Apparently, Fundamentalists Anonymous has been very helpful to a lot of people who've experienced Christianity-turned-abusive, including some of Robert Hymers' victims.

I was a little turned off by the site's ad for Rational Recovery, since I maintain my ties to the twelve-step world, and it's been my perception in the past that RR was fueled by resentment of AA—that it had a certain negativity driving it. Yet I can see how the wrong group and/or the wrong sponsor could easily turn the twelve-step experience into something profoundly cultlike: the potential for abuse is definitely there. And I certainly think there are plenty of misdiagnoses in AA. I was one of them, for eleven years.

So, yes: practically any good thing can be warped into a compulsive behavior. Including abstinence from compulsive behaviors.

Everything in moderation, Folks. Including moderation.

A lot of my family members live on that ragged edge where Evangelical leanings begin to flirt with Fundamentalism, so when I discuss Scripture with them I try to keep it all in general terms so we don't argue too much. ("So, you do realize I'm a Papist, now, Grandma. Whaddya think? Am I saved, or lost?")

In my own twelve-step-based nonprofit organization I had an exchange recently with the Chairman of the Board. He is my boss when I'm getting along with him. (When I'm not, I inform him tartly that I report directly to the Vice Chair, and he needs to respect chain-of-command. Or at least I think that, really hard.)

This guy told me he really admires me, because even when I'm overwhelmed (usually because I've taken too much on), I simply don't give up.

There is a word for that, of course: compulsion. I wonder if there's a twelve-step program for that?

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:27 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 312 words, total size 2 kb.

Either that, or defer legal adulthood and voting rights to 21. We can't have it both ways.

Insty has more.

As far as I'm concerned, if you are old enough to die for your country overseas, you may drink. Period.

Discuss among yourselves: at special family dinners, at what age would you give a teenager a little wine&mdash:say, on Thanksgiving day? Sixteen? Seventeen? (Assuming that this is not a teenager with a chemical dependency history, of course. Just a normal kid, to whom you want alcohol to be as neutral an issue as possible.)

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:13 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 102 words, total size 1 kb.

At a DA meeting tonight a friend of mine who is also in one of the "chemical programs" (those that deal with physical addiction to mind-altering substances) discussed the reason he can can't drink too much coffee, or eat too many carbs or sweets.

"Because sooner or later, the thought crosses my mind that I shouldn't be messing around, and sort of running away. Because I really know how to do it right. I can run away like a champ.

"The next day, I'm smoking weed again."

Posted by: Attila Girl at 01:28 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 99 words, total size 1 kb.

explains the lady who's setting out literature in my Twelve-Step meeting. "She wants to handle the refreshments all by herself—even though it isn't her job—so she can get mad because she's doing too much for this meeting."

She looks at me again, and immediately apologizes. "I'm sorry," she tells me. "That was harsh."

"Why apologize?" I ask. "It's completely true, and everyone knows it." I keep setting up the food.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 05:46 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 80 words, total size 1 kb.

They very often meet in church rec rooms or nonprofit centers. There is, invariably, at least one ancient third-hand couch there that was stored in someone's garage for some time and is loaded down with dust. Even if you avoid sitting on any of these couches, every time someone else does plumes of dust will waft into the air.

If you have allergies, it makes life interesting.

Let's say you spent Friday night in one of these rooms at a regular meeting, of . . . oh, something like Debtors Anonymous. The following morning you were at a community center for upward of four hours, serving on a local board and "Intergroup" problem-solving committee in a room with five (5) such couches. That same Saturday, you landed in another church schoolroom, with its token Dust Belching Couch, speaking about your putative recovery from financial issues, and that evening after the runny nose and the red eyes and all of that you look down at your skin to discover that half of your body (okay: hands, elbows, and neck) is covered in an obnoxious red rash.

Wouldn't you be tempted to conclude that hand-me-down couches are the work of the Devil?

Posted by: Attila at 11:43 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 210 words, total size 1 kb.

. . . wonders if we're headed toward a "new prohibitionism." I sometimes wonder that, too.

Posted by: Attila at 12:20 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 20 words, total size 1 kb.

So my friend Matt Carnation used to drink a lot. He's now been sober in AA for 20 years or more, but he refers to his drinking back in the day as that of an "outrageous, flagrant" alcoholic. The problem first appeared with wife #1, with whom he went so far as to have kids; and they now have grandkids. He's burned through two wives since her, and things are cordial in the way they have to be when eveyone has to see the grandkids, so the parents of those grandkids have to try not to play favorites—even when there's been a divorce in the family.

And though Matt lives here in the L.A. area, his son and daughter in law, and the children, live in Phoenix. His ex wife is there as well. So Matt flies off to spend holidays with his family, and that includes Wife #1.

At one point he opens the refrigerator and reaches inside. Because of the angle she does not see the coke cans adjacent to the beer, and is appalled, thinking he's reaching for a longneck. "You can't have that!" she exclaims.

"Why not?" he enquires, amused by the way she's jumping to conclusions.

"Remember the 1970s?" Her voice is starting to rise just a little in frustration.

"No," he answers. "I don't." And he smiles.

Posted by: Attila at 01:10 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 231 words, total size 1 kb.

I got an e-mail today from a friend, who wrote:

Read your piece on AA. I once had a friend (a very closeted gay) who
took me to an AA meeting, he said it was a good place to "pick up easy
wimmin." Not really interested, but I went along for the ride. Lots of
seriously fucked up people at AA. And I can't get excited about chain smoking
and I really can't get interested in seeking casual sex, so I never went
back.

The alcoholism is just a manifestation of a deep unhappiness. I have
been unhappy and depressed in my life, but getting drunk never helped so I
never became an alcoholic.

There's something to that last point: it seems that there are a lot of chronically depressed people who would self-medicate if any medicine they tried ever worked. In this, the addict or alcoholic is particularly lucky in the short-term--but, of course, quite unlucky in the long-term.

Hm. There wasn't too much smoking at the meetings I attended, back in the day. And there have always been plenty of nonsmoking meetings in Southern California. And I don't remember any casual sex at all. I'd hope I would, too.

Posted by: Attila at 10:54 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 213 words, total size 1 kb.

I went to my first meeting of CLA last night. (Yes. Clutterers Anonymous. Sigh. It is not yet true that there is a 12-Step program for every unattractive human habit, but we may get there some day.)

It was a tiny group of people in a little room in a church, and the meeting began 15 minutes late. Keep in mind that I'm used to DA meetings, which start strictly on time and use timers to keep the speaker and everyone who shares precisely on track. (Speakers get 15 minutes: no more and no less. Sharing is confined to three minutes per person. In DA we're strict and clear about time, just as we strive to be strict and clear about money.)

There is this odd thing about clutterers getting together, whether in CLA or in DA meetings that focus on clutter: the rooms are always small. The surroundings never feel abundant. This partly reflects the fact that CLA is one of the smallest 12-step groups out there, and partly reflects our willingness to confine ourselves to small spaces. My den, for example, tends to consist of a little path from the door to my computer, with the rest of the floor covered in books, papers, and magazines. (Do you remember those films they used to show pre-teens at school to explain menstruation?--the visual of the uterus, and how its lining would grow and grow until there was nearly no room left? That's what happens to my personal spaces: the walls start to close in as the piles of paper creep inward toward the middle of each room. This is in fact a good way for a uterus to behave--but not so much for a house.)

Everyone at this meeting was homely and at least a little overweight. I didn't fit in, or at least I sort of hoped (on some level) that I didn't.

I will probably go back. Because 1) "no contempt prior to investigation," and 2) for all I know, this isn't about my getting. It might well be about me giving. There could someone I might be able to help by going there. It's possible, and I need to check it out thoroughly.
more...

Posted by: Attila at 10:40 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 491 words, total size 3 kb.

Dean Esmay continues to discuss his journey along the road of abstinence from alchohol. His entry contains a mini-roundup of groups like Rational Recovery, Moderation Management, Women for Sobriety, and other alternatives to Alcoholics Anonymous. I wish him luck.

My journey is a little strange: I was in AA for 11 years, and decided to quit the program in January of 2002, when I worked at the food magazine (I wanted to drink red wine with pasta, and have the occasional martini or Manhattan). Since that time I've entered another 12-Step program--this one dealing with compulsive financial mismanagement and confusion about money (Debtors Anonymous).

You might say I found a way to keep the steps and the booze. You might.

I don't mind the "spiritual" aspect of AA, since it is so free-form (really the opposite of a cult, if you ask me). I know there are a lot of meetings dominated by cranky oldtimers who are full of rules that appear nowhere in the Big Book of Alchoholics Anonymous. I always avoided those types of meetings. For what it's worth, there are a lot of meetings of all different flavors out there. It spans the breadth of humanity. Remember what they say: "all you really need to start your own group is a resentment and a coffee pot." My way of saying, don't write AA off too quickly. Keep looking for that Right Meeting that feels comfortable to you.

I like the idea of Women for Sobriety, since there are definitely a lot of men in AA who either 1) are on the make, and/or 2) have a deep, undying hatred of females. I've never gone to their meetings, though, so I can't vouch for it.

I also think it's worth noting that my DA groups include plenty of AA members. (Perhaps half of us are in other 12-Step programs of one kind or another.) A lot of my friends remark that they go to AA meetings, but experience more recovery in DA. I think that may be because AA comprises more "biological addicts," and there's simply less to discuss about a problem like that versus something like dealing with money or food, which clearly touches all aspects of one's life (and cannot be sworn off of, either, as with alcohol). Or maybe it's chemistry--you find the right group or program, and it "clicks." (Am I using biased information from biased individuals to make sweeping generalizations? Yup.)

I'm definitely in the pragmatist camp. Whatever works for any given individual is the right thing for him/her to do.

This may not even be my last 12-Step group, as I'm contemplating joining Clutterer's Anonymous. (Does anyone know how they define sobriety/abstinence? I sometimes wonder if it means living in a home that doesn't contain horizontal surfaces upon which to pile paper, magazines, files, and Clothing That Needs Mending. I fantasize that they'll advise me to sleep in a hammock under the tree in my backyard, and I'm not positive I want to do that, because it gets cold up here on this ridge.)

Just wait for the group to join that addresses addiction to the web in general, or blogging in particular. I won't go, though. Because I can quit anytime I want.

Posted by: Attila at 08:32 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 550 words, total size 3 kb.