So yeah, I'm an AA member, and I picked up 18 months a week ago. Just taking it a day at a time, you know? Anyone in recovery, or wanting to learn more about recovery, should head to www.recoverychat.com I go there often as Sober Clown and Addicted To The Chaos Clown. So yeah, check out www.aa.org as well

Skeptic eh?

IT WORKS IF YA LET IT BEEN THERE DONE IT.KEEP IT UP..AND POWER TO YA!!!MIKE

I used to be in NA, turned out I was the odd man out who did better on my own (a little over 5 years clean now). Obviously most people can't as I did, happy new day, life is so much better with an unpolluted mind;^]

I've attended a few.. or a thousand, meetings over the years...

i don't believe in the twelve-step program.

why would i surround myself with unhealthy people to GET healthy?

Yahoo to Turtle - 5 yrs. clean!!

Yahooo to Squiz too for 18 mths.!!

I accompany a friend to NA mtgs. because they get bad anxieties when they go alone. There are good people there.

There is also on-line Stepchat.

I heard it's a good place to meet guys on friday night!

Addiction can never be cured, no such thing as an ex addict. There is only recovery & the 12 steps is a working scientific method for seeking recovery;^]

I have seen them be a great encouragement to the newly recovering. It works if you work it.

im wishing people in AA a very speedy and full recovery from the illness.

i don't believe that...and many psychologists agree. it is completely defeating to say that you can never succeed.

i have been clean for many years...i am NO LONGER an addict. i succeeded, i won that battle. to say otherwise takes the power away from the individual and may lead to MORE slip-ups.

in doing the research for a paper ON the twelve-step program...their efficacy is no more than that of other programs, and their recidivism rate is about equal, as well.

There is alot of healthy people at AA meetings & old timers that have many good years.
It shows new comers that you can turn your life around.

I didn't see as much sobriety at NA meetings as AA

Some people its a way to make all new friends.

Have that support of people that have been there done that & don't look down on you for it.

My clean date started Nov. 7th 2002. I was pretty far gone, had been up for a week straight & was down to 120 lbs.. No time for hobbies, no time for higher learning, the drugs were my hobby, my life & my god. When my PO violated me for the dirty urine I was pissed off, but in retrospect he probably saved my life, another day & who knows what may have happened. God bless the man, he even demanded treatment rather than jail in court & hooked me up with 2 urine tests a week for 6 months. I couldn't have done it without him or the support of my peers;^]

i'm happy to hear that, and i understand.

i couldn't have done it WITH my peers. i cut off all contact with my friends and moved to a different city. i made associations with the kind of people that i wanted to BE.

Who said anything about not being succsesful? Addiction is a disease like any other, can you cure schizophrenia or autism? No, you treat the illness. For most folks to say "I'm an ex addict" is a slippery slope to relapse, it's to underestimate the power of the disease. Any psychologists I've talked to on the subject agree that a cure is not possible, only recovery & staying clean one day at a time. If you can stay clean on your own as I have done since my release from the urine screens then good for you, but don't knock those who need the 12 steps. "We have come to admit that we are powerless over our addiction", the self defeat you speak of would be to be over confident enough to not avoid PPT's and be doomed for relapse;^]