Hi, Babs.
I probably won't be able to join you for the chat. 1) I'm an AOL user and have never been able to enter the chat room succesfully. 2) Saturdays about that time I'm on my way to the real-life AA meeting of the Mission Hill Group.
But thank you for the invite and thank you for including me on the membership list.
Merry Andrew- Don't even ATTEMPT to get into the Chat room thru AOL. It won't happen. Try it through Internet Explorer, and let me know how you do!
Thnx for the tip, Phoenix. Actually, I'm not much of a chatter anyway. One reason I liked Abuzz and love A2K is that they are forums and not mindless chats (generally speaking, that is, of course).
That's Tellin' 'em Babs.....you Go Girl!
I am missing something, Merry Andrew said that the forum was NOT mindless chatter, no?
peace
We are all in this together - "Let Go and Let God", "Live and Let Live" ---------- Peace brothers and sisters!
Walter - I can't believe that you said that, if it is in your
genetic material - it most certainly IS hereditary, TRUST
ME -I studied some post grad molecular genetics & there
has even been a genetic marker isolated for alcoholism.
This in no way makes a hill of beans HOW we get the
disease, all that matters is what we do - if and when we
ever acknowledge that we do have this disease. The
reason that this disease may not "appear" to be hereditary,
may very well be due to the alcoholic/codependant/
alcoholic/codependant cycle. Many children who grew up
with an alcoholic parent(s) - also grow up with a VERY firm
resolve never to touch alcohol, & for as long as they never
do .... they will never know the complete, utter devastation
of alcoholism.
*But THEIR children will have no such memories or restraints,
and may often never even be TOLD about their grandparent's
humiliating drinking - and therefore have no idea that they
have a greater than average genetic potential for alcoholism.
My theory is that THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS when a certain
percentage (small, but there ) of people in AA say that they
have no idea how they got this disease - NO ONE IN THEIR
FAMILY HAS IT - or at least not to their knowledge.
*The not talking about it causes so much confusion. In my own
family - no one talked about it, and even though my mother
WAS an alcoholic - I had no idea of that. I had never even
heard the term alcoholism and I was 30 years old. I just
assumed that my mother was "crazy" since she had severe
mental illness as well, and was in and out of institutions and
I never connected her drinking with anything other than being
nuts! So when I first learned that there WAS such a disease
called alcoholism - it took a good while for it to sink in that I
had grown up in a family with alcoholism, then married into
alcoholism - got divorced and then was
trying to deal with my DAUGHTER'S alcoholism
and I just felt that my life was really
just handing me a raw deal....all these darned alcoholics!!!
*You KNOW that we each drink to a certain degree where
we cross that invisible line - between being a normal social
drinker to becoming a hopeless alcoholic.
*The disease and medical model of alcoholism as a "family
disease" has been quite well established and I don't see
any way that this detracts from us taking responsibility for
our own selves individually and for taking responsibility to
see that we get the treatment ( the 12 steps ) that we need
in order to remain in remission. If I had diabetes, I could treat
it and live, or not treat it and die. If you went into a cancer
ward of a hospital - and you offered ALL those people a deal:
ALL you gotta do, is to work these 12 steps to the very
best of your ability - clean house, work with others etc etc.
I bet EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO BE
JUMPING TO GET IN LINE FOR AA!!
*But, you tell someone that his or her liver is almost shot from
cirrhosis, all that they NEED TO DO TO LIVE IS TO GO TO AA
AND WORK 12 SIMPLE STEPS, and they will just go right back
to the bottle and to cirrhosis or to prison, institutions or the
grave. I don't get it!! - WHAT is the difference??? Unless it is
that the alcoholic tends to feel a morbid sense of causality for
his own disease and this guilt ridden concept clouds their ability
to see that they have every chance in the world to recover,
survive, and live meaningful and happy lives.
**Remember we have a AA CHAT scheduled SAT 7PM
if anyone cares to come and chat, see you then, I hope.
Thank you for coming to my rescue, ZedSquared. I think I have been misread. Not once did I mean to imply that this forum -- nor any similar forums -- are "mindless chatter." That ain't what I said at all, at all. I was referring to "chats" as they are generally practiced in "chat rooms." In fact, I did say I like both A2K and Abuzz largely because they are not "chats" but discussion forums.
Walter<
It is fine for you to disagree that the disease of alcoholism is not caused by heredity. It sounds like you are in denial about some members of your own family.
If you have been around AA long enough, you must know that alcoholism is a family illness (even though you have chosen to disagree with that truth). After all, some people still insist the planet Earth is flat.
Babs<
I should be able to attend the Saturday meeting. If I miss it, that does not mean I don't wish to share online.
BTW, I did get your PM and answered you back. You must not have received it. Sorry.
Merry Andrew,
...Use Ajax...(boom,boom)
...The foaming Cleanser...(ba-da, room, boom,boom)
williamhenry
I've done my family history - was one of my first subjects as historian.
I know a little bit of addiction: got an academic degree on this subject - and have been addicted myself for .... well, actually since I'm born.
I just want to say that it is in my eyes a somewhat cheap excuse to reduce addiction to heredity.
The term "family illness", btw, is normally used in a different way than you did above.
Walter, as usual, is quite correct. The jury is still out on whether alcoholism -- or any other adiction -- is hereditary. There may be a semantic problem here, rather than genuine disagreement. "Heredity" implies a passing on of genetic information and, while there is no doubt that alcoholism tends to run in families, this is not evidence that the disease has been passed on through a genetic heritage. There is such a thing as "learned behavior." We drink because our parents drank, sure, but that doesn't prove anything more than that children will imitate their parents.
And the expression "a family disease" only mneans that the whole family is afflicted, not that one generation passes it on to the next. It seems to me that saying, "Oh, I guess that I inherited this disease," is tantamount to being in denial about one's own responsibility for one's own behavior.
I hear alot of newbies that want to make out everyone is either in AA or alcoholics in denial. I have a brother that has never touched a drop, brothers and sisters who drink socially and brothers and sisters that are in AA with me. In case you are wondering there are ten children in my family, only one that is adopted, he is addicted to Jerry Falwell.
Above all it is my trip I am in control of not my family's or anyone elses. The same researchers that say ney today will tell us yes tomorrow. They wish they knew...Only One knows for sure...But all in all a debate for the ages and I hope we all come to terms with our limitations! Peace and serenity to all of you,
I don't think, whether or not addiction is inherited is of primary importance. I inherited asthma, but that was no excuse not to fight it tooth and nail
...Besides Walter, why is it so hard for you to believe that the same physiology that would make a person more susceptible to drugs, couldn't be passed on? I'm not qualified to say it is, I am just amazed that you find it so implausible, and "cheap".
Babs,
...I hope we're not out of order by debating, in this thread, but it's hard to resist, considering that this is primarily what we do here, at A2k. Please stop us, if we're going astray.
There is debate here as it should be, it is like meetings where we can say what is on our mind, and if it is not appropriate the chair usually talks to the member on the side to convey the 'feeling' or rule they may have stepped outside on.
You know what I hear alot of is the men who feel they need to share their sexual feelings, God I hate that, I really try to avoid bringing up anything like that unless it is to tell someone the old girls with girls and boys with boys rule! Although if it is the all men meeting it doesn't seem to detract as much though the chair will steer it back to the real topic...
Walter<
I do not intend to debate you, or anyone else, on the subject of alcoholism as a hereditary illness.
You do not know me, thank goodness, or you would know that I am not the kind of person who ever would blame my addiction on my family or anyone else. Nobody forced me to drink a single drink; I drank them all on my own free will.
If I had an academic degree in addiction, I would use the knowledge obtained to help those of us who don't have the vast information you have. I would wish to instruct others rather than tear down in a grandiose fashion what they have written.
Come to think of it, The Big Book[/i] says "grandiosity" is one of the symptoms of alcoholism. Walter, you'd better dust off that degree and look at yourself in the mirror.
Thank you.
I have an academic degree (or two), a military degree, a homeless degree, a criminal degree and a working degree (couple or three of them also) in alcoholism and the only person I can speak for is myself. And that can only lead to sobriety if I turn my will and control over to my Higher Power - period. Then and only then I can come to grips with this afflection. I know there are many thoughts and many beliefs - whatever works, go for it. If it works, it is your program and stick with it.
Booman
I just find it cheap for me and some dozens others I know personally.
It certainly may be helpful for all the others.
Besides, I don't think it's the "how are you living without drigs/alcohol" but the "I am living without drugs/alcohol in complete happiness".
williamhenry
You don't me neither.
I've worked voluntarily in selhelp organisation, taught the chairmen of local groups statewide. I've taught this part time at university.
I've got my degree (MA in social work) with a thesis about selfhelp, which was based on facts I knew and had learnt personally.
I'm working now (professionally and voluntarily) nearly twenty years in drug/alcohol prevention. I think, I know a little bit what I'm talking about.
