Hi Tayana,
I am a "recovered" alcoholic, which does not mean that I drink without problem it just means that I am recovered because I no longer have any desire to drink as a matter of fact I recoil from the thought of drinking as if it were a hot flame. The original plan of recovery in the AA big book uses the word "recovered." The term recovering came about in the 1970's in treatment centers. After the 1970's the recovery rate of alcoholism dropped more than 60%. When the original plan was introduced in the 40's, the recovery rate was 90%, that is correct, 90%!! Today the recovery rate is 4%, no joke.
I started attending AA meeting when I was 17, that was over 20 years ago -- saved my life! The wisdom and most especially the day in - out hearing about "rigorous honesty" saved me from a life of lies and potential pain that I could have caused others. For most of my teens and part of my early twenties I cursed God for steering me into the 12 step process so early in my life. I used to compain that spirituality had ruined my potential drinking career
Now I am eternally grateful to God for His guidance and love that carried me into AA.
It took me many years to fall in love with the program, I still don't like everyone at meetings, there are many sick people (I used to be one of them
), some people are still really in heavy denial, I can see that and I try to cultivate compassion but keep my distance. Most people simple just don't drink and go to meetings.
Just not drinking and attending meetings is considered being a "dry drunk." Living a life of daily moral inventory (looking at ourselves), and trying to grow spiritually, which mean trying to grow in love and relationship with God is what the program is REALLY all about.
If you were to read the AA big book you would be utterly amazed at the wisdom and depth of insight into normal everyday human behavior, not just for the alcoholic. This is why every other addiction has adopted the plan of recovery which is really all about repentance, restitution, prayer and service. But most importantly it is about becoming a genuine loving person all the while accepting our on-going healing and flaws.
AA gets a bad rap, it is very much stigmatized in our society. So does healing the inner child concept. It seems that anything that is REALLY GOOD and really truth based gets watered down and stigmatized over the years.
Sorry for the long diatribe -- your post has hit a spot in me
Lise
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FROM THE AA BIG BOOK:
Chapter 3
More About Alcoholism
Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.
We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed.
We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals usually brief were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. We are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period we get worse, never better.
We are like men who have lost their legs; they never grow new ones. Neither does there appear to be any kind of treatment which will make alcoholics of our kind like other men. We have tried every imaginable remedy. In some instances there has been brief recovery, followed always by a still worse relapse. Physicians who are familiar with alcoholism agree there is no such thing a making a normal drinker out of an alcoholic. Science may one day accomplish this, but it hasn't done so yet.
Despite all we can say, many who are real alcoholics are not going to believe they are in that class. By every form of self- deception and experimentation, they will try to prove themselves exceptions to the rule, therefore nonalcoholic. If anyone who is showing inability to control his drinking can do the right-about- face and drink like a gentleman, our hats are off to him. Heaven knows, we have tried hard enough and long enough to drink like other people!
Here are some of the methods we have tried: Drinking beer only, limiting the number of drinks, never drinking alone, never drinking in the morning, drinking only at home, never having it in the house, never drinking during business hours, drinking only at parties, switching from scotch to brandy, drinking only natural wines, agreeing to resign if ever drunk on the job, taking a trip, not taking a trip, swearing off forever (with and without a solemn oath), taking more physical exercise, reading inspirational books, going to health farms and sanitariums, accepting voluntary commitment to asylums we could increase the list ad infinitum.
We do not like to pronounce any individual as alcoholic, but you can quickly diagnose yourself, step over to the nearest barroom and try some controlled drinking. Try to drink and stop abruptly. Try it more than once. It will not take long for you to decide, if you are honest with yourself about it. It may be worth a bad case of jitters if you get a full knowledge of your condition.
Though there is no way of proving it, we believe that early in our drinking careers most of us could have stopped drinking. But the difficulty is that few alcoholics have enough desire to stop while there is yet time. We have heard of a few instances where people, who showed definite signs of alcoholism, were able to stop for a long period because of an overpowering desire to do so. Here is one.
A man of thirty was doing a great deal of spree drinking. He was very nervous in the morning after these bouts and quieted himself with more liquor. He was ambitious to succeed in business, but saw that he would get nowhere if he drank at all. Once he started, he had no control whatever. He made up his mind that until he had been successful in business and had retired, he would not touch another drop. An exceptional man, he remained bone dry for twenty-five years and retired at the age of fifty-five, after a successful and happy business career. Then he fell victim to a belief which practically every alcoholic has that his long period of sobriety and self-discipline had qualified him to drink as other men. Out came his carpet slippers and a bottle. In two months he was in a hospital, puzzled and humiliated. He tried to regulate his drinking for a little while, making several trips to the hospital meantime. Then, gathering all his forces, he attempted to stop altogether and found he could not. Every means of solving his problem which money could buy was at his disposal. Every attempt failed. Though a robust man at retirement, he went to pieces quickly and was dead within four years.
This case contains a powerful lesson. most of us have believed that if we remained sober for a long stretch, we could thereafter drink normally. But here is a man who at fifty-five years found he was just where he had left off at thirty. We have seen the truth demonstrated again and again: "Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic." Commencing to drink after a period of sobriety, we are in a short time as bad as ever. If we are planning to stop drinking , there must be no reservation of any kind, nor any lurking notion that someday we will be immune to alcohol. 
