March 17 - By their decisions your religions have created lasting, indelible impressions. By their decisions your societies have produced their self-portraits, too. Are you pleased with these pictures? Are these the impressions you wish to make? Meditations from "Conversations with God - Book 1" page 154
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Hi you bunch of blogging alkies. Happy St. Patrick's Day to you. This is my 18th sober St. Patrick's Day. Of course back in the day everyday was a reason of some other to drink. I am so thankful for the program of Alcoholics Anonymous that I have lived with since Jan 20, 1992. I pray on a daily basis for God to help me stay sober today and I end the day with a prayer of thanks for one more day of sobriety.
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The program is very simple, follow the suggestions of the first 164 pages of the book Alcoholics Anonymous. I am and always have been amazed at the crap that I hear in meetings and read on some blogs about this and that being the way to stay sober in AA, yet if you read the first 164, you will not find some of this babbling crap in the book. I am talking about prescription drugs that are prescribed by a responsible physician. You can read the big book frontwards, backwards, up-side down, and right side up and you will not find a reference to taking prescription drugs as prescribed. One would not be taken to task for taking blood pressure meds, diabetes medicine, etc. But drugs for major depression, bi-polar conditions, anxiety and panic attacks and some of those self appointed GURUs of AA still are spouting that if you take these you are not sober.
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GURUs please stop spouting this bullshit. I wish there was a record of the people with legitimate mental problems that have stopped their meds and have died or have had to go back to an institution because of being told by these GURUs that they are not sober because they are taking - HORRORs - psych drugs. That have been told that if it affects you above the throat, it is off limits. Thank God the heart, pancreas, liver, and other organs are not in the head. We would have a lot of people on the wrong side of the ground because of these so called GURUs and the crap they espouse.
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I know of what I speak due to personal experience. At 3 years sober, I attended an AA convention in Los Angeles and took in a workshop about meds and AA. The woman that was the facilitator talked about mental drugs and pain pills. That anything stronger than an aspirin was against AA and sobriety. This was a woman that I had heard in meetings and whom I held in high esteem. So what did I do. I followed the advice of this lady with absolutely no medical background and stopped taking my meds. I damned near died. I wanted to kill myself again. Station KFUK was making sense again, and I was a mess. My regular doctor was quite concerned and I told him what I was doing. Needless to say, I went back on my meds and sanity, sanity I say, returned to my life. I did not need to change my sobriety date. My sponsor also was not very happy with me.
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So to those of you who do not have mental illnesses, going through surgery, or what ever the legitimate reason for taking prescribed drugs as prescribed, please shut the fuck up. It is the so called self appointed GURUs such as you that are killing us. So give it a REST.
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Tonight I am grateful for:
- God, my Higher Power
- My Sobriety
- Mamie my OCD schnauzer
- My sponsor.
- The program of Alcoholics Anonymous as suggested in the first 164 pages of the BB.
- That I can now wait 24 hours after getting pissed off to rant about something that pisses me off.
- Friends like Daave, Scott W. and Pam
- All y'all.
Y'all be pretty now, ya heah.
11 comments:
All'y'all'n to Zane: Timely said and well-said. This has been a good week for "getting the real message out there", and watching the sideline
quarterbacks throw the ball into a screen. (Did that make sense?)
Thank you for joining the orchestra as a "key" man...I'm serious! You stay silent for such lengths of time, yet you have SO much to say. And man, you're on a roll! KUTGW!
(Keep Up The Good Work!)
Thanks for the birthday call.
Well said Zane. I should have qualified in my statement about meds. I know about legitamate use of meds. I also know of many people who abuse them and "hide" their abuse behind the fact that they are prescribed. That's what I meant.I worked with MICA ( mentally ill, chemically addicted) patients every day. I should be more careful how I word my blog in the future. Sorry, jeNN
I've heard people say this before. But I have never heard anyone weigh in about meds.
Maybe it's just the groups I go to or maybe it's different among the women. But I don't know anyone opposed to meds.
Can you imagine my little Ms.Soberpants with out anxiety meds? She would never step foot out of my mothers house with them.
I love you more and more every post I read Zane. If not for my anti-depressant I would have jumped off the frickin bridge by now-alcohol or not. Just as alcoholism is a disease, so is depression. For my alcoholism-I have AA, depression-meds. Pretty simple.
God has abundantly supplied this world with fine doctors, psychologists, and practitioners of various kinds. Do not hesitate to take your health problems to such persons. Most of them give freely of themselves, that their fellows may enjoy sound minds and bodies. Try to remember that though God has wrought miracles among us, we should never belittle a good doctor or psychiatrist. Their services are often indispensable in treating a newcomer and in following his case afterward. ~Big Book, p. 133.
Exactly Scott. I wish I had quoted that in my SoapBox. It does not suffice for some people, but then nothing probably will. Just more proof that the 164 don't take a stand against prescription drugs.
I'm right there with you Zane. People who are self-proclaimed GURUs and spout that s--t about not taking medications are imbeciles at best and sometimes murderers at worst. (That might be a little strong....)
I agree with you based on personal experience and the experiences I have had working with people with mental health illness. They are sober and leading productive, happy, functional lives because they are dealing with their mental illness and their sobriety.
Thanks Zane for your post.
PG
Ah yes, but we have GURUs in NA, too.
I call 'em NA Zealous Individuals. They strongly espouse the same thing about 'script meds and clean time, etc. Just can't really seem to understand that a Higher Power can be a medical doctor or a psychiatrist. And as Scott said (sorta) the BB puts the matter into pure perspective.
Thanks, m'man! You made my day!!
Keep The Faith*
Robb
I love this post....I need this post. I hate it when the GURU's get on their soapbox. Bottom line, there are a lot of people that don't understand depression. I get that....but don't talk about or preach about something you don't understand.
I am glad I found your Blog and this particular entry!
Nothing hits me harder than non-professionals professing.
Diabetics take insulin.
Heart patients take all sorts of stuff for blood pressure, heart rate and cholesterol.
So you tell me if I am Bipolar or Depressed I should just pray? Hun, this ain't the scientology world. At least I don't think it is when I look at it from my Fourth Dimension.
I love AA. It works if I work it.....and how I work it may not be how you do. I learn so much from folks....how to BE, and how NOT to be.
Best of luck with the doctor opera....may all be well with you!
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