Oct 15 2009
The First Step Is The Most Important, But The 12 Step Program Is Not Right For Everyone
At Freedom From Alcohol®, we encourage anyone that needs help eliminating or controlling their drinking to get the help they need. Whether that is with our proven alternative treatments for alcoholism or a more traditional twelve step approach, we want you to get the treatment that works for you.
While there are many twelve step programs that effectively help you eliminate alcohol from your life, these programs are not for everyone. Many successful managers and business people are caught between their drinking and the stigma of what they know of alcohol treatment. Unfortunately; Hollywood has made us think that there are only two alcohol treatment options:
- Publicly implicate yourself as an alcoholic (It seems that AA and similar meetings are popular fodder for movies and we are all familiar with the line, “My name is … and I am an alcoholic.” )
- Attend in patient alcohol treatment. This seems to be the fad with actors, especially after a DUI arrest.
Unfortunately for busy professionals, self identifying in a group or going away for a six week treatment program is not usually an option that is conducive to career growth. While we always recommend that you put your life and health first, there are treatment programs that will allow you to remain at work and help you win the battle with alcohol addiction. Please get the help you need and contact us to learn more about alternative treatments for alcoholism.
thanks for the post.
Yes, going away for treatment is not always an option for some. However, hitting an outpatient detox and rehab is a GREAT alternative!
I’m kind of amazed at the degree of medical and spiritual irresponsibility exhibited on this “blog”. (I place the word “blog” in quotation marks because this is clearly an ad campaign masquerading as homespun advice tailored for Joe Q. Executive). My consolation, however, is that anyone who has experienced true recovery from alcoholism will immediately recognize that the information in this “blog” is dangerous and almost entirely contrary to the fundamental notions of recovery from alcoholism.
It is ridiculous to suggest that “professionals” don’t have time to devote to an honest and thorough recovery – if they had the time to drink, they can make the time to get sober. Meetings are an hour long – a mere fraction of the time that most active alcoholics spend drinking on a daily basis. I know many, many “professional types” who are active and contributing members of AA – many of them, in fact, credit their success at work to their personal development as a result of the AA program.
It is unbelievably condescending of you to suggest that “professionals” represent a different CLASS of alcoholic – class divisions of this kind are actively (but peaceably) discouraged among alcoholics sharing the common goal of sobriety. Your tone suggests that people who have not been conventionally successful “belong” in AA, because of their inherent lesser value to the world at large, whereas conventionally successful “manager” types need another form of care that will allow them to stay at work, this keeping the wheels of the world turning for the rest of us. What absolute crap.
AA meetings are not groups of sad, underachieving losers sitting in dank basements crying in their coffee while the “real” people get help elsewhere. AA is all-inclusive and offers the same promises and the same program to each and every member – be they “management” material or (gasp) those less successful or less educated.
I encourage anyone reading this to try the divisive, non-inclusive, close-minded form of recovery described in this blog. And when you do, and it fails utterly, I hope to see you in a meeting sometime.
I’m an not an AA fanatic (in fact, I could use some more meetings myself), nor am I someone who routinely comments angrily on blogs. However, the snake-oil salesman tone of this blog entry prompted me to make my feelings known.
I bear you no ill-will personally, but I hope for the sake of alcoholics everywhere that no one buys this crap. Also, if you are a “manager” or “executive”, you ought to know – AA represents a much better return on your investment. It’s free, it does not create needless divisions between people, and…oh yeah…it actually works.