4 ms·

> 1. If you're an alcoholic and think you can handle a single drink, you're lying to yourself. 2. It's honestly not worth it. Life is better than being stuck in

> 1. If you're an alcoholic and think you can handle a single drink, you're lying to yourself. 2. It's honestly not worth it. Life is better than being stuck in a multi day binger. The physically effects are taxing on the body. 3. You'll always have those urges and that feeling of wanting to drink isn't as bad as the act of actually drinking and the damage the follows. Worth noting that #1 is AA dogma and is certainly not a medically proven thing. About 5% of people who go through AA eventually get sober, roughly the same as other treatment approaches (many of which skip the disease model of alcoholism entirely). IMO, the AA notion that you are diseased for life unless you turn your life over to a higher power (which looks suspiciously like the personal god of Western Protestant Christianity) is poison.

iceninenines 8y ago
Magical thinking is the poison, be it cargo culting some arbitrary behaviors against physical dependence or praying to a bearded sky god.
mrburton 8y ago
There's so much I would like to say about this, but let me try not to let this get out of hand. a. The people I know attend AA are not religious and they don't enjoy that aspect of AA. b. They refuse to take medication like Disulfiram (Antabuse) and rather deal with their addiction by attending meetings. c. I'm not sure if you are an actual alcoholic, it sounds like you're not, but I would advise you to be cautious about what you're saying here. If you deal with Alcoholism, there's no "final" cure. You are aware of that right? People who deal with Alcoholism don't view their addiction as being "diseased" and AA doesn't suggest that as well. You might want to read the Big Book which is available online. I read it to understand what my friends actually deal with. I'm not even sure what you mean by "disease model of alcoholism". It sounds like your knowledge is not only superficial, but poorly researched.
- andromedavision 8y ago
  > If you deal with Alcoholism, there's no "final" cure. This is precisely it. You fight it continuously and always assume you are going to mess things up even when you think you're 'finally' strong enough. Just being constantly paranoid about slipping back into old habits. It's no joke and there's no panacea.
- crsmithdev 8y ago
  How about I Google 'disease model of alcoholism' for you: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=disease+model+alcoholism https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=disease... Now, who was superficial and poorly researched? That's literally < 5s of effort. I'll stop there, given that you couldn't bother to do that before attempting to call me out, I don't think anything else you wrote is worth my time to respond to.
  - dang 8y ago
    This comment broke the site guidelines. We ban accounts that are repeatedly uncivil here. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules in the future, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are, we'd be grateful.
placer 8y ago
AA does not have a 5% success rate. This misconception comes from someone misreading an old confusingly labeled graph. AA has, according to one study, a 67% success rate. The study saw that, of people who regularly went to AA, 67% were sober 16 years later: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2220012/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2220012/ Another study shows a 75% success rate, but it's behind a paywall: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10078980 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10078980

iceninenines 8y ago

Magical thinking is the poison, be it cargo culting some arbitrary behaviors against physical dependence or praying to a bearded sky god.

mrburton 8y ago

There's so much I would like to say about this, but let me try not to let this get out of hand. a. The people I know attend AA are not religious and they don't enjoy that aspect of AA. b. They refuse to take medication like Disulfiram (Antabuse) and rather deal with their addiction by attending meetings. c. I'm not sure if you are an actual alcoholic, it sounds like you're not, but I would advise you to be cautious about what you're saying here. If you deal with Alcoholism, there's no "final" cure. You are aware of that right? People who deal with Alcoholism don't view their addiction as being "diseased" and AA doesn't suggest that as well. You might want to read the Big Book which is available online. I read it to understand what my friends actually deal with. I'm not even sure what you mean by "disease model of alcoholism". It sounds like your knowledge is not only superficial, but poorly researched.

andromedavision 8y ago
> If you deal with Alcoholism, there's no "final" cure. This is precisely it. You fight it continuously and always assume you are going to mess things up even when you think you're 'finally' strong enough. Just being constantly paranoid about slipping back into old habits. It's no joke and there's no panacea.
crsmithdev 8y ago
How about I Google 'disease model of alcoholism' for you: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=disease+model+alcoholism https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=disease... Now, who was superficial and poorly researched? That's literally < 5s of effort. I'll stop there, given that you couldn't bother to do that before attempting to call me out, I don't think anything else you wrote is worth my time to respond to.
- dang 8y ago
  This comment broke the site guidelines. We ban accounts that are repeatedly uncivil here. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules in the future, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are, we'd be grateful.

placer 8y ago

AA does not have a 5% success rate. This misconception comes from someone misreading an old confusingly labeled graph. AA has, according to one study, a 67% success rate. The study saw that, of people who regularly went to AA, 67% were sober 16 years later: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2220012/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2220012/ Another study shows a 75% success rate, but it's behind a paywall: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10078980 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10078980