They told me about a meeting at a nearby church that would tell me the ugly truth about my incurable illness. I wasn’t aware I even had an illness although I did get the flu quite often back then for some strange reason. I agreed to meet them at the church basement, perhaps they could help me.

At this meeting I was greeted by lots of warm, welcoming people. These people came from varied backgrounds but they had one thing in common. They were all alcoholics and were very proud of that. I often wondered if I too was an alcoholic, but could not find a precise definition of what an alcoholic actually is. They told me that if I thought I was an alcoholic, then I was one. That made perfectly logical sense to me, so from that day on I called myself an alcoholic. I too could be a member of this special group of people.

I was given a blue book to read and was told to find someone in this group to advise me on how to run my life since I am not able to think for myself being that I am an alcoholic. I picked an elderly, chain smoking man named Louie to be my sponsor. Since Louie had over 20 years of sobriety, I reasoned that he had special wisdom or a profound spiritual connection that I did not have. After all, since he had so much sobriety, he is much smarter and wiser than I. That day I decided to become Louie’s pigeon.

Being a pigeon is hard but I persevered. I followed Louie’s direction to the letter, read the book, took the 12 steps as outlined and went to lots of meetings all over the city. The people I befriended at the meetings were often very peculiar and even stranger than the guys I used to drink with. I found this to be a very strange disease indeed. Even if I don’t drink, my disease progresses anyways, and I could meet a horrible, tragic end unless I kept doing the steps and going to the meetings. I also noticed that my disease flared up a lot on Saturday nights, holidays and when I had days off from work, which I could not explain.

I noticed a lot of people didn’t stick around very long. Louie explained to me that these people would probably end up in jail, go insane (which many were already) or even die. If they stayed sober they were not real alcoholics at all and did not have our disease. I found this type of circular reasoning to be cunning, baffling and powerful, but it must be true. A well-known man of science named “Dr. Silkworth” proved it. His findings have saved millions of lives and I can’t believe has wasn’t given a Nobel Peace prize for this incredible discovery. Sometimes life just isn’t fair.

Anyways, thanks for giving me a new life, a whole new circle of friends and a completely different outlook on everything. I have even met a really neat girl called “ Penny”. She is cute, intelligent, and athletic and has a great sense of humour and we would like to spend time together. Louie advised me that I would not be allowed to do so for at least several months as this is called “13th Stepping” and that is against the rules. I didn’t know about this rule, we used to just call it “dating”. I guess Louie is better experienced than I on these matters since he was divorced three times.

Well, just as you promised, I really have been rocketed to a fourth dimension of existence that I could barely even fathom, in fact I never want to return to planet earth ever again! I hope to one day graduate from pigeonhood to something better, but only when I get enough time in.

Yours Truly
J. S.

JS, Bravo! — Jack Trimpey

The above quotes are from the following link. You will find articles about this study in major publications everywhere. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070725175419.htm

The article from the New England Journal of Medicine is here:
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/357/4/370
The Spread of Obesity in a Large Social Network over 32 Years

The implications of the study should make one question the efficacy of a 12 step program, like Overeaters Anonymous, bringing food addicts together in lifelong relationships. The problem is compounded by the fact that only a small number of members in any local group (if any) are changing their eating habits and decreasing their body size.

Likely a similar study for other addictions, would show similar results. (Likely such studies are already in the literature.) A common sense belief has always been that if you hang out with people who drink or use drugs, then you are more likely to engage in those same activities. This belief system had not previously been applied to overeating.

CTMS

Debra,

Your desire to drink moderately is known only to individuals to don’t want to drink moderately. In other words, under the influence of small amounts of alcohol, you change your mind about having “just one,” and decide to have yet another, and another, etc.
AVRT® has no magic to prevent the action of alcohol upon your brain. The primary effect of alcohol is to impair your better/moral judgment, a neocortical function, resulting in the bad judgment to continue drinking, even though you decided earlier, with good reason, to have “just one.”

In AVRT-based recovery, we know we are all capable of drinking sensibly, and often do, but by continuing to drink, we run a very high risk of excess during which we behave greviously. Therefore, addiction does not involve loss of control, but rather impaired judgments for which we remain ultimately responsible.

Jack Trimpey