is there recovery for after aa???? ive been sober for 4 years…..im tired of whiners…?
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Question by vic: is there recovery for after aa???? ive been sober for 4 years…..im tired of whiners…?
aa does work….obviously ive been sober for 4 years, but people there are very sick, not all but lots, they use the program and the other sick people for there advantage, just looking for something a little less…….and a little more…….ya know?
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Answer by jake696
I don’t do AA either…there are alternatives…I’ve heard of a few.
I don’t do any of it and other non-drinkers I know are the same way. We may talk to each other sometimes, but it’s just not that big a deal for me. I never lost my house, wife, job or even had a DUI…just got tired of drinking all the time, having the beer belly, getting more colds than the average person and feeling no energy.
I’ve think recovering alcoholics smoke more cigy-butts than any other group I know! I gave them up 12 yrs. ago and hate being around smoke!
I was 3 yrs. sober in Sept. 09. I’m now proudly addicted to running and exercise! I feel better than I’ve ever felt in my life!
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Tags: after, been, Recovery, Sober, there, tired, whiners..., years.....im
life. find a past time you enjoy.
if you’ve been sober for 4 years do you really need to attend the meetings?
Would you be better off trying to find another support group amongst your friends or getting some counselling if you need it?
Few people stick around AA, 95% drop out in the first year alone. Only 2.5% finish year two. During your time there I’m sure you’ve seen people disappear; AA would have you believe they all relapsed and died, but that’s hardly the case.
People quit drinking in order to improve their lives, not to spend it in church basements. The ones who do stay in AA forever are the ones that quit, but never got around to building a better life for themselves.
The NIHM estimates that half of the people who have problems with alcohol have a mental illness. Many drink to cover up anxiety and/or depression, and these issues are often unresolved because they’re convinced that as long as they’re not drinking, they’re fine. I feel that these are the people who end up hanging around the rooms sober but not “happy, joyous, and free”, afraid to leave before the miracle.
I bounced in and out of the rooms for many years never managing more than a few months of sobriety. I quit trying to work their program, got help for the depression that fueled my drinking, got involved with non-AA recovery groups online and have stayed sober for over 8 years. I certainly didn’t miss the drama, the pettiness, or the predators.
Joining AA shows a motivation to quit, motivation is the most important factor in quitting anything. AA has about a 5% success rate, the same as people quitting on their own, seems to me that 5% are motivated to stay stopped. AA demands all the credit for a person quitting, but accepts none of the blame should they fail.
Check out “The Escape Plan”:
http://www.morerevealed.com/aadep/reclaim/escape.html
I’m going to challenge you a little here. How do you know that the fact that you’ve been abstinent for 4 years means that AA works? I’ve been abstinent for 11 years (after a pretty horrific drinking history), was in AA for a long time, and eventually left for all the reasons you mention. It wasn’t until I’d been away from the meetings and the indoctrination for a while that it occurred to me that most, if not all, of the things I’d learned in AA didn’t really stand up to close scrutiny. And certainly people who’d been there long term were, as you say, pretty darn sick. I’ve come to the conclusion that AA isn’t responsible for the fact that I quit drinking. I am. I did it. Not God. Me.
As did you. So yes, there is life after AA, and it’s better. You get to think for yourself again. You are not “signing your own death warrant” like the silly AA literature tells you, either. If you want more out of life, in fact, you pretty much have to leave AA. It keeps you stuck.