Dealing with an addiction is a very personal and individual process. I worked with a sort of gamblers anonymous organization and we worked quite differently. There were 2 groups, 1 with the relations/family of the gambling addict lead by a woman (in our case) whose husband had been a gambling addict and the other group was the gamblers themselves and the 2 groups did not mix because both the groups were encouraged to speak out totally openly and only the people in the group itself got to hear what was being talked about in that group.
....
And that was the stupid thing, you cannot tell and addict he/she is going to learn to do their addictive behavior responsibly because they are unable. You do not tell the alcoholic that he/she can have 2 beers on weeknights and 3 in the weekends. That will work for a few weeks (if that) and after that he/she will be back to his/her bad old self. The same goes for drug users, etc. etc. etc. etc.
Stopping with an addiction means stopping and not learning to live with ones bad behavior/addiction.
There is no doubt there is great variation in the approaches, in my case with AA. I went to many meetings only once because the approach didn't fit me, or I didn't fit with the people or the meeting was run by an AA nazi, etc.
And I don't want to get into a long debate about 12 step programs - they work for some people, don't at all for many others, and for those it doesn't help, I genuinely wish them all the best with some other approach. But, for example, the way people here view Step 1 - powerless over alcohol - is just the admission that they can't handle alcohol, AT ALL. There is no cutting back, managing the drinking, etc. It's zero alcohol intake, period, for any reason. No cough syrup, no mouthwash, not one beer, not ever.
So no one admits they have no control - the recurring point, every meeting, is there are NO EXCUSES. "Don't drink/drug. Your child dies, that's horrible, drinking will make it worse. You got fired, too bad, life will suck bad some days, get another job, which is easier to get and keep sober. Whatever it takes to not take the first is what you do. Here's what I (we) do..... Here's what helped ME...."
It's forbidden in my region to talk TO anyone - "
YOU must do this!" It's, "this worked for me, others here can try it if they want and if it works, great, if not, try something else. just don't drink." Religion/God/Higher Power is a big thing for maybe 2/3. For the rest, it's not part of the daily discussion.
As an aside, there was an infamous (now) group called Moderation Management, which advocated controlled drinking with set limits. I read the book and we just laughed about it because it 'recommended' no more than FOUR drinks per day, or 14 per week. LMMFAO. People who could reliably handle that didn't need any program. The problem with addicts was 4 OFTEN turned into 12, and sometimes 20. Anyway, the woman founder quit, decided to go back to AA, then ended up getting into a car wreck, drunk, and killed the occupants of the other car..... So, yeah, I agree.
And the thing is, I'm sure it's the same with gamblers being asked to play poker for pennies or something, I don't WANT to drink moderately. Never did - I like getting drunk.
Nothing is better than ONE DRINK, by far. I imagine gamblers get the same amount of joy out of pretend "gambling" as an addict with a moderate amount of their drug of choice - nothing but the craving for the real thing.
