There are indeed many, many ways to get and stay sober, if you are an alcoholic. This is a very common assertion in discussions about how to stay sober permanently (and be content and productive, while you're at it). We all know people who are sober for years, if not decades, with no AA, or with no AA any more, who are content and productive. We also all know people who tried to go it alone or who stopped AA after a while and sooner or later wound up drunk or dead. In my experience, the latter vastly outnumber the former.
Whilst it's certainly true that there are many ways to stay sober permanently, other than AA, it's very hard to find such people. None of the people I know who are sober long-term and who are not in AA are organised into groups or organisations of such individuals (although such groups and organisations do exist, although none of the breadth and size of AA), none of them have codified their approach to staying sober into a programme, and there is therefore no programme for them to systematically convey to other people, should they even care to.
One approach one sometimes encounters in AA is the suggestion that we all need to find our own way, and that there are many, many ways of staying sober permanently. This will be shared at meetings and told to newcomers. However, I have yet to hear anyone present a systematic, comprehensive, codified alternative to the originally devised programme. The result of this is that the options are: (1) the AA programme as originally set down in 1939 (2) a plethora of other paths which must be self-devised or compiled from elements of any number of other people's experiences.
If a new person in recovery is presented with (1), what to do is clear: follow the programme.
If a new person in recovery is presented wth (2), the only system available is trial and error.
Now, if you're cooking a curry or painting a tree, trial and error is a great way to learn.
If you're trying to recover from alcoholism, trial and error is a terrible way to learn. Why? Because people don't always return from relapses, sometime dying on the relapse or going back into the unstoppable downward spiral of alcoholism, never again to emerge.
I welcome the presentation of any other systematic alternative approaches to recovery from alcoholism. AA has absolutely no view on such approaches, and if such approaches save lives, all the better.
Within AA, there are certainly many elaborations of the steps, which take the original programme, add some elements, remove some elements, and change some elements. There are also approaches within AA which pick just a very small number of elements of the programme, leaving out the lion's share (particularly steps and systematic message-carrying service), leaving a regimen consisting of not drinking, going to meetings, and talking about what is on your mind.
What is curious is that no comprehensive and coherent alternative to the programme as originally envisaged has coalesced and become established even within AA. Many other approaches come and go, but such approaches are invariably marginal or ephemeral.
With the beef that many people have against the notion of the Higher Power or God, which is central to the original programme, I have much sympathy. I've had my own fair share of theological struggles over the years. Why I still adhere to the notion of a Higher Power and actively practise to improve my conscious contact with that Higher Power is that, frankly, there are many situations where nothing else works.
To the Higher Power-naysayers: what is your sufficient substitute for a Higher Power in the face of the failure of all human resources, tricks, intellectual constructs, material plans, interpersonal reliances, and other mechanisms? It turns out that the best on offer is everything that the AA programme has to offer, just without the Higher Power. There is no alternative. There is no back-up plan. There is no emergency generator. There is nothing to take its place. There is just 'AA minus'. Non-Higher Power approaches may involve meditation, yoga, therapy, all sorts of things, but fully fledged AA (with the Higher Power) does not preclude these and actually actively embraces these.
There are, one assumes, many people who stay fit and well by using all elements of the AA programme except the Higher Power bit. The question is, for those for whom that is not sufficient, where else do you go, what else do you do, and how do you cope?
The last house on the block for alcoholics seems to be AA. The last, Upper Room in the last house on the block is holding a meeting right now. And in that meeting they're talking about God.
Whilst it's certainly true that there are many ways to stay sober permanently, other than AA, it's very hard to find such people. None of the people I know who are sober long-term and who are not in AA are organised into groups or organisations of such individuals (although such groups and organisations do exist, although none of the breadth and size of AA), none of them have codified their approach to staying sober into a programme, and there is therefore no programme for them to systematically convey to other people, should they even care to.
One approach one sometimes encounters in AA is the suggestion that we all need to find our own way, and that there are many, many ways of staying sober permanently. This will be shared at meetings and told to newcomers. However, I have yet to hear anyone present a systematic, comprehensive, codified alternative to the originally devised programme. The result of this is that the options are: (1) the AA programme as originally set down in 1939 (2) a plethora of other paths which must be self-devised or compiled from elements of any number of other people's experiences.
If a new person in recovery is presented with (1), what to do is clear: follow the programme.
If a new person in recovery is presented wth (2), the only system available is trial and error.
Now, if you're cooking a curry or painting a tree, trial and error is a great way to learn.
If you're trying to recover from alcoholism, trial and error is a terrible way to learn. Why? Because people don't always return from relapses, sometime dying on the relapse or going back into the unstoppable downward spiral of alcoholism, never again to emerge.
I welcome the presentation of any other systematic alternative approaches to recovery from alcoholism. AA has absolutely no view on such approaches, and if such approaches save lives, all the better.
Within AA, there are certainly many elaborations of the steps, which take the original programme, add some elements, remove some elements, and change some elements. There are also approaches within AA which pick just a very small number of elements of the programme, leaving out the lion's share (particularly steps and systematic message-carrying service), leaving a regimen consisting of not drinking, going to meetings, and talking about what is on your mind.
What is curious is that no comprehensive and coherent alternative to the programme as originally envisaged has coalesced and become established even within AA. Many other approaches come and go, but such approaches are invariably marginal or ephemeral.
With the beef that many people have against the notion of the Higher Power or God, which is central to the original programme, I have much sympathy. I've had my own fair share of theological struggles over the years. Why I still adhere to the notion of a Higher Power and actively practise to improve my conscious contact with that Higher Power is that, frankly, there are many situations where nothing else works.
To the Higher Power-naysayers: what is your sufficient substitute for a Higher Power in the face of the failure of all human resources, tricks, intellectual constructs, material plans, interpersonal reliances, and other mechanisms? It turns out that the best on offer is everything that the AA programme has to offer, just without the Higher Power. There is no alternative. There is no back-up plan. There is no emergency generator. There is nothing to take its place. There is just 'AA minus'. Non-Higher Power approaches may involve meditation, yoga, therapy, all sorts of things, but fully fledged AA (with the Higher Power) does not preclude these and actually actively embraces these.
There are, one assumes, many people who stay fit and well by using all elements of the AA programme except the Higher Power bit. The question is, for those for whom that is not sufficient, where else do you go, what else do you do, and how do you cope?
The last house on the block for alcoholics seems to be AA. The last, Upper Room in the last house on the block is holding a meeting right now. And in that meeting they're talking about God.