In my city we're not so lucky. Like I said, in and of itself, AA is not prepared to deal with the individual's reasons for drinking.
My wife just pointed out that her father was seeing a professional weekly in the first 5 years he was getting clean. He tapered off and then stopped about a year ago, but left his doctor amicably.
My father was very picky about having religion forced on people. He wouldn't go to AA because of it, and he wouldn't let me go into the Boy scouts because of their pledges.
I thought that AA was for the addict and Al Anon was for the friends and family of the addict? I faintly remember that sometimes in some areas the meetings are combined, but I believe they are different things.
Interesting. That's definitely not the case on the toxic family groups where I hang out. I Googled "What's the difference between AA and Al Anon" and got, among other links: http://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/mg-08_relationshipbet.pdf http://alanon.activeboard.com/t13820090/frequently-asked-questions/
Here is my experience with addiction. My mother and father were not together and I did not really meet my father until I was about five years old as he was in prison. Once he got out and for some crazy reason my mother thought it was a good idea that I see him, I was forced to spend the weekend at his house. My father was a drug addict. He had a grow op in his home he sold drugs and he used drugs. He was very verbally abusive to me, my step mom, step sister and half sister. He had been using since he was twelve years old. I will never know why he did the things he did because he died when I was sixteen. I do think there was something wrong, not sure if it was past abuse or something along the lines of depression. For a long time I hated him and when he died I was very happy. Now that it has been fifteen years since he passed I can look back at things differently he was a very mean person but I think that he really needed help. One time my uncle (his brother) told him he needed help after he got so angry he ripped the phone out of the wall, jack and all. He disowned my uncle after that and never spoke to him again, he had told us we were not allowed to see my cousin who I was very close to, I still saw her though when I was at home with my mom. No one ever talked about my father even having a problem and on his side of the family has a lot of secrets, that no one talks about and my father used to lie to me a lot and tell me things that would make him look good and everyone look bad. Like that my grandfather was an alcoholic and my great grandfather a pedophile. Still not sure if any of that is really true as I have never seen my grandfather drink and my great grandfather passed when I was a baby. I guess this might make people wonder why I would be doing research on this but quite honestly I know how things work with drugs but not alcoholic and I have know nothing of the world of rehab, relapse or recovery. I am writing my main character as nothing like me and having a total different experience with addiction than me. So thanks again for sharing so much with me as I know that sometimes this can be hard. This gives me a lot of insight into my character and what he would be thinking and feeling.
Why does your character drink? What triggers the relapses? It's very important to know these things to understand what challenges the character faces in a way that is coherent with that type of alcoholic.
She drinks Vodka. The relapses are usually caused by depression. She is unhappy with her life she thought it would turn out differently. That's what I have so far anyway.
Okay, that's good. So if she gets into this talk about how she became an alcoholic in treatment, the counsellors would want to examine her sense of purpose and how holding too strongly to ideals or an inability to move on from loss is contributing to the alcoholism. So I guess the next question would be whether she grows or not with respect to the reasons she drinks while in and after treatment. If she doesn't grow, how come? Did she only commit to sobriety to please her family? Does she grow, but finds that a particular issue keeps troubling her? Does she go on anti-depressants? Such questions will bring a clearer portrayal of the character. Let us know if you need more questions or information.
I have to ask is this a novel about alcoholism or the main character's life? that is going to change a lot of things. Look at the movie Hancock, he was an alcoholic that eventually recovered but yet didn't make it the main theme of his character.
The book isn't really about her, it's about her son who is the main character. I guess that's why I haven't gotten into too much detail of why she drinks because he never finds out the why.
Then I think you are putting two much of an element of the story, when you could be working more on you main character.
I guess because she is his mother I really think it is a big part of him and how he acts. I felt like by thinking about her character more I could learn more about him.
I think that as far as her son is concerned, what matters is not her motivations, but her behaviors. There is a whole lot of information about adult children of alcoholics out there.
I tried both AA and therapy and both failed because of the whole "powerless" thing. Only when I realized it was up to me did I stop drinking. Now I have an occasional drink (I think the last time was a few years ago) but I knew it was my choice to stop at a couple or to fall off the wagon. And now doctors are saying that yes, there are 'alcoholics' that can handle an occasional drink, so the all-or-nothing becomes less of an insurmountable obstacle. So many people get castigated because they had one drink - OMG, you've failed!!! So now they're a failure on top of everything else. Just makes it that much harder to feel you're worth 'saving'.
I'm curious about therapy failing. I've come to think of therapy as a pretty long, windy road without super clear cut goals so it's hard for me to think of it as failing. Typically these days I think of there being failed relationships between client and therapist, or goals that are perhaps too difficult to achieve based on that relationship. So yeah, I'm curious... was the therapy specifically for the drinking? We could take it to PMs if you want too....
Insanely long and insanely interesting video I doubt anybody will watch because wtf does this have to do with anything, BUT IT HAS TO DO WITH ALL THE THINGS I PROMISE THOUGH!!! PS. The lecturer is a recovering addict and Ph.D psych nerd dude therapist recovery institute directory type of person, and about 8-9 minutes into it I've never been able to turn away. I've watched it 3 times. /sort of on topic
I am married to a man who used to be addicted to cigarettes and is still addicted to alcohol. He smoked heavily for many many years, and then one day ...he just stopped. That was more than 20 years ago. He spent a couple of weeks carrying around a cigarette packet 'just in case,' which seemed to help. He also used to keep a blunt-end pen handy, so he could put it in his mouth if he felt the need. Nicotine is a terribly addictive substance, and the habit of smoking at certain times apparently is difficult to break. He beat both the addiction and the habit, and fairly easily. He now can't stand the thought of smoking, and actually crosses to the other side of the street, if he finds himself walking behind a smoker. However, the alcohol is much trickier. He does drink way too much for his health, and has been told by many doctors that he needs to quit. He drinks only beer these days, but he drinks a lot of it. He had to go into hospital for an unrelated cause about 12 years ago, and while he was there he had to stop. He stayed clean for almost a year after that, and then gradually began reintroducing a beer here, a beer there. And now he's back up to drinking about 8 pints a day. He is one of those people who can function while he's drinking (actually he can't function when he's not) and isn't a pain in the arse to live with, by any means. But it's had a detrimental effect on many aspects of his life. For example, we gave up the car because he really didn't want to stay sober enough to drive it safely. He is unable to take part in any activity that doesn't involve drink, so our social life together is very limited. And as he approaches the age of 70, his health is really suffering ...and now I think it's probably too late to change. His drinking had a social start, in that he was a journalist at a time when most journalists he worked with drank heavily during frequent breaks, etc. Many of his ex-colleagues are now dead (at young ages) of alcoholic-related issues. So I don't think his addiction had any sort of psychological cause. In fact, he's rather a happy guy, who enjoys lots of interests and takes a great deal of interest in things around him. He didn't drink to feel better or to blot out something. He drank because everybody else was doing it, and he liked the camaradarie and the taste. And to some extent the buzz of feeling uninhibited. But the substance now has him in thrall. It's quite sad, really. I do notice one thing I actually mentioned to him. He took what I said on board, but of course nothing changes. He never says "I'm going for a beer." He'll always say "I'm going to read the paper" which he always does with a beer in his hand. Or other things like "It's a hot day out there, I'll have a can." Or "I'm going to watch the football at the pub." In other words, in his mind, these activities are what bring on the drink. He's always drinking because of something else. So I reckon some addicts link their addictive behaviour with something else. Whether it's something they do to try to put other people off the scent, or whether they do it to fool themselves, I don't know. One aspect of my husband's situation does surprise me a bit, though. Why was it so easy for him to give up smoking on his own—he did not resort to nicotine patches— and never return to it (once he made up his mind) and so impossible for him to give up drink? Is there something inherently different between these two addictions, I wonder? Maybe he secretly still wants to be able to drink socially, and doesn't like the thought of 'never' having another drink of the stuff he loves. While smoking doesn't have that attraction at all. I've never smoked myself, and I hardly ever drink. By hardly ever drink, I mean I've probably had the equivalent of two bottles of wine since Christmas, and three non-wine drinks in that time. All of these were on social occasions, such as being out for dinner, etc. On my own, I really don't drink at all. So I'm not able to pull first-hand experience into this discussion, only second-hand experience. Thankfully both of my parents were very responsible drinkers, who, again, only drank on social occasions. I never saw either of my parents drunk. I feel very fortunate, reading some of these other stories.
I remember reading, somewhere, that a minority of people are naturally inclined to become addicted to alcohol if they consume it, and a majority of people are naturally inclined to become addicted to nicotine if they consume it. I suppose it could be as simple as him being the minority in both cases--naturally inclined to become addicted to alcohol, but not to nicotine.
Yeah, I've read something like that myself. Apparently, some people can drink very little and become addicted, while others can drink quite a bit and not become addicted. The marker is ...can the person stop? If they can just stop without any withdrawal symptoms, they're not really addicted. I don't know if this is true, but it makes sense. I also don't know where binge drinking fits into this. Binge drinkers can stop for long periods of time, but then they go on another binge. So having a constant supply of alcohol in their systems doesn't seem to be an issue. When I was young ...college age and in my twenties ...getting drunk on weekends was the done thing, and I certainly did it. And yet, when I began to find this behavior irritating to me, and I got fed up waking up on Sunday mornings with a hangover, I just stopped. No problems at all. I don't know if I was a binge drinker or not. I might have been. I didn't do it outwith social events, though. I think my husband was certainly addicted to the nicotine, in that he had to fight against the withdrawal of it for a couple of weeks. But once it had left his system and he'd knocked the habit on the head ...that was it. He's never been tempted to go back, and actually hates smoking now, and won't allow smokers anywhere near him. I put up with smokers for so many years of my life, but he doesn't do that! (Thankfully the no-smoking-in-enclosed-public-places laws in Scotland over the past decade or so has made both our lives MUCH easier.) He did manage to stop drinking for nearly a year as well. When he was in hospital, they gave him some drugs that eased the withdrawal symptoms, so it wasn't too traumatic. And he did see the sense in it. His health and appetite improved, as did his energy levels. I was so hopeful ...but then it all started creeping back again. Interesting that one addiction has been broken while the other has not. You could be right about him being in the minority in both instances.
Yes, the therapy was specifically for drinking - and the failure was in the approach. First, they borrowed from the "powerless" approach, followed by censure when someone took a "misstep". I really hated the personal flaw aspect, regardless of who it was directed at. For me, taking control of an addiction is a decision one makes, and success means being able to hold that resolve even when one stumbles. Not being told one is a failure or being lectured when those stumbles occur is a godsend.
If your therapist or AA group told you that you were a failure, then they were doing it wrong. With that said, my brother always became extremely defensive when anyone told him that he needed help, or that he messed up again and it's okay. Let me tell you -- no one was anything but extremely supportive of his recovery. None of us ever saw him as a "failure." There is too much addiction in our family for us to see it that way. But he struggled with shame. A lot of it. So while we said "hey, I think it's time for you to get some help again" he heard, "you're a total fucking loser and you need to get your loser ass back into rehab before you kill yourself." That's not how it went down, but that's what he heard. Is it possible that you felt like a failure on some level, and that's what you perceived others as saying to you, even if that's not what they meant?
