Not so funny when it actually happens to you:
Because of really bad experiences with alcoholics as a child, I am afraid of people who drink. My psychologist and my doctor wrote that down.
When I became seriously ill and could no longer work in my old job, I had to retrain. To do this, you have to go to the German employment office and get an assessment of your strengths and weaknesses, including what your doctor and therapist have to say.
They read the paper from my doctor and my psychologist, but just skimmed over the words and decided that because the word “alcoholic” was there, I must be the alcoholic. They told me that I could get paid retraining and benefits, but only if I attended a therapy group for alcoholics once a week - me, who is afraid of alcoholics because of the abuse I suffered as a child. … I immediately started crying and swore that I had no problem with alcohol, only with alcoholics!
It took 6 months to get someone at the job centre to actually read the papers word for word to find out that me saying “I’m not an alcoholic” was not me being an alcoholic in denial. I got a half-assed apology and my retraining 6 months after I could have started it because of this. Not to mention that every time I refused to go to AA meetings they threatened to take away my benefits and I was in such a bad mental state that I probably would have killed myself without the help of my family. Oh, and my family who tried to intervene were labelled as co-alcoholics, holding me back.
That is terrible and I am so sorry.
They do AA in Germany? I thought that pseudo science was just an American thing.
Group therapy is pseudo-science?
Others have mentioned it, but to elaborate, Alcoholics Anonymous is not merely sitting in a circle and sharing your problems, but a belief system which requires you to submit to a higher power to move forward.
Knew a guy who insisted he wasn’t addicted, but he can’t go a day without attending an AA meeting. 40 years, non stop. Even when in other countries for work, he finds them. Left his own daughters wedding dinner to make it to one.
He runs his own chapter where he lives. He’s had people follow the steps, sure, but some don’t. No matter how successful the latter are, he tears them apart for “not doing it right” and has turned his back on them for not following how he did it.
My favorite quote on fanaticism applies here:
“Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim” - George Santayana
I didn’t know you could be addicted to AA meetings. I guess alcohol is a gateway drug to AA meetings, lol.
That’s 12 step. Not all AA is 12 step.
Almost All… But yes in recent years AA has tried to distance itself from the higher power ( God) rhetoric.
AA is somewhat decentralized, and you will have splinter groups.
Also to clarify, 12 step is a process created by the founders of AA. It’s not a separate thing.
The process still involves relinquishing your will power and deferring to an higher/outside power. Incredibly cult like behavior. You should be raising a person’s will power. Hyping the hell out of them.
Oh I absolutely agree, the manipulation techniques used, are still the same ones religions use to control their congregations.
I assume they mean this?
In the past, some critics have criticized 12-step programs as pseudoscientific and “a cult that relies on God as the mechanism of action”. Until recently, ethical and operational issues had prevented robust randomized controlled trials from being conducted comparing 12-step programs directly to other approaches. More recent studies employing randomized and blinded trials have shown 12-step programs provide similar benefit compared to motivational enhancement therapy (MET) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and were more effective in producing continuous abstinence and remission compared to these approaches.
You don’t know about AA, do you?
I know they get preachy but you can ignore that, many alcoholics get help from them without joining the cult of Christianity
You have a better grasp of them than the people down voting you.
AA has done a lot to separate itself from religion in the past couple decades. But if you pay close attention, they use the exact same manipulation techniques used by religions to control their congregations.
That said, AA does a LOT of good, and in my opinion they do genuinely have the best interests of their members at heart.
No, just AA
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That’s all fine and dandy until you get court ordered to attend these meetings as if it were a scientifically proven method of quitting drinking. It’d be like doing something bad and then being court ordered to attend church so that you can “gain a moral compass.”
Out of curiosity, where are people being remanded to AA specifically?
Having some experience in those circles. Courts often order “recovery programs” not AA, usually some form outpatient/inpatient group therapy, run by licensed therapists.
In the US, you can have court ordered AA f as punishment for alcoholic related crimes. This is sometimes given as an option over jail time or fines, so the legality is questionable, but people in those situations rarely know their rights or want to extend the court process.
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It makes no claims to be scientific… so it’s measurably worthless?
You seem to be agreeing my dude
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Damn bro rather be me without legs than you with millions you disgust me
You measure these things with surveys and interviews and design statics. AA claims to have success and relapse numbers, but I’d prefer independently run ones. Not everything scientific needs to be or can be a double blind trial.
If it’s measurably, it can be improved. Even if AA works, does it have a better success rate then quitting cold turkey? Even if works, are there things that can be changed to make it work even better?
You’re a very bizarre form of evil.
You sound like you’re in a cult.
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My lord that is absolutely bonkers and I am so sorry for what you had to go through!
I was diagnosed with anorexia because I was 5 kg ‘underweight’ and answered ‘no’ when asked if I had an eating disorder. Answering ‘no’ was apparently the justification for the diagnosis. It’s still on my file 10 years later, despite now being ‘over-weight’ and always having had nominal blood test results. Conveniently, denying you have anorexia is a symptom, and so is asking to have the diagnosis removed, I guess.
This has completely blocked me from receiving medication and treatment, because any physical or pyschological ailment I seek help for gets blamed on ‘my anorexia’ and I’m referred to psychotherapy.
I’m in a similar situation with a bipolar diagnosis. I was diagnosed after speaking with a sketchy psychologist for 20 minutes at best. Apparently thinking you don’t have bipolar disorder is a symptom of bipolar disorder.
Even after working with two other psychologists for well over a year and both diagnosing me with PTSD and that diagnosis perfectly matching my experience, not a single doctor will put that on my medical record. They won’t refer me to appropriate treatment. They won’t change my medication and tell me it works instead of asking.
I’ve been trying to get this fixed since 2008, but I just get shut down immediately after bringing it up. I’m barely getting by due to very poor mental health and everything just keeps getting worse.
Have you talked to a medical malpractice lawyer about your original diagnosis? Most will do an initial consult for free and work on contingency. In this rock-paper-scissor world lawyer beats doctor.
That is so fucked up. I hate the lack of self awareness the medical field has with regard to the impossible situations it puts some patients in.
same with autism (in a social sense not medical).
I believe you when you say you’re not anorexic, or ever had anorexia, but as a 43 year old man, who is 185cm tall, my healthy range is 63-86 kilos.
I am 82 kilos give or take a meal, and if I lost 15 kilos I would be very, very slender, and that would still keep me well in the “healthy” range.
What I’m saying is the healthy range, to me at least, should be taken with a pinch of salt, and it’s shithouse that your diagnosis has vexed you for over ten years.
I don’t drink
Congrats, how many years are you sober?
All my life
Born again huh.
Oh, so you don’t like it when other drink then?
Edit: that’s literally the response my buddy gets every single time it comes up, every single time without fail, even from other people who don’t drink.
Haha yeah it’s weird how NOT drinking is weird. I couldn’t care less what other people do, nor what they think of me; drinking is just no longer appealing to me
No idea why you got downvoted so bad, I guess I did have the benefit of your edit when I read your reply.
Right?
I mean, you teach yourself to drink something that tastes rotten. It impairs your ability to think and accomplish basic tasks. It increases your risk for legal trouble. It can make you vomit and sick the next day. It damages your internal organs, and it costs a ton. Finally, it traps you into needing it.
Yet, it’s the people who DON’T do it who are weird?
Water on top!
It tastes rotten because it is rotten.
I understand most of your point, you do you. But tastes rotten? Only my really bad batches of homebrew have truly tasted rotten. There are many delicious alcohols!
What the fuck?
No sir. Sounds like your projecting, are you uncomfortable that I don’t drink alcohol?
Whatever helps you sleep at night.
Oh that’s the booze.
Sure buddy what ever you say
Oof ow my kidneys
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“My psychiatrist prefers to say that I have a ‘substance use disorder’ and cautions that the old ‘alcoholism’ model isn’t very scientific.”
“I don’t limit myself to just alcohol”
Modern problems require modern solutions.
Fortunately, alcohol is a solution. Unfortunately, far from modern.
Pure Ethanol isn’t a solution it’s a solvent!
Hazy IPAs are no solution at all.
That’s a colloidal suspension, that is.
Seriously! The new model and terminology have been around for a decade or so! Why aren’t more people aware of them yet? throws hands up in frustration
But, having said that, now deny that you have an alcohol use disorder without sounding like you have an alcohol use disorder😏
Because the new terms been around a decade and we’ve used alcoholism as the term for a century or more, it will take time even if people prefer the new terms.
I drink a lot less now that I have easy access to THC.
This goes for a lot of other bad things, too. “Just to get it out of the way, I am not a child molester”.
To be clear, you’re not a child molestor since you got access to THC right?
I am not certain whether I can safely upvote or the last part is too weird.
Back on Reddit for /r/bestoflegaladvice, you always knew the post was going somewhere when it started with that exact phrase.
“I have literally not had alcoholic beverages even once in my life, how would it be possible to become an alcoholic given that?”
You must be a hardcore alcoholic if you had to abstain for that long.
I suppose there’s no way for me to actually know if I’d be particularly susceptible to addiction from it or not, never having tried it
Yeah, same here. I was just making a joking advocatus diaboli argument.
I need some alcohol at least once per month.
Well clearly given your decision, your mother drank with you in the womb and you had fetal alcohol syndrome. Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.
Checkmate, atheists.
Only acoholics actually need to try to convince others that they aren’t alcoholics. Nobody goes up to a person on the street to start aggressively asking if they have a drinking problem.
Any serious questions about how alcohol is affecting your life will quickly demonstrate whether it is is or isn’t a problem, without you ever saying that you don’t have a drinking problem.
Sounds like you have a drinking problem…
I don’t have a drinking problem. I drink, I get drunk, I fall down, no problem!
Seriously, the drinking part isn’t the problem, it’s the not drinking that’s hard for me
The last time i got drunk was two months ago. The time before that was back in January.
Methinks thou doth protest too much.
The last time you remember getting drunk.
It’s because denial is part of being an alcoholic. The same goes with being called a liar.
Nuh uh!
Except when it’s not. I so much hate this rhetoric. You know what? You can freely think that I am one, and I genuinely think I’m not. If you think that I am one, that’s your problem, not mine. That’s why OP’s question is so hard to answer. Because everybody is just parroting this rhetoric.
And “you are clearly an alcoholic” comments in 3, 2, 1…
You can freely think that I am one, and I genuinely think I’m not. If you think that I am one, that’s your problem, not mine.
I mean that’s exactly the issue lol. You might not be an alcoholic, but if you were there’s a solid chance you’d deny that fact.There is a good reason why parts of the 12 step program involve admitting and recognizing that there is a problem, and it’s not limited to alcoholism but substance abuse in general.
A lot of people who genuinely need help refuses to see or admit that they do.
If someone has problem x but doesn’t want others to know about it, how would they behave?
If someone didn’t have problem x and didn’t want others to think they did, how would they behave?
And most importantly, how would you differentiate between the two cases? Don’t just stop after the first question.
In both cases I think they would deny it.
I don’t have a solution for the 2nd situation (and I don’t think anyone really does), this is more of a social problem. The point I’m making is that in the first scenario there is a clear pattern of denial for those who need help.
In terms of how you differeniate it, my understanding is if the behavior is impacting your life negatively then you would seek help. But I’m not an expert and that’s not a problem we are solving here.
The same goes with being called a liar.
Every statement I make is a lie.
I believe you!
I am actually incapable of lying
It’s pretty easy, actually. I drink around twice a month. No one could credibly accuse me of alcoholism.
Exactly what an alcoholic would say
Notice how they didn’t say how many drinks? I bet its the wildest bender each time, black out drunk, ends up in the drunk tank type situation, so they tell themselves, I need to stop, and they last a week or two and then it happens again, because theyre an alcoholic
I am glad your recovery is going well
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Yeah I’m going to have to agree. I’m an alcoholic myself and this is a problematic way of living with it. Moderation seldom works for alcoholics as it is and by putting your choice to drink on someone else’s offerings seems to just be a way to escape any blame should it end in full relapse.
Everybody’s journey is different though so I’m not going to judge. But at no point was I able to stop drinking until I straight stopped drinking. As they say “one drink is too much and a hundred isn’t enough.”
You may be surprised at the spectrum of human experience. Among those for whom drinking becomes a problem at some point in their life, a substantial majority are actually able to moderate or regulate their drinking, either on their own or with limited support. There are a subset of problem drinkers who absolutely cannot do this though, and those for whom a single drink can send them spiralling.
I’m not saying what that other guy is doing is smart, but like you said, everybody’s journey is different
Problem drinking and alcoholism aren’t the same though. 9 out of 10 excessive drinkers aren’t alcohol dependent. So yeah, while many people who at some point have a problem with drinking can learn to moderate without future issues, I don’t know if most of them would fall into the alcohol dependency category.
That’s kind of the issue though. There is no distinction in the eyes of the public, many in the medical field, and even those in recovery themselves.
According to one of the questionnaires about being an alcoholic I saw in college. Every single college student was an alcoholic if they ever took a drink.
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When I replied, you didn’t have all of that info in there. Good for you though, if it works then great!
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Anyway I'm going to keep drinking the single beverage my life partner brings me at parties like I have for a few years now.I couldn’t help but picture something like that 😂
https://i.etsystatic.com/18683762/r/il/66b5ce/2308457836/il_570xN.2308457836_ln5y.jpg
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Can I try to gently press that a little?
I would feel awful if I found out I had been enabling someone’s alcoholism, especially if they only allowed it because they trusted me and I offered them drinks. I have ADHD and autism, so I understand making yourself hard and fast rules to avoid having to make your own self control (I’m not saying that’s definitely what you’re doing).
Could you perhaps try gradually increasing the rules one by one so that in the end there’s basically no scenario in which you drink? I’m talking: a trusted person offers it to you; it’s a weekend; it’s nice weather out; your whole house is clean; you’ve got extra cash; you ate healthy that day; you are already in a good mood; your beloved (hopefully incapable, for this situation) sports team has won; you talked to two relatives that day, etc. I’m not a therapist, but that works for me. The problem is when I mess up- my rules are great for keeping me out of trouble, but they make me spiral if/when I do break them. You might have to figure out a combination of zero tolerance for “mistakes” and allowing yourself to make actual mistakes without spiraling.
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I literally just threw up. I feel better now though.
Oh hey I threw up last night. Shnaps sucks.
That’s the neat part. You can basically start over after a good throwing up.
Honestly I was better afterwards, but I think I’m good on booze for a while
That’s exactly what a fuckin boozer would say, also.
Although… I’ve been drinking since about October o’clock… so, what the fuck would I know about it, anyways.
(I say: they can stop anytime you want me to.)
Cheers!
I’ll drink to that?
I dodged it as a youth, no point starting it now.
I don’t think there’s that sort of age restriction, you can start any time!
“I have about three drinks a week and get drunk maybe once or twice a year. I’d say I’m the picture of moderation, but I’m not really concerned with how you feel about my drinking habits.”
