stopped because of AA.

If they said to me today:" look Gerry there's been mistake, you're not an alcoholic, you can drink" I'd like to think I'd stay stopped cos my life is so much better.

In a forum it's easy to be rational and logical about something like alcoholism and about the choices a drunk has. Pull yourself together man/woman take control of your life. ...... just what you want to hear when you're in year six of a vodka drip and have a preference for the solitude of your own room where you can develop your negatives and piss and shit in a bucket because it's too much of an effort to go. .....

At this stage you don't care if AA is run by Al Qaeda.

AA brings people back from this and much worse. We are by no means perfect. But we are a good option if you want to try quitting drinking.

Thanks for love.

Sent from my GT-S7270L using Tapatalk

AA never ceases to amaze me. I had no intention of replying to any thing else on this thread but I was wrong

Congratulations.

Eleven years is a long time to be living a life mostly free from problems. Chances are you would not have made the eleven years. Good Job. Keep up the good work.

If your story is like mine I have to offer your wife some congratulations for staying with you through some of those dark years.

Happy that it works for you and all. The important thing is to realize that different things work for different people. I like the support, thus I make my daily visit to http://www.reddit.com/r/stopdrinking. Lots of people there, doing AA, RR, or their own thing. Sharing there gives me strength, especially if I can help somebody else.

Allen Carr's book, the Way to Control Drinking is amazing. He does bash AA a bit for the way it forces people to feel they are helpless victims of their own disease and never able to be free of regular meetings. The book itself is amazing, it somehow created a paradigm shift in my thinking and I have never looked back. Sure I get urges, but I quell them with logic and various coping skills and diversions that are healthy choices.

Are big book tells us that there are other ways. It just offers us the way that the original members did it. More power to you if you can think your way out of the desire to drink I couldn't. I have found a new way to live far superior to just not drinking and I don't have to fight it. Which is a very positive point in my recovery. I have no reason to believe I could fight it today I do have two years of trying to fight it. But I lost the fight every day .Why fight it if you can not afford to lose. I can't afford to loose.

Check through this forum there are several other methods being suggested. I have no problem with any of them. I have found an answer that works for me and I have no intention of playing games with it. My story is not a pretty one. Nobody but nobody wanted me around and I was physically on my way out. I had lost the ability to do a days work. Mentally I was even worse off. No I am going to stick with a proven method that works for me.

I am however curious why you sagest other ways when you have found a way that is working for you. You should be carrying that message to people who have not found away not to people who have found a way. If you feel your way is really not that good try the course of miracles it works well for my brother and sister in law.

I never said my way is not that good, it works for me! My last 7 months of sobriety has been amazing, and a life changer. I never went down the sinkhole with my drinking, but I was on the path. alcohol is not for me anymore, and I really don't miss it, though old thought habits die slowly. I use a variety of "tools" to move me towards being a more honest and caring person. Even a few tricks from AA are in my toolbox. But I cannot accept that I am "helpless" or diseased, or that I need to answer to a higher power to quit drinking and enjoy my life. I am of free will to do or not do anything I want. I have set my goals high for myself, and am achieving it!