The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum

=> Re: Assyrians & Alcoholism Part II

Re: Assyrians & Alcoholism Part II
Posted by Emil (Guest) squaremoon@emilsdiary.com - Friday, October 28 2005, 4:08:15 (CEST)
from 24.148.65.193 - 24-148-65-193.grn-bsr1.chi-grn.il.cable.rcn.com Commercial - Windows XP - Netscape
Website: http://www.emilsdiary.com/
Website title: Square Moon Diary of Emil Keliane

"I'm sorry, but this sounds like "Islam""
Farid, no need to be sorry. It is a fact that A.A. started in the 30s in Akron, Ohio, by two drunks sharing their experience.
The founders realized that to recover from the "isms" of alcoholism- the hopelessness, desire for death, feeling useless, and being consumed by self-centered fear, etc. etc.- they needed the antethises of this- a spiritual awakening, and a higher power- in THEIR case, because they happened to be Christian, God-
I, like most present-day recovering alcoholics at the meetings I go to where nine out of ten are agnostic or athiest, struggle with the LANGUAGE of early A.A. literature.
But not the program itself. No where in A.A. is it written, said, or enforced that to recover one HAS to believe in anything. Remember the TRADITIONS: The only REQUIREMENT for membership is a DESIRE to stay sober.
That's all. No fees. No obligations. No contracts. Meetings are all over the city and you can walk in freely and get up and walk out at will. No one pressures or questions anyone.


"I also take exception to the notion that people were born flawed and to blame...sounds like Original Sin all over again. I mean we no doubt have many shortcomings, but that isn't a "flaw"..it's just human nature that needs to be guided and taught. Others fail US far more than we fail ourselves."
Hmmm. I'm thinking... A.A. is not an institution, or a church. At the meetings I go to I don't recall anyone ever saying I am flawed. In fact, cross-talk is not allowed. Everyone shares his/her experience and does not comment on someone else's comment. It's about feeling safe for who we are, what we believe as individuals, not as a group. No one gives a speech. No one lectures. Each person speaks for him/herself.
Alcoholics and addicts feel like egomaniancs with an inferiority complex. Sound familiar, Assyrians? Recovery in A.A., the most effective program of recovery to date, is about rebuilding our lives at our own pace, through simply sharing our experience, and in turn going from feeling UNIQUE-the only one in the world who has ever suffered- to HUMAN, RIGHT SIZE.
"Others fail us more than we fail ourselves" sounds more to me ChristioAssyrian than A.A. In A.A. the recovering alcoholic is no one's victim. She assumes responsibility for her defects, which in turn empowers her, reveals her TRUE DEFECTS- rather than the ones we build in our heads that have absolutely no merrit- and gets rid of the much exaggerated bullshit we tell ourselves while we're in the throes of self-pitty.
Look, if I admit that I am POWERLESS over my mother- her restless, dissatisfied, depressive nature than I am free of the NEED to change her, MAKE her something she refuses to be, and I learn something intrinsically empowering here. This frees me and I can't use her as an EXCUSE to leave the house, "Because she is a fucking bitch and I need a drink!" She's not a bitch. She's not out to get me. She has her own struggle that has NOTHING to do with me. I am not the CAUSE of her suffering.
That's the 4th step, taking a personal inventory. Very powerful work. In mine I made a list of all persons and things and institutions that I RESENTED or was ANGRY with. Then I listed the reason/s why, the causes. And in another column I wrote down how this person or thing effected me. Not an easy list to draw up.
For instance:
Anger
Person/s: Immediate family.
The cause: Homophobic, unsupportive, narrowminded, alcoholic, depressive, etc.
Affects my: Sex relations, self-esteem, personal relationships.
My part in it: I disrespected my mother in rageful, demeaning ways; violently attacked my father; stayed out all hours of night and completely overlooked their needs and requests; did not show up emotionally, etc.
A list such as this helped me own my shit. Helped me stop seeing them as MONSTERS and to understand them as mere HUMANS, and to see my past more objectively. It has been such a liberating list.



"This almost sounds like a born-again movement"
I suppose it is in the sense that it has meant a new beginning for many a recovering folk. I know I certainly see the world a little differently. Perhaps not as grimly as I did when I held on to my resentments and rage, which harmed me from such a personal and deep place- something no one could ever do.
Even before I checked out A.A.-I had hit a bottom that was the ultimate death without a physical death; nothing else in life will ever be as dark emotionally, mentally, and spiritually- I sensed that I had begun to hurt myself in ways no parent or society ever could.

"with the proviso that it's Demon Rum who is the Devil out to get the earth...and sobriety, or rather some measure of self-control, plus an understanding of who one is and how he or she got that way, with all the inevitable detours along the way, is the Salvation which Faith can bring"
You'd think. But much to my surprise and delight I found that although some individuals feel the need to make a DEMON out of alcohol to stay sober, A.A. as a whole does not. In fact, the BIG BOOK, which is so outdated and useless in my opinion, to me, says something like "We got sober (WE: the pioneers who created the program. Regular drunks, if you will) not to hide from life but to be a part of it. If we have a good reason to be around alcohol than it is pertinent that we join an office funstion or family get-together."
I remember going to one member's Thanksgiving dinner where I saw many sober faces, and how startled I was by the sweet, delicious smell of red wine wafting over to me. I had looked around and saw the sober host serving the wine to non-alcoholic guests. I was really reassured by this.
Come on Farid, it's me. Do you think I could ever be associated with anything that was so extreme as to make my world smaller? Yeah, right. Sometimes I wish I could buy into a cult- like Christianity via the Church, maybe my life would be softer, easier, but alas...


"If it works, go for it."
"IT" does not work. "I" do. And I work hard. So hard. To overcome my phobias, my complex mental and analytical powers, my prejudices, my rebellion, my inability to be a part of ANYTHING, my disconnection, because I deserve to be sober, sane, in therapy, in recovery, getting stronger, feeling closer to who I am, seeing things as clearly and lucidly as possible without the fog of drugs and alcohol, being alert, being at fucking peace, no hangovers, no resentments that cripple, no anger that keeps me prisoner in my own home, independence from the clutches of family, and their dead expectations, and my own delusions.

"I've never accepted that alcoholism is a "disease". During the Great Depression alcoholism was rife....as it was in the early days of the Industrial Revolution...but that wasn't due to the "disease" suddenly spreading because more "booze-carrying" virusus came from outer space...or more flawed human beans were born..it had more to do with social conditions and the escapism men needed as an only way to cope with their profound powerlessness."
I totally hear you, and I resisted the notion of alcoholism being a DISEASE. But, you know what, Farid? I like conceptualizing my nightmarish bottom when I felt doomed by life and by humanity and placing it in a sort of concrete model. Like the concept of a disease. Like there is a name for it. And that it's not a moral issue. It's like depression, which was once thought to be a manifestation of the devil possessing vulnerable victorian girls.
When I think of alcoholism as a disease I can begin to think of a SOLUTION. It takes away the MORAL judgement of alcoholism.
And it doesn't have to be one or the other. Maybe it's a little of both- nurture and nature...



"This is too much of blaming your genetic structure, or inherent flaws close to Original Sin rather than social conditions which result in personal and societal turmoil...wouldn't every priest and president and teacher LOVE to convince us all that our rebellions and more severe acting-out responses are nothing more than diseases...for which they have either a physical drug or a spiritual one?"
An alcoholic is someone who cannot CONTROL his drinking. He drinks and long after friends have gone home he continues to drink. He drinks even when his wife and children have left him because of his DRINKING. He drinks even though he has no money to eat. He drinks until he dies. That's a disease to me. It's not a luxury most have. It strips a person of dignity, of any real sense of self, of believing in anything hopeful, and hope itself.
Alcoholism isn't about the good old boys being MEN, and rough housing, or celebrating a win of sorts. It's about real people. All people. Rich. Poor. Educated. Disenfranchised. Women. Grandmothers. Children. Teenagers. Christians. Doctors. Assyrians.
It's not a test of one's strength or resistance. It's not about having or lacking a back bone. It's about the "ISMS"- justified anger, resentment, false pride- things WE ALCOHOLICS USE TO DESTROY OURSELVES UNTIL THE SELF_LOATHING STOPS. Usually with death, jail, wet brain, or sobriety.
I choose life. I choose being challenged once more in the most profound of ways, setting aside my fucking Assyrian pride, and sitting my ass down in a meeting, listening as well as I can nomatter how much of a bullshit I may think "support groups" are.

"It is far more likely that, rather than your father passing down to you a genetic marker which made you "pre-dispossed" to being alcoholic...he instead showed you examples of a man you loved and looked up to coping badly with HIS life...and thus showed you the way to avoid your pains-to-come by showing you how an adult "deals" with such things? He didn't teach you how to overcome your sorrows, many of which he also gave you...he couldn't...instead he taught you how to drown your own sorrows."
If this were a mutiple question I'd choose D. All of the above.

"you'd also think that a young man who agonized and suffered over the clear example he had before him all his life of what booze did to his father would not slowly go down that same path...also not so."
You know, I think there are adult children of alcoholics who never drink, or can drink with temperance. My brother for example who grew in the same household I did is NOT an alcohlic. And yeah, I did not want to be like my father who drank alone. So I drank with friends. Lots of them. It looked different from the outside. But inside...

"It isn't a gene your father passed on to you...and I , for one, reject the argument that flaws were born in you which pre-determined your disposition to go down that road no matter what...it may be that the same pre-disposition to go that route BARRING any mediation which we all hope and know our parents and teachers are SUPPOSED to provide for us, may be within many if not all of us..in other words: abuse and neglect us all and 90% of us will surely go off the deep end...but that is not the same as placing the blame entirely on the way you were born...with that demon already in you and working to destroy you."
I TOTALLY agree with you that BLAME is NOT the way. Far from it. What's the opposite of blame, anyway? Is it forgiveness? I'm still trying to figure it out, but as I stay sober, one day at a time, I feel sooo much closer to forgiving myself, but forgiving my parents? That's a tough one.

"Why is there no AA for the SOCIETY??? Why does the individual have to bear all the blame??? As he does when god tells us that HE created us...didn't like the way we turned out and wants to DROWN us!!! Is THAT responsible or humane?"
I think A.A. has survived because of the traditions that protect it from the devastating effects of the media, advertisement, promotion, corporation, etc. Also, SOCIETY would never accept the notion of being self-supporting and not assisting others without profit. You know that. I have, however read, that some companies use the book "Twelve Steps & Twelve Traditions" (Of A.A.) to create a more friendly and productive work environment.

"And, finally...I am troubled by how much god plays a part in this recovery...when the bastard could have easily avoided it for all of us...what kind of bastard god allows these things to happen..and then waits for you to THANK him...IF you survive?"
You're talking about a God that is not present in A.A. God is not defined for us, or AT us. It's "God as we understand Him". For some it's Goddess. For others it's NATURE. For others still it is the UNIVERSE.

"Sounds like this sort of god is exactly where the problem originates..with a god-the-FATHER, who is negligent, careless, unthinking, uncaring..more absorbed with his own frustrated and awful ability to "create"...who then passes his fuck-ups down to his kids...and DEMANDS they overlook all that and THANK HIM anyway!"
This god is not allowed into my life or the life of any recovering alcoholics I know who are loving, brilliant, and so against Bush's war. I know this because we talk about it AFTER and OUTSIDE meetings.



"sure am glad though that you feel better. I hpe this doesn't take the piss and vinegar out of you."
Thank you. Farid, I think you're really good for us. You invite an intimacy of ideas, a space where we may agree to disagree and not take it personally. I don't think most people get you. How could they? They've never had a chance to get themselves.
Thanks for challenging me. It was really good for me.
I'm kind of hot now. I think it's a very sexy quality in a man to challenge.
Am I flirting with you?
OHMAGOD, I think I am!
Talk to you later, big boy!



---------------------


The full topic:



Content-length: 14854
Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Accept: text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,image/png,*/*;q=0.5
Accept-charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Accept-encoding: gzip,deflate
Accept-language: en-us,en;q=0.5
Connection: keep-alive
Cookie: *hidded*
Host: www.insideassyria.com
Keep-alive: 300
Referer: http://www.insideassyria.com/rkvsf4/rkvsf_core.php?Re_Assyrians_Alcoholism_Part_II-RUVY.3AJR.REPLY
User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax)



Powered by RedKernel V.S. Forum 1.2.b9