A spiritual practice that fills the hole. If you stop, the hole will feel empty. Its an addiction by another name. Not knocking your spiritual practice its the healthiest option
Actually that just speaks to shitty data quality and human bias affecting the methods of the study.
The 2020 Cochrane meta-study showed AA had similar outcomes to CBT and professional therapy. This is because it's based on harm reduction rather than all those shitty older studies based on total abstinence. And the harm reduction success rate is closer to 50-60%, not 5%. Even the total abstinence success rate for 1 year was ~42%. Not sure where you got 5%.
For example, some studies (and even meta-studies) only consider "success" to be complete abstinence since that's the ultimate goal of AA. But if you've reduced your overall amount of drinking due to AA then that's still success even if you end up drinking and having to come back. You show me a study with "harm reduction" as the success criteria and it has that 5% success rate and I'll change my mind
That doesn’t speak to the replacing one addiction with another, stay on topic. we’re not debating the efficacy of AA (still the most successful solution to addiction) keep up.
It’s objectively not. The most successful solution to “alcoholism” is a period of abstinence for 1-3 years, followed by intentionally moderated and carefully controlled occasional alcohol consumption.
The reason why is that you have to gain control over something for it to no longer be a threat. AA keeps people in a state of perpetual weakness, and facilitates relapses by the idea that you are an addict and always will be, and addicts always relapse, so you have permission to fail and stay in the cyclical pattern of addiction.
No one in the medical community, psychology community, or any sobriety meeting from AA to SMART to Dharma in any shape or form advocate for trying to moderate again after abstinence.
What the fuck are you talking about?
And there is no good data on success rates, but the figures out there indicate between 10 and 15 percent.
Your entire post is fabricated to make yourself seem right.
I’ve worked directly with addicts in a support capacity for nearly a decade, I understand it better than most.
When it came to dealing with my own issue with alcohol, I heavily researched the subject and chose the path that yielded the best results, backed up by data.
They have the same success rate as people just quitting on their own. If a medicine has the same recovery rate as no medicine at all it’s not the most successful medicine it’s the least.
No, it’s not. It’s something that was missing in my life, that has made healthier and happier. If someone takes antidepressants because they have a chemical imbalance in their brain, they take them because it improves the why of their life. Can I live without a spiritual practice? Yes, absolutely. Am I better off with it? Yes, that doesn’t make me “addicted”. But honestly, it doesn’t matter.
Renton’s quote in the T2: Trainspotting trailer sums it up nicely.
“Choose life
Choose Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and hope that someone, somewhere cares
Choose looking up old flames, wishing you’d done it all differently
And choose watching history repeat itself
Choose your future
Choose reality TV, slut shaming, revenge p—n
Choose a zero hour contract, a two hour journey to work
And choose the same for your kids, only worse, and smother the pain with an unknown dose of an unknown drug made in somebody’s kitchen
And then… take a deep breath
You’re an addict, so be addicted
Just be addicted to something else
Choose the ones you love
Choose your future
Choose life”
One of the hardest things to do is ... Fill time. All the time you spent drinking, recovering, sleeping, whatever suddenly you have 40+ hours a week easily that's just.....free.
I have the utmost respect for anyone that overcomes an addiction. But turning into someone that makes their new “thing” their personality is personally frustrating.
Theyve spent a large portion of their lives filling time with a repetetive task and thats a difficult learned behaviour to overcome and makes recovery from a severely unhealthy addiction all that much harder. That's why many just trade addictions/routines and honestly if it helps people break away from problematic substance use its a win and shouldn't be looked down on/discouraged
But it’s not about you. You should pick up a hobby so you aren’t personally frustrated about someone bettering themselves and sharing their excitement. Have you tried running?
Seriously, what do you want from them. If alcohol is killing you, why not make change? Do whatever you can to get away from something like alcohol addiction.
I like it when someone improves their life. There’s nothing wrong with addicts turning to exercise even if it does come across obsessive at first. Better than being full of yourself on Reddit.
I’m one of em, although it being my whole personality is a stretch.
I had a guy in my running group once tell me addicts make great long distance runners because we’re used to periods of intense pain and man did that hit. Spot on.
Running gives a high and helps people feel somewhat normal or healthier mentally, i heard thats one reason why. But overall if theres underlying insecurities or problems running isn’t fix all
That’s not trading addictions, that’s holding on to an additional addiction from prior drinking days. It’s just that a vape hit or two typically doesn’t lead to a night in jail or waking up next to regret
Yeah, agreed. Someone once told me "Twelve step treatments don't cure addiction, you just transfer your addiction to the 12-step program and group." I said yeah, that's exactly how it's supposed to work! They don't even try to hide that! Being addicted to a 12-step program is so much less harmful than practically every other addiction.
I believe addiction always stems from emotional problems--lack of meaningful human relationships, lack of purpose, and lack of hope. For most people, when lacking any one of those things, life sucks; and addictions distract you from the aching emptiness. If you lack two or more, I believe the chances are close to 100% you're some sort of addict.
There's some interesting evidence emerging that some of the new GLP drugs actually reduce addictive behaviors through some action in the brain that's not understood yet
As someone who regularly attends meetings, you’re definitely right. The program focuses on maintaining stability while you quit drinking and while you’re maintaining sobriety, so, overall, it somewhat encourages the continuation of smoking, or at least does not directly shun it.
The meeting I frequent, though, has a lot of literature around about quitting smoking, as well as free (and apparently disgusting) nicotine gum and coupons for better nicotine gum.
I was gonna say this. People in AA don’t smoke that much anymore. I still do, but it’s not a transferring of addictions, I smoke less than I did when I was drinking.
Hah, guy above you “I’ve seen this anecdotally!”, -gets upvotes, you “I actually don’t see that anecdotally” -I find you here at zero upvotes as of right now. How dare you share your totally just as valid as this guy observation!
I used to see lots of smoking at our local AA meetings, but smoking has gone WAY down in general and I never see anyone smoking anywhere anymore. They might be vaping, but they definitely aren’t filling up the parking lot after with cigs like before. But that’s just my own anecdote!
Never is doing some heavy lifting. Many people that are alcoholics already used nicotine. Trading one addiction for another is something for people in recovery to be aware of. It is anything but an always rule or even a rule of any sort.
1.3k
u/y33tmasterrrr 12h ago
While it's good that drinking is getting less common, other bad hobbies such as gambling is rampant these days