Alcoholism Support Group

Yes, I've been on the MM website. I think their 30 day rule is a good way to weed out the alcoholics from the problem drinkers!

I think MM has a lot of good points if you are not yet an alcoholic, but you have to be very honest with yourself, or you'll just use it as an excuse to keep drinking.

I've often heard people say "try drinking one drink a day for 30 days- if you can't make it, you have a problem". I coudn't do that- sooner or later, I'd drink 4-5, then I'd move up from there.

I believe the MM people say the same thing- if you can't limit it to one or two, then you probably don't belong there!

Musts for step one work;
1)Accept alcohol as a poison.
2)You have an illness that robs your body, mind and spirit.
3)A desire to stop drinking.
4)Alcohol has a grasp on you, it holds the power over your thinking.
5)It can be arrested, by awareness of this illness, and knowledge/ faith in something good.
6)Keeping a clear cut image of how this illness makes your life unmanageable, I always keep a mental picture on myself behind bars..

We, can beat this bullshit illness.

best wishes

Well, Jacker, I guess I can at least take pride in having weeded myself out of mm so quickly. I really wanted to be able to do that, although I had doubts about how well I'd be able to limit myself after the initial 30 days. By day 5 I was really itching for a drink, and I caved in shortly thereafter. Oh well. . . .

I tried MM too, a couple of years ago. Didn't make it past day three. Knowing that I'd be able to drink again under the program was what made it attractive to me and why I failed miserably on it.

didn't the lady that founded that organization get a DUI recently? Limo, just keep trying never give up, you will get there.

Wow KarmicKis is that really true? The ultimate irony I guess...

Your attempt has proven that you have a problem with alcohol. Is your life a mess do you have messed up relationships, work problems, problems with the law, health problems, financial problems. Do you feel all alone inside? Are you filled with fear? If you answer yes to any of these then your answer is simple.
You get on your knees and pray /admit it to God and ask for help. Then you go to a meeting you meeting and when they ask if there are newcomers you introduce your self and you say out loud I'm _____ and I'm an alcoholic and my life is unmanageable. You then sit and listen with an open mind hearing the similarities and ignoring the differences. You will be invited back make sure you accept the invitation and don't drink inbetween those meetings.

Reed asked, "Is your life a mess do you have messed up relationships, work problems, problems with the law, health problems, financial problems. Do you feel all alone inside? Are you filled with fear? If you answer yes to any of these then your answer is simple."

This has been the stumbling block for declaring myself, without resignation, that I am an alcoholic. No messed up relationships, no problems with the law, no financial problems. Yeah, I do feel alone inside, and that is a large part of why I drink so often.

I realize that I am a "high bottom." While I'm thankful that I haven't hit a low bottom, it is difficult for me to identify with a lot of what I hear in meetings b/c so many aa'ers are low-bottoms.

The person that started MM ended up having to quit completely. I saw a TV show about it.

Moderation Management was founded by Audrey Kishline, a problem drinker, who did not identify with the disease theory of alcoholism (as presented in Alcoholics Anonymous and other addiction recovery twelve-step programs) and found that it eroded her self-confidence. Kishline never experienced withdrawal symptoms and was able to hold a job and stay in school while drinking. Kishline found that she could moderate her drinking with the help of cognitive-behavioral therapy principles and in 1994 founded Moderation Management as an organization for non-dependent problem drinkers to help maintain moderate alcohol use. MM maintains, however, that it is not for all problem drinkers; that there are some drinkers for which abstinence will be the only solution.[1]

In January of 2000 Kishline posted to an official MM email list she had concluded her best drinking goal was abstinence and that she would begin attending Alcoholics Anonymous, SMART Recovery and Women For Sobriety meetings while continuing to support MM for others.[2] Eight months later she relapsed, drove her truck the wrong way down a highway, and eventually hit another vehicle head-on killing its two passengers (a father and daughter). Although Kishline is currently imprisoned for vehicular manslaughter, MM has continued to grow in her absence.[1]

In 1998, MM member Larry Froistad posted a murder confession on an official MM email list. Froistad had deliberately set his house on fire in 1995 while his five year old daughter was sleeping, but had successfully made it look like an accident. During the course of the investigation evidence emerged that they may have molested his daughter.[3] Out of the approximately 200 members on the email list only three reported the confession to legal authorities. The incident has been studied as an online version of the bystander effect.[4]

Kishline had asked many professionals for advice while she was establishing the fellowship, including psychologist Jeffrey A. Schaler, who had written the foreword for the first edition of the book, Moderate Drinking, used in the organization and served on original the board of trustees for MM.[5] Schaler and MM split ways over whether or not there was a medical distinction between problem drinkers and alcoholics, the latter having a disease the former having a habit, and over the MM's failure to condemn Larry Froistad following his murder confession. Schaler's foreword was replaced with one by Historian Ernest Kurtz in subsequent editions.[6]

I too was a high bottom drunk. I had a 4 bedroom house, three wonderful teenage daughters, the greatest wife a guy could ever ask for, six figures in the bank, a job I'd been at for 10 years, and I usually only puked and blacked out wearing my best suits. One other thing the wife and kids asked me to leave, but more than anything was that big black hole inside that was full of fear and anger.
Alcoholism is like riding an elevator that only goes down. You are free to get off at any floor. Don't take it all the way to hell.