No offense, but most people who go to AA and say how meetings and the fellowship and calling their sponsor kept them sober all these years are not actually alcoholics. I’m not saying they’re not wonderful people who deserve a social group and what have you, but they are not alcoholics. They’re actually just pretending to be alcoholics, and again, I really mean no offense. Most people in AA are heavy or even moderate drinkers whose lives are affected by alcohol in some way, but they can stop on their own willpower. They have power over alcohol.
The true alcoholic is powerless over alcohol. When we are truly powerless, meetings and fellowship and sponsors and sobriety coins and slogan recitation and putting chairs away and stuff cannot keep us sober. It’s all good and well, but none of it can keep a true alcoholic from drinking. None of that stuff has the power to lift his obsession, which is basically the equivalent of making a lunatic sane again, which pretty much requires nothing short of a miracle that is earned through rigorous internal work in which the addict’s heart, soul and brain are completely rearranged and fundamentally altered.
The other night, a woman in my friend’s group said how the key to recovery is time, though nothing could be further from the truth. She was a sweetheart, but not a real alcoholic. For a real alcoholic, recovery is not a function of time at all. Time gets us worse, not better. Time is only worth as much as the actions we take during said time. I recovered quite suddenly, just like everybody I know who is recovered. Those who recover from alcoholism or addiction have had a spiritual experience that has lifted their obsession to use, restored them to sanity, and established a real and active relationship with God, as if a telephone line has been activated between them and Power, and can be tapped into or accessed when needed.
Meeting goers are usually types who also fail to be accountable for their addiction, such as a recent ibogaine troll, who said he was a full blown addict right after the very first sip of beer he drank when he was eleven. Listen, we all know addicts are full of shit, but this nonsense is also peddled by mainstream treatment professionals; that we becoming addicts has nothing to do with us, that even the first few times we used was not our choice at all. I really can’t think of a more dangerous thing to say, forget about the fact that it is totally false. The very thing preventing addicts from getting better is just this kind of thinking, that NOTHING is our fault because we are born with this disease.
Not true. Everything we do is our fault, and this is PRECISELY how we recover: Total honesty and total responsibility.
We acquire this disease by using over and over and over and over and over and over and over until we finally break ourselves and acquire this allergy or compulsion, coupled with a mental obsession that prevents us from staying stopped once we stop. Believe me, regardless of how sweet and talented and innocent you think you are or you think your child is, every addict in the world puts considerable effort into destroying their bodies and their minds enough to cross that line and become an addict. Nobody is born a full blown addict. Please. That is just wrong on its face. Nobody starts off powerless. Powerlessness is acquired through hard work and effort, i.e drinking or using like a pig, year after year.
So there is no such thing as an eleven year old having one beer and from then on they are a full blown alcoholic. This is just too ridiculous, and it is typical of our culture today, a culture that promotes finding ways to abscond oneself from taking responsibility for one’s self-created problems and illnesses, such as alcoholism.
“Well, it’s not my fault because I was eleven when I started and right away I was fully blown.” I beg of you to understand that it is no one’s fault but our own for becoming addicts.
There is no compulsion, no actual illness or disease, until you have used a thousand times first and acquired this allergy that ANYBODY can acquire, by the way. And I realize how painful it must be to have this stuff explained continuously, but hey, somebody’s gotta do it.
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Thank you Charlie… You make me feel less and less guilty the more I read your blogs. So many of us POA's read these, but not enough of the addicts themselves..right?
Right you are, Liz. I have no alcoholic or drug addicted readers. Sad, but true. Thank you for reaching out and sharing this with others. I am so grateful.
Hey Charlie,
I just want to qualify as a “real” drug addict that has read your book and enjoys your blog.
-Trav
Hey Trav, I very happily stand corrected. God bless you
Correction: I have very few alcoholic and drug-addicted readers 😉
I am also a real alcoholic and addict that enjoys the Privileged Addict book and blog. I tried for years to stay sober on the fellowship alone, or working with sponsors who didn't really know how to work the steps, it never worked. For the past three years I have continually resubmitted to the steps as the book instructs us to. I am in my fourth fellowship of the spirit workshop (7:00 pm Wednesdays at St. Thomas, Classroom A) and my homegroup is F.O.T.S. (8:00 pm Tuesdays at Pilgrim Church) it is a floating format three legacies meeting. We also recently started North Akron F.O.T.S. Sundays at 7:00 om at Madeline Commons. If anyone is every in or around Akron, stop in and say hi, My name is Dusty
I am also a real alcoholic and addict that enjoys the Privileged Addict book and blog. I tried for years to stay sober on the fellowship alone, or working with sponsors who didn't really know how to work the steps, it never worked. For the past three years I have continually resubmitted to the steps as the book instructs us to. I am in my fourth fellowship of the spirit workshop (7:00 pm Wednesdays at St. Thomas, Classroom A) and my homegroup is F.O.T.S. (8:00 pm Tuesdays at Pilgrim Church) it is a floating format three legacies meeting. We also recently started North Akron F.O.T.S. Sundays at 7:00 om at Madeline Commons. If anyone is every in or around Akron, stop in and say hi, My name is Dusty
God bless you, Dusty. Good work in Akron. It seems you have been chosen. Amen, brother. Go see Dusty, people.