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#201 | |
expwy. to yr skull
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: baltimore, murderland by way of new york city
Posts: 1,454
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yea...idk, i have mixed feelings. for some people n/a can really be of a lot of help. the women who i work really seem to owe their lives to it. n/a gave them another community that served as an alternative to street life. as an outsider, the whole thing seems a little bit cult-like...but then again, who am i to judge? i did my fair share of drugs during the end of high school/early college but they never caused a real problem and i calmed down my act without a problem. i guess i'm lucky i caught myself before they became out of hand? idk, i don't seem to have that much of an addicitive personality.
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#202 |
invito al cielo
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: In the land of the Instigator
Posts: 27,951
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![]() On Monday I went to visit wise old Dr. Jakob Schlichter. I had been seeing him for a year, telling him I thought I might be drinking too much. He agreed, and advised me to go to "A.A.A," which is what he called it. Sounded like a place where they taught you to drink and drive. I said I didn't need to go to any meetings. I would stop drinking on my own. He told me to go ahead and try, and check back with him every month. The problem with using will power, for me, was that it lasted only until my will persuaded me I could take another drink. At about this time I was reading The Art of Eating, by M. F. K. Fisher, who wrote: "One martini is just right. Two martinis are too many. Three martinis are never enough." The problem with making resolutions is that you're sober when you make the first one, have had a drink when you make the second one, and so on. I've also heard, You take the first drink. The second drink takes itself.That was my problem. I found it difficult, once I started, to stop after one or two. If I could, I would continue until I decided I was finished, which was usually some hours later. The next day I paid the price in hangovers. I've known two heavy drinkers who claimed they never had hangovers. I didn't believe them. Without hangovers, it is possible that I would still be drinking. Unemployed, unmarried, but still drinking--or, more likely, dead. Most alcoholics continue to drink as long as they can. For many, that means death. Unlike drugs in most cases, alcohol allows you to continue your addiction for what's left of your life, barring an accident. The lucky ones find their bottom, and surrender. ![]() Bill W., co-founder of A.A. I know from the comments on an earlier blog that there are some who have problems with Alcoholics Anonymous. They don't like the spiritual side, or they think it's a "cult," or they'll do fine on their own, thank you very much. The last thing I want to do is start an argument about A.A.. Don't go if you don't want to. It's there if you need it. In most cities, there's a meeting starting in an hour fairly close to you. It works for me. That's all I know. I don't want to argue with you about it. He asked me some questions (the usual list), said the important thing was that I thought I had a problem, and asked me if I had packed and was ready to move into their rehab program. "Hold on a second," I said. "I didn't come here to check into anything. I just came to talk to you." He said they were strictly in-patient. "I have a job," I said. "I can't leave it." He doubted that, but asked me to meet with one of their counselors. That was the beginning of a thirty years' adventure. I came to love the program and the friends I was making through meetings, some of whom are close friends to this day. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. What I hadn't expected was that A.A. was virtually theater. As we went around the room with our comments, I was able to see into lives I had never glimpsed before. The Mustard Seed, the lower floor of a two-flat near Rush Street, had meetings from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., and all-nighters on Christmas and New Years' eves. There I met people from every walk of life, and we all talked easily with one another because we were all there for the same reason, and that cut through the bullshit. One was Humble Howard, who liked to perform a dramatic reading from his driver's license--name, address, age, color of hair and eyes. He explained: "That's because I didn't have an address for five years."
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#203 |
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: In the land of the Instigator
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When I mention Humble Howard, you are possibly thinking you wouldn't be caught dead at a meeting where someone read from his driver's license. He had a lot more to say, too, and was as funny as a stand-up comedian. I began to realize that I had tended to avoid some people because of my instant conclusions about who they were and what they would have to say. I discovered that everyone, speaking honestly and openly, had important things to tell me. The program was bottom-line democracy.
Yes, I heard some amazing drunkalogs. A Native American who crawled out from under an abandoned car one morning after years on the street, and without premeditation walked up to a cop and asked where he could find an A.A. meeting. And the cop said, "You see those people going in over there?" A 1960s hippie whose VW van broke down on a remote road in Alaska. She started walking down a frozen river bed, thought she herd bells ringing, and sat down to freeze to death. The bells were on a sleigh. The couple on the sleigh (so help me God, this is what she said) took her home with them, and then to an A.A. meeting. A priest who eavesdropped on his first meeting by hiding in the janitor's closet of his own church hall. Lots of people who had come to A.A. after rehab. Lots who just walked in through the door. No one who had been "sent by the judge," because in Chicago, A.A. didn't play that game. "If you don't want to be here, don't come." Sometimes funny things happened. In those days I was on a 10 p.m. newscast on one of the local stations. The anchor was an A.A. member. So was one of the reporters. After we got off work, we went to the 11 p.m. meeting at the Mustard Seed. There were maybe a dozen others. The chairperson asked if anyone was attending their first meeting. A guy said, "I am. But I should be in a psych ward. I was just watching the news, and right now I'm hallucinating that three of those people are in this room."
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#204 |
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that was a Roger Ebert editorial he posted today about AA
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#205 |
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: noo yawk
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i'm now missing a chunk from my big toe.
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#206 |
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no riding bike without footwear young lady
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#207 |
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yeah yeah thanks uncle rob
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#208 |
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Join Date: Feb 2007
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if "uncle rob" asks you to sit on his lap, DON'T DO IT.
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#209 |
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or if I want you to take a puff of my funny smellin pipe....
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#210 | |
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Quote:
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#211 |
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how many times do i have to fucking say this to people
don't call me if you dont want anything it always reminds me of peter griffin when he turns into a woman and calls quagmire from the bathtub and goes "whatcha thinkin' about?" : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR535dgayX8
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#212 |
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15 missed calls
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#213 | |
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Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: I moved from hillbilly Florida to hillbilly Alabama
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God is not bullshit. I name alot of things that I think are bullshit that alot of people accept as truth. Aliens..ghosts...vampirism....psychics..I don't understand how some one could accept these ideas and not the idea of God. How are ghosts and aliens helping anybody? I don't think he should be pushed on those that don't give a shit about him. Jesus said tell em whats up if they don't like it shake the dust from yr feet and be on yr way. Cause even though they don't Give a shit now I garantee on thier death bed they will. I have nothing to lose by believing. If I am wrong then I'll just rot and I die feeling like my life was worth something, and at least I tried to do something for someone besides myself along the way. They have everything to lose by not believeing. If they are wrong they've lost eternity, and the physical life they so dearly cling to as well. I want to die. This is hell. We are already here. Heaven is not some cloud community with golden gates and all the cheeseburgers you want. I see heaven as being close to God and out of this wretched flesh cage. Hell is just the opposite being removed from him, but you have to watch as he nurtures those that listened up...and you cannot join them...you wander in solitude forever. It's not a lake of fire. People are just so narrow minded they need things packaged up in neat little boxes and presented to them as such.
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#214 | |
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what if I think those things come from God? seriously. not the vampirism, though. that comes from Hot Topic. |
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#215 | |
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Location: I moved from hillbilly Florida to hillbilly Alabama
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![]() You have succesfully made a link. I wish there were ghosts and real psycichs then I could talk to mom again sooner. Profits can be considered psycichs. Can't rep ya on the Hot topic joke I must spread some around first.
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#216 |
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Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: I moved from hillbilly Florida to hillbilly Alabama
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Paper Cup Exit
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#217 | |
expwy. to yr skull
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: baltimore, murderland by way of new york city
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I never said that god is bullshit. I think that of God as being a very personal thing, and i was very uncomfortable how institutionalized God was. Then again, as I mentioned before, the last NA meeting I went to was really intense in the first place...total inner city ghetto, a church that was barely habitable, people were really clinging on to any last notion of hope they had.
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#218 |
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Join Date: May 2006
Location: Oxford, England
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God is everywhere and everything.
Therefore, God is bullshit. Among other things. All other things, in fact.
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#219 |
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Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: I moved from hillbilly Florida to hillbilly Alabama
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I have the same frustrations. All that do claim to believe these days don't really act the part. Then they turn people away instead of gathering them in because of thier hypocrisy. Yes they have institutionalized god indeed. It is a very personal thing.
I had to go to this 3 month rehab shit for pot some time ago. I wish they talked about God. All they talked about was how irresponsible I was and how much harm I was causing to my brain cells. They made me go to AA meetings too. That shit sucked. I was required to go for reasons I will not delve into and had no choice. I don't mean to come off as preachy. It just makes me sad when I see people turned off from him as a result of the masses. we're not all like that.
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#220 |
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Him? Him?! Not Her? I think of God as an incredibly sexy mature babe lying naked on a king size bed.
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