throwitaway1234

I am logging back in specifically to address this comment in case it prevents somebody from trying AA due to misinformation.

First as others echo if you don't understand the addiction consider yourself lucky. If I drank one drink at the end I was physically compelled to have another. Imagine a terrible itch. You have to scratch it. Heavy drinking alcoholics have such strong physical addictions that detox without medical supervision can be life threatening. Your reaction wondering why millions of people choose AA and abstinence vs trying to "cut back" is misinformed but not uncommon.

Second and more importantly IMO the misconception that AA requires a traditional faith or GOD experience is what kept me out for years. Part of working the steps is finding "a higher power" and I know many atheists in the program that consider that to be Good Orderrly Direction (GOD) vs a spiritual or dogmatic experience.

But the true "work" of the program is centered around confronting your wreckage of the past and confronting life on life's terms vs utilizing alcohol as a mechanism to check out of life.

I fit into the 10% category for years while building my first start-up age ~22 - 30.

I realized at some point it was out of control and I couldn't stop. The details are as ugly as anybodys addiction story but to most everybody else I managed to externally look "fine".

I am the biggest contrarian and skeptic in the world, eventually sought out medical help and was referred to AA which I was very leery of.

But I did it and recently celebrated year 2 of sobriety along with a way to address the stress, fear, loneliness of startup life.

Not trying to hijack a data-thread into self-help but when I was out drinking I loved consuming these articles to feel like I wasn't the only one.

Having spent some time in AA there are are a LOT of developers, entrepreneurs, hackers that are working the program too, if you're struggling with the alcohol monkey like I was it's a safe thing to at least check out.