Court Ordered Drug Rehabilitation

http://www.aa.org/en_is_aa_for_you.cfm?PageID=71

well if you were required by court to go to AA, alcohol it is certainly affecting another aspects of your life. why else would they send you to AA. if you are not sure if you are an alcoholic or not, it is probably safe to go to the meetings just to make sure.

It’s just like uponthesoapbox says, “You can only diagnose yourself” and don’t let ANYONE tell you that you ARE or ARE NOT an alcoholic. Learn whether you are or are not yourself. That is the only way to “OWN” the conclusion without the risk of lingering doubt waiting to nail you later on. And then you are dead!

You can attend and enjoy open AA meetings, as you are doing, PRIOR to making the determination, but you cannot become a member unless you are alcoholic. Here’s how to do that:

First you would have to know what an alcoholic IS.
Get yourself a copy of “Alcoholics Anonymous” and read the first 43 pages, which is designed to help you make a determination whether or not AA is for you. In other words, “Are you REALLY an alcoholic?”

You may not be. In fact the chances are good you are NOT.

I am a recovered alcoholic and I can tell you from bitter experience that alcoholism has nothing to do with how many or when you drink. It has to do with how your body reacts to alcohol and then if that is an abnormal reaction, whether or not you drink anyway despite it. There are plenty of real alcoholics who drink less than I did and more than I did. It cannot be decided on that basis alone.

Drinking a lot and often more often than not is an indication of “Problem” with alcohol – but this alone does not describe a real alcoholic. And one court order or a fistfull of DUIs and court orders don’t mean you are one either.

Alcoholism is a two-fold malady – mental AND physical – characterized by (i) an obsession of the mind coupled with (ii) an allergy of the body.

So a real alcoholic must have these two conditions present simultaneously:

1)Obsession of the mind – Cannot resist taking a drink even though he/she knows once they start they cannot stop.

PLUS

2) Allergy of the body – Once any alcohol whatever is taken into his/her system, something happens in a physical sense that is without comparable effect on the average individual – a physical phenomenon of “Craving” develops – which makes it virtually impossible for him to stop, even if he/she wants and/or needs to stop.

This is an abnormal reaction and hence an “allergic” reaction.

The existence on neither or only ONE of the above may result in problem drinking (Drinking too much – too often – even to the point of damage to ones health and livelihood) BUT does not qualify as a real alcoholic.

Both conditions must be present – and only ten percent of the world’s population has both of these conditions simultaneously

“If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, 44:1)

So whether or not someone is a real alcoholic depends upon the existence of these two conditions simultaneously – something only THEY can answer – because THEY are the only ones with the intimate details of their drinking history – even details which will NOT BVE KNOWN to their closest friends and relatives.

It is a two-fold malady mental AND physical – characterized by (i) an obsession of the mind coupled with (ii) an allergy of the body.

The obsession – a strange insanity that occurs as a “mental blank spot” immediately preceding the taking of a drink, guarantees that the person afflicted will take the drink even with the full knowledge that it will result in a craving for more (allergy) or even though he may not have intended to drink.

This is strangely supplanted for the idea that it is safe to drink despite experience that it may not be safe to drink without experiencing the phenomenon of craving (allergy.

However intelligent an alcoholic may have been in other respects, where alcohol has been involved, they have been strangely insane. These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all; and once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it, once having lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve.

Recovery from the obsession (mental) component is possible but there is no known cure for the physical allergy portion. Alcoholism is distinct from “hard”, “heavy” or “problem” drinking or other “addictions” including “drug addiction” in that the two components of mental, alcoholic obsession and physical allergy to ETOH (ethyl alcohol) in some form must be simultaneously present in the individual.

Here’s an article that may also help: http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com/2004/10/learning-i-was-alcoholic.html

I hope that helps.

Peace,

Danny S
http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com