If you had to go to AA, would you say you were an alcoholic?

I laugh thinking about when Lisa Lopes said, after the whole mess of her burning her boyfriend's house down, the judge ordered her to attend AA meetings. And everybody knows the routine of that, you get up, say your name and say you're an alcoholic. Except she wouldn't do it, she said 'my name is Lisa, and I'm a Gemini, I'm a rock singer, etc', but she wouldn't say she was an alcoholic and because of that people were all 'she is NEVER going to get her act together'. Shows what they knew. But it makes sense, if you don't think you're an alcoholic and just because somebody else says you are, doesn't mean you should get up and say you are if you aren't.

If she were not a alcoholic what would she be doing at an AA meeting in the first place.

The judge ordered her to go as part of her probation for burning down Andre Rison's home. It was that or she could have, her lawyers told her, gone to jail for 20 years.

I'm going to answer the question asked in this thread's title. If I went to AA it would be because I thought I had a problem and wanted to recover from it. Because part of that process is admitting that you have a problem, yes, I would stand up and say, "Hi, I'm Alan and I'm an alchoholic." If I were being forced to go to these meetings (which would probably mean I didn't think I had a problem), I might do exactly as she did.

I thought it was part of the protocol that you go to these meetings, stand up and say: "Hi I'm Chris, and I'm an alcoholic!"

((( :::HI CHRIS!::: )))

Chris wrote:I thought it was part of the protocol that you go to these meetings, stand up and say: "Hi I'm Chris, and I'm an alcoholic!"

((( :::HI CHRIS!::: )))

Which is probably why everybody there said she'd never pull her life together.

Something is out of whack with this story, I think. AA is anonymous, so how could such info be posted anywhere via a reliable source? She may have been very well ordered to do court ordered alcohol counseling, but that is different than AA.

So, to answer your question, if I went to AA, it would be obviously voluntarily, so that would mean that I am ready to accept alcoholism. And I would admit as such.

I don’t know for sure because everything I know about AA, I’ve “learned” from TV and movies but I don’t think it’s required that everyone stands up and introduces themselves as an alcoholic. I also think you can stay on a first name basis if you want to but I don’t think they’ll kick you out if your cover is blown.

Bottom line is that if she does have a problem (with booze) going to meetings isn't going to do any good until she admits it to herself.

alan smithee wrote:I don’t know for sure because everything I know about AA, I’ve “learned” from TV and movies but I don’t think it’s required that everyone stands up and introduces themselves as an alcoholic. I also think you can stay on a first name basis if you want to but I don’t think they’ll kick you out if your cover is blown.

Bottom line is that if she does have a problem (with booze) going to meetings isn't going to do any good until she admits it to herself.

She obviously did at some point, but I don't know if that was before or after AA because she got to the point she was blacking out all the time, and during one of the last interviews she gave she told them that she was just a social drinker anymore, that she wasn't drinking heavy, but if she was in a club and they all had a glass of champagne, they'd have one too. Somewhere in the last few months or couple of years of her life, she went on a cleansing thing where she fasted for 40 days, and she went on TV saying that she had been poisoning her body for 30 years with alcohol and other things. So obviously at some point she did admit that she had a problem with it, but I don't know if it was back during the whole rehab mess she was in.

I would think NOT saying it would count against me and impede my ultimately being able to move past having to go....so even if I didn't think I was an alcoholic, I would just go ahead and do recite the catchphrase.