Dear Mr. SponsorPants,
I found your blog while I was Googling a question about being court ordered to AA meetings. I've been to some (4) and the people are friendly but some of them have been in AA a long time. Why can't people stop going to AA if you haven't drank in a long time?
Just Wondering
Dear Just Wondering,
There are a couple of flip answers I could give you, and while they would make this snappy and fun to read, I'm going to treat your question with the respect it deserves, since for someone unfamiliar with AA it is a perfectly logical question.
Speaking for myself -- which is what people in AA try to do (even if we aren't always good at making that clear) -- I believe that not going to AA meetings would be a very dangerous idea for me, as an alcoholic. And here's why:
AA suggests that alcoholism as a disease has three parts to it: Spiritual, Physical and Mental.
In answering your question I want to focus on just the physical and the mental.
The physical part is that when I drink I am unable to guarantee that I will stop -- that there's an actual physical reaction in my body to alcohol that triggers a compulsion to continue drinking. In other words I do not have the ability to control or modulate how much I drink once I start. And then, as usually happens when people are blind drunk, stuff happens. And if you're blind drunk a lot, generally the stuff that happens is not good -- and often goes from not good to bad, and then from bad to worse. Drunks can have bursts of genius or productivity, that's true, but on a consistent basis most of us do not do well over time. It's called a "progressive disease" because, in general, as the drinking escalates our lives -- sometimes just our inner lives, but usually the whole mess -- deteriorates. (Not a lot of Nobel Peace Prize Winners got their recognition from going on a series of benders, for example.)
This was very true in my case. When I drank things got bad.
The mental part of the disease of alcoholism is that no matter what, or how bad, things got when I drank, I couldn't really remember with enough clarity that that's what happened when I drank -- or I was unable to perceive that it was the drinking which was a major factor in those bad things happening -- or I would tell myself that I didn't care, or it didn't matter (when it really, really did) -- or some other thing, which, when compared to what happened when I drank, was crazy.
In other words, no matter what happened when I drank, eventually the idea of drinking looked ok for me to do again.
I'm going to make a very gross example to illustrate this idea:
If every time I had a cup of coffee I experienced immediate and explosive diarrhea, it would only take me a few bouts of this cause-and-effect to connect the fact that a mug of java meant a messy and humiliating episode. No matter how fresh the coffee, or who made it or how good it smelled or where I was or if someone else was buying, or how tired I was or how many people around me were drinking it, I would take one look and think, "Man, I do NOT want to have to jump up and run to the bathroom and clean up and change my shorts again just from having that cup of coffee." I would always easily remember that drinking coffee = a one-way ticket to sail on the U.S.S. Poo.
(I think getting from there all the way to the "poop deck" joke is too far for too little payoff, don't you?)
When I drink my whole life gets messy shorts.
But without AA, eventually I forget, and think that having a drink is a good idea. So for me, continuing to go to meetings has nothing to do with how long it's been since I've had a drink, and everything to do with helping me remember what happens when I do.
That, and helping other people who come to AA get the same help I have gotten.
Sometimes people wind up getting arrested for drunk driving and court ordered to AA through a set of unlucky circumstances. And sometimes this happens to them because they may have a problem with alcohol. Only you can decide which might apply in your case.
But I urge you to approach your sentence seriously, and AA with an open mind -- since doing those two things can help you see what's true for you.
Good luck!
Mr. SponsorPants
"Not a lot of Nobel Peace Prize Winners got their recognition from going on a series of benders, for example."
IMHO, this is probably not the best example to use.
Nobel Peace Prize winners, yes, however:
Fully 5 of the 7 American Nobel Laureates in Literature were active alcoholilcs (think Faulkner, Fitzgerald). Many Pulitzer prize winners were also alcoholics, btw.
Another one is Kary Mullis, who is well known for his love of LSD and other hallucinogens and went so far as to claim that had it not been for LSD he never would have discovered the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) for which he won the Nobel Prize in Medicine.
I'm not trying to insinuate that alcohol can help one win a Nobel Prize, but clearly, there have been alcoholics who were very high achievers.
Posted by: ME | February 21, 2011 at 08:06 AM
I'm glad you spoke in the first person Mr. SP. However, a lot of people DO leave AA after a stretch of sober time and remain sober.
Cori
Posted by: Cori | February 21, 2011 at 08:34 AM
"I would always easily remember that drinking coffee = a one-way ticket to sail on the U.S.S. Poo."
Again, I think this is an unconvincing analogy.
What you are illustrating is a fairly straightforward cost/benefit analysis. In this example, the costs of coffee (explosive diarrhea) clearly outweigh the benefits (i.e. a mild stimulant action and a tasty beverage).
The *perceived* benefits from alcohol, though, are far greater than those of coffee--it provides the user an ability to ignore life's problems for some amount of time. Moreover, once a person becomes alcohol dependent, the brain equates continued usage as being elemental for survival. In this instance, the cost/benefit analysis is skewed so far towards usage that the analysis is no longer rational.
Put more succinctly, because the psychogenic action of coffee is so limited, it is easy to be rational about its use and discontinuation if necessary. This is not the case for alcohol and other drugs.
But you know that....
Posted by: ME | February 21, 2011 at 09:23 AM
May I engage in a little cross-talk?
Despite what the other commenters say, your point is what's important, not how you get it across. Without regular attendance at meetings it is difficult to remember it is not our friend.
Posted by: Ivan Toblog | February 21, 2011 at 11:04 AM
Bravo Mr. SP!
When anyone anywhere reaches out for help I want the hand of AA to be there. And for that I am responsible.
regardless of how much sober time I have.
Posted by: Ms. Sponsorpanties | February 21, 2011 at 11:07 AM
Wow. What an interesting bunch we have here. Pesonally, I applaud your attempt to explain the threefold disease and two of the best reasons why we keep coming back.
Please don't be discouraged by those who poopoo your simple analogies (oh yes--pun intended!), my friend. We all forget to keep it simple sometimes, but you didn't. It made sense to me!
I'm afraid I am one of those who unfortunately has been educated far beyond what my intelligence can handle, but this one thing is true:
The more I learn
The less I know!
Posted by: Bobby D. | February 23, 2011 at 08:08 PM