Disease model: Is alcohol addiction a disease?

One of the things that addiction to alcohol is that it's almost treated as a special case.

First the name; "alcoholism". Why  the ism? Is there cocaineism? heroinism? marijuanaism? foodism? sex/love/carnal -ism? The quick answer is no. They are all addictions, I don't debate that one bit.

To me the 'ism' suffix was done by Bill Wilson by design and was/is a way to differentiate or provide some buffer for this addiction since Bill couldn't very well be afflicted by a common addiction. He had to have a disease and then to emphasize it more, he also declared it incurable. I hate this idea and one of the things in aa that I grew to straight up disagree with because it seems to help no one other keep people buying big books and attending meetings and giving their dollar.

Bill's ideas about alcohol addiction as it is cast in aa seems to serve a few functions; first and foremost it lifts the addict from guessing what is wrong with them, they are told 'hey you have a disease' which is well enough by itself. However then telling the addict there is no cure nor try to seek one is crazy and only serves aa. I can't think of a single disease where people simply accept it is not curable nor should we try to cure it. So is there a disease or not? Or, did Bill Wilson have any idea what he was talking about as far as saying this or that was a disease? I am going to guess, Bill knew exactly what he was doing and could see a business model a mile away with his education and exposure to a privileged segment of society.

In case someone was not sold on the disease perspective, there is always the 'spiritual malady' fallback position. It's harder to argue with someone that says 'well the disease model is incorrect because what was known then is not supported by the current body of knowledge about diseases and not to mention Bill was not a doctor and Dr Bob probably did not adhere to qualifying anything he had been told by Bill using medical protocol'. I have seen people that have done this and they were usually met with dismissal and irrational logic of someone launching into aa speak about spiritual malady.

I don't dismiss the idea of spirituality or religion, I actually admire people that are disciplined enough to practice either or. I found very few people in aa that had any discipline.

To sum up, treat it like a disease or a spiritual malady just don't make excuses when it's becoming obvious that neither approach works in aa for very many people.

It's been over 2 months

It's been over 2 months since I been to a  meeting or had contact with anyone in aa.

I have not had any cravings or obsessing. I also been happier and less stressed about things in general.

In aa I had to make a list of things that are not okay or not going right in my life. After a decade of being in aa, I was still adding to that list. I was told a lot of things that things felt like they were not changing, most felt like empty gestures and rote platitudes and I should have called them out as such. I also recall that questioning any aa saying or observation was quickly met with dismissal or outright ridicule, I should have said it anyway.

The proof that aa does not solve all (or really any) problem is that 2 months and some days after I stopped going, I have stopped really being aware of that list from aa and I don't know where to begin with a new list of things going right and I can't recall the last thing to add to my new list as it's simply too big to manage. If it does not get added as 'better' or 'improved', it gets added to another list named 'changed' because in aa, things stopped changing around year 3-4 and I tried to stick it out for the next few years; I was wrong to do this.

If you have read this far and are on the fence about leaving aa, I would advise you to;

1. make a list of things not okay or right with aa being in your life right now.
2. make a list of the things that are good as a result of aa (if any).
3. keep an eye on it for few days or weeks and see if anything changes.
4. skip a few meetings and analyze your lists from 1 and 2.

One thing that aa tries to do is keep reiterating the stance that aa is aligned with God and anything that happens or does not happen is the result of God and by extension aa. This is wrong, aa tries to define the scope of God in direct opposition to their credo of "let go and Let God...".

Hypocrisy or lack of awareness, neither. It's really propaganda. BUT aa is not aligned with anything, right? aa is aligned with protecting and preserving it' monopoly as the de facto "recovery" concept and having members that keep impressing that if even it's recovery does not work or stops working for a lot of people.

Success in aa or not..

One of the biggest myths I saw over the years in aa was that being successful in aa means that you will have good long term sobriety.

When I say success in aa I mean the folks that become part of all the cliques or the dominant cliques in aa then go to become a sort of celebrity that people seek out. So much for principals before personalities, because usually those people are sought and somewhat given a lot of leeway with their misbehavior as an expense.

Misbehavior as in not really maturing or improve themselves as a person, or even trying to grow up. They usually have a lot of aa'isms memorized and wield them like weapons. Misbehavior of this sort is contained to the rooms and once away from the meeting, you can forget  about these people and the next time you see them you can keep walking to the next meeting.

There is also the misbehavior that leaves the rooms as I have seen these "successful" people usually with one newcomer after another usually explained away as fellowship until it goes around the rooms that they fucked a newcomer then later on 'another newcomer'. Like I have said, their 'success' will usually buy them mulligans since they are 'doing the deal' as they go repeating all the aa 'isms ad infinitum. They are still seen as successful though, not sure why anyone would want to be that kind of success but I guess aa needs it's heroes even at the expense of principals lest the myth of aa dies.

Sobriety in the case of these folks is usually all about 'not picking up a drink', it's never about service or even doing the steps. They never seem to be around when there is work to be done, usually the show up long enough to be seen saying a few aa'isms then they are gone.

I have no idea why aa pretends it's about principals when it's the first and last thing tossed out before and after an admission of 'sick people' or 'egos' or 'not putting God first' or some other aa thing that aa uses instead of saying the truth; that aa does not always work because some people are truly in need of bigger help. It's never said because without the myth, what does aa have left?

In hindsight, I would have stayed and probably been a bit more of believer if there was more honesty about the shortcomings of aa and that some things that don't work need to be revisited. Instead aa and everything aa was treated as infallible, the same thing I hear from biblethumpers and religious zealots.. basically dismissal of reason and sane approaches to real problems.