If your father left you to die [Trigger warning for addiction/alcoholism added by MNHQ]

[WildeWoman]

By leaving you to die, I mean 'she's an alcoholic, what can you do'.

And you later found out that he may have been complicit in welfare fraud..........

Would you report him?

Looking at my two boys.... no I don't believe I could ever just leave them to die and would have to step in

But stepping in time and again by my mother and aunt didn't prevent my uncle from drinking to a point to being murdered by another alcholic

so without really know if your circumstances who knows

But this I do know .... The rooms would be unimpressed with you smashing the concept of enabling
Anyone in longterm recovery would be questioning why you were holding onto this if you really are in recovery

If you walked into the groups I ran the groups would have challenged you to the nth degree

I truly hope you have actually reached sobriety because no one should have to go through what you have but recovery? I question that. ... your father will face his own demons you being that demon is not healthy and you know it

Not rtft but Wilde I think you're catching the fallout for many people's terrible experiences with alcoholic family. Of course alcoholism's horrible for the family, many illnesses are but as someone about to move into a Psychology PHD dealing with addiction they are wrong. There is no one consensus about addiction but in my opinion it is not a 'choice' as such. There is experimental evidence to show that often our behaviors occur before we've engaged any cognitive processes. You might think your loved one chooses to drink but often they don't. They just drink. It is an illness, physical and mental and actually in the UK you have a better chance of long term recovery from cancer than alcoholism. Even 20 years ago people with all kinds of diagnoses like depression, OCD and autism and even things which are (rightly) no longer considered pathological like homosexuality and gender non-conformity were shamed and guilt ed for being a choice. 'You choose to not get out of bed' 'You choose to start screaming' 'You choose to wash your hands till they bleed' 'you choose to fancy other women' 'you choose to drink'. Ask a current psychological/psychiatric researcher and they will tell you that 'free will' is an extremely controversial proposition especially in those disordered/distorted cognitive functions. That is not to say that no one can recover, obviously people do, but some people will spontaneously remiss from cancer. Most people need treatment but for some people in both the cancer and alcohol camps treatment isn't enough. I mean seriously you can basically predict if someone in alcohol withdrawl is going to relapse or not by the changes in their REM sleep. That's not a choice they're making that's their physiology. But I guess it being someone else's bad behavior and poor choices protects us from the knowledge that the world is deeply unfair and some people suffer hugely and absolves us of the responsibility to push for better services for sufferers. AA is deeply ineffective. It's got a shockingly low sucess rate, and yet there are far more effective therapies available that our government chooses not to fund. Imagine if cancer patients were only given the option of a clinic with 5% sucess rate and then only if they prayed to a higher power....there would be an outrage but it's the nasty alchies fault isn't it..?

LeavetheHamster, I am curious, could you please tell what are the "far more effective therapies that our government chooses not to fund"?

What are the more effective therapies, LeavetheHamster?

Hang on I'm trying to find an article everyone can access without an institutional login

You can buy a copy of the handbook from Amazon or your book vendor of choice but this is a basic rundown of treatments from the 2003 3rd edition ranking treatment by there effectiveness. AA's not even top 30.

www.behaviortherapy.com/researchdiv/whatworks.aspx

And before anyone brings it up I am a child and sister of an alcoholic and I don't think that that has any bearing on the notion of apportioning blame, either something is a choice or it's not (and that's not to say that no one who drinks is making a choice). Living in a house with an alcoholic is not the same as living in the head of an alcoholic and doesn't give anyone more licence to talk about the experience of alcoholism from the perspective of the patient. They can, and should, discuss it from the perspective of family deeply effected by it but being effected by it doesn't make anyone more or less to blame.

". AA is deeply ineffective. It's got a shockingly low sucess rate, and yet there are far more effective therapies available that our government chooses not to fund"
The government doesn't fund AA - it is self supporting from contributions from members.
I am also interested to hear about these far more effective remedies. Why are they so little known about if they are so effective?

Yes. The government palms a lot of mental health/social matters it should be dealing with to not for profit organizations instead of providing ongoing adequate support.

Then why aren't the other therapies on the same footing?

Because AA has been running (without requiring a lot of investment) for 75+ years on the basis that alcoholism is a spiritual and moral failing. Not only is that view outdated it's also really ineffective, but it conveniently removes responsibility for treatment from the powers that be in much the same way that CAMHS is ludicrously underfunded since it's always put down to a moral failing on the parents behalf. 'Your child doesn't need medication you just need to discipline better.' No one, or at least hardly anyone, who has spend any time systematically investigating these issues thinks how they're handled is correct (see drug law reform where scientists have been banned for being too sensible) but it's a convenient ideological stance.

How did this website gather statistics on AA as it, AA, keeps no records?

It is a meta-analysis of many different studies following the outcomes of individuals in each treatment group. The number of trials included in the analysis is given.

That's very interesting Leavethehamster. I'm not convinced, though, that acapuncture cures alcoholism - if it were that easy then surely it would be recommended to all alcoholics?

It is a meta analysis from 2003, newer studies attempting to correct for the self selection bias actually show AA attendance to be correlated with lower alcohol consumption. Do not build your PhD on ancient literature before even starting if there are newer studies, LeaveTheHamster. By the time of your viva this will be 17 years old.

My area is cannabis as opposed to alcohol and I did mention that I was struggling to find a link that you didn't need institutional credentials for. I will not be using this research in my work as it is not relevant to my field.

Oh and name changed sorry.

I'd don't have access to that account anymore as it's tied to a now non-existent FB. Apologies for the switch HQ.

I think you're catching the fallout for many people's terrible experiences with alcoholic - Very much so.

I'm out of touch with statistics but, that aside, wholly agree with all your points, Leave. Thanks.

I don't see the difference between catching the fallout for many people's terrible experiences and being realistic as to what the family are likely to have gone through?

The family members (and similar) posting here have expressed a lot of anger based on what they've gone through. The OP's been getting the brunt of that anger. Both statements say that, surely?

LeaveTheHamster You might think your loved one chooses to drink but often they don't. They just drink.
Yes, they may be genetically predicated to DRINK, but they can very definitely choose not to pick up the glass, no question. It takes huge work, effort and sometime medication but it is not is the same field as other illnesses, as research has shown.
Now this is interesting: " AA is deeply ineffective. It's got a shockingly low sucess rate, and yet there are far more effective therapies available that our government chooses not to fund."
Hamster is right on the effectiveness, it's too late for me to check the stats, but something like 95% of drinkers relapse after 2 years in AA. It doesn't work, by all accounts, but like homeopathy because there's no substantive data we're all at sea, and when God is involved who's going to question it?
I put my tin hat on at "there are far more effective therapies available that our government chooses not to fund."
Which ones? Studied by whom? Coupla peer reviewed papers out there anywhere? No, thought not.
I offer advice to all drinkers like myself - if something works for you, AA, shamanisn, yoga, whatever, do it.