Good news about speaking @ Hospitals and Institutions

They always want the whole floor. Obvious, when you have the only real solution. As soon as a debate starts, the "no controversy" card is played.

There are just a number of questions. While anyone can be at an open meeting, why someone with such hatred for the program WOULD spend her time that way, I can't understand. If I were posting that, I'd get the whole thing about time with your husband, get a life, and all the other things people post when they have nothing legit to say. She's been behaving as a member would and is now taking on service work. I know halfway houses and rehabs that have different speakers from different methods that come in and speak, but perhaps not one that sounds as AA specific as this one. And she's doing it through an AA group. While I would push for her right to speak her truth, this just sounds odd to me.

Clara doesn't care about the atrocities AA members has done for decades.The rapes, murders,sexual harassment,financial scams and massive lying. But OMG AVO voices her opinion.

Thank you for a very well thought out response. I recognize that not everyone has had my experience in AA, and I have looked into the main option people mention. I find it intriguing and I don't think that my interest in it means that sobriety methods are an either/or, or that I have to denounce one to support or find benefit in another. I am sorry that your experience in AA was bad, negative, horrendous or any other word you want to assign to it. While I am happy that others have achieved sobriety by any other method and have ALWAYS said that here, it surprises me that anyone would begrudge me mine or that AA worked. I have had solid examples of good sobriety gained through that program. You might even know some, too. So to hear these blanket statements that AA doesn't work and others... Well, when you know it has worked for you, they just don't ring true. People here can statistic all they want while they also have nothing from SMART to say that even works for longterm sobriety, but "they are working on it." It's a twenty year old program, yet they are working on it? But I certainly think it can. And if it works for YOU, that is all that matters. If doing no steps works for you, that is all that matters. The only sobriety I can answer for is my own and how I did it.

If you were in a 12 step rehab, she may have honestly felt that for long term sobriety, her suggestion was the best. But when I hear "forced" into rehab, it doesn't suggest to me that you had much choice in anything at that point. Once you left, other options could have been explored. I don't personally knpow anyone that went to rehab that was just dismissed to the world and maintenance wasn't suggested to them. But I understand what you mean about having the choice to make an informed decision. I'm going through a similar thing with my dog in that when he was diagnosed with a brain lesion, I immediately wanted aggressive diagnostic tools such as MRIs, which don't appear to be available in Las Cruces, where I was using my sister's vet. The doctor didn't tell me of referral options in part because of local economics. Most people aren't going to spend 2k cash on a test and the best care is in Phoenix, several hours away. It wasn't until we were discussing euthanasia and cremation that he even mentioned that there is a neurologist right here in El Paso. My anger and frustration was over someone else feeling that because he wouldn't do it, he didn't offer it to others, yet I had ASKED specifically about MRIs, something that ould have been done 25 minutes from home. Something too about making people feel guilty if they didn't or couldn't spend money that way. That, to me, is just plain wrong. By the time I heard of the doctor, my dog was no longer in any condition for the MRI (they put them under) or any treatments that a diagnosis from one would require. The whole point was moot. I have experienced every single one of the emotions there are to feel, and there will come a time when I can deal with it in an appropriate manner. That time isn't now, and the way I wanted to do it wouldn't have been right/proper.

While I agree completely with your notions of making informed decisions, that brings me to another point... If you were forced into rehab, how capable were you of making any decisions at all? My husband asked for help after he went on a bender, ripped up the house, and hit his wife. He woke up that morning to an empty tornado shell and realized that he was the problem and his problem was alcohol. He asked for rehab through the navy and went on to AA worked for him, and he didn't have a reason to think that it wouldn't. When he was discharged, they told him to continue with meetings of his choice. He might have even gone to SMART if it had existed then, and even the SMART literature says people come to meetings anywhere from months to years.

What concerns me, though, is that perhaps these people possibly ARE in rehab by choice and they KNEW it was a 12 step program, so why not just let them have their 28 days treatment? And if it has taken force to get them there, they may not yet even really believe they have a problem. I believe that you have to want to be sober, and forced rehab patients often haven't reached that. Otherwise, why would they have been forced? There is a time and a place, as well as a method to productively do what you want. Does this facility have any sort of aftercare to get involved with?

I also am really concerned that you would do this under the guise of AA, which surely doing this through a group would imply. If you are trying to deprogram, why are you going there? If she's been going for a month, then she should be comfortable to not need someone there with her, especially someone trying to reconcile and resolve a few things, yet you want to do service work through them?

I think it is dangerous. Not for AA, but for you and the people you want to address.

But good luck to you. I appreciate the opportunity for real dialogue.

Good post, Avogadno. I have always said that one of the things that is so limiting in AA is that there is never much acknowledgement that there are many alternatives and that you do not have to be a stepper. The dry drunk thing was another load of rubbish - I feel more steppers fit into that category than anyone else. My first sponsor was so dismissive of any other programme,but when I look at how things have turned out ,I am so happy I have walked away. It is hard to talk a different point of view face to face with a group that contains some that are dismissive but I feel it is good when that happens once in a while for them as it makes them think and challenge things. I heard about three chairs by people who were not stepper parrots and I got so much from the alternative point of view. What you and massive do takes courage and is completely different from the cowardly trolls that come on here posting repedative,dismissive and generally ignorant comments time after time which nobody is interested in. They have no class and are driven by ignorance and self centredness. It is easy to say let me speak at your meeting on a blog to someone in another country who is going to take no notice of them as they know there is no point but to stand up in front of people for real and challenge the majority takes guts. You have my admiration for your actions and you should feel proud