Even LinkedIn is weighing in on Drinking!

Drinking study


I am approaching another year of sobriety in February. Over the course of the last decade I have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and I reversed that little gem. Yes, I am not on any pills or insulin much to the dismay of my doctors, the pharmaceutical companies, and the AMA.

I have held the same position for more than a decade now and I will hold that position until I die. Alcoholism is not a disease. Diabetes is a disease. I developed Diabetes and chronic pancreatitis from drinking too much. I can't do anything to stop the progression of my deteriorating pancreas but I have effectively "reversed" the effects of what my deteriorating pancreas has done to my body.

It was really difficult actually. However, I did it. I got up off my lazy ass and lost 55 pounds through diet and exercise by developing my own sustained fitness model. sustained fitness means that I can maintain this fitness model and its exercises until there comes a time when I can no longer run and lift weights moderately. Type 2 Diabetes is a disease. If you choose to do something about it, you can effectively manage it for the duration of your life but it is a physical abnormality of your pancreas.

Alcoholism is a choice. You choose to drink too much and then your body becomes physically addicted to the effects of alcohol. Your brain chemistry also becomes addicted to alcohol's effects.If you choose to get detoxed and never drink again, you can effectively stop drinking and live a normal life. If you have not done  damage to your liver or other organs, no one will ever know that you had a drinking problem.

Bottom line is and always will be: Alcoholism is not a disease.

No matter how much the AMA, doctors, pharmaceutical companies and most notoriously the cult of AA want you to believe that you are powerless over alcohol, you are not. society wants you to believe that you have a disease and  that you will constantly be in recovery from, this disease so that you have an excuse for your behavior.

If you consider all of the money that rehabilitation centers get that are really spawned out of the disease mentality and the AA crutch, people are spending a life savings keeping these places rich. Liquor stores are on every corner and getting wasted is how we celebrate our life. Very strange? I stopped making excuses and took ownership of my life, my choices and my disease. I'll go to any length to help anyone who asks me so that they can do the same. However, society calls alcoholism a disease and therefore it gives most people an excuse. Type 2 Diabetes is a disease and I could have just stayed on pills and or insulin but I chose not to. Fascinating right? It's because I truly believe misery loves company and that the average person loves excuses and crutches instead of solutions. I'm not the average person. Are you?

After walking out of AA more than a decade ago, I took ownership of my drinking issues after 15 years of near death experiences, jail, and car wrecks. I have had some major events take place in my life but yet I have never had a single drop of alcohol. I will experience even more major events that could be considered triggers. However instead of having to give up my AA chips, call my sponsor, or rely on a higher power, I have something much more powerful guiding my life.

This is my choice. I am not diseased and I don't need a higher power or another drunk to keep me from destroying my life by making a poor choice. Alcoholism a choice. Type diabetes is a disease. I own both of these.

I am managing my choices and my disease by turning to the one power that will always be there no matter what:

ME

Conquering the Beast (Alcoholism) by Becoming Superhuman

90 percent of alcoholics are likely to experience at least one relapse over the 4-year period following treatment!

I have been sober since 2003! I will never drink again because I am Superhuman and so are you!

Are you going to be part of the 10% that never touch alcohol again? The alternative is to drink again and be a statistic that lines the pockets of liquor store owners, alcohol manufacturers, doctors, lawyers, the government, and everyone else that stands to profit from your inability to be superhuman. Everyone profits from your drinking and then you die! don't give anyone the satisfaction.

The Crutch versus The Cure

Have you ever seen a vampire movie or read a book about vampires. Well if not let me tell you how you need to approach a vampire if you encounter one. You need to chop off its head and drive a wooden stake through its heart to ensure that it’s dead. If the morons are lucky, we will have a zombie infestation on this planet and then once you or one of you loved ones are bitten, you must kill the zombie despite the fact that it appears to be your loved one. Just like the vampire, once bitten and infected the body is simply a vessel. The “thing” that now exists inside the vessel is no longer your dear sweet relative. It is the undead; it is a vampire or a zombie or whatever else your imagination can come up with. The vampire appears to be human but is more cunning and evil in its intent. Its sole purpose now is too feed. Feed on the blood of the living so that it can exist in its current form.

Have you ever driven past a liquor store at 7:30 in the morning on a Tuesday in the dead of winter and seen beings huddled around the corner of the store inboard daylight trying to stay warm. They pace back and forth and barely converse with each other. They shake like leaves on trees in the fall whether it is 90 degrees or 30 degrees. Some are fortunate enough to be waiting in the warmth of their $80,000 car on their cell phone in a $2k suit. Others huddle under layers of clothes they found in a donation bin on the corner. These beings are also mere shadows of the people they once were and they will stop at nothing to feed. They need alcohol or they will cease to exist in their current form. They need to be treated with extreme prejudice and stopped. They don’t need to be killed because there is still hope. The problem is that most people don’t have the ability anymore to do what is right. Their brain has been chemically altered by alcohol and their body is dependent on it. Stop them before they end up in prison, kill themselves slowly, or kill someone else while driving drunk.

Despite your best intentions, there is only a few choices you have when dealing with someone that is an alcoholic. They do not in fact have a disease but they do have a habit that has taken over their body and their mind. Understanding that they are not the same person they were before they became addicted to alcohol is very important. They don’t even realize that they are not the same person. They never will unless you as a friend or family member have enough balls to do the right thing.

Here are the symptoms of alcoholism in case you did not know: http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/faq/f/prob_faq3.htm

Symptoms of Alcohol Dependence

·        Neglect of other Activities: Important social, occupational, or recreational activities are given up or reduced because of alcohol use;

·        Excessive Use: Alcohol is consumed in larger amounts over a longer period than intended;

·        Impaired control: Ongoing, unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control alcohol consumption;

·        Persistence of Use: Alcohol consumption is continued despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent physical or psychological problem that is likely caused or exacerbated by alcohol;

·        Large Amounts of Time Spent in Alcohol Related Activities: A great deal of time is spent in activities necessary to obtain, use or recover from the effects of alcohol;

·        Withdrawal: Withdrawal symptoms, such as nausea, sweating, shakiness, and anxiety when alcohol use is stopped after a period of heavy drinking;

·        Tolerance: The need for increasing amounts of alcohol in order to feel its effects.

Your choices when dealing with an alcoholic are simple. You cannot reason with an alcoholic, you cannot bargain with an alcoholic, you cannot trust anything the alcoholic says.

There are only three things you can do:

1.      Set the person up to have a nice sobering run in with the police by calling the police the minute you know this person is driving in his or her car drunk. This sometimes may be a sobering enough experience for someone to put them in a position to have to be medically detoxed and start thinking somewhat clearly.

2.      Pool your resources and have the alcoholic not the person put into a rehab clinic that they cannot leave under their own free will or threaten to have them arrested again.

3.      Sit back do nothing and hope for the best and watch this person die.

The light at the end of the tunnel is a wonderful thing. You will get your friend back, you will get your family member back but you must take the right action to do so. Anything other than  the options that I have laid out for you will result in death or imprisonment and the person will never be able to remain sober. They may stay sober for a week, a month or even a year but if you do not take aggressive action upfront, you will get the same results 99% of alcoholics face. They relapse and fail and many times they die.

Unlike the vampire or the zombie, your friend or loved one can recover fully from the habit that they chose to take on which in turn became a physical and mental addiction. They do not have a disease unless they developed one as a result of the damage they had done to their liver, heart, pancreas, etc. They can fully recover and be a better version of the person you knew. If you believe this to be true that read on. If you don’t than you will surely be offended buy most of the rest of this blog.

Choice: The American Medical Association labeled Alcoholism as a Disease in the 1940s in order to pave the way for the philosophy of AA and 12 Step. Effectively they were simply helping to line the pockets of Doctors and Pharmaceutical companies. It is not a disease. It is choice. There are liquor stores on every corner in every city. You chose to go in there once a week or once or twice a day. No one forces you. You don't wake up an alcoholic. There is no conclusive evidence that there is an "alcoholic" gene. Once you are medically detoxed you can live a healthy and happy normal life as long as you have the the self-Discipline not to drink. If you disagree with this than you will not be able to stomach the rest of this blog.

When I was admitted to the hospital for the last time I had acute pancreatitis. It was so bad, I was there for almost a  week. Lying next to me either strategically or by chance was a young boy whose liver had failed him. He had never touched a drop of alcohol in his life. He moaned in agony and threw up all night long every night. I had the chance to talk to him when he was highly medicated. It was the most uncomfortable series of questions and answers I had ever had. I was a coward and a failure. This boy would have given anything to have had a chance to survive while I was throwing it all away. My granmother had given me a statue of St. Anthony because she believed that it would help me. I gave the statue to the young boy because he appreciated it more than I ever could. I hope it served him well while he was alive. He died a few short weeks after I left the hospital as I asked his parents to keep in touch.

I understood how absolutely ridiculous it is for anyone to say that they have a disease when they actively participated in giving it to themselves. The only thing that was diseased was my mind and I needed to make a conscious decision to be stronger and smarter or die. Depressed? Sure I was depressed but the dual diagnosis thing is not real either. Stand and take stock of your life and make a damn choice. The boy I met in the hospital died days after I left. He had no choice and the last thing he was worried about was depression and anxiety medications.

If you feel your alcoholism is a disease and that you will constantly be in recovery, than I actually feel sorry for you. If you want to be coddled, call your mommy.You have built a world of excuses for yourself and a reason to fail and have a relapse. Calling something a disease gives you excuses. The truth is that after your body recovers medically and you get your head screwed back on straight, there is no evidence of disease. No one would be able to tell you that you had a problem with alcohol unless you told them. Alcoholism is a habit that takes over your body and mind and therefore become a huge health risk because with drawl can kill you. Your body becomes dependent on it and your mind will cooperate with your body in order to make sure you keep feeding your habit at all costs. However, it is only a habit. Cancer is a disease.

choice

 noun \ˈchȯis\

: the act of choosing : the act of picking or deciding between two or more possibilities

: the opportunity or power to choose between two or more possibilities : the opportunity or power to make a decision

: a range of things that can be chosen

Rewind 9 years and I am waking up in medical facility unable to walk or eat at 120 pounds. I was dragged there against my will by a very dear friend when everyone else in my life had left me for dead. Now this is not because they did not make an effort to help me climb out of the alcohol and drug induced persona.  They simply didn't know what to do. I was drinking a gallon of 100 proof vodka a day periodically throughout the day in order to function. I had more than a dozen episodes of acute pancreatitis and was a less than functioning alcoholic and drug user. I was eventually diagnosed with Chronic Pancreatitis  a few years later and asked to be put on pain meds to control the pain.The pain of these acute episodes has often been compared to childbirth for women. I passed out a few times if I was unable to get morphine fast enough at the hospital.

 http://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/digestive-diseases-pancreatitis

Acute pancreatitis usually begins with gradual or sudden pain in the upper abdomen that sometimes extends through the back. The pain may be mild at first and feel worse after eating. But the pain is often severe and may become constant and last for several days. A person with acute pancreatitis usually looks and feels very ill and needs immediate medical attention. Other symptoms may include

·        a swollen and tender abdomen

·        nausea and vomiting

·        fever

·        a rapid pulse

Severe acute pancreatitis may cause dehydration and low blood pressure. The heart, lungs, or kidneys can fail. If bleeding occurs in the pancreas, shock and even death may follow.

This is where the war stories stop. I am simply trying to paint a picture.

When I realized where I was and has been medically detoxed, I had to shake off the brain fog from the seizures and start remembering who I was again and start reconciling in my mind exactly what had happened and why. I would imagine that every addict goes through this process but more that 95% of these same addicts choose a different road than I chose. I remember standing in my room and going through every forced and impulsive thought that came to me. I would say that I went through all the stages of grieving because I had lost someone. I lost the someone that I was for 15 years. However I did not know who to equate the image I had in the mirror with the person that I was for the last 15 years because those years were as blury as a distant memory of dream. Those years were almost a feeling rather than a recollection of time.

I stopped the grieving process at Anger. So if you are a happy go lucky flower smelling sunshine and rainbows person than you may not appreciate this line of reasoning at all. However the benefits of anger as it has been defined by me have yielded a positive response. Many people will tell you that harboring anger will "eat you up inside" Well, that may be true if you don't know how to use it.

"Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy." -Aristotle 

The roads that people can go down are infinite but my road was paved with anger and hate. Anger for what I had allowed myself to become . Hate for what whom I had become. Anger towards all of the influences that I allowed into my life that ultimately destroyed me. Hate for not knowing that I had never really taken the time to understand myself. I never gave myself credit for the positive attributes of my life versus all of the negative.Rather than facing the truth about what and who I was, I masked everything with drugs and booze to compensate for my failures as a human being. Therefore I was able to reduce myself to the same level of a lab rat in a test environment of my own creation. My mind and my body were taken over by mostly alcohol and there was nothing left of who I was. Who was I to begin with?

The answer is, " who cares" It is who I am now that matters. The gift of understanding how to use anger has allowed me to love myself and those I care about.The past had become as irrelevant as my future was when I was drunk. In that moment I decided  that day was the day I was reborn into the beauty of Anger, Discipline, Dedication and an appreciation for Pain as the mechanism for evolving into the man I am today. There truly is no gain to be hand without spiritual, mental, emotional, or physical pain. There is no easy way to reinvent yourself alone. Drinking is everywhere in business and in your social life. People will constantly ask you why you are not drinking. They will buy you drinks even after you say that you are"all set" I tell people I am training for a race. I run obstacle races. the funny part is that, I love telling people that I am training because after everyone else has about 6 drinks in them, I smile.

 I smile because I know they are destroying themselves while I will be out the next morning running a 5k for kicks. I'll be up at 6 am ready to conquer the day. I'll be playing football on a Sunday morning while everyone else is sleeping. I am superhuman. The people that criticize you for not drinking most likely have a problem and feel guilty about their own drinking or obesity, or just about the fact that they are lazy and out of shape. I am better than that now and am very proud of that. Keep drinking fools! Everyone is getting rich off your habit!

I walked out of that medical facility/rehab center 4 months later 20 pounds heavier and able to run 3 miles as if it were something I had done all my life. I never stopped exercising my body and mind. I closed my mind and began to repair my body because without my body working properly and at high degree of efficiency, I was not going to be able to use my mind. Exercise of the mind and body seemed to be the way to go. I had started lifting weights, running, and reading anything I could get my hands on about my condition and about things that interested me.

90 percent of alcoholics are likely to experience at least one relapse over the 4-year period following treatment!

You don't have a disease! You have a Habit! Overcome it and be better than you were before! Become Superhuman!

If all you take is 12 steps, I am 12,000,000 ahead of you

Here is why twelve step programs are counter to human nature and are simply a way for an addict to consider himself diseased, unable to cope with challenges, and simply trade one addiction for another. Failure is not always the norm with this approach to sobriety or life. However, the basic principles of this program are defeatist and contrary to the essence of what it means to be an independent thinking and acting human being with the inherent power to change.

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.  The truth is that you became powerless. Period. You cannot become powerless over water, wheat, hops and barley. You can become a person who stops thinking about his/her value and then creates a habit that is self destructive and can have long term health effects including physical addiction( which is not a disease) or death due to that physical addiction. If at any point in your life you admit to your self or to others that you are powerless over something,by definition you are implying that you cannot defeat this thing. There was a time in your life that you did not drink and there fore you can and will be able to over come your self inflicted addiction to a substance or a drug if you simply are strong enough mentally and physically to do it.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. For the sake of argument . let's assume that there is a power greater than yourself. Let's go even further into the reality of your existence here on earth and assume that your"belief in said power" is something that helps support the realistic and tangible steps you need to take to restore your sanity. Sanity? I am not sure this is the right word because addicts are not insane. they made the choice to be self destructive and the substance physically and medically altered their brain chemistry forever and even altered their physical body and its ability to function temporarily.  suggesting that there is a power greater thanthe power you alone posses is to also concede to the fact that if you fail, you have something external to your self to blame and that is the easy road out. If the only power that exists in your wheelhouse that can enable you to remain sober is what you see in the mirror everyday than you are truly powerful and there is no need for a belief in a power other than yourself. A man prays to god and says," please don't let me have cancer !"(after smoking for 30 years as he waits in the doctor's office for his test. )The test comes back negative and that man thanks god for his mercy and intervention. the test comes back positive and that same man says, god why didn't you help me? I would say. well I have cancer and I did it to myself and now all i can do is do everything I can do to recover. If i did not have cancer, i would say, i never should have been here in the first place and I will do everything I can do to change my life accordingly .Cancer, however, is a disease. Alcoholism is bad habit that people self induce and continue to escalate through their own will power and then die. alcoholism and drug addiction are not diseases of the flesh. they are diseases of the mind and can be altered and corrected through the proper deployment of intelligence and care for the body.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. why again are you turning your life over to a crutch that may or may not be responsible for your sobriety and overall health. I'mnot truning my life over to anyone or anything. I am taking action everyday to make sure that I am the only god I will ever need. I make myself into a better person so that those around me can benefit from the man that I have become through my own efforts with no help from an idea, perceived or otherwise.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Morals are subjective and in order to take this inventory of yourself, you would need to do this every minute of everyday. As a growing and changing human being your perception of yourself and the world around you changes all the time. Unless you subscribe to a specific moral code like a religion, then your situation should dictate your moral inventory. If your moral inventory includes the idea that you would not kill someone, does this mean you would not kill an attacker who tried to harm you or your child. No one has a true static moral inventory and anyone that says that they do lives under the shroud of a religion that is not based in the real world that we live in.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.  I have already explained that a belief in God is irrelevant and is simply a crutch for the good or for the bad so you can feel free to do with that nonsense what you will but I'd rather admit my wrong doings to a stuffed animal.  Admitting that you are wrong to your self is quite enough because you alone are the only person that can right that wrong. Other people are irrelevant as far as admitting "wrongs" No other human being is in a position to judge you as their wrongs could be a thousand times worse than yours. On the flip side, another person's wrongs could simply not exist and therefore they are certainly in no position to judge you at all. whatever the case may bek, your judgement of you is all that really matters because your opinion and assessment of you is what will ultimately guide your success or failure in this life and on your journey towards sustained sobriety. If the person I most respect turns to me one day and tells me that I am not worth anything, does that give me a reason to start using or drinking again? Nok, it means that this person is no longer relevant because my opinion of myself is the most important thing in the world. Here's why: If I believe I am a goodk, powerful, intelligent and caring person than I can be other things to anyone else. You can be a good father, wife, husband, son, friend, cousin, boyfriend, etc. However without a strong belief in your own goodness, you cannot be anything to anyone else.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.I challenge one person to show me how their god. a manifestation of or belief in removed their defects without their direct involvement. In other words if a god could remove your defects it would contradict the notion of how god gave us free will and therefore, as opposed toa godk, we are human and necessarily have defects. If god wanted to remove your defectsk, he could very easily do that but he chooses not to and allowed you to self destruct and become addicted to a substance. so to turn around and claim that this same god removed your defects is a vicious circle of contradiction. You are the only entity that can remove your so called defects. In factk, you are not removing defects. You are replacing bad habits with good ones to make you a better you.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. The humble will not succeed in this world especially when they are being humble to an idea. what's funny is I vowed that if "he" exists, I told him to go fly a kite many many years ago. So in spite of my disdain for the idea of "Him"k, I thrive and help others to thrive and "he" has nothing to do with my achievements. Only "I" do and I am more powerful than "Him"
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. This is the most aggravating waste of time of them all and stirs the pot of the endless self defeating and backward thinking cornerstones of this process. You can't repair what you did to all the people you hurt in the past. They may not even care anymore, they may not want to make amends. You cannot change the actions of the past and any attempt to do so will be met under the guise of this process. People know why you are doing it and it is ultimately more for you than for anyone else. People know that and understand this process to be a manufactured one with no real consequence other than to help your sobriety . It also sends a message that you are dependent on the opinion of others for your sobriety. Again you are not not proving your independence and strength by performing this action. You are simply seeking approval and forgiveness from others so that you can continue on in your sobriety. It means nothing and will not change the fact that you did the things that you did. Stop living inthe past and just move on with or without the forgiveness of others. In this new life you are creating for yourself, these people may not even matter and if they really matter and really care for you, the greatest gift you can give to them is becoming sober, staying sober and becoming a better person to them inthe future as opposed to asking for forgiveness from the past.  I had someone try and pull this shit on me once and I said," no i don't forgive you, go forgive yourself and stop groveling, stand before yourself and become a better person and then and only then will you really give me the benefit of knowing you. what you did in the past is of no relevance." He told me to fuck off at first! He is a good friend to this day and has value in my life because he took my advice and did everything for himself.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Okay enough. Other people do not matter. spend the time you would spend making amends on becoming a better person.
10. Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. This si the only part of this that I buy into. You need to take personal inventory everyday because it changes everyday. You are not a machine with a finite set of rules. Then when you make a mistake admit it to yourself or to the person you wronged and then move on. If the person you wronged does not forgive you, they are no longer relevant and you move on in life to cater to yourself and those that are relevant.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. This is garbage and is centered around a belief in god that has no place in an action based human plan to improve oneself based upon what is tangible and real. This is cult based herd morality nonsesne that has no effect on anyone except others within the cult.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. You  need to have a spiritual, mnetal, and physical awakening in order to truly realize the potential of your human existence. If you sit around in a room full of people who became addicted to substances through their own efforts and rely on each other for their sobriety and new lifek, you are simply an interdependent fool in a cult . A cult that tries to make you believe that you have a disease. Alcoholism is not a disease. Proof: I drank enough and drugged enough to put myself into a coma. Friday I ran 6 miles and did a full body workout in the weight room and read 4 chapters of a history book. Yesterday I did another full body workout and enjoyed time with my family. Today with muscles sore and tired i will run 5 miles in the rain and will not stop unless my new ACL snaps again. Does it sound to you like I have a disease? Maybe i'll run to hospital standing tall with a perfect Body mass index and 165 pounds of shredded muscle and tell a little boy dying of cancer that I have a disease and am powerless over beer and heroine. Maybe I will tell a  mother dying o f breast cancer that I need to turn to god to save me from the evil disease of alcoholism that struck me in the prime of my life. If you believe you have a disease called alcoholim than you deserve to fail and deserve your relapses, coins, and sponsors because you are not even close to being an unstoppable master of one. 
13. I take 12,000,000 steps. You take 12. Let's see who is the better human being without excuses or dependence on anyone or anything. If you believe what I am saying. I have physical, tangible, real , proof that I am right. I am not better or worse than anyone else as far as my experiences with substances but I am better than you if all you take is 12 steps. If all you take is 12 steps...I am 12k,000,000 ahead of you.

Hello,

My name is irrelevant but I am Unstoppable It's good to see you all here. Please don't sit and you really have no need to drink coffee. There will be no cigarette breaks and you will not be privy to any outlandish tales of destruction, criminal behavior, drug use, alcohol binges, or anything about my past problem with drugs and alcohol. I solved that problem back when I was 130 pounds and could not walk while sitting in an overpriced rehab center by myself. I solved it while standing in a bathroom after fighting with a "counselor" who encouraged me to "surrender". In front of that mirror I found anger. Anger is the best friend I have ever known.

Leave your Big Book of bullshit at the door Dr. Bob and leave your parables and stories on the street disciples of herd morality and weakness. This is not a pity party and I am not your sponsor. No one kneels. No one prays. No one surrenders, no one is powerless over anything or anyone. If you cannot abide by my rules in this meeting, you don't belong here and you wouldn't survive. 

You could walk away from this gathering with a sense that I am an angry person but that is simply not the case in the way that you initially envision an angry person. I found anger or maybe anger found me and it makes me the best person I can be and helped me defeat my issue with alcohol and drugs. My credibility in this meeting can all be summarized by this fact: I have been clean and sober for 8 years without a moments hesitation or lapse in my commitment to being sober and clean. I never once went to an AA meeting after being forced to by the police and the courts and the only twelve steps I take are with a cinder block on my shoulder when I am training with kettle bells or walking to the fridge to make a protein shake.

Jobless, homeless, penniless are all realities I faced. That person chose to drink himself to near death. That person chose to destroy his organs. That person also chose to get medically detoxed and then never do it again. I am that person and I do not have a disease because alcoholism is not a disease.

If alcoholism is a disease I hide it very well with some sort of sorcery because I am 170 pounds of lean muscle, a management executive in a technology company, i run a 6.5 minute mile and I am training for a Spartan Race ( www.spartanrace.com) all this after ripping my ACl into pieces while playing basketball and developing diabetes. Yes I rehabbed the ACL without a physical therapist. I had the surgery and "rehabbed" the new cadaver ACL in my basement. wanna race?

You would think that if I had another disease like "Alcoholism" it would be playing off the other diseases and I would be in a wheel chair or something similar.The fact is that Alcoholism is a human construct designed to take away your ability to be human. You are no more than just an animal like those that walk on four legs. what separates you from those animals is a societal structure that dictates how you use your greatest asset: You human brain.

I laid in bed beside a guy with liver disease who was dying in the bed next to me when I was recovering from acute pancreatic. I asked the guy why he was there and he told me that he was dying from liver failure. I told him why I was there and his eyes told a story that I really could never even have the stomach to write down. The fact is that this guy never even had a drop of booze in his life and he was dying. I decided that a half gallon habit of 100 proof vodka was a way of living my life and I was going to walk out of there. Who had the disease?

I only wish my friend anger would have looked back at me in the mirror then. all she did was whisper. It took a dozen more hospital visits and a seizure before I had the opportunity to be in front of the mirror that anger decided to walk through and tap me on the shoulder.  Here are some ideas about anger that I found interesting:

Triggering anger

Anger happens when I am frustrated from achieving my goals. This may be a repeated thing, with each occurrence stoking the anger I am repressing until I cannot hold it in any more.

Anger is often an response to an insult to me or my friends. It is thus a defending action against an attack on my identity.

Anger is generally past-focused. That is, we are more often angry at things that have already happened. Even when I am angry about the future, it often is triggered by my putting myself into further into the future and looking back at a 'future perfect' event that 'has happened'.

The power of anger

Anger can be a very powerful way of getting what you want, especially in the short term. Indeed, this is one of the key reasons why it exists. When a chimpanzee displays anger, it is signalling to others that the subject in hand is very important to it, and it is ready to fight for it. Unless other chimpanzees are prepared to duel, maybe to the death, then they are more likely to back down.

Anger is also the last response of a cornered victim, and many a mild-mannered person has turned into a raging hulk when they feel there is no alternative. The surprise they create in their oppressors is often so great it gives them the winning hand.

Anger also gives a general power signal that does not need to be used that often, as other peace-loving people will generally tend to back down before a person they know has a tendency to anger. A 'look' is often all it takes.

Showing anger creates threat of harm. In this way, anger seeks to create fear, which leads to capitulation or retreat. In this way, anger is a form of power.

Anger can also be a positive long-term energiser, such as when a teenager decides to 'show' his parents that he is not the lazy slob they seem to think he is.

The hazard of anger

Although there are short-term gains to be had with anger, there are also a number of hazards. First, your bluff may be called and you can get into losing battles. A reason for this is that as anger boils over into rage you can easily lose all judgement and control and hence take on an opponent who can easily give you a good pasting (or hurt someone you do not want to hurt).

Anger and the effective attack (physical or psychological) can also gain you enemies. Even someone you have beaten and who now seems to be your friend is probably waiting for the moment when they can safely take their revenge.

Displacement

As anger is so hazardous, we often find other ways to vent it, displaced either in time or location. For example a person who is frustrated at work may be angry with their family, or perhaps will avoid this by going for a run immediately when they get home.

Displacement is a huge source of continued human strife, as we pass on our anger to other people, who do likewise.

One method of displacement of anger towards another person is to vent it on a punchbag or another inanimate object. This is seldom useful in cathartic 'releasing' of the anger -- research has shown that it just makes you angry for longer.

Thank you for hanging around this long. Anger as you can see can be useful. If you are smart enough to wage war with only yourself, you will never hurt anyone else. anger can help you wage that war with the self that allowed you to make the decision to drink and drug. There is no such thing as alcoholism but there is such a thing as choice.

http://www.baldwinresearch.com/alcoholism.cfm

Alcoholism: A disease of speculation

"In 1976, the writer Ivan Illich warned in the book, Limits to Medicine, that 'the medical establishment has become a major threat to health'. At the time, he was dismissed as a maverick, but a quarter of a century later, even the medical establishment is prepared to admit that he may well be right. (Anthony Browne, April 14, 2002, the Observer)"

History and science have shown us that the existence of the disease of alcoholism is pure speculation. Just saying alcoholism is a disease, doesn't make it true. Nevertheless, medical professionals and American culture enthusiastically embraced the disease concept and quickly applied it to every possible behavior from alcohol abuse to compulsive lecturing and nail biting. The disease concept was a panacea for many failing medical institutions and pharmaceutical companies, adding billions of dollars to the industry and leading to a prompt evolution of pop-psychology. Research has shown that alcoholism is a choice, not a disease, and stripping alcohol abusers of their choice, by applying the disease concept, is a threat to the health of the individual.

The disease concept oozes into every crevice of our society perpetuating harmful misinformation that hurts the very people it was intended to help. Remarkably, the assumptions of a few were accepted as fact by the medical profession, devoid of any scientific study or supporting evidence. And soon after, the disease concept was accepted by the general public. With this said, visiting the history of the disease concept gives us all a better understanding of how and why all of this happened.

The disease concept originated in the 1800s with a fellow by the name of Dr. Benjamin Rush. He believed those who drank too much alcohol were diseased and used the idea to promote his prohibitionist political platform. He also believed that dishonesty, political dissention and being of African-American decent were diseases. The "disease concept" was used throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s by prohibitionists and those involved in the Temperance Movement to further their political agenda. Prior to c.1891, the term alcoholic, referring to someone who drank too much alcohol, did not exist. Before that, alcohol was freely consumed, but drunkenness was not tolerated. Many sociologists contribute its non-existence to the very stigma that the disease concept removes. Drunkenness was not so much seen as the cause of deviant behavior-in particular crime and violence- as it was construed as a sign that an individual was willing to engage in such behavior." (H.G. Levine, "The Good Creature of God and the Demon Rum," in Alcohol and Disinhibitition, eds. R. Room and G. Collins.) During this period of time social ties and family played a much more influential role in an individual's life. Therefore, deviant behaviors were undesirable and less likely to occur. It was not until industrialization began, when the importance of social and family ties diminished, that alcoholism became a problem. We now live in a society that encourages binge drinking as a social norm, but at the same time, we live in a society that discourages it.

The "recovery" community's adoption of the disease concept began with an early AA member named Marty Mann. Her efforts, combined with a somewhat dubious scientist named E.M. Jellinek, began national acceptance of the disease concept. It was Jellinek's self-proclaimed "scientific" study that opened the door for the medical community’s support. E.M. Jellinek's study was funded by the efforts of Marty Mann and R. Brinkley Smithers. And, like so many other circumstances involving Jellinek and Mann, the study was bogus, if not outright fraudulent. The surveys Jellinek based his conclusions on were from a handpicked group of alcoholics. There were 158 questionnaires handed out and 60 of them were suspiciously not included. His conclusion was based on less than 100 handpicked alcoholics chosen by Marty Mann. Mann, of course, had a personal agenda to remove the stigma about the homeless and dirty alcoholic or "bowery drunk" in order to gain financial support from the wealthy. By removing the stigma, the problem becomes one of the general population, which would then include the wealthy. The first step was Jellinek publishing his findings in his book “The Disease Concept of Alcoholism," which was based on selected subjects who fit the criteria supporting Mann’s preconceived conclusions. Later, E.M. Jellinek was asked by Yale University to refute his own findings. He complied. E.M. Jellinek's The Disease Concept of Alcoholism did not stand up to scientific scrutiny.

Early in the 20th Century, the validity of the disease concept was often debated in medical circles. However, in 1956 the American Medical Association (AMA) proclaimed alcoholism an "illness." Then, in 1966, the AMA proclaimed alcoholism a disease. The decision was embroiled in controversy. Historically, Marty Mann had her hand in much of this and manipulated information and doctors into agreeing with the disease concept. Marty Mann used her position as founder of the NCA (National Counsel for Alcoholism) to promote the disease concept through Jellinek and the founder of the NIAAA (National Institute for Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse) whose founder worked with Marty Mann during the institute's early development. The founder of NIAAA, R. Brinkley Smithers, was a major contributor to, and promoter of, the disease concept. It was his money that actually funded Jellinek's work at Yale. Smithers was also responsible for gaining insurance coverage for patients in treatment (hence the 28 day program.) Smithers was certainly not altruistic in his efforts. At that time he had already launched a treatment program for which he was lobbying for insurance payments. Acceptance by the medical community was the only way this could happen; alcoholism had to be a medical problem in order for medical insurance to pay for programs. We can see the influence of these "advances" everyday in treatment programs. Today, the treatment industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, with insurance paying the lion's share of the costs. [Author’s note: In 2008, insurance companies paid for approximately 40% of those who underwent alcohol and drug treatment. By 2008 “the lion’s share” of the cost of drug and alcohol treatment was paid by private payers.]

While it can be argued that Smithers' efforts played an important role, it was Jellinek's study that was such a monumental turning point for the supporters of the disease concept. The disease model was, in part, developed and promulgated by Jellinek and various other partial participants, all with personal agendas. Today (2009), Jellinek's "Stages of the Alcoholism" is still widely used to diagnose substance abuse.

I am a walking breathing living example of the power of action versus reaction. I am the antithesis of AA and 12 step. I am God in the same way that you are. You are not diseased. Your society, the doctors, the pharma companies, and the coddling rehab centers are the disease. They are the financial gift that keeps on giving over and over back into the system that welcomes people who drop to their knees and cry for help to cure their disease.

Stand and be recognized and welcome to your new life as an unstoppable master of one!