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Comment by bluewater | Hacker News Reader

For anyone that’s looking to drink less or moderate their consumption I’d recommend a book by Annie grace called this naked mind. I’m about two weeks past finishing the book and although I haven’t stopped drinking, I’ve had the first real mental shift in how I view alcohol consumption. She was a high functioning, heavy drinker and she dives into the unconscious mind and societal norms/pressures around consuming alcohol. I have a hard time picturing a life without ever drinking again (which is sad in and of itself) but I’m on the mental path of reducing considerably without counting drinks or time till I can have my next one.

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I'd recommend AA.

Not sure why someone would downvote this. I myself am a member. If you have a drinking problem you can't control, come to a meeting please.

The reply comes across as you recommending AA instead of what the parent comment recommends. Hence the downvotes.

If you have a problem get help. That said, AA was started by a group that had no idea about physiology of addiction but definitely understood ‘God’... It gets tons of support and money from private and government and its completely unchecked and its validity remains untested next to other methods. AA has a 13% 7 year success rate, which is pretty dismal. There are better ways to treat addiction. To be honest I don’t know of them because AA sucked all the air out of the room.

I also personally don’t like it that, anytime someone demonstrates they have an a very functional understanding of drinking and their intake and can control its many facets through a multitude of different means indicating that they are in no way under some spell of blind addiction, people are still so quick and judgemental to assume they have a problem, a disease, an addition that they aren’t handling and should get help from a group of people who really don’t know what they are doing with regard to the psychology of addiction.

Something no one will ever tell you is, most people go through a period of heavy drinking at some point in their lives and will miraculously let up on consumption all on their own without the help of a 12 step group.

Those are all fair points. I'm sorry if I came across as condescending.

AA worked for me, but only at the point that I wanted to change. Most of the people I see coming in day after day-- they're court ordered--they don't want to be there, they don't think they have a problem, so I would have no trouble believing that 13%.

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