Thanks! I was curious enough to buy the book and have been reading it, so I can provisionally answer questions.
At least for alcoholism, there's genetic variation in how different individuals metabolize ethanol. There's interplay between that and the less well-understood genetic influences on personality, so things are not clear cut. But there's a variation in response to alcohol between individuals that's independent of personality.
Tangentially, let me remark that there's also a lot of variation in how individuals metabolize nicotine, though as far as I know that variation hasn't been clearly associated with tobacco addiction.
Tangentially, my xfit coach mentioned something about "methylation" and athletic training, and so I googled it, and methylation is clearly the latest hocus-pocus buzzword in the land of sportsology and fitnessistry.
I wish I could be cured of the cynicism that wonders whether the prevalence of addiction has swelled with the number of studies and treatment plans.
Re. alcoholism I think it was here, but maybe it was somewhere else there was an article discussing how yes, there are genetic differences in how people metabolize alcohol, but those differences weren't predictive of alcoholism in the ways you would expect--for example, Native Americans have disproportionately high rates of alcoholism, and forever everyone took for granted that this was in part because of some over-represented genetic predisposition, but turns out nope.
Anyway, I think "disentang[ling] self-medicating one's misery using drugs and alcohol from actually being chemically dependent on the drugs or alcohol" is a useful starting point, but I'd also guess those states are points on a continuum annnnnd also there are like six other relevant continua which will only be revealed once we hack our way out of The Simulation.
Could you be cured by data? That seems like an answerable question.
Also though "That's why, when my health teacher said that peer pressure could push you to take drugs, what I heard instead was: 'Drugs will make you cool,'" hard yes, and I'm still not sure that's not the actual content of that warning.
There are lots of processes that add a methyl group to either DNA, to particular histone residues, or elsewhere. It's an interesting topic, very broad. About like saying genetics while ramping up the spin or whatever it is those people/you people do.
4. is an argument for the existence of a healthcare mode that supports widespread cheap rudimentary treatment, somehow integrated with existing specialized treatment. Addiction as mental illness is an expensive prospect in the US. So, to treat the epidemic of addiction borne of despair that's actually visible in demographics, we as a country simply need to have a reasonable conversation about reforming the healthcare system.
The author may be mildly guilty of romanticizing drug use in her book.
Native Americans have disproportionately high rates of alcoholism, and forever everyone took for granted that this was in part because of some over-represented genetic predisposition, but turns out nope.
Indeed (your comment just reminded me: I knew I'd learned that myself somewhat recently).
Anyway the thing that makes me extra wary about "these traits lead to addiction" is (1)the traits are imprecise, there are like 30 kinds of anxiety and loneliness which are you talking about, scientists??? (2) it really blends all addictions together, and I think different substances reliably ensnare personality types. Tell me what you are like and I will give you my uninformed opinion about what you might get addicted to!
AIPMALOB, the guy my high school brought in to talk to us about not doing drugs was a relatively recent alum. I can't remember what he said about drugs, but I remember him saying he was so smart that he was able to graduate high school while taking loads of drugs and that he was now in recovery. The effectiveness of this talk would have been nil but for the fact that the following week he was arrested while getting away from a bank robbery on a bicycle.
(Note: This was not one of those cases where using a bike enabled a better escape because of traffic and crowds. This was one of those cases where cops in cars catch up to you in 15 seconds on an open road.)
If they'd just shown me a slide show of intoxicated nerds and mocked them in eighth grade, me and the rest of the world probably would have been spared most of my 20s.
Man, all they had to say to me was "you could get arrested" and I was out. I was terrified of cops. My mom got pulled over for speeding once and I unhelpfully flipped my shit in the backseat.
The PCP parts of the DARE program definitely scared me off of PCP. PCP looks fucking terrifying!
I was effectively scared away from hallucinogens by the belief that I would be the one kid whose brain broke and who got stuck in snakeworld or whatever for the rest of her life.
15 were there a lot of opportunities to do PCP that you turned down? That's the real test.
Yes, that too. Plus seeing literal acid casualties around (now, given Unfogged, I am sure that someone will show up and assure us that acid casualties don't exist).
18 to 16. To 17, I think someone joked about a joint being "wet" once. That was about it.
I wonder if the "abstinence only" educators aren't missing their most effective approach by not making the course all about Trump and maybe Dov Charney.
18 ugh yes eg. Crazy Paul in Central Park. Why were we hanging OUT with him, he was like 50 and his name was Crazy Paul.
"Girls, this is sex. Old men with horrible or criminal personalities."
They could still tell lies about sex if they really want to, but I'm just saying why pass on the portion of truth that helps their case?
Sorry, I should have clarified that "where is the lie tho" was being employed in its tumblr usage.
These conversations always make me nostalgic for drugs and youth and the sense of infinite freedom.
I remember the night I got kicked out of a club in Chicago for being sleepy and grumpy, but 100% sober (not a good idea to snap at the bouncer; I also left my hat & gloves behind and couldn't retrieve them). As I headed home shivering on the bus, I thought: I have gotten in so much trouble in college without drinking, far more than people who "don't remember their college years." What was the point of abstaining again? But I suppose it would have been a worse catastrophe with drugs and alcohol in the picture... terrifying thought.
The dopamine chapter of the book was interesting, and the cocaine-addiction endgame where it's not remotely enjoyable but the cravings continue until you go into rehab: I kept trying to tease apart all the described components of that experience and reassemble them into something I recognized from my own life. It all seemed very familiar.
These conversations always make me nostalgic for drugs and youth and the sense of infinite freedom Crazy Paul.
17: totes yes. I several times turned down blunts with PCP and...formaldehyde or something?
to the more general topic on which I have so many fascinating opinions to share which will fascinate you. I think there are some people who just chance into getting wasted a lot because their friends do also, and eventually become dependent. by far the greatest majority of alcoholics/addicts had shitty, miserable childhoods in which all the adults were also wasted alcoholics/addicts with infinite recursion shitty childhoods. feeling anxious and hopeless just plain are, in themselves, a great reason to get shitfaced.
OT: ugh you guys my poor mom wanted to take us out for a treat to elizabeth arden, one day after her chemo, and the lady took FOUR FUCKING HOURS to highlight/dye her hair, and also turned the whole head a brassy tragic tone that could have been achieved at 1/20th the cost and 1/8 the time by buying "mahogany red" clairol dye from CVS. I feel so badly for her. she's exhausted and the thing that was supposed to be a treat was a miserable disaster.
more on topic: my sister and mom are going to the UK/italy in a short while and my sister's doctor won't give her any additional pain meds to travel with. none. just like, I hope you enjoy withdrawal in foreign lands! my mom also can't get any new pills although they are giving her patches. WTF I hate this puritanical bullshit. my mom is literally about to die and they care that she might be getting high once ever in theory? makes me want to go shopping in baltimore is what. I can give them all of my meds that I can, but it's still bullshit.
That's awful (the hair) and more awful (the stupid pain management regime). Can you improve the color with soothing in-house applications of cheap dye? Any chance a five-year-old bottle of 30 Vicodin might help?
"disentang[ling] self-medicating one's misery using drugs and alcohol from actually being chemically dependent on the drugs or alcohol"
This is so hard to disentangle. My Dad started smoking and drinking at age 12, because his best friend did (and that friend died in his 40's of cirrhosis), and he always said that it was the first time he felt normal. So, yeah, he was self medicating his problems and the pain of having a severely depressed mother, but eventually he became chemically dependent.
And he has some kind of mild bipolar thing, because he's definitely gotten "high", gotten extra energy and done impulsive things.
Damn, I wish that there were better pharmacotherapy for alcoholism. I don't know whether the rates are going up. Either way, it's a horrible thing to live with.
It's nice that they told you about the PCP at least. IM idiot E, it was something dealers would dust cheap weed with to... make it stronger? But in a terrible way? Never like, hey, check out this cool feature of this joint.
The pain med stuff makes me ragey, sorry, ugh.
I do wonder about skips-a-generation alcoholism--I had a perfectly lovely childhood but my mom had the kind described in 30, and somehow I managed to turn into exactly the sort of twister of drunken desperation you would have expected my mom's childhood, not mine, to create. Is it some epigenetic fetal alcohol exposure phenomenon or some other intergenerational trauma or just shitty luck? Or none of these!
In MA first time opiod prescriptions for non-cancer patients are only 7 days. At the hospital I work at, they'll only give out 28 days worth, because they want people to come back, and don't want anyone to run out on a weekend. Individual docs don't really have a choice in the matter.
23: Giiiiiiirl.
But in serious response to later comments, yes, there's research being done on epigenetics and predispositions to addiction. I should start keeping up with it better since my children have genetic and situational markers for bad stuff down the line, but for now I'm mostly focusing on current bad stuff that I can mostly keep away from them.
35: Same here. My grandfather was an abusive alcoholic; my mom drinks two glasses of wine a night, except when she doesn't. I, however, latched on to booze like mother's milk. It's a thing.
I abused alcohol for a couple years without being an alcoholic (at least this is how I think of it)--was drinking to extreme drunkenness most nights, which made my actual depression meds not work, which made alcohol the only thing to take away the pain. In an effort to save my marriage, I agreed to not drink for a year and go to some meetings (I tried a non-12-steps-thing called Lifering, but most of the attendees were halfway house residents looking for an hour out of the residences rather than people I could relate to in any way, my one experience attending an actual AA meeting was similar).
Anyway, when the marriage went officially down the shitter, I took up drinking again and discovered that I'm fine with it--I just try not to get shitfaced (can't say I haven't slipped here and there) and for the most part to keep it to 1-2 drinks a night. And I'm totally fine, alcohol-wise. I've been situationally removed form a lot of the stressors (shitty job, marriage in the process of exploding) and I don't drink enough often enough to impact my depression meds' functionality. REALLY glad to not have physical alcohol dependency as an issue--the simulacrum I experienced was bad enough.
All that said--I'm toying with the idea of trying kratom. Legal in my state, not tested for on employment drug screens, and might be an interesting high. Is this dumb? Possibly. Or it could be a lot of fun!
Yeah I'm sure there's something too it somehow thought I try to avoid thinking about it in those terms because there's no potentially therapeutic or healing upshot, ok, my grandparents were unpleasant in the 60s, whatever, I really could have just not acted like an asshole except for no I couldn't have but also yes I could.
I, however, latched on to booze like mother's milk.
Somebody gave my father-in-law a beer mug shaped like a breast. His wife threw it away.
You guys are going to the wrong AA meetings; I kept going for celebrity sightings long after I was otherwise pretty checked out. I mean I guess you want a nice mix of newscasters and people eating their own scabs to experience the full anarchic glory. Ugh I should go back it was great.
Don't get me wrong--everyone was very nice and supportive and non-dismissive. It's just their problems weren't my problems--there was nothing of value to be gained.
Grad school induces situational alcoholism, because most social events involve drinking and there's a lot of heavy social pressure to drink a lot. Also my sub-discipline has this stupid macho side that requires serious performative drinking if you want to be "one of the boys." I've had two day hangovers from conference receptions, and at one annual conference I got black out drunk at a professional-event hotel room party and ended up sleeping on a professor's bed, with the professor and someone else (all fully clothed and on top of the covers), something that is considered delightful-hi jinks, not dangerously unprofessional.
15
I had an unconventional health class because the teacher, a working-class Irish-Catholic guy, was not into puritanical bullshit, but he did warn us very vividly about the dangers of PCP. To this day I have never had the remotest urge to try it.
Also the pain med thing sucks. It's too bad we can't have a reasonable policy that weighs quality of life and overall risk/harm management instead of blanket policies.
When I was in grad school, everybody else was lightweights.
I think my father, who is 85 drinks more than I do. This worries me for two reasons, one of which I explain away by reminding myself that I have to work.
Yeah I think I had the fortune to get sober in a place where there were always meetings all over filled with cute guys, which was value enough for me for a while. Until I learned that they weren't supposed to mess around with you if you had been sober for less than a year, which I was FURIOUS about.
I was also furious when I announced my first anniversary and wasn't just like, SWARMED by swains who had been gallantly restraining themselves until that point. Anyway though now it's been a million years.
ANOTHER thing I am furious about is the norms in 46 first which somehow mysteriously always end up being a lot less damaging for the men in those environments hmmmm.
Check back periodically for even more things I'm furious about!
at one annual conference I got black out drunk at a professional-event hotel room party and ended up sleeping on a professor's bed, with the professor and someone else (all fully clothed and on top of the covers), something that is considered delightful-hi jinks, not dangerously unprofessional.
Academia is so fucked up. Seriously.
51
Yeah. Though at least in fairness to my subdiscipline, that particular act made me "one of the boys," not potential rape fodder. I've heard hair raising stories about the older generation from one of my committee members, who told us (over drinks, of course), that one very eminent scholar basically made his female grad students all sleep with him. My committee member hates this guy so I take it with a bit of a grain of salt, but I don't doubt there's a lot of truth to it.
Though at least in fairness to my subdiscipline, that particular act made me "one of the boys," not potential rape fodder.
Not actually any better, as of course you know.
52
I think this extreme isn't that common across the board. (Actually I should maybe take that back, I've heard stories about political theorists and absinthe...)
At the first event where I got black out drunk I ended up stabbing a guy while playing a knife game (we call it mumbly peg, but wikipedia calls it stabscotch or pinfinger).* Then I got a reputation for being someone not to mess with.
*Normally we use plastic knives because we are not actually crazy, but this guy wanted me to use a switch-blade.
Yeah, see, there are other professions where you don't have to literally stab a guy for people to not mess with you.
Clerics use clubs, because they aren't supposed to draw blood.
58
Yeah, and this is definitely mostly true in my own discipline, but the macho current runs deep, and drinking to excess and stabbing people all give you cred, especially as a feminine-looking woman.
There's a strong hipster-y trend in our discipline that sort of rose up in opposition to the macho one,, and (ironically?), it's there that most of the sexual skeeviness seems to happen. In my little corner, you're a bro or you're just not on the radar, but over there I've seen much older visiting speakers hitting on female grad students, and I've had friends who've "dated" really famous academics and other much older more powerful professors.
But re 53 what if you didn't want to go along with the chill fun times in 46 because you were like "uhhhh thanks guys, but this plan sounds like it would make a compelling beginning to a personal essay about rape on campus," would you have been a Total Wet Blanket for the rest of your time in the program? Maybe not. I just think there are a lot fewer ways--and no reliable ways--for women to turn that kind of culture to their advantage; not so for men.
I say all this as someone who can still be very easily drawn in by the promise that doing whatever will make her One of the Boys. Or ok maybe I've gotten better, but like in the last year.
Academia is messed up and there are tons of horror stories, and yet I personally do not have a single horror story. I was also not a success. I don't know how related these two facts are. (I could pointlessly muse about how personally repellent I am -- I've been told this in kinder terms by people close to me-- but... really, is that what it was? Or was it all luck that begat more luck? We've had that convo before and I didn't have any answers then either.)
Book report update: I didn't know anything about Synanon before reading this. Holy shit. (Really, I know nothing whatsoever about drugs, I've never even seen a drug, it's literally true that my mother, a senior citizen, knows more about street drugs than I do.)
And Thorn, for whatever it's worth, Szalavitz seems to think that there's a huge addiction-risk window in adolescence and, for most people, getting past that without succumbing means they're good to go thereafter. The interesting twist in her personal story is that she's autistic, and she talks about how good a fit it was for her to be a coke dealer socially: she always had a reason to interact with people or go to parties, she could take obsessive care dealing with the merchandise, it was all both soothing and exciting.
66: I'm not actually extra worried about it, but I read lists like the ones quoted in the main post and just think "JFC, one MORE thing to worry about and deal with?" but of course it's something we'll deal with and it will be fine. We've already talked about drug and alcohol misuse for self-medicating purposes and they understand the downsides because they've seen it, etc. I was just going through one of my vaguely glum stages, but then they all slept through the night and woke easily and happily and I'm not so bothered anymore.
My frickin' Venezuelan coworker had people over for a couple drinks last night. Its midnight, people are all set to leave, and he busts out the personal reserve rum. Like, the label on the bottle had his name on it.
Good rum, but fuck, I shouldn't be hung over on a work day.
Fortunately, my boss was there, and should be in much worse shape than I am this morning.
Anyway, I haven't read this book, but I've enjoyed the others of hers I've read (her stuff with Bruce Perry and the one about the troubled teen industry, maybe others I'm not remembering) and suspect it would be a rewarding and easy read.
The idea that there is an addiction-risk window in adolescence and then you are more or less home free sounds wrong to me. At least I'd guess there are several windows over the course of a life, and actually the people who are prone in adolescence and the people who are prone later are not necessarily the same people. The evidence for this conclusion is My Feelings.
71 sounds righter than 66 from my anecdotal, but I assumed the latter was mostly from a parenting perspective. Maybe not, now that I reread it.
I actually used to attach very strongly to the idea in 66--I knew there was alcoholism in my family so maybe I was prone, but I got through the binge drinking and various recklessnesses of college with plenty of problematic behavior but without an obvious addiction and I was like, welp, if it were going to happen it would have. Then my brain was like SYYYYKE, you're totally an alcoholic let me show you.
I would think in the era of post-opioid-prescription heroin addiction, 66 wouldn't be taken as a safe assumption anymore.
I do kind of wonder to what extent traumatic injuries or distressing diagnoses are triggers for addiction whether or not opiates end up being prescribed.
75
My totally uninformed guess is that they play a big role, but it's hard to generalize about, so it gets overlooked in much of the literature. Also, there's situational depression, and situational addiction makes sense.
Also reading this and all the "each teen is hooked on Adderall now" articles, uppers are TERRIBLE, what is WRONG with everyone.
It would be easy to generalize about if we could randomly traumatize people.
Now the Moby pun program finally becomes clear!
It's not random if I do it to everyone I met.
We need funding to pay somebody willing to not traumatize every other person.
The argument the book rests on -- of which, as I say, I am skeptical, but intrigued by it anyway -- is that addiction is "a learning disorder" and therefore not very responsive to harsh punishments. The claim about adolescence is a claim about developmental stages, and how drugs take advantage of the adolescent surges in risk-seeking and acceptance-seeking, which are tendencies most people outgrow in their most extreme teenage forms by their mid-20s. Her evidence seems to draw a lot on her own experience and appeals to common sense. I believe it's true in some cases, but like the rest of you I'm doubtful that it's anything anyone can bank on.
From my own experience, this pathological procrastination has been part of life for me from college on, and always much worse when I'm lonely and poorly focused on larger goals. (During my last year in high school, when I had a solid circle of friends and was knocking myself out to finish early and get into a bunch of colleges, I was like a well-oiled machine.) As far as the virtues of harshness go, it's striking to me how my extremely kind and supportive team at work has not cured the problems (alas) but has done me a whole lot more good than harsh consequences would have: I think I've continued to learn and improve, and have learned how to deal constructively with local failures rather than curling up in a ball, and they seem content with my work when it's not late. I'm still on the fence about whether it was good for me to get kicked out of college for a year and a half. At this point, all a wash, but still.
If this is a humblebrag, it's a very dumb unimpressive one, but I've got the opposite of a predisposition to addiction - my body fights my ability to drink or ingest even minimal amounts of anything. When I started drinking as a teenager, there was a year or so where my first few sips of beer would make me throw up, which I'd do discreetly, and then resume drinking. I always got hangovers semi-regularly, even in the college years, and I can't stand that feeling, and also it gives me insomnia, and so now I pretty much always stop drinking a couple hours before going to bed so that I'll go to bed sober. I'm a blast.
Didn't someone post something recently about how (relatively) easy it is for people who are well-off to "outgrow" their addictions compared to what it takes to do that in poverty? I'm not sure how you tease out any of that stuff.
I take it that isn't the source of your nostalgia in 26?
83
It sounds like you are probably allergic to alcohol. Does your face get red easily when you drink?
I've heard the addiction as a learning disorder before, I am hmmmmmm about it, but that's also me reflexively thinking everyone is being imprecise and secretly normative. I do agree that harsh punishment isn't particularly effective. Though I don't know that it's EVER that effective for changing or deterring behavior, addiction aside.
Though I don't know that it's EVER that effective for changing or deterring behavior, addiction aside.
Yeah, that's the argument.
86: My face gets red easily when I drink. I don't think that necessarily means an allergy. It's just blood vessel dilating.
Well then cosign.
I dunno, while I was a sloppy youth, the real addiction roared out after I had a kid, which is I think more common than people realize and no theory I have read has shed any light on that experience. Basically, my nitpicking at theories of addiction comes from their failure to explain me to myself, which is everyone's only job.
Maybe more specifically: if you have a choice between harsh punishment for intoxication, harsh sobriety, and pleasant intoxication, you're going to be too miserable to make intelligent choices.
I do agree that harsh punishment isn't particularly effective.
What tends to be underestimated though is just how much time and enforced structure is needed to fix people. Delancey Street has a lot of success. IIRC their minimum stay is two years.
I think there's a big difference between "long term and rigorously structured" and "harsh."
89
I'm your case probably not, but it's also a marker of missing alcohol metabolizing enzymes. It's most common among East Asians and Ashkenazi Jews.
Immediate nausea, headache, and tachycardia are also symptoms.
I get delayed nausea when I drink, especially if I eat a bunch of wings and without the magic celery.
89
And aren't you also Irish? "Face gets red easily" should just a general condition of life then.
ANYWAY not exactly OT but I also have been thinking a lot about how I think the theraputic value of AA is almost like... political therapy, which all the "but is it science or maybe a cult" articles miss. (And I will remind you all again about the distinction between the recovery industry (creepy) and AA).
i have a LOT of problems with AA, and like I said don't really go anymore and am totally fine, but ALSO. It's this totally anarchic non-hierarchical consensus-based organization held together only by its participants' shared desperation, that almost shouldn't exist at all, but it does and burns fiercely away in this secret web of basements. Experiencing and participating in that is pretty powerful and transformative, and not an aspect of AA that I see spoken about a lot.
I also have these feelings about jury duty.
97
Sounds like you're def. allergic. Take a swig of pepto bismol before each drink and switch to only drinking Malibu Rum and you should be fine.
98 is also true. I can't even bluff in poker because I flush.
99.2: The portrayal of the AA community was my favorite part of Infinite Jest.
My favorite part is the part about the tennis stuff that happens in the first twenty pages.
Does AA still push that "higher power" shit? Because if so they can fuck right off. I've seen them break up a family with that.
103: That's as far as you read, right?
Eh, depends. IME for most people it just means "something other than my own conscious mind," but in any given NYC meeting there will also be like two girls into some Jungian stuff. A Jesus person will be in like every third meeting.
I know at least three sober people who identify their higher power as Dolly Parton, so there's that too.
99.1 reminds me a lot of Samuel Delany's Times Square Red, Times Square Blue argument about the benefits of cross-class (and cross-race) casual sex between gay men. I've tried to use that as a sort of guiding principle (not the sex part) in being involved in the church I really can barely even claim to attend at this point as well as the girls' families. There aren't many places with the cultural space to meet like that. Some BLM groups are probably managing it, I guess.
105: Actually, I skipped a bunch of that part also.
The stuff described in 108.1 is actually a very apt comparison.
108: Riding the bus serves that function for me, except, of course, I do my best to avoid ever talking to any one.
Is that why women were writing all that Kirk/Spock fiction?
111: Also no sexual encounters either, although I'm still hoping.
111 is not wrong (and not serious, I realize!) but there's something about navigating meaningful mutually respectful relationships that matters. Matters to me, anyway.
106 isn't a full answer to 104, either because I don't exactly know what "do they push it" means; there isn't an obvious "they."
I haven't really bothered to test the church/sex thing, but I'm not sure how much the tendency just about everyone there seems to have toward cheating while being in a supposedly serious relationship with the tendency just about everyone has to not sleep with white women. If Moby found me grant money that wouldn't count as sex work, right?
(Yesterday one church member had a facebook update that she's getting married and 20% of the comments were "I thought you and [Ex's Name] WERE married?" plus another woman going off on how there is no way she's spending $200 on a bridesmaid dress and shoes again. There are entertainment benefits beyond the more abstract ones about becoming a better person.)
My dad has written some about some AA succeess-- it works well (in the sense of being a thriving archipelago of like minded basements that helps many) in some countries but not in others. It's really helped him, despite his ambivalence wrt the higher power emphasis.
He suspects that the higher power stuff becomes unpalatable when people from sufficiently different religious backgrounds mix in the same group, among other pitfalls. Catholic and non-catholic coexistence does not seem like a winning combo in his experience.
The citywide queer youth group I attended in high school was by far the most diverse group of people I'd been part of up to that point.
For what it's worth I'm not arguing that spirituality in AA is innocuous, and I'm not interested in arguing that because I don't believe it. I'm saying the most radical and I'd even venture the most healing aspect of AA is its political dimension which is not something that gets a lot of attention, nor is it part of non-participants' perception of AA.
117 last is interesting, and sort of the opposite of my experience. Although think I spent my formative time in groups where the value was "don't tell other people they're doing God wrong, and if someone tells you that you are, tell them to fuck off." If you're starting from that baseline, seeing people come at spirituality differently, including rejecting it entirely, is inoffensive-to-helpful.
My dad's positive experience is I think similar. His less-positive experience, both direct and second-hand, maybe suggest that it's easier for some people to take that stance than others.
I fell like it's pretty uniquely American, would be curious to know where else it got traction/why. I do remember reading it did not take at all in Russia because you aren't going to candidly unburden yourself to anyone if you have a reasonable expectation everyone is spies.
I'm the reason Russia has so many alcoholics and no meetings.
123. I believe also in the UK. Apparently there are 6000 members in France. Not 0 but not a big number. Apparently 14000 Spanish-speaking groups in Mexico
My dad found Catholicism to be a problem in trying for an AA organisation in CZ, where there was a similar incentive not to share as other ostblock and soviet places.
123: would be interesting if there's a residual east/west German split in attendance.
That would be interesting. I'm also recalling it does ok in Central America and the Caribbean, but I might have made that up.
"My name is Belize and I have a problem."
126. Not one of the membership partitions enumerated here
The introducing oneself as an alcoholic does become reflexive when you're in front of groups at certain points. More than once I've caught myself saying something like "Hi, I'm Clytie and I'm an... uh, attorney."
No, but at least the time it happened in court it was relevant, though unnecessary and bizarre.
If it happens out of court, try saying "piano player in a brothel."
It needs to begin with a vowel, because "an"
129: huh. Thanks for looking into it!
our stabbiest commenter is right about everything. my experience of AA involves a radically diverse set of underlying faiths/varieties of atheism, so the higher power thing was basically fine. when both "the ocean" and "hanuman" are live possibilities it's hard to feel like people are hassling you about jeezus. american meetings involve the lord's prayer a lot and I find that a bit 'whaaaat'? I have lost my keys to the blog and neb or someone should send me some. I celebrated 10 years sober in june and 20 years off heroin in september. yay me.
Congratulations and adulations and conflagrations, as desired. Go multiples of ten! (Don't quit blogs this year just to start a new series.)
141: Congratulations, alameida, and remember the keys to the blog are always within you.
The password to the blog is "1234".
In william james "varieties of religious experience" there are a boatload of religious experiences concerning alcohol addiction and they often follow the AA pattern of hitting bottom. I don't think the religious aspect is one that AA came up with rather than codified.
Congrats, Al. Keep fighting the good fight.
AA pattern of hitting bottom
Why not grab?
OK, I declare 153 makes this a political thread.
Is it just me or is this not the craziest/most disgusting day yet in the Trump campaign.
Chronology:
Mike Pence on AM show(s) saying they have evidence in email debunking groping claims and it will come out in a few hours. (We'll get back to this at the end.)
Trump at rally:
1) Multiple defenses on accusations that are basically "I wouldn't hit that." (Believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you. Man.)
2) Implies the same for HRC: "She walks in front of me, you know. And when she walked in front of me, believe me, I wasn't impressed."
3) Tries to sort of threaten Obama: "He's talking about me like he knows me. I don't know him," Trump said. "He doesn't know me. And why doesn't some woman maybe come up and say what they say falsely about me? They could say it about him. They could say it about anybody."
And then the "evidence" comes out via the NY Post (it has to be what Pence is referring to). The man says he was sitting across from the accuser and contacted the Trump campaign because he was incensed by her account -- which is at odds with what he witnessed.
But a) he was 18/19 at the time, b) British, and c) he was this guy (NY Post even used the exact same photo). Whistleblower and former Conservative party activist Anthony Gilberthorpe says he provided child prostitutes for a sex and drugs party with top politicians. Some might recall the story. By all accounts he is a serial fabulist. And Kellyanne Conway et al are trying to defend/spin it...
I guess they are in just pure FUD mode; but my God. And I'm sure Pence is feeling pretty good about himself right now. And has this now passed some new threshold where the media will become much more openly contemptuous?
They sometimes recognize when they are being made to look too ridiculous (like the Birther announcement/hotel infomercial).
Per a tweep: If you had "GOP candidate rolls out pimp for gay pedophiles to rebut claim of sexual assault" in the headline pool, 2016 is your lucky year. (Although I would add "alleged" before "pimp.")
Oh, and crowds now yelling "lock her up!" about the People magazine accuser.
My wife is watching NBC and apparently they went back to Katy Tur right after bit on the evening news for her to say that they now had the Mike Pence-promised evidence. No details, and they clearly hadn't googled or looked at Twitter. I do think the utter craziness of this one will actually piss them off a bit. (and here you thought Airline Armrest trutherism was going to set the benchmark).
Good heavens, I was going to post "this is a no-Trump zone" after 153 and then decided it was too silly -- but nothing is too silly. Can't the consolation prize on November 9th be that Elon Musk shoots the man off in a rocket to Mars? Glory beyond human measure! Much bigger than the presidency! Bigger than the planet!
153 might have been the fault of a guy I know. Sorry.
Oh, and he also went with: In just about all cases, it's nonsense, it's false.
Sorry. I just found it t obe a bit more surreal than usual today.
I'm probably being too literal, but have they verified that that guy was actually on the same flight? How would he theoretically remember that she was lying, and not just conclude that he wasn't on that flight?
I mean, I know I'm barking up a very stupid tree.
If you can't take a retired pimp at his word, what's the world come to?
163: NO! They haven't verified one fucking thing of course. The guy is a serial fabulist. Notorious in England, Was 18 or 19 a the time, Claimed he has a "photographic memory."
Beyond pathetic.
An utter humiliation for Mike Pence--if the fucking moron fucks of the fucking moron media don't at least point that out fuck 'em...
(And as someone tweeted in my timeline, the only flights from 30+ years ago you would remember would be ones where the plane crashed or ones on which you were sexually molested.)
This is 7th grader makes up a fake book he read for his book report stuff.
I await the input of the kniifecrimers tomorrow morning after they awaken from their various debauches.
And of course Trump's own response has been to claim that these women are too ugly for him to have assaulted.
"A witness has been found for your case by The Human Fund."
Trump also asked today why no women are accusing Obama of sexual assault. "He better be careful..."
Who will rid me of this meddlesome paragon of integrity?
172: The Bill stuff isn't sticking, so he needs to get creative.
You think it's easy to find a pimp with a history of making outlandish claims about pedophilia?
170 & 172: As described in 154. But I get the tl;dr--poorly written and organized.
173: Hannity had a full show with them last night. I did not watch but someone described the odd interviewing style where Hannity provided the narrative pausing every once and a while so the "interviewee" could confirm.
And (not that it matters for them*) the manner in which they meant to use against *Hillary* by saying she attacked and helped silence them is completely subverted by their aggressive attack on these women.
*They sort of don't care--its all just meant to be dispiriting noise in the system at this point**. They realize they cannot get Trump above a ceiling so all they have is a Samson move and hope they come out of the rubble slightly less wounded.
**And I realize this bizarre witness thing won't them more either--just more FUD***. Sorry I even disturbed the tranquility of the place.
***With the possible exception of its impact on Pence (who surely fancies himself as a "serious" politician). He really does look like a total fucking chump on this one.
But speaking of Pence, here's some of his charm and empathy on display.
In an interview on 10TV in Columbus, Ohio, anchor Scott Light referenced an incident where an 11-year-old Girl Scout visiting the studio told him, in reference to Donald Trump's comments about women, that "when I hear those words and look in the mirror they make me feel bad about myself," and asked him how he would respond to that
Well, I would say to any one of my kids and any children in this country that Donald Trump and I are committed to a safer and more prosperous future for their family. The weak and feckless foreign policy that Hillary Clinton promises to continue has literally caused wider areas of the world to spin apart, the rise of terrorist threats that have inspired violence here at home, and we've seen an erosion of law and order in our streets. And we've seen opportunities and jobs evaporate and even leave Ohio and leave this country. I would say to any of our kids that if Donald Trump and I have the chance to serve in the White House, that we're going to work every day for a stronger, safer and more prosperous America.
It's not so much the gay pimping stuff that puts me off this guy -- largely because I don't feel any need to believe it: he was by that stage just trying to ride the coattails of an exploding scandal -- it is his earlier career: living as a teenager with "an elderly bachelor" who left him £250k in his will, then suing for libel papers that suggested he was gay; setting up his then friend and employer to fuck an underage girl in a room he had wired for sound and vision and then selling the tape to a tabloid paper for £25k.
I've known a couple of sociopaths like that.
Yes, I know: can the coattails of a scandal survive the explosion? Well, if jet fuel can burn steel ...
154.4. Can't be the same guy, The Post says he's 54 and the Mirror says he's 52. There must be two people withe the same name who look identical and both posed for a press photographer on Westminster Bridge wearing the same shirt. So there.
Yes. I remember the original thing. It was largely swept under the carpet, and I think the most important people he fingered are all dead now.
I see Kevin Drum has done a neat timeline of Gilberthorpe's most egregious antics. You couldn't make it up, but he did.