I'm writing to you from [city deleted], Sweden. I like your integrity.

I joined the MM list some weeks ago as I searched the Internet for alternatives to addictions as well as AA. I drank a lot from age 22 to 42 but always kept job, family, etc. When, during those 20 years, I was drinking too much, I put in abstinent periods of 1 - 6 months.

Then I encountered AA, 11 years ago. It's alright to be sober and I like the God part. What I dislike are some members who use the fellowship as a sect and the program as a cult.

I'm not too interested in the drinking as such BUT I'm very interested to make my own decisions as to have a glass of good red wine, a glass of pernod or a glass of calvados. It's hard intellectually to buy the disease concept.

Half a year ago I started Tai Chi Chuan that's a lot of finding a third way between the extremes.

So what advice do you give me and what reading do you recommend for me? I'm a BA in Finance including Philosophy and Psychology. If you could give me names of researchers in Sweden then that would help me. As I know they are not buying AA's concept as such. There is lots of talk about spontaneous recovery. If that gives room for some drinking I don't know. I'm also interested to work with these questions if and only if there are alternative ways to handle alcohol problems, but not to just say be abstinent to all.

Regards

H.K.

Dear H:

Thanks for the compliment.

You have had an interesting experience. You benefited from AA, but you don't like a cult-like group that prescribes abstinence for all, which is what AA is like. You like the God part, which is one reason that many reject AA. There are two groups, Rational Recovery and SMART Recovery ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) which recommend abstinence but which reject AA's spirituality/ religious aspects. Obviously, they are not for you.

Moderation Management ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ), which you have found, also doesn't emphasize spirituality, but it does accept drinking choices by people recovering from a drinking problem. So you have found a group which agrees with your aims. However, do you require a group to meet with regularly? If so, are there MM (or similar) groups in Stockholm? Are you uncomfortable continuing in AA, or can you accept what they offer you while ignoring the cult-like parts?

Spontaneous remission means that most people recover from drinking problems without entering therapy or joining any groups. When people quit drinking on their own, rather than through therapy or AA, they usually cut back their drinking, rather than abstaining. (I discuss a study by Dawson which shows this in the article at my website entitled "The results for drug reform...", located in Section L of my Library.)

Several Swedish researchers have shown in addition that most "socially stable" alcoholics adopt moderate drinking as they age, even after they have been hospitalized for alcohol dependence. These researchers are named Göran Nordström, M. Berglund, and A. Õjehagen at the Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital, Lund, Sweden. (I discuss their research at my site in an article entitled "Why do controlled-drinking outcomes vary by country...", which is a little technical, at Section I in my Library.)

I have written a book entitled "The truth about addiction and recovery" (published by Simon & Schuster). Martha Sanchez-Craig, who is at the Addiction Research Foundation in Toronto, also has a book entitled Saying When: How to Quit Drinking or Cut Back. Other American books on the topic of AA's limitations and alternative routes to recovery are More Revealed, by Ken Ragge and Alcoholics Anonymous: Cult or Cure, by Charles Bufe (both available from See Sharp Press, San Francisco), and How to Quit Drinking Without A.A. by Jerry Dorsman.

Your desire to be free to drink or not as you choose is possible. And I understand your desire to have this freedom. Have you drunk alcohol at all since you entered AA? You may try, and of course the point is to be sensitive to the results. You sound as though you only want to drink occasionally, on special occasions. If so, check that you are accomplishing this goal. You may always revert to abstinence, for a short or long time, if your "experiment" is not succeeding. People do this all the time.

I enclose a letter I received from someone who, like you, chose to drink. He actually worked in a treatment center where everyone had to abstain. He appears to be younger than you, and he is American, so his experience may not be comparable. But what you may find worthwhile is his expression of the beauty of the freedom of choice, which he was able to accomplish. The most important ingredients for any type of successful outcome for drinking are (1) that you seek it intensely and (2) that it fits comfortably with your values and lifestyle.

The letter is as follows: