Sonntag, 29. Mai 2011

Süchtig nach Respekt

Sizilianer sind süchtig nach Respekt, und die Mafia verkauft ihnen den Stoff.

Petra Reski: Mafia

Mittwoch, 25. Mai 2011

Disturbing Tendencies in AA

Two disturbing tendencies are noticeable in contemporary AA. One is toward a lower recovery rate overall. For the first twenty years, the standard AA recovery estimate was seventy-five percent. An experience was that fifty percent of the alcoholics who came to AA got sober right away and stayed sober. Another twenty-five percent had trouble for a while but eventually got sober for good, and the remaining twenty-five percent never made a recovery. Then there was a period of some years when AA headquarters stopped making the seventy-five percent recovery claim in their official literature. In 1968, AA's General Service Organization published a survey indicating an overall recovery rate of about sixty-seven percent. The net of all this seems to be that as AA has gotten bigger and older, its effectiveness has dropped from about three in four to about two in three. (Note: two in three was in 1976 - our data shows numbers much LESS in 1997 - 1 in 15).

The majority of those who become addicted are people with a mystical streak, an appetite for inexhaustible bliss. We sought in bottles what can only be found in spiritual experience. AA worked in the first place because its Twelve Steps were a workable set of guidelines to spiritual experience. Growth of the movement made possible for a time a kind of parasitism in which partial practitioners and non-practitioners of the spiritual principles were able to feed off the strength of those who had undergone real spiritual experiences. But at this point in time, (1976) the parasites have already drained the host organism of a considerable portion of its life force.

Author Unknown, 1976

Sonntag, 22. Mai 2011

Greater Lucidity

... life doesn't get easier when you walk away from the culture of drink; you simply live it with greater lucidity.

Pete Hamill: A Drinking Life

Mittwoch, 18. Mai 2011

Just Hold On

He gave me the best advice that I was given while I was at the center, which was to hold on. No matter how bad or difficult life becomes, if you hold on, hold on to whatever it is you need to hold on to, be it religion, friends, a support group, a set of steps or your own heart, if you hold on, just hold on, life will get better.

James Frey: My Friend Leonard

Sonntag, 15. Mai 2011

Meine Therapie

Es gibt Süchtige - und es sind nicht wenige - , die würden nie im Leben einen Psychologen, Psychotherapeuten oder Psychiater aufsuchen. Weil sie diesen nicht trauen. Was können die, die in dieser Gesellschaft funktionieren (und sie vertreten), von denen wissen, die sich dagegen wehren? Nein, nicht alle Süchtigen wehren sich gegen die Gesellschaft, doch alle wehren sich gegen die Realität. Und Teil der sozialen Realität sind die anerkannten sozialen Helfer - Psychologen, Psychotherapeuten und Psychiater.

Mittwoch, 11. Mai 2011

The culture of drink

The culture of drink endures because it offers so many rewards: confidence for the shy, clarity for the uncertain, solace to the wounded and lonely, the elusive promises of friendship and love.

Pete Hamill: A Drinking Life

Sonntag, 8. Mai 2011

Celebrity Redemption

It's a cliché now that when celebs get caught with their hand in the cookie jar, or their nose in the sherbet, they go to rehab. (People like me, who can take stuff or leave it, outrage the prevailing orthodoxy with our refusal to make an addiction out of an amusement.) But sadly, just as all junkies are one atom of the same vast (dishonest, self-pitying, boring) entity – a bit like the Borg – so Reformed Characters are identically dull. From Kerry Katona to Will Self, from Russell Brand to Tara P-T, Not Doing Drugs becomes as central and boastful in their lives as Doing Drugs once was; they still can't bear not to be stage-centre, but now they expect respect for their abstinence rather than their indulgence.

Julie Burchill
Celebrity redemption is even more sickening than celebrity excess

The Independent, Thursday, 14 April 2011

Mittwoch, 4. Mai 2011

La sustitución por un poder constructivo

... la experiencia de A.A. demuestra que la sobriedad feliz si requiere la sustitución por un poder constructivo, dejando aquél poder destructivo del alcohol, respecto del cual el alcohólico admitió haber perdido todo control.

El miembro de A.A. y el Abuso de las Drogas

Sonntag, 1. Mai 2011

Sie glauben nicht an Therapie?

Sie glauben nicht an Therapie?

Lassen Sie mich es so sagen: Man kann nicht auf der Welt sein, ohne in Schmerzen zu leben, seelischen und körperlichen Schmerzen. Wir haben Mechanismen entwickelt, um mit diesen Schmerzen umzugehen, sie irgendwie zu überwinden. Therapie, Religion und Spiritualität, Beziehungen, materiellen Erfolg. All das kann funktionieren, aber auch selbst zum Problem werden.

David Foster Wallace
Schrecklich amüsant – aber in Zukunft ohne mich