(Part 3) Top products from r/cripplingalcoholism

I own a copy of The Craft of the Cocktail and it is thoroughly amazing. I also have Bartending for Dummies and it is pretty good as well.

In my completely unprofessional opinion, the two things AA has going for it are the structure of the meetings (ritual), and the community of people who want to drink less (tribe).


However: AA’s position of hardline abstinence makes your sobriety brittle. If you fuck up and have a (1) drink, you tend to feel that you’ve committed some catastrophic fuck up, and go on a hard bender. The goal for me was to make my relationship with alcohol less neurotic. Trading “compulsively drinking” for “compulsively not-drinking” didn’t accomplish that.

Additionally, most people irritate me most of the time. So the idea of having a sponsor never appealed to me. Having to listen to people talk about their problems so I can make people listen to my problems, also did not appeal to me. If AA works for you, I’m peanut-butter-and-jealous, but it definitely didn’t work for me.

Around the third time I “flunked out” of AA and the second time I legit flunked out of college, one of the psych classes I was taking in college used This Book. It covers Experimental Analysis of Behavior, the science of getting animals to behave the way you want them to behave. Reducing behavior, your behavior, down to scientific terms helps you define what, exactly, you’re doing wrong. It taught me a lot about the process of addiction, and how to gradually change my habits and environment so as to dramatically reduce my alcohol intake.
That book was the only book that semester that I didn’t sell back to the book store, I would go down to the library every day (ritual) and be around the other library-people (tribe). We didn’t talk much, and that’s great, because I don’t really like talking to people anyway. I considered it my second job.

Granted, that was a pretty labor intensive approach, and it's definitely not for everyone... But if you’re thinking about tolerating AA for the rest of your life, you’re already past the point of fucking around.

That was a pretty nifty watch. You might also like a book called A History of the World in Six Glasses.

My friend wrote a novel about living in South Korea and Thailand. He is a CA and it is great. Shameless plug. I don't care. Fuck. Read it.

I believe that reference came from Under the Influence, which I highly recommend.

This Naked Mind is good too.

The Kindle app is being a bitch and not letting me text search that excerpt but I’m near positive it was from Under the Influence, which is both revelatory and will make you nod to yourself and go “uh huh, that’s why I began drinking!”

If your dad doesn't want to change, consider reading Beyond Addiction. Or, if your local public library doesn't have it, instead consider reading Get Your Loved One Sober. Both books discuss some powerful techniques.

Thoughts?

http://www.amazon.de/The-Alcoholic-Jonathan-Ames/dp/1401210570 Loved it (graphic novel)

Book of Erotic Fantasy...snicker geek porn FTW.

You should check out this book, think you'd like it a lot.

http://www.amazon.com/To-Hellholes-Back-Extreme-Tourism/dp/0805087885

http://www.amazon.com/GIN-CONSIDERED-AS-DEMON-Middlebrook/dp/0941692043

you can get away with waaaaaaaaaaaay less than that.

possum living

dwelling portably #1
dwelling portably #2
dwelling portably #3

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/080212593X/

https://www.amazon.com/Manual-Taxidermy-Complete-Collecting-Preserving/dp/1473327911/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497291957&sr=8-1&keywords=taxidermy+for+beginners

She wrote a fucking book:

https://www.amazon.com/Alcoholic-Husband-Primer-Survival-Alcoholics/dp/1533363471/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1494811870&sr=1-1&keywords=alcoholic+husband

[Old Man Drinks](http://www.amazon.com/Old-Man-Drinks-Recipes-Barstool/dp/1594744505 "I read it while I shit... the quotes are hilarious.")

For the purists.

I would suggest you to read this book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZJJ2X3R/ - it lays out everything you need to know in order to start change, with an overview and practical tips.

And yet this still has no reviews.

He has a bunch of books and publications -- and a youtube channel with his lectures (he was a professor before he got fired for taking a stand against Canada's law making it illegal to use wrong gender pronouns) most of which are about religion But I found him through a Joe Rogan podcast which was a bit less dry then the youtube videos and highlights a lot of his beliefs without sitting through a lecture.

Then I read a few of his books (his most recent one was a best seller on Amazon for weeks. It's a little wordy, but no worse then the engineering textbooks I was forced to read.

I really like his "clean your room" bit.

For the lazy: http://www.amazon.com/Fuck-All-Motherfuckers-Brian-Clark/dp/145388422X

>A collection of cynical observations and misanthropic ramblings from a bitter, depressive alcoholic. NOT RECOMMENDED FOR CHILDREN

Dear god, it's the CA book.