The Dvorak Keyboard: The Right Way To Go

[Jenda]

Lol

Very nice...

[Calum]

i saw a very well researched documentary about how the twelve step programme actually only helps five percent of people to give up drink for good, and in fact other *** anonymous groups which use a method based on the twelve step programme have a long term success rate of only five percent as well.

You might say "five percent's better than nothing", but it gets better, the average long term success rate of people who try to give up drinking alcohol, but do not seek any help from groups such as AA have a success rate of 5 to 7 percent!

this does make me wonder if AA aren't breaking the law by exploiting people's vulnerable state to lie to them and take their money.

It's possible that this 5% long term success rate is the reason that most people are still using qwerty keyboards...

[Void Main]

Now those are some funny stats. I guess I'll just keep drinking and save some money. :)

[worker201]

That 5% is probably right, but it might not be giving you the whole picture. Based on what I have read, AA (and sister-programs like CA and NA) only works well when you "come in". Unfortunately, as alcoholism progresses, most people will get to a point where they either shoot themselves or make a phone call to an AA support line. People who have reached that level of desperation are said to have "come in", and they have an extremely high rate of success. However, AA is not completely composed of these people. Many people attend AA meetings because they are curious, or because they are required by a court, or because they think they are ready to quit drinking. If you polled every attendee at an AA meeting, probably 5% would be AA success stories. But what percentage have actually been coming for more than 4 months? What percentage are actually sober? What percentage have hit absolute rock bottom and would do anything to stay clean? That's your same 5%.

So what I'm saying is that AA is actually pretty darn effective (like 100%), when used properly by people with no other choice. The percentage of people at any given meeting/chapter/program who fit this description is probably about 5%. The rest of them are tourists and uncommitted quitters. There's where your statistics come from.

BTW, I do not have a drinking problem - I just happen to know a lot about it.

[Void Main]

BTW, I do not have a drinking problem - I just happen to know a lot about it.

I don't have a drinking problem. I drink, I get drunk, I fall down. No Problem!

[JoeDude]

BTW, I do not have a drinking problem - I just happen to know a lot about it.

Denial.

When I first read Calums post, I thought...yeah that sounds about right...then your reply made so myuch sense I had to have a beer!

Actually, my father has been sober through AA for 21 years now. Worker201 you are right on the money. Most who do attend are tourists. Also, there are no executive members of AA to "profit from peoples vulnerabilities". Money that people put in supports the building/hall rental, coffee fund, insurance and maybe even a little funding to a function. The president of a chapter is usually rotated every year (amongst those 5% of success stories), as well as other members who are appointed to decentralize power, mostly to prevent it becoming and exploiive agency.


Anyway...Anyone still plugging away at a DVORAK keyboard?

[Calum]

i hope this isn't going to start being "my name's Dave and i've been sober for 600 years because of AA" now.

Anyway, if all this is true, then surely it's useless for a court to make somebody go to AA, since apparently these people would have a success rate of 0% (given that the 5% is used up entirely by those desperate enough to actually quit).

and as i said, the statistics are similar for other 12 step program type organisations, presumably where nobody is forced by a court to attend.

One further point, if it's the 5% that have real willpower to give up that actually succeed, then surely this follows that the willpower (and not AA at all) is the driving factor. I wonder what the figures are for people giving up alcohol addiction without the "help" of AA. JoeDude, i'd be inclined to think that your father gave up because of himself, and not because of an affiliation with an outside organisation. Not that i know anything about the situation, but i think if people do something, they should know that they did it, and not somebody else, if you understand what i mean.

[JoeDude]

That's actually the strange thing about it. He DID do it himself, just with the help of a sponsor and some close freinds he made in AA. He had to be shown a life without booze. When I was only a little baby, my father followed in his fathers footsteps and played professional country music. My Grandfather and 3 uncles were known in thier day as the Willis Brothers and the Oklahoma Wrnaglers. They made regular appearances on the Will Rogers show (they were the singing cowboys) and the Grand Ole Opry...not to mention world tours. So it was natural for my father to follow thier foot steps. He played country professionally and toured Europe, America and Canada, made regular appearances on the Grand Ole Opry (usually with his uncles and father) and lived a lot of life on the road. Unfortunately he was also consumed by the lifestyle. His boozing eventually caused his downfall from the music scene and he was forced to "get a job" as he says. So he went to night university at UTN and got a Bachelor Degree as a registered nurse. His boozing then forced us to move from Tennessee to Missouri, where he changed location, but not lifestyle. After another few years, he started swapping jobs there as well, then finally, got in a wreck, got charged with DWI and was given an ultimatum by the family and work...Fix yourself or loose it all. So he went into rehab, dried out and the rest is history. The point is, he didn't understand about life without booze or drugs, he'd simply never seen it. AA gave him a group of people who had similar experiences that he could openly relate to, and by seeing first hand he wasn't in it alone, helped him to get where he is now. It's really no more than a support group with guidelines. Even if you fail, they won't kick you out. They may get a bit harsh, but they'll never throw you out.

So it's not all about will power, although that would help greatly. It's about relearning how to live without killing yourself in the process, and taking a few friends along for the ride.

It's not all that different from quiting windows...if you think about it...or at least it wasn't for me. I found linux and started to dabble a bit, then found Microsuck, then here and a few other places. With the support of you guys and the fellas at the other sites, I am now comfortable in Linux and actually learning programming stuff even just because I can. If I hadn't of had this support, I would have never switched....maybe I should have started this last paragraph with, "Hi, I'm Joe, and I'm a recovering Windowsaholic...It's been 3 years now since I used Windows as my primary operating system and I feel great!"

[worker201]

Agreed - the 12 steps are just a program, a method. They give you a set of goals to work toward. The real benefit is the support group. You can go through the steps by yourself at home, but you don't stand much chance of succeeding without support. And friends/family are great to have, because they love you and all, but the real support comes from people who have been exactly where you are now and know exactly how you feel.

One thing that is kinda worrying, though, is that AA itself becomes a habit. Many people with long sober time keep going to the meetings for years on end. They've basically traded one behavior pattern for another. Of course AA is way more positive than drinking.

And medical/psychological researchers are starting to realize that alcoholism is a disease with genetic roots. Actually, the term alcoholism has been used to describe a number of different destructive behavior patterns, not just drinking. So if it is in your genes to drink yourself to death, maybe willpower just can't help you. That's why it sometimes takes a lifetime of meetings to free you from your own suicidal habits.

[Calum]

Joe, i wanted to reiterate again that i wasn't trying to say anything bad about your dad, i think that when he quit, he did do it for himself, and not the AA doing it for him, if you see what i mean, so good on him for that.

Of course AA is way more positive than drinking.

is it? actually i think it's worse. at least with drink you have something which is physically solid, and is chemically addictive. A psychological addiction like the victim mentality of continued AA attendance is going to be something much harder to break, and of course there are no societies to help you out of AA and back into real social interaction. This wouldn't work actually, because it's the handholding aspect of AA that makes people keep going back even when they are sober, i think, so to wean them off the handholding, it's definitively impossible to hold their hands while doing it!

[worker201]

That's true, I guess. I was more referring to drinking as something that alienates your family and friends, can cost you your job, and can very easily kill -- negative. AA does none of those things -- positive.

[Calum]

i suppose so.

it could alienate your friends and colleagues, i would guess. unless they're all recovering alcoholics as well.

[Jenda]

To answer your question, JoeDude, yep - I'm on a dvorak... but that's not much of a surprise I guess

[JoeDude]

Ive gone qwerty ergonomic! The split, arched keyboard is more comfortable, but because it's new, it's a bit annoying right now...

[Calum]

i am glad you said ergonomic and not natural!

i am at a loss to imagine what a natural keyboard might be like!