This is a thread for ILXors ON THE WAGON (and for the Wagon Curious)

Favorite AA song: Vic Chesnutt, “Stupid Preoccupations”

Anyone have experience with Refuge Recovery? I’ve been listening to the podcasts which are kinda like guided meditations and a nice alternative to AA dogma.

a little, that mirrors my take. I have a book on it but never went to a meeting.

I went to some Refuge meetings c.2017-2019 and I liked it well enough. The one near me was a very small (probably <5 people on average) weekly meditation meeting at a zen center out in the country, but when I visited Asheville there were groups with 30 people meeting every day and taking meetings into treatment facilities and stuff.

Unfortunately, not long after that, the Refuge Recovery community split in two for reasons that were not entirely clear to me -- I remember hearing at the time that it had something to do with the founder/author of their book sounding off on social media & wading into public controversies, but never tried to confirm it. All I know is I woke up one morning and half the meetings on the website were gone. I worried they had closed their doors for good, but it turns out most of them formed a new fellowship calling itself Recovery Dharma.

The People's Recovery Front vs. the People's Front of Recovery.

the founder Noah Levine was also accused of some sexual malfeasance of some sort or another, not sure if that had anything to do with this schism you describe

Yeah, that's right. I dunno why I thought it was social media posts, my brain must have been busy that day.

I think (I hope) the org that continued under the name Refuge Recovery no longer has Levine in any kind of leadership position today

...nope I am very wrong about that

He can always blame it on booze

feeling super relieved right now

an addict in my life went to a recovery group for the first time recently

they had a lot of anxiety about it. last time they went to a group they were in a different city that didn't have a lot of queer-focused recovery groups. even though there are plenty of queer-focused recovery groups around here, they were pretty hesitant

turned out a good friend of mine was there. it just helps to know you're not alone, y'know?

Big time

Also helps not to use the word “addict” imo

Like I would be quite displeased if someone referred to me as “a cancer in my life”

my bad, i'm new to all this language... you're right that it's essentializing, i don't see them that way

tbf "addict" but is a term i've heard frequently self-applied within the recovery community

I went to some Lifering meetings, way more mellow and less performative than AA ime but maybe that was just my group. Also learned about wood turning.

Ime the important thing is just to have “fellow travelers” to go through the shit with, not necessarily following some recipe

I have no problem calling myself an addict. In fact, I think it's important.

That's just me. Your mileage may vary.

same. Good to recognize it, no?

this is probably one of those speak for yourself but not others kind of thing….

lol jimbo otm iow

same. Good to recognize it, no?

It has been for me. I had to rewire my brain.

I’m in the “I’ve had an SUD” camp, which is tbf pretty nu-skool

SMART Recovery is another AA alternative. CBT based approach.

SMART recovery is good, I got a lot out of it (including the motivation I needed to actually get something out of AA meetings, by "identifying not comparing"). They do discourage the use of labels like "alcoholic" and "addict" in their meetings.

I say "alcoholic" when I'm at AA, I say "addict" when I'm at DAA, I don't go to NA, and when I'm talking to normies I say "a sober person in long term recovery, and what that means for me is I haven't needed to drink or take drugs since (MM/DD/YYYY)"

...unless they're British normies, then I go with DD/MM/YYYY

I've had some pretty good non-drinking stints over the past few years but I'm still mostly running behind the wagon trying to keep up once in a while. One tactic that's helped me cut down when I'm out at bars is for every beer I drink I have to follow it up with a bitters and soda, which I've found to be better than NA beers and hop water for scratching that drinking itch. Some of my issue is that I will down any beverage in front of me pretty quickly, my bladder's capacity being the only thing that really slows me down. I always play it off as saying "I'm a thirsty guy" but it's probably more a compulsion issue than thirst (I'm also a very fast eater). Last night I went out to a show and felt like I was drinking a decent amount and when it came time to close my tab I was pleasantly surprised to see just 2 beers on it.