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I read somewhere that one part of going through the AA (USA) process revolves around channelling the person towards a sense of belief in a higher power; for the already religious, it basically stirs a new found sense, to those without belief it can essentially become into forced “evangelisation”, even if not into a formal belief.
I’ve known a couple of hardcore alcoholics, both in and outside the family, and those who underwent detox, here (Portugal), it involves medication to aid in withdrawal, paired with mental health aid and educating the person on what the alcohol is doing to them. We have two singers, both former heavy drinkers, that are strongly vocal against alcohol abuse; one even states he is not “healed” but “in a never ending healing process”.
So, what is all this about throwing people into belief for getting out of an addiction? Medicine is a thing, with proven results.
That’s true. My wife has been sober for more than a year now. She went to AA meetings and did therapy. We are both atheist, and she really hated the religious part of the AA program, but talking with people that went through similar experiences really helped her.
I know AA meetings tended to occur in church basements or meeting rooms and assumed that part was to encourage the use of that resource. Was that the case for the meetings you know of?
Some church administrators are surprisingly non altruistic unless you can point to it being faith-based.
It was indeed in a building that belonged to a church.
The whole AA program (the 12 steps book) is very explicitly based on the idea that the only way you can recover from your addiction is through god.
Addiction is mostly away to avoid thinking or feeling about something. “Getting better” is a combination of resolving current situations, tolerating the internal distress, and learning new, healthy ways to deal.
I’m not a fan of bundling this under “medicine” since I think it has as much more to do with philosophy, spirituality, and psycology than biochemistry, but adding medicine to control physical cravings certainly helps.
in the US religion, specifically Christians, have a corner on “healing”.
want to talk to a therapist? they’ll always bring up God or a higher power.
want to talk to a doctor? they work at a facility that’s affiliated with a religious doctrine.
need to have surgery? it’s a a faith based hospital.
want to get sober? enjoy the calming sounds of the Bible being thumped over your head.
now, there are exceptions to this, but the majority stands that religious belief is a cornerstone to all health and medical facilities in America.
it’s really fucked up when you think about it. Imagine going in for surgery and someone comes in to start praying for a successful operation. like…that doesn’t give me the highest vote of confidence in the knowledge and talents of the staff that’s literally going to cut me open from belly to sternum and peak around at what even I have never seen.
What you have heard about AA is true, I just want to make a couple clarifications. The first, or one of the first, steps of the alcoholics anonymous famous 12 step program is to submit yourself to a higher power. , but nowadays when it comes up they are quick to emphasize that this does not have to be God. It can be a rock or a pet or object, but their system is built off of that. That you must make yourself accountable to something and let it take over some of the decision making responsibilities. I’ve never been able to see this as anything other than religious thinking and feel it is a distinction without meaning, but if you end up discussing this with proponents of the system be ready for that curve ball. Secondly, to call it the USA system is not correct. It is just one addiction treatment option, though given US religiousity it is the biggest and most will known. Many others are also essentially the same process but a different organization. Where things get tricky is that people that are charged with crimes involving drugs or alcohol are offered leniency in sentencing on condition that they go through an approved addiction program, especially in remote areas AA is sometimes the only option. This has been challenged by atheists and I believe that the courts always end up allowing for them to use a non religious program, but that will only be the people that can afford to make another legal case based on their principals and are able to find an alternative addiction program to enroll in in their area.
Fun fact: you can get the same belief effect AA uses to fight addiction by giving someone LSD.
instructions unclear. am now addicted to LS…ohhhh pretty butterflies!
Exactly zero people in the history of humanity got addicted to LSD. I’m not joking.
And you don’t hallucinate beings into existence when you’re on it, just abstract colors and distortions.
for some people it is simply easier to deal with hard things when there is a higher power as external authority to lean against. this can be misused for bad but also used creatively for good. mind has its ways of shaping itself. you can delude yourself into depression (or addiction) or out of it. when there is nothing inherently good or bad in the world the world can become quite meaningless, don’t you think?
Absolutely! Unadorned existential nihilism is a luxury of the comfortable. People who suffer need more, maybe not religion, but something to keep them from autodeleting.
Really recommend Britt’s No Nonsense Spirituality on YouTube (or wherever you mirror YouTube) for those looking for the baby in the bathwater of religion.
I think having everything in the world be inherently good or bad would instead become incredibly meaningless. What’s the point if everything is already set in stone?
Good and evil are relative. Those are social constructs our species has been reviewing basically from our inception. I’ll grant that, as an individual, feeling alone and small, dealing with overwhelming issues may feel as something one can’t overcome by oneself but resorting, immediately, to something outside oneself? It is as dangerous. And I like to think my entire line of ancestors is watching me; sometimes, that feeling of having a personal fan club feels great. But they won’t be solving my problems; they’re dead.
Good ol’ catholic guilt was a big part of the reason I nearly drank myself to death.
Fuck god, believe in humanity.
I’ll never forget the disappointment I felt the day I found out that Alcoholics Anonymous is a christian group. The fact that one of the few institutions that exists independently to help people to get free of the crippling addiction to alcohol does so by shoving god down your throat is such an amazing let down. I had a friend who was a terrible alcoholic and also an atheist and the trouble he had finding organizations the could help him was so devastating. In the end the alcoholism eventually led to his death and I often wonder if he could have been saved if there had been a more robust network of non-religious substance abuse groups.
In my experience AA tries to exchange ones addiction to alcohol to an addiction to religion. I’ve noted the most feverously religious people I know became that way after AA. Religion preys on the most susceptible.
Also switches out alcohol for sweets. I’ve been to a couple meetings and they always had cookies, cupcakes, and other sugar replacements because they aren’t drinking anymore.
They also only talk about alcohol and the times they used to drink. It makes me want to drink more. I need a distraction from the topic of drinking, not to be reminded of it.
The fact that one of the few institutions that exists independently to help people to get free of the crippling addiction to alcohol does so by shoving god down your throat is such an amazing let down.
Dunno if it helps at all, but the success rate for people who go through AA is the same rate as people who do it by themselves.
A reminder that trying to stop drinking alone can kill you in some cases.
I put up with it for long enough to get the help I needed, but I can’t stand it either. At least there were enough supportive people with actual advice kicking around. I can’t attest to every community, but if you want it bad enough, it’s probably worth the price of admission for the few months it takes to break the habit.
I got three years a couple months ago, and I’m not sure I would have made it without the support, but I also regret that the program teaches that you don’t have the power to do it without god, just a fun reminder of how these people prey on the vulnerable.
I’m sorry about your friend, I know my life could have ended the same way pretty easily the way I was going.
Well, there’s different levels of christianity at different chapters. I found a chapter that was mostly atheists and would only refer to a “higher power” and even then was like “look really it just means you can’t just think about what you want, because you want to get drunk and it’s killing you.”.
So, you have to think about something greater than whatever itch you have in the moment, if you want to live.
I’m not going to downvote you. Because I think it’s great that you found group that was helpful and effective. So a sincere congratulations to you. But waiting around hoping for a Christian group that is not too overly Christian is like waiting for a New York City taxicab to show up in Philadelphia.
That’s ridiculous, there are tons of online chapters, yea I tried three of them and they were all religious crap, but the fourth one was good. But again, it’s online, it’s as easy as clicking the next link in your search results.
I’ve long complained that Christians push the queer community to the bottle then sell us their god as the solution.
As a queer malfunctioning alcoholic, they can keep their God.
Sorry for the loss of your friend.
Thank you.
I’m surprised there isn’t some NHS thing. They have support groups for dieting so I would have thought there would have been one for alcoholism given how much damage it does to people and how much it must cost the NHS every year.
The NHS does have things, but not everyone lives in Britain.
God deserves credit for all that he has done…
Which is nothing, because the chump aint real.
He allegedly killed everything on the planet except for two of each creature, amongst a slew of other murders.
Later he became his own dad* and had exceptionally buoyant feet, though, so swings and roundabouts as the Brits say 🤷🏻
*through his spirit raping a 12-16yo virgin
Is that how young Mary canonically was. Yeah the people who wrote the Bible were definitely something weren’t they.
Is that how young Mary canonically was
It’s never explicitly specified but:
While the Bible does not state Mary’s exact age, most historians and biblical scholars agree on a likely range based on cultural context.
Mary was most likely between 12 and 16 years old when Jesus was born.
This estimate comes from:
- Jewish marriage customs of the first century
- The typical age of betrothal for girls
- The timeline between engagement and childbirth
In that culture, girls were often engaged shortly after puberty and married soon after. Since Mary was already betrothed when the angel Gabriel appeared, it strongly supports the idea that she was in her early teens.
Don’t ask about the fish, birds, and sea creatures though. They did just fine, but they don’t count for some reason.
That’s okay, many old languages use their word for “animal” only for terrestrial vertebrates or even only for terrestrial mammals. Fish, birds and sea creatures wouldn’t register as animals in most of them.
Ohhhh ok got it. They just had millions of land animals on the made up boat.
And somehow brought koalas and kangaroos back to Australia and ONLY to Australia… SOMEHOW the biological world looks as if it evolved in place instead of migrating from a single boat.
But we should steelman religious arguments and then destroy them on the merits, because they have not one argument that holds water even when we steelman them.
Credit where credit is due. Going by newton.marvel’s logic, god gave OP alcoholism.
Don’t overlook all of the death and suffering caused in his name!
He made them alcoholic!
If God was so good, they would not have to repeat it, every damn time.
Have you read the Bible? Their God is a malignantly narcissistic tyrant.
Like legit sounds like what a malignant narcissist would think is normal.
It was actually Fred the red swingline stapler. He does everything and never complaints.
“Oh you just think you did that on your own, but your personal achievement should actually be credited to God.”
Does he get credited with the alcoholism too? Why curse so many people with that when they drink themselves to death?
That’s Satan.
God gives humans free will
Humans do things with free will
Humans: Thank God!
This reminds me of when the first flotilla provided enough of a distraction that Palestinian in Gaza managed to fish for a bit without getting caught, and the top comment under the post said “God is best planner”
"God works in mysterious ways… " Me after stink up the bathroom at the supermarket.
When my religious friends get a little too intense I tell em to go visit a terminal children’s hospital ward. Don’t give me any of that “works in mysterious ways” rubbish either. I’m not saying there isn’t a higher intelligence than us somewhere, because that’s unknowable in an infinite universe, but to then somehow pivot to thinking that intelligence would care about every little thing we do is beyond insane.
One day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberwald I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I’m sure you’ll agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged onto a half submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters, who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature’s wonders, gentlemen. Mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that is when I first learned about evil. It is built into the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.
-Sir Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals
I think it’s entirely possible that there are entities more intelligent than humans (let’s face it the bar isn’t very high) but I think that’s different to “higher intelligence” an entity of God like capability, I don’t think that high IQ necessarily grants you access to alter the fundamental laws of reality.
That’s such an interesting point. I believe that historically any intelligence that was much higher than the norm has tended to be perceived as “Godlike”. That means this misconception potentially applies to us today as well (he walked on water therefore he is God etc.) or that the “God” that people believe in today is somehow above relativistic misconception. Personally I lean towards the former.
I’m intellgent, and I’m high.
“I’m intellgent, and I’m high.”
No disrespect, but the irony of misspelling that word is chef’s kiss 🤣
But you have heard of me.
But not higher!
What makes you think that the universe is infinite?
You’re right. I should have said “because that’s unknowable in a really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, big universe” but I thought “infinite” wouldn’t take up as much (drumroll) space! 🤭
GOD is good! He made you an alcoholic so you would struggle through life and fight so, so hard to maintain a form of normalcy his favorite creations obtain with ease.
Again, GOD is good!
I always disliked that arguement because it suggests that you wouldn’t have such a good life had you not had to struggle first. A claim for which there is no evidence.
And a claim that was never applied to the wealthy, it’s only the poor that benefit from being made poorer.
This is a misunderstanding. They are a fan of Good Old Days beer and are disappointed that OP won’t drink it now.
Edit: I was the one who misunderstood. They were simply suggesting a non-alcoholic beer.
But it says its alcohol free beer on the bottle?
Good catch. I missed that
Didn’t Jesus literally turn water into wine? So God literally produced the original alcohol. So it’s all his fault.
I know that the wine back then typically had the alcohol content of seawater and was mostly drunk because water purification wasn’t really possible, but it’s their belief system so I’m going to hit them over the head with it.
Not the original by any stretch. The story is that he made the wine because they ran out of wine while the party was still going. He just didn’t want his friend’s wedding reception to flop. But the host was still somewhat embarrassed because everybody liked the new wine so much more and said “hey dummy, don’t you know you’re supposed to serve the quality wine first, and the shit wine after we’re too drunk to care?”
Pretty sure we were guzzling hooch since those first monkeys discovered a pile of half rotten fruit, ate it, vomited, then ate the rest and woke up with a prehistoric hangover. JC was just a garden variety bootlegger
Yeah I don’t think they knew how to make grape juice not alcoholic back then. Grape juice just does that unless you pasteurize it, which was discovered in the 1800s by an American Methodist. It certainly wasn’t low enough alcohol to be consumed by people on the wagon unless it was very fresh.
Yeah, looking at Wikipedia, the old testament says to give the dying wine so they forget their pain, you ain’t getting that from kombucha. It looks like the Sumerian goddess of beer was said to be the result of a drunken hookup between a king and Ishtar, and like the Egyptians were culturally celebrating with beer, wine, and drunkenness using beers of comparable alcohol content to modern day (5% ABV).
Meanwhile here there’s an estimate of Romans drinking about half a liter of undiluted wine a day. They mixed it 50/50 with water typically, which in a modern wine would put it around a modern beer in potency. We can assume it’s reasonably potent wine specifically because those drinking undiluted wine in Rome faced social stigma associated with alcoholism.
I’m specifically avoiding sources speaking on Jewish history here because when I looked the Christians outnumbered the academics by a lot, which makes sense as teetotaling Protestants have issues with the amount of wine in Christianity.
There’s video of animals getting blasted on fermented natural fruit… it really does happen on its own.
Bartender: Enough drinking, mate, I’m cutting you off, just water for you from now on.
Jesus (the fairytale one): Aw, man, come on…
“You blew an 9.99 on the breathalyzer, you’ve had enough”
2 years here!
If you need help there are hundreds of agnostic and atheist AA meetings live and online.
To paraphrase Robert Downey Jr. If you aren’t an alcoholic, religion is a choice. If you are an addict, you’ve already surrendered to a Higher Power. My addiction told me when to get up, who to talk to, where to go, how much to spend, who to hurt, and who to flatter.
My partner utilized SMART Recovery when he was getting sober. It’s science based and completely free of religion
If you are an addict, you’ve already surrendered to a Higher Power
This is defeatist bullshit. And yes, before anyone says it, I know from personal experience.
The higher power is the substance, be it booze, heroin, coke, meth or dopamine (for gamblers and others)
Accepting that that chemical will always be there, always call to you, always be there to make you feel good when everything else isn’t working is the point
Surrendering to the fact that it’s forever in your life, no matter what you do is the point, not surrendering control over your actions
I know what I am. I know how the things that I do shape my life in every possible way
It’s about how I manage it, not ignore it or pass the buck
With kindness, I think you may have misinterpreted the comment you were replying to
No, I understood it completely. It’s a mindset of learned helplessness and powerlessness.
It’s the same fucking mindset that has people who accomplish terrifying and impossible things on their own accord, giving all of the credit to a non-existent god. No, buddy, you did this.
Statistically the whole religious indoctrination aspect of AA is less effective than other combined methods, but that’s unfair because some of those methods include well funded treatment by actual professionals like doctors and therapists.
