AA is Invading My Kinkfest!
Oi vey. I’ve never seen so many Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous members in one place. Course, having lived in a small town at the time, the meetings I attended when I got out of rehab were small.
AA works for a number of my family and friends. NA hasn’t worked for anyone I’ve known personally to date but I have a friend who has a friend who has a cousin… You know how that goes.
I don’t necessarily think the meetings are a “bad” thing. I try really, really hard not to discredit things that work for other people just because they don’t work for me. I guess it’s best to say that it just didn’t work for me. I had to get out of my own way before I could recover. And the meetings slammed me right back in my way.
I used to go to my meetings high as a kite, listen to everyone talk about how much fun they had when they were high and run to cop as soon as I walked out the door. I didn’t even stop for the customary cigarette and cup o’ joe. When I got to my spot, there were always at least five other people from the meeting looking guiltily around at the rest of us and giving small self-conscious nods and halfhearted smiles while they waited their turn.
I take issue with a lot of their philosophies. Part of that is because I take issue with the idea that occasional drinking and/or drug use is a “bad” thing. Occasional meaning “once in a while” – knowing your limits and not exceeding them.
It’s my personal opinion that street drugs should be legal and regulated. The price, with tax, shouldn’t go up and the government should find some way to compensate the dealers, if only by giving them licenses to sell. But they should definitely be taxed. Our economy is in the toilet. With the amount of drug users in large cities, I bet legalizing drugs would jump start it.
It would be safer because they could be sure there were no harmful additives and people wouldn’t have to go to knock spots in bad neighborhoods to cop. Hell, I bet we’d find a way to make “Light Cocaine” and “Medium Heroine” and “Full Flavor Crack”. *grin*
Keep the rehabs open. Run your meetings. I’m sure there will still be abusers. I mean, alcohol is abused, isn’t it? Cigarettes are probably technically abused, too, we just don’t really view them as a “drug” outside of AA and NA. And those “drugs” are legal.
But Prohibition proved that the temptation to break the law only fuels the fire when it comes to using something that makes us “feel good”. And alcohol abuse rates went down when the government lifted the ban.
We’re a rebellious bunch, we Americans. Our history started that way. It will probably end that way. Question authority, I say. Yes, I realize how ironic that is coming from a slave. I consented to that authority. I was born into the rest. Read more…