Is there ever really help for a recovering alcoholic?

Question: I have put up with this problem for 22 years, i love him, and support him, but.....we have gone through everthing, detox, inpatient, doctors, phycs you name it and medications. He always falls back to drinking even if only for one day, does anyone else know what i'm talking about, if so what do you do? especially when you love the guy but you just want to throw up your hands and say forget this? help.....

Answers:
I tried quitting for 20 years and couldn't stay sober for more than a few months at a time. I talked to doctors, therapists, friends, and family and they all told me I needed AA. So I kept going back, "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results".

Five years ago, I quit trying to force myself into a program that didn't work for me and got some decent help for depression, read books on recovery (non-AA), and got involved with several non-AA recovery yahoo groups. I've been sober since.

Since then, I've found out that AA only has a success rate of 5%, only one person out of 20 that walks into AA will still be there in a year. The AA program isn't deserving of all the praise it gets.

The first step in AA is believing you are powerless, and the next two are about God fixing you. I needed to take responsibility for my actions and do it myself, not wait for some "Higher Power" to do it for me. Most of AA is about their religious beliefs, not about quitting drinking. They are fear-based, using threats of death for those who relapse to keep people bound to the program. After my many, brief encounters with AA, I also needed to deprogram from their dogma. There are AA yahoo groups for that too.

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AA helped me. been sober for 20 years now

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