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Why doesn't he giv prayer a try? I'm not religious myself, but if I were an alchie I'd give AA a shot.

http://www.secularsobriety.org/

This might be a good place to start. Don't know too much about them, but when I ran a few searches they came up. Maybe they can help lead your friend in the right direction.

closet sci-fi fan wrote:Basically a fellow member of another forum is an alcoholic. He's described his use of alcohol as an escape from reality, who he is, etc.. He claims that most people don't realize he's drunk because he finally starts to act normal whenever he's been drinking.

That's bullshit.

He's starting to suffer various alcohol related health problems. He refuses to look for help at AA because 'religion/prayer is part of their treatment program'. I'm searching for alternative secular support groups where he can find help without having to endure group prayers, etc.

Do any of you know of any organisations that might be able to help him?

I think he would have to look up support groups in his own area which don't simply encourage him to exchange one crutch for another, the way AA does. I don't know of any national ones off-hand.

Of course, the real problem is that he has the backbone of a slug, which is how he became an alcoholic in the first place.

UltraViolence83 wrote:Why doesn't he giv prayer a try? I'm not religious myself, but if I were an alchie I'd give AA a shot.

Trade one crutch for another?

Easier to kick the prayer habit afterwards I suppose, since he's obviously not into it.

Alcoholism is alot more complex than what you make out. Actually, some of those symptoms sound exactly like my Aunt, who has been an alcoholic for almost twenty years now.

Besides, they give methodone for hardcore drug addicts. That can be another crutch, right?

Hey, if it works, and your newer shinier crutch isn't as big and heavy as the old one, go for it I say.

Irishmick already suggested one.

My crutch is porn. If only I can destroy my biological drive for sex...


Anyway, I hear that alcoholism is mainly psychological. Perhaps a non-alcoholic beer placebo is in order?

AdmiralKanos wrote:

UltraViolence83 wrote:Why doesn't he giv prayer a try? I'm not religious myself, but if I were an alchie I'd give AA a shot.

Trade one crutch for another?

I know a few people who'd be dead or in jail right now if it wasn't for AA. They haven't been turned into fundamentalists. If someone already believes in God, why not use a "higher power" to help someone get clean?

Speaking of alchies, I know a guy who's gotten DUIs for riding bicycles and a lawnmower.

UltraViolence83 wrote:Anyway, I hear that alcoholism is mainly psychological. Perhaps a non-alcoholic beer placebo is in order?

Not really, a true alcoholic will have a physical dependence on the bottle(as well as the psycholigical dependence), they will go into withdrawls and such(shakes, fever and that sort of thing).
When I was in the Marines at one time I had a roommate that was an alcoholic, and he had to have a drink to stop from shaking. After awhile he was sent to rehab and discharged.

I was almost addicted to booze once, in the beginning of my Senior year at school. I'd actually salavate at the picture of a Vodka bottle advertised on the back of a magazine.

So I did what addicts fail to do: I stopped for awhile. Don't see what's so hard about it. Some people are too weak-minded, I guess.

Death from the Sea wrote:

UltraViolence83 wrote:Anyway, I hear that alcoholism is mainly psychological. Perhaps a non-alcoholic beer placebo is in order?

Not really, a true alcoholic will have a physical dependence on the bottle(as well as the psycholigical dependence), they will go into withdrawls and such(shakes, fever and that sort of thing).
When I was in the Marines at one time I had a roommate that was an alcoholic, and he had to have a drink to stop from shaking. After awhile he was sent to rehab and discharged.

Alcoholism broke up my big brother's marriage. We still worry about his ex, because she suffers the shakes and DT's whenever she tries to sober up for more than a day ... some to the point where she's had to be hospitalized because she's collapsed with what I can only term as a 'grand mal' seizure. (I know that term applies to Epilectics, yet that is the closest analogy I can think of)

When it gets down to the truly nitty-gritty, this person must realise that only he can stop himself from drinking. AA will never say that, Charter hospitals will never say that and threaten their profit margin, and support groups will never say that.
He is the only one that can put a stop to it, everything else is rationalization.

RedImperator wrote:

AdmiralKanos wrote:

UltraViolence83 wrote:Why doesn't he giv prayer a try? I'm not religious myself, but if I were an alchie I'd give AA a shot.

Trade one crutch for another?

I know a few people who'd be dead or in jail right now if it wasn't for AA. They haven't been turned into fundamentalists. If someone already believes in God, why not use a "higher power" to help someone get clean?

If you already believe in it, you have two crutches and you're just trying to get rid of one. If you don't already believe in it, then A) it wouldn't work and B) you would be exchanging one crutch for another.

Frankly, I think people try too hard to make excuses for addicts, and they have learned to expect it. Yes, withdrawal symptoms are real. Yes, they suck. Yes, they hurt. But that's just too damned bad; you have to get through it somehow.

AdmiralKanos wrote:If you already believe in it, you have two crutches and you're just trying to get rid of one. If you don't already believe in it, then A) it wouldn't work and B) you would be exchanging one crutch for another.

Frankly, I think people try too hard to make excuses for addicts, and they have learned to expect it. Yes, withdrawal symptoms are real. Yes, they suck. Yes, they hurt. But that's just too damned bad; you have to get through it somehow.

You DO realize that there are people out there who don't use belief in a higher power as a crutch, right?

Or where you referring to the people who think that God will come down and personally help them?

AdmiralKanos wrote:If you already believe in it, you have two crutches and you're just trying to get rid of one.

One crutch will make you believe in irrational things. One crutch will make you poor and dead. In this case, using one to get rid of another can be useful, and in the cases I knew, necessary.

If you don't already believe in it, then A) it wouldn't work and B) you would be exchanging one crutch for another.

Agreed. An athiest probably wouldn't do well in AA.

Frankly, I think people try too hard to make excuses for addicts, and they have learned to expect it. Yes, withdrawal symptoms are real. Yes, they suck. Yes, they hurt. But that's just too damned bad; you have to get through it somehow.

I can't speak for them, because the worst I've ever been through is tobacco (when I quit for a year for a girlfriend), and I was never a very heavy smoker to begin with. The majority of them, once they realize they need to quit--usually as their life is crashing down around their ears--don't use withdrawl symptoms as an excuse for backsliding (the ones who don't want to quit simply don't acknowledge they have a problem). Physical withdrawal, unpleasant as it is, is done in a relatively short period of time. It's difficult to get past this period for some people (a few that I know had to go to inpatient rehab facilities where they were physically isolated from the outside world for weeks), but once users are past it, it's not the reason they go back.

The problem with addicts is their psychological addictions. Once they start sobering up, any problem in their life drives them right back to their drug (for this I have personal experience--thirty minutes after recieving a dear John letter from the same girlfriend mentioned above, I had a cigarette in my mouth, and that was more than a year after I quit) unless they have iron willpower or some kind of support network, which is where AA or Secular Sobriety or whatever comes in--that's the "somehow" you mentioned in your post.