RE: Speaker Meeting 2017! Chapter 3: Alcohol
I never got the appeal of AA. After reading what its about and some of the people I've know that have been in it, it just seems like its a constant worry in your life that teaches you not to learn to let go.
It seems more of a way to keep you tied to religion than anything else.
Even the creator of AA bailed out of it. Especially after seeing how the therapeutic value of LSD could help a lot of people suffering from alcohol addiction. But that wasn't good enough for AA.
Nothing has even come close to LSD for getting people to stop drinking and if AA really cared about alcohol addiction this would be one venue that they would be pushing hard for.
Instead you should have to give yourself up to some higher power which already makes you think that you don't have it in you to overcome your problems. I think they have a lot of horrible logic, and I look at them as if they were an organization for depression how absolutely horrible the things they say are.
As someone who attended anonymous fellowship meetings I have mixed opinions, thankfully there are other options for recovery these days (that don't involve LSD... LSD never stopped me drinking, it was just another interesting way to oblivion), but it was the support from fellowship members that brought me to a place of abstinence from which I was able to explore the other options, there may be some funky belief systems going on but their is genuine understanding and support which is at the heart of it.
LSD was not an only option to recovery, it def won't work on everyone and just taking LSD isn't a way to get over alcoholism even though for many people that's exactly what its done. I wasn't an alcoholic but after taking LSD I cut down my alcohol usage to only 1-2 times a year, all it took was my first LSD trip to see what shit drug alcohol and what it did to a lot of people .
I know a test was done again in 2012 were almost 60% of alcoholics improved after LSD usage. Plus who knows how high that number could be (or possibly drop) once therapy and other outlets can be used in conjunction with LSD. It may seem like the way you took LSD was not one of a positive way or looking to use it to open yourself up to a healing experience.
I just really hate that AA tells you that your powerless..what a horrible mindset to start off with. To me its the start of gaining power and control over an individual. I could see 100% where a social support system would help you, social connections can help people improve themselves in all types of situations.
I hope your doing much better now with everything and whatever you have going on , if its working for you,thats awesome. I just wouldn't want you or others to think that you have zero power over alcohol and the only way to become better is to believe a magical nonexistent being that is never there to talk to you.
God was never there to get you through it, but it sure seems like your friends were.
So I agree on many levels, being encouraged to accept you have a disease and being told to accept you are powerless are extremely self defeating and I feel it's time to move away from these concepts. On the subject of concepts, you seem to speak of 'God' from a conceptual point of view, there are thousands of different names for 'God' and just as many cultural, religious or spiritual dogmas about this essential nature of existence and unfortunately what they are intended to point to gets lost in concepts, let's just say consciousness in beyond conceptualisation.
The LSD thing may well hold some water, as I understand it the brain activity of a person after having had a non-dual spiritual awakening bares similarities to the brain activity while on LSD, an opening of the mind in sorts and a change in the area of the brain responsible for 'self, a shift in perception and becoming one with everything 'oneness'.
As far as the steps go it states "we admitted we 'were'powerless (over addiction ect)" having no control over a behavior could be deemed as powerlessness, perhaps the power returns in our favor on learning how not to act on compulsion, however, it could be argued that life just happens and any ideas that we have control over anything is illusionary.
I think recovery from addictions is a wholly holistic affair of mind, body and spirit (is this spirit similar to 'God'?)
To be honest I do have my own negative bias towards many religions so thats why the God thing really poked at me for a bit, and the people that I talked to about AA really dug the whole God thing into it as God was the answer even though they couldn't really give me any explanation as to why God has been of any help. ALthough if it helps, if there is a God I do believe that we are all part of a piece of him..kinda like cells in a body.
I still don't believe the powerless thing. I"m looking at this from a USA viewpoint, and alcohol is EVERYWHERE. I mean have you ever taken the time in a day to see how many times you see alcohol? I really feel horrible for people trying to just rid themselves of drinking it cause it's like no escape.. You see it in sports, ads, movies, cartoons, videos, magazines, celebrations, facebook,instagram, celebrations,events, social gatherings.. in another way too I also view getting over an addiction not needing to be 100% sober, but just having the substance no longer having control over you which from what I read AA makes it seem like thats impossible. I've known a couple of alcoholics that totally stopped for a while but now they can have a beer or two and just have a normal night and really just drink when they want to if its an event or whatever.
I know once I stopped drinking I basically lost all my social life and friends. And then theres the people using it to forget about their problems,stress from work and its just legal and accepted everywhere so something that you end up liking can turn bad depending on your lifestyle.
However I really do agree with alot of what your saying even though it may not seem like it..cause some peoples brains just have that instant addiction to alcohol just like any other drugs and then theres the people that shouldn't even be touching a drip of alcohol.. I had 3 close friends that were like that, 2 of them dead now and 1 went to AA and didn't help him a single bit.
I may also have my own narrowminded viewpoint on this cause whenever I hear someone wanting to get help it seems that 100% of the time AA seems to be the only answer to alcoholism when there is so much more.
Though one religion I truly believe can help with addiction is actually something like Buddhism. More so the philosophy on life and how to treat yourself,others and how to look at life itself.
I like your point about all cells in the same body. I just wrote a post yesterday about how we need to stop hating and realize we are leaves of the same tree one conciousness
I use a method called "natural rest" developed by Scott Kiloby, it's based on Advita Vedanta or contemporary non-duality self-inquiry methods.
I've never heard of that..now I'll have to check it out, sounds interesting!