Unlike most recovery groups, abstinence (sobriety) is not a requirement for HAMS. HAMS encourages all positive change, from abstinence to moderation to safer drinking.
Tag: 12 step alternatives
Common Sense Recovery: An Atheist's Guide to Alcoholics Anonymous
Our recovery is not up to angels, demons, or gods. It is up to us.
Atheist Nurse Wins Fight to End Mandatory 12-Step Addiction Treatment for Health Staff in Vancouver
B.C. health authority settles human rights complaint with Byron Wood, who lost his job after quitting AA.
Happy Destiny or a Life Sentence: Thoughts on Leaving AA
If you do decide to leave, there are many alternatives to AA, places where you can meet likeminded people, share your experience, and make social connections just as in 12-step meetings.
The Other Side of Service: When Giving Back Becomes Exploitation
Being of service means sharing our story of recovery to someone who is struggling or taking a newcomer to their first meeting, not taking away someone’s ability to support themselves.
6 Amazing Benefits of Giving Up Alcohol and Joining a Sober Community
We no longer look for short-lived highs followed by compounded messes and erratic emotions. In our willingness to be present, to be aware of our inner lives, step by step we create the lives we really want to live.
Everybody Knows: 10 Lessons from 10 Years of Sobriety Without AA
In early sobriety, someone told me that since I’d gotten sober without AA, I wasn’t an alcoholic, and that since I didn’t go to meetings and ate the occasional mushroom, I wasn’t sober.
How AA Hijacked Addiction Science and Came to Dominate Treatment: An Interview with Joe Miller
The scientists at Yale liked what AA did, but they did not by any stretch think that AA was a cure-all for alcoholism. Neither, by the way, did Bill Wilson.
12-Step vs SMART Recovery: Are You Powerless or Making a Choice?
The problem with powerlessness is that it becomes all-encompassing and paralyzing. But the idea that addiction is a choice fails to consider many people’s experiences. Maybe there’s a middle ground.
There's Nothing Wrong With You If AA Doesn’t Work
It isn’t that you’re incapable of being honest with yourself, or that you’re not working a “program” well enough. You are not too broken, or too far gone.