I'm not sure why you are posting here 1-4 when you are seeing no improvement.

And for those of you who don't know, this comment is made in jest and in response to perhaps the biggest loudmouth I've ever seen print words on the internet. Some lunkhead named "Ago" from SR. I just now read your posts over there for the first time. Your patience with that sour, resentful, arrogant, no-insight-having AA bully was amazing. You did a fantastic job of keeping your cool over there -- I wouldn't have been able to do it. It's just as well that I stay away from that site. There is nothing I despise more than a hypocrite. That guy's impulse "to be of service" was of no match for his overwhelming compulsion to hit people in the head with a club. If that guy is representative of someone who has had a "spiritual awakening" then please keep me in a deep sleep.

I'm sure he is nice to his mom!

I did laugh out loud at his last remarks though.

First I was delusional, then I (possibly) wasn't a 'real alcoholic', and finally he leaves the possibility that I might be one of the thirds type - who gets sober just to spite someone else

I can see a lot of positives to the AA approach, and I've no doubt some people have benefited tremendously from it, but the ciricular reasoning that "We are 100% succesful, as lond as you do what we say. Unsuccessful? Thats your fault not the method. Got sober? Thats us, not you. Disagree with us? You're delusional. Got sober another way? You weren't a real alcoholic". It is really quite brilliant pyschology to keep a group thinking in the same manner.

You were also "homicidal" if I recall correctly...

Good luck with the Af days.
I remember going to an AA meeting as a 21 year old just out of treatment and being told i couldn't be a proper alcoholic as a) i was too young and b) hadn't really been in the gutter! That was my one and only meeting. I stayed sober without them for 10 years. I haven't bothered to engage with the debate on the SR site as i'm with Lena on the pig singing thing. However in my experience of AA over the years- second hand through my clients i have come across similar attitudes to the type expressed there. It is kind of like a cult or the communist party. A group think- i think the term is cognitive dissonance goes on. In other words if i am taking the time to be a member of this group it must be a great group! On the other hand i have come across deeply spiritual people involved with AA. Indeed i recently met someone on a course who described the 12 steps as a form of yoga ( spiritual practice). It is sad that some people are so fragile that they need to hold on to grim death to a particular conviction and brook no influence from others. Bit like what goes on in the Northern part of our beloved country!
I am concerned though that 'we' may come across no differently than the other zealots- just trying to promote a different type of snake oil or religion! for what its worth in my experience people tend to be more open to new/revolutionary thinking when they go seeking something themselves. Just look at the rate of growth on this site in the past few weeks. TSM will inevitably grow in popularity and will eventually reach some kind of critical mass. For the moment maybe we need to accept that we here are the pioneers. I am curious about those of us on this board? Are we generally the kind of people whom marketers might describe as 'early adopters'? i know i have never been happy to be mainstream in any aspect of my life whether it be my politics or lifestyle choices. I wonder is that true of others on this board.

I'm in the Fargo school when it comes to 'marketeers'


Or at least I would be if I had a woodchipper

I'd say that the people in this group on average have an IQ at least one healthy standard deviation above the norm.

i don't know about 'standard' but i certainly often deviate from the 'norm'. Thank goodness

Hey 1-4 you've been awful quiet lately. Whats your craic?

Hi soulby

just been fairly busy and forgot to update. Units up a shade last week unfortunately - second week in a row, and looks like they'll be up another fraction this week again, unless I'm very abstemious today and tomorrow