I’ve heard that they even prohibit sex in rehab- the one thing thats a sure relief for most neurotic compulsions.
So they allow cigarettes, prohibit sex, and expect health?
Gruesome errors.
Ice baths, rope climbing, purely physical sex, sleeping naked - the idea is to bring down neuroses, stupid little loops in the brain. You can only that by bringing the world closer to the skin.
gib,
I would not say the queen but I am aware of my propensity of sometimes reading too much into things. That may have to do with not having enough information in a certain moment in time.
I may be wrong but generally there is transference that goes on between therapist and patient. You are not unique in this regard. Give it time.
No, that in itself is not attachment. The transference process is not necessarily a negative thing though unless it gets too out of control and most therapists can become aware of when it does.
As for your initial question, I would ask you: Just what is your most important goal? Is it to get sober and to stay sober? Aside from that, a therapist can help you attain your goals and also help you to realize if those goals are valid.
But ultimately, is your main goal to get clean???
Insofar as AA goes, join or do not join. I have come to realize that it is not for everyone BUT at the same time, it is a good thing to reflect on how honest you are being about WHY you do not want to join. But I will go no further about AA.
I was not speaking of something magical here, gib, and I did use the word eventually. There is a lot of hard work going from A to Z. It is a process and sometimes working on the hardest problem[s] can eventually give way to life opening up in other veins for us.
I still do not see the attraction towards AP and though I may not necessarily be correct here, my intuition tells me that trying to achieve what you call AP is really no more than wanting to achieve that high. I think that addicts need to ground themselves not want to soar into the ether.
What do YOU mean by altered stares of consciousness?
I went back and investigated that. I was wrong about that.
Now gib, no reason to get catty here. 
So you think I will lead them one day?! WOW!!! And I thought you had no faith in me!
[/quote]
No, gib. My meaning was that if you went to AA or a meeting you would or might WANT to lead them. We all have our diversionary tactics, unconscious though they may at times be. But I might suggest that the students be the students and let the teachers (those who have gone through the fire and know) actually be the teachers.
Yes, I can be but even a hurricane at some point sees the beauty of calming down and realizes that enough is enough.
.
You are free to choose or not to choose.
Yes I do ~ so much so that if there is such a thing as reincarnation which I doubt, I might plan to become a fighter pilot. The fact that someone HAS been shot down at least means that they have been UP.
Are you able to be with your loneliness and alone less with only your self?
I wonder just what you would do if you had such a day that you could not rise above the temptation to drink. Would you land up in the bar drinking or perhaps go somewhere else to drink?
It is not up to them to ask you are you sure. It is up to you to take care of yourself.
Perhaps you are not ready for the suffering and sacrifices that might be there in getting sober. Only you can answer that for yourself. Maybe meditate on that.
Perhaps you have not really totally told yourself that you are an alcoholic yet. I do not know gib. You seem to be sitting on the fence here but it is your life ~ and do not forget your life is also a part of your childrens’ life. Your explanations sound more like excuses to me.
If I have offended you here at all, I apologize. If you are looking for velvety gloves, you are not ready yet.
Anyway, I wish you well.
No, that’s already done (I know, I know, you think it won’t last). My main goal now is to be… drum roll please… AWESOME!!! 
That’s a relief. And I agree. Honest reflection is a healthy thing (why you seem to assume I have not done that is a bit strange… expecting preconceived results, perhaps?)
And always, always, always remember Arc: there’s a difference between what I choose to do in my life and what I say I’ll do on these forums. I like to play games.
And I said possibly… meaning that I’m open to that suggestion… but why would I act as if it was definite? I’m not gonna count on something that I’m uncertain about. Neither should you. I think it’s prudent to prepare for the worst and hope for the best, don’t you?
What you think addicts should do means nothing to me. Have you ever suggested to a drug addict that he or she find healthy substitutes to the drugs? Most people are quite supportive of this approach and often advise it. You’re the only person I’ve met to shit on it. I don’t see anything wrong with getting high, just the methods used to get high. Alcohol and drugs tend to have unhealthy side effects and drag one’s life down into the gutter when it spins out of control. If one were able to get into a high state of consciousness through meditation or yoga, would you still be shitting on them?
I’d be curious to know what you’d say to someone who used drugs to gain confidence and self-esteem? If they tried to find alternate ways of doing this–say seeing a shrink–would you make the same remark: oh, you’re just trying to get the same high.
Besides, you’re overlooking the most crucial point: by finding substitutes, I give myself one more reason not to go back to the drugs. Why would I if I can get the same effect through a healthier, cleaner way? If a prostitute sucks dick for money, and then finds she can make even more money by going to college and making a career for herself, why would she ever go back? What you’re advocating is that she give up trying to make money period. I mean, she could do that, but at some point, the pangs of starvation are going to drive her right back into prostitution; and just the same, your methods are the worst methods ever for a recovering drug addict… you’re telling them to live a life of boredom, emptiness, and self-deprivation… at some point, they won’t be able to stand it anymore and will go straight back to the drugs.
I don’t know what an altered stare of consciousness is–maybe a different way for your consciousness to gaze upon something–but as for an altered state of consciousness, that’s a very good question. There’s no easy way to define it. I think we can rule out a few obvious scenarios: I’m in the living room. My consciousness is in a state of being aware that I’m in the living room. I move to the kitchen. My consciousness is now in a state of being aware of being in the kitchen. But that’s not typically what people mean by a consciousness alteration. Similarly for changes in consciousness that we all go through on a daily basis–being alert vs. getting tires, being happy vs. being sad. I also don’t consider body buzzes like that which alcohol or nicotine gives you or changes in energy levels like caffeine gives you alterations in consciousness states. The effects of marijuana, on the other hand, would be an altered state of consciousness, at least to me. It’s like wearing a new set of visors through which to see the world. You put them on and everywhere you go, everything you do, is experienced through those visors. So you put on a blue pair, and everything looks blue. You put on a red pair, and everything looks red. It’s not something that depends on the situation you’re in or the thoughts you think or is affected by the various stimuli around you–it’s something you carry with you unaltered wherever you go. It’s the mode of your consciousness by which it process information–any kind of information, internal or external–and not something in the information, or effected by the information, itself.
^ Is that supposed to me taking the lead?
Ok, I’ve been humbled… oh no, wait, I was just joking! 
Oh, really?!?! You’re giving me that choice?!?! [-o<
Hey, don’t let me stop you from coming back for more punishment!
I live 90% of my time alone. I’ve always been a loner. I’m more than OK with it, it’s my life. Most of the time, I prefer it that way. But a guy sometimes needs some social stimulation, and being cooped up at home by myself with my nose always in my work can sometimes grate on my sanity. So once a week, I go out to Market Mall across the street. They have a Moxie’s, a Milestones, and they just added a Boston Pizza! I gotta have a life, Arc.
Yeah… yeah… I sometimes wonder that myself… I also wonder what I would do if I were kidnapped by aliens, given anal probes, and injected with nanobots that controlled my endocrine system… I wonder what I’d do.
Yeah, everybody keeps talking about this suffering and sacrifice that you’re supposed to experience once off the drugs. I have yet to experience that.
Arc, you’re not under the assumption that I’m still—OMG, you are!–You think I’m still drinking!!!–OMFG!!! After all this back and forth, of me announcing numerous times (to you!), of this whole July 1 deadline thing (which has passed, BTW… I didn’t mean 2019)… that I’ve stopped drinking and doing drugs since July 1, haven’t touched a single drop, consumed a single molecule, of any substance since then… and you’re still under the assumption that I’m still drinking? Gyawd, you’ve got your head stuck up your ass!
Do you? Going to the bar? OMG again! You did, didn’t you?! You interpreted my going to the bar as: I’m going to the bar to drink! ← No wait…
Hold on a sec…
^ There, that’s better.
Fuck girl, I even said “I setup my laptop right at the bar and do work while drinking a virgin Caesar and an appetizer.” ← You know what a virgin caesar is? You know what the word “virgin” means in that term?
And at the end of the day, I swear to God, I don’t actually have the urge to drink. I know, it’s amazing, in’it?! It defies all expectations, all stereotypes, it defies all logic and science. It defies anything an AA member would have to say.
^ But for that reason, it can’t be true, can it Arc? You know what it’s like to be an alcoholic, dontchya Arcy? Your mama was a drunk, which makes you a subject matter expert. So obviously, I’m lying. Or maybe it’s unconscious. Maybe at the bar, I drink unconsciously. Yeah, that’s proly it, 'cause it’s certainly not projection on your part.
Yet?!?! I spend 5 years building this thread in which the whole point is to confess that I’m an alcoholic, get a tattoo to symbolize my decision to quit drinking and to keep me off the drugs, go to therapy to deal with my recovery… and I have yet to admit that I’m an alcoholic??? Arc, I hate to say it, but for someone who’s dug her heels as deep into this discussion as you have, you’re waaay out of the loop about what’s been going on.
You’re making absolutely no sense. Sitting on the fence, how? What does that even mean? I mean, if you’re still saying this after understanding that I don’t drink, don’t even have the temptation to drink–even at the bar–then how does going to the bar count as sitting on the fence? Are you suggesting that I’m unconsciously trying to make myself vulnerable–giving myself a chance to, I guess, “slip up”? If that were the case, why torture myself? Why not just cave? It’s like a fat person trying to diet: they either stay away from the buffet or they cave and stuff their face. I don’t know who, trying to diet, would go to the buffet to only be tempted.
Arrogance is always offensive… no matter what the intentions.
Fuck you.
" it defies all logic and science. It defies anything an AA member would have to say."
Why don’t you go to a meeting and ask a member if they ever experienced that and what they think about it?
Maybe you’re not ready yet, or ever, but I will tell you that one thing all addicts have in common is that we all think we are unique. I mean all humans are unique. But you know what I mean.
Also, all self admitted addicts who haven’t worked seriously on their recovery think they’re not really addicts. Nothing more common than a newcomer blaming the drugs instead of the disease.
Ok I’ll stop. At this point we’re hurting more than helping and just annoying you. I will say the same as Arc: think about your kids and above all yourself and,
Good luck!
(I don’t promise that if you make some statements here about AA in the future I won’t have something to say).
I’m always here if you need help!
Pedro,
I’ll forgive you since my comments were directed at Arc, not you. I had no intention of offending you, but my comments about what AA members would say must have been offensive; they had no grounding. I don’t know you as well as I know Arc, so I don’t feel as free to dig into as I do Arc, and I feel I owe you a bit more respect. If I get to know you better, my respect for you may go up or it may go down. So far, I can still take you seriously and I’m willing to reason with you.
Now… about this:
“Also, all self admitted addicts who haven’t worked seriously on their recovery think they’re not really addicts. Nothing more common than a newcomer blaming the drugs instead of the disease.”
You have a very surreptitious way about you. You speak to no one in particular, yet it seems implied you mean me. Am I reading too much into this?
If you are, I think you’re painting a one dimensional caricature of me. I’m not sure what it means to say: a self admitted addict who think they’re not really addicts. That’s you putting words into my mouth. And: blaming the drugs instead of the disease. ← Did I ever say that? And: who haven’t worked seriously on their recovery… What right do you have to say how hard I’ve worked? You mentioned before that quitting is the easy step (contrary to what a therapist said to me: you’ve accomplished the hardest step), that the next step–self-examination and asking yourself the question: why do you chase the high?–is the hard one. The reason why it’s so easy for me at this point is because I’ve done these steps in reverse. The reason this thread is 5 years old is because I spent the last 5 years examining myself and asking myself questions like these. Read it, you’ll see. 5 years of self-reprogramming, of changing my priorities, of reassessing my values and what I wanted for my life… that’s the hard work. The reason it’s easy for me now is because I’ve prepared myself for it.
What annoys me more than anything else is the hubris of people thinking they know me better than I know myself despite knowing me only from a bit of text on an internet forum. ← That is sheer arrogance right there. And the most irritating thing about it is how right they think they are despite trying to come off appearing humble, fallible, and–as Arc is fond of saying–“I could be wrong.” ← Yeah, you could all be wrong, but you don’t really believe that.
For example, this here:
“Maybe you’re not ready yet, or ever…”
…blatantly implies that you’re ahead of me in this game, that I have much to learn from you. Have you ever thought that maybe not all alcoholics are the same? That we don’t all experience quitting and recovery the same way? That maybe my approach is superior to that of others? And that’s why I’m able to claim to be having no problem with this? Have you ever considered that maybe you could learn a lot from me? I’m not saying you do, or that my approach is superior, but that idea doesn’t even seem to register on your radar.
What really irks me is when people feel they have to tear me down in midst of my successes… just because it doesn’t fit their stereotypic expectations of how success works.
I guess I am just talking to myself wherever I recognize it. That’s the reason recovering addicts are encouraged to help other addicts that are either recovering or want to recover.
I too thought I was unique and my path my own. Only banging my head against recovering addicts did I realize how inadvertantly common my attittudes and ideas about using were. It’s not a dig at you. It’s a reminder to me. And a line extended to you.
We all feel very creative when we seek answers to problems that affect our very survival. But what happens when other people also got creative and somehow came up with the exact same solutions?
It’s annoying, I know. Believe me. But the trick is that if we all tried the same solutions and met the same results, what happens when one comes to you with a result that worked? That’s all AA is. We come off as arrogant and fakely humble, but then few people can imagine the hells we dragged ourselves through.
For the record, I went to rehab TWICE!
The first time I thought wtf do these fools know. As soon as I had a little money and my own place I started using again.
It is only when my very sanity slipped as a consequence of my actions, which all revolved around getting high, and as Fixed Cross will attest, that I started listening honestly to what rehab had to say. Maybe I did go insane, buy I live in a nice house now with a nice life that I feel good, even enthusiastic about, in which I have honor and dignity and the appreciation and love of those I care about. Things I thought were downright impossible, lost forever, a part of me that had died. But it hadn’t died. It had just grown too much of a taste for getting high, whether it be weed, booze, benzos, fantasies, inner mind trips of different kinds, fake affection from bartenders and the like, whatever. I had contracted a chronic and lethal disease. For which there is effective treatment.
I love my life. That’s why I dare to talk to you about recovery. Otherwise fuck it, I would use, if life sucks anyway you might as well be high, no? That’s what I think. Lol it’s probably what makes me an addict.
But life in sobriety doesn’t suck at all. To my surprise it’s unmeasurbly better. That’s all I’m saying.
“contrary to what a therapist said to me: you’ve accomplished the hardest step”
I am sure that person is a very fine therapist. But I got $100 here that says that person isn’t an addict.
What’s hard about it? Just don’t pick up the bottle and put it to your mouth and drink.
Easy peasy.
The hard thing is, when that voice comes up one day and says “ok you’re all better now, time for a drink!” And if you are an addict it will, what to say back to it. It’s a clever fucking voice.
“Drinking is bad, voice”
“Duh! If you do it in excess! But you’re a stable person now!”
“I have Astral Projection now.”
“So? Why can’t you have both?”
“Stfu voice, I don’t need a drink for the lady at the bar to smile at me.”
“Yeah, but wouldn’t the smile taste better with a beer on you? Just one beer, obviously! You’re a stable man with AP and workung with his therapist in his self esteem and life goals. You only drank too much before because you were not stable like now.”
Not easy. People think it’s a problem with will power. The real problem is that the only thing the will wants to do with power is get high. That’s why the recovery process hurts. It requires a brutal amount of honesty.
To an addict, getting high is about 10x more important, on an instinctual level, than food or water, let alone sex or meditative techniques.
Do you not think the intellect is clever enough to protect said instinct against ones for, say, care and stability?
That’s why recovery is not an intellectual process. It’s about depriving the body from the drugs and reminding it of things that are actually fullfilling. How can a therapist who has never felt craving ever get to the bottom of why you drink? Even an arrogant ass like Jung gave up.
The problem with Jakob’s cold baths solution is that an addict is clever and thinks of him or herseld only as a victim, so such treatment would only be percieved as torture. Same reason you spit on Arc who seems to be the only one that actually cares about you (vis a vis the therapist, how much is Arc charging you?). Of course you spit on yourself more so you don’t think of it as strange or insulting.
The treatment with addicts that works is: truth, choice, and kindness. The weirdest concept for an addict is being kind to one’s self.
That’s where the famous hitting bottom comes from. Only when the pain of being unkind to one’s self becomes unbearable does an addict consider it. Of course there are always lower bottoms, and some you simply cannot come back from.
To allow yourself weakness. Then you can actually get stronger. Nobody’s fucking perfect.
Are non addicts also pathologically unkind to themselves? Maybe. But an addict is a kind of extremist. They don’t give quarter to kindness. Brave souls, says I. Consequent.
Worth saving.
Pedro,
Just a couple things:
…to this:
I liked the first quote, not so much the second. You know why? Because in the first quote, you’re talking about your experiences. You have a right to do that. It’s believable. It’s appreciated. Everyone appreciates when a person relates their own life experiences. You know why I didn’t like the second? Because you switched gears and started talking about me… your presumptuous opinions about me, cloaked in the guise of insight and wisdom.
Here’s my advice: you wanna win people over, stick to the first approach; avoid the second like the plague.
^ Here, you’re talking about something that may happen in the future. There’s not much I can say about that. It’s in the future. I don’t have a crystal ball. So how can I say whether it will happen or it won’t?
In that case, I’m more open to its possibility, but then I would ask: what’s with all the talk about “not being ready?” Give me a break. It’s only been two months. If this is something that will happen in the future, it will come when it will come… right? Does being ready imply that it would come sooner? Does ready mean ready to experience the temptation and exercise my will to resist? To fall back on others for support? If that’s the case, maybe I’m better off not being ready ever. I mean, if I’m doing so well not being ready, not even having the temptation to drink at the pub, then maybe not being ready is the perfect place to be.
But if this is an inevitable part of recovery that I have yet to experience, let’s cross that bridge when we get there, huh? If it starts to become difficult, maybe that will be the time to join AA. I promise, I’ll be open to it. But until then, I don’t see the point nor do I have the time (really, I don’t).
BTW, to both you and Arc:
I’m almost done volume III of my book. Chapter 16 covers the techniques I’ve been using for the past 5 years to reprogram my mind and condition myself to not want the drugs. It covers that and a whole slew of what I call “mental technologies.” If you’d like, I’ll give you a free copy. You might not understand everything I write in there as it’s built on stuff written in volumes I and II, but I think someone freshly diving into chapter 16 would get the general gist of it.
Arc, I remember once giving you volume I.
If you guys want it, let me know.
Who said I want to win people over?
Your life is your problem, not mine.
I was not being arrogant, gib. I was trying to be helpful in the hope that you might see something which you may not be seeing in relation to your sobriety or lack of it. Treating someone who ought not to be treated with kid gloves is just being an enabler. You are being your own enabler. Why waste time and energy when someone is simply not ready to be open to the change it takes to change.
We are just about done here. You are the second man in here within the week to use that word addressing me.
Real arrogance comes with you, gib, believing that you owe someone more respect than you owe another because you do not know the former as well as you know the latter ~~ ergo, F Y. I do not enjoy being addressed in that way.
It would seem to me that Pedro I. Rengel is more serious in helping you than you are in receiving help. I will be arrogant with you here again in saying that it is my intuition that you are MORE playing with your life in this regard ~~ not really being serious enough about it. Hopefully, at some point you will lose the flippancy…it is just a deterrent and a defense mechanism. You are still not ready to suffer for your sobriety and change from what I see.
You need to be very careful that there does NOT come a time when your attitude and behavior comes to roost on your children harming them. They are, after all, your most precious Beings…and if you do not believe that they can be vulnerable because of you, then you are quite blind.
Really? And I thought you cared.
Ok, thanks, come again (er, wait, don’t).
It is you that has to care about himself.
You guys gave me a dream last night.
I had a dream I was rolling joints. One looked like a burrito, it was so big. My sister was trying to come into my room. I closed the door. She popped it open with just a push. I closed the door again and locked it. Again, she pushed it open just by pushing it. I started to drop lit joints onto the carpet. The carpet was starting on fire. I tried to put it out.
^ Hmmm… don’t think it takes a Freudian psychiatrist to figure this one out. 
Arc,
I just got back from my first class in the Dale Carnegie course. You were asking what being “awesome” means. They stated a quote which I think sums it up:
“The Dale Carnegie course helps you become the you you want to be.”
Being awesome, to me, means being the me I want to be. ← Note that’s not the me you want me to be, or the me Pedro wants me to be, or anybody else. It’s the me I want to be.