Where are the educated alcoholics?

[cristis]

Don't want to offend anyone, but I've been at several AA meetings this week and I think no one there, in three different groups, had a college degree. People are nice and I have nothing bad to say about anyone, but it will be hard to find someone like me if we don't speak the same language. One of my main reasons for drinking is loneliness, and obviously I was looking forward to socialize more.

LATER EDIT: See my reply below before starting to point more fingers in the wrong direction.

[positrac]

Don't want to offend anyone, but I've been at several AA meetings this week and I think no one there, in three different groups, had a college degree. People are nice and I have nothing bad to say about anyone, but it will be hard to find someone like me if we don't speak the same language. One of my main reasons for drinking is loneliness, and obviously I was looking forward to socialize more.

Welcome and I want to say that education shouldn't be a reason to make excuses on why you have an alcohol problem. I've been around AA a little while and been around the world and met people in all walks of life and when the connection hits education is one of the last issues I've ever been concerned about.

You want to get sober then go to any length and stop putting road blocks in the way of success because you aren't unique nor special, just a drunk hoping to find sobriety. So in other words if you met me and knew I lived in the homeless shelter you'd write me off because I am surely uneducated and not the caliber of person who could remotely relate to your situation. Good luck on that one because I suspect you're setting yourself up for failure.

[jenko]

In early sobriety, my experience is that people will pretty much come up with any excuse not to get better. All of these excuses, like "people don't have degrees" or "I drank because of loneliness," are all part of what our program describes as "the obsession of the mind." The mental obsession is most commonly described as an intense feeling or compulsion of wanting to drink, but it's really much more cunning and baffling than just that. It's every obstacle and excuse we create for avoiding the task of getting better and quitting for good. It's our mind creating barriers, be they are ideas, feelings, or sensations. Our program tells us this is actually our main problem ...

Therefore, the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind, rather than in his body. If you ask him why he started on that last bender, the chances are he will offer you any one of a hundred alibis. Sometimes these excuses have a certain plausibility, but none of them really makes sense in the light of the havoc an alcoholic's drinking bout creates. They sound like the philosophy of the man who, having a headache, beats himself on the head with a hammer so that he can't feel the ache. If you draw this fallacious reasoning to the attention of an alcoholic, he will laugh it off, or become irritated and refuse to talk.

There are many different kinds of "intelligence." Academic intelligence is just one form. You might be very surprised if you talked in depth with some of the people in the meetings! Some of the smartest people I know do not have college degrees, but what they have is wisdom, which is something no academic institution can teach.

[Spirit Flower]

Where I go to meetings, there a bonafied rocket scientists; and I myself am an engineer. There are many in the medical profession and teachers. So, if people without college degrees are a problem for you then go to a different meeting.

However, truck drivers have helped me alot!!!!

[Brock]

Welcome here cristis.

Jennifer hit the nail on the head, and I agree with all she said, and as spirit says if you have a variety of meetings to choose from try that. I didn't go to AA looking for friends to socialize with, and I didn't have many at the time. We tend to try to identify reasons why we drink, and others did that for me as well, my wife was sure if I got a good hobby I would drink less. Took up golf and really liked it, but still what looked like orange juice in the bottle attached to the cart was half vodka. If someone is an alcoholic of the type the AA program was designed to help, friends or not, money or not, homeless or living in a mansion, an alcoholic will still drink.

Like you I felt I didn't fit in, I live on a third world island, some members in the meetings just say 'pass' when we are taking turns reading, because they can't read, others stumble through but mispronounce words, this is not for me I said. But that was just one of the many excuses I had up my sleeve, I found many others over the years, only when I was really down and out could I accept the help the program offers, stopped looking for differences and started seeing the similarities. There is a story in the big book which speaks about this, it's called 'physician heal thyself,' in part it says this -

I will never forget the first meeting that I attended. There were five people present, including myself. At one end of the table sat our community butcher. At the other side of the table sat one of the carpenters in our community, and at the further end of the table sat the man who ran the bakery, while on one side sat my friend who was a mechanic. I recall, as I walked into that meeting, saying to myself, "Here I am, a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, a Fellow of the International College of Surgeons, a diplomat of one of the great specialty boards in these United States, a member of the American Psychiatric Society, and I have to go to the butcher, the baker and the carpenter to help make a man out of me!" 

Meetings were not something I enjoyed, I have come to now, but just go once or twice a week to pass on what I have found. The thing about alcoholics is we don't feel comfortable without drink, the program of AA is 12 steps which when practiced bring a level of comfort which even booze can't achieve, it's not just about showing us how to stop drinking, it's about stopping drinking and living a happy life without it.

There is a good bunch of folks here, if you want stay in touch with us, ask any questions make any comments, sites like this can be of great assistance to recovering alcoholics.

[avaneesh912]

One of my main reasons for drinking is loneliness, and obviously I was looking forward to socialize more.

We try to do that in sobriety too. I am not sure if you read couple paragraphs of the chapter "There is a solution"?

We are average Americans. All sections of this country and many of its occupations are represented, as well as many political, economic, social, and religious backgrounds. We are people who normally would not mix. But there exists among us a fellowship, a friendliness, and an understanding which is indescribably wonderful. We are like the passengers of a great liner the moment after rescue from shipwreck when camaraderie, joyousness and democracy pervade the vessel from steerage to Captain's table. Unlike the feelings of the ship's passengers, however, our joy in escape from disaster does not subside as we go our individual ways. The feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element in the powerful cement which binds us. But that in itself would never have held us together as we are now joined.

The tremendous fact for every one of us is that we have discovered a common solution.

We have a common solution: 12 steps and meetings.

[tomsteve]

i got sober in small towm,mi. it didint appear anyone didnt have a college degree, but i i didnt care- i wasnt there to compare my education to others.
over time, i learned joe had 2 masters and a doctorate( and was a psychologist), marylin had a doctoral( and was a surgeon), jason had a bachelors and was working towards a masters(he was gonna be a scientist), alex had a master( and was a prosecuting atty)..............the list can go on and on.
and yet, i related to their thinking, they understood right where i was when i walked in, and they didnt care if i was a lowly nail banger.
not only that, NONE of them cared what i did for a living.
i had a sponsee once that neither one of us knew what the other did for employement. i never would have guessed he was a highly regarded atty in a neighboring county as he was never in a suit when we met.always just jeans and a t shirt.until he stopped by my house one day a little purturbed wearing what i think was a rather pricey suit.
we hadda good laugh when he came in. "umm, i dont think youll be able to find a seat without getting doghair or sawdust on that suit!"
"i dont give a crap its just a suit."
because we looked across at each other and not down at or up to.

on this:
" One of my main reasons for drinking is loneliness, and obviously I was looking forward to socialize more.'
stop on by! unless you would have a problem with the possibility of getting sawdust and/or doghair on yer clothes.

[Roberth]

Hello cristis and welcome to E-AA. My name is Robert and I am Los Angeles area alcoholic. There is an old saying “when the student is ready the teacher will appear.” It’s funny where the message can come from. I was lucky to have an “Ebby” in my early sobriety. He was a homeless gentleman that couldn’t stay sober but during one of his brief periods he told me something that make a lasting impression on me. That was over 25 years ago. I have spent my last 15 years carry the message to homeless on Los Angeles Skid Row, and they tell me I am good at it because I speak the language of that heart.

[cristis]

My question had nothing to do with elitism or superiority. It was just about the perceived lack of diversity in a specific area. Someone could have asked as well about the lack of let's say uneducated people, or carpenters, or teenegers, or old women etc in his/her meetings... Why are you so quick to slap someone in the face, put words in his mouth and lecture him on things he didn't say or think?!

Just FYI, I already stay in touch with two guys I've met here and no, I did not ask them about degrees, I never said that's the way I look at people around me. Both of these guys are nice, and both have much much more difficult drinking problems then myself. I'll help them, I already did, but I have to say one of them is an Irish guy who swears 80% of the time, and the other one is a very shy nice young guy who simply has a hard time to put two words together. No matter what we pretend, I can see both ways that we don't have much in common. Is it a crime to say this? Was it a crime I came here to nicely ask, as a newbie, if in most of these meeting this is what you should expect?

I don't live in a thirld world island, that's actually an expensive suburb area and I know for a fact most people here are actually the opposite of what I've met at AA, that's why my confusion. So please stop pointing in the wrong direction, it's not the case. I've read several time my original post, and I don't know what better words would have make it look different. I had to be specific, but it was strictly about a diversity aspect and nothing more.

[positrac]

Maybe if you read what you initially said you would of possibly see that you came off a certain way in which touched a few nerves including me. I am not sure how long you've been sober and these points are real and in time we all kind of level out with our backgrounds.

We drunks are sensitive, thin skinned and it is all about us as your post clearly stated and so that is why you received feedback in the manner you did. So keep coming back it is all good if you want it to be.

[cristis]

Maybe if you read what you initially said...

Please let it go. You've been the first one to make things up to insult me, starting with that "education shouldn't be a reason to make excuses on why you have an alcohol problem" (where in God's name I said anything like this?!!!). For all the fuzz n buzz with acceptance, ego, humility and inclusion, you proved how intolerant and close minded you could be when the time comes.

We drunks are sensitive ...

If you're such a recovered alcoholic as you claim, I should bring you the steps and show you how many points you broke.

[positrac]

Maybe if you read what you initially said...

Please let it go. You've been the first one to make things up to insult me, starting with that "education shouldn't be a reason to make excuses on why you have an alcohol problem" (where in God's name I said anything like this?!!!). For all the fuzz n buzz with acceptance, ego, humility and inclusion, you proved how intolerant and close minded you could be when the time comes.

We drunks are sensitive ...

If you're such a recovered alcoholic as you claim, I should bring you the steps and show you how many points you broke.

I'm real and I'm honest and I don't hide my feelings and so when I express things they come from experience. I am just a garden variety drunk and so instead of trying to point back at holes in my story or call me closed minded I would suggest looking in the mirror and ask yourself what you can do today in sobriety to be better.

I am not making fun of you and yet my points are just points of growth, and that is at times far easier than acceptance.

Post some thing we all on this board can actually engage in so that you'll see that we all are trying in our way to educate and not hinder your efforts in recovery.

[Spirit Flower]

If you walked up to anyone after a meeting and started a conversation, you'd find a nice person and probably a friend. Early in the program I was told, you have to be a friend to make a friend. So go do it!

[cristis]

Spirit Flower, have you tried to read my first comment here?

Just FYI, I already stay in touch with two guys I've met here...

Geez...

[cristis]

...you'll see that we all are trying in our way to educate...

Maybe that's the problem, stop "educating". Just make some decent conversation or help passing information.