How come people who've had serious drinking problems or were raised in an

[raccoon]

alcoholic family frequently become obnoxious fundies? I mean, they get religion, and boy, do they get religion.

:shrug:

[Bunny]

1. Substitute one addiction for another.

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Exactly. One dysfunction morphs into another.

[DebJ]

8. great answer! I always wondered about that.

[Warpy]

15. Yeah, pretty much

especially when they're trying to duck the sort of honesty they find at an AA meeting. A lot of people don't like looking at themselves in that accurate a mirror, so they think they can substitute Jesus for booze.

That does nothing to alter the alcoholic behavior, even if they manage to stay dry.

[meegbear]

2. One extreme personality trait to another

[Kitty Herder]

13. That seems to be true.

My dad was a severe alcoholic. The only way he could stay sober for any length of time was to be extreme in another way. For him it was work--hard physical labor and long hours. He could only exist as a workaholic or an alcoholic. The combination finally killed him.

[Vincardog]

3. Black and white thinking and rigid rules appeal to some abuse survivors

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. Yes, I think it gives them the structure and safety they always wanted.

[TomInTib]

5. I am not sure, but I do know this....

"Mankind's Ten Stages of Drunkenness"

0). A Zero is sober
1). Witty and Charming
2). Rich and Powerful
3). Benevolent
4). Clairvoyant
5). F**k Dinner
6). Patriotic
7). Crank Up the Enola Gay
8). Witty and Charming, Part II
9). Invisible
10). Bulletproof

[A-Schwarzenegger]

7. One exception right here.

:*

[mike_c]

10. another exception-- raised in an alcoholic FUNDY household...

...and I have ZERO use for religion, ever!

[Fuzz]

9. Kind of a generalization, but I know some who fall into that category.

Some people need something to put faith in, a higher power, when they feel as if they have no control over themselves. AA tells you to do this for a reason and that's why it works for people who have these tendencies, imo. Things are black/white with very little shades of gray for them as well. At least for the few people I have interacted with that have fallen into this category.

[YOY]

11. AA: Religion Based.

There are alternatives but AA gets pushed as the "best way" by many "authority figures" and has become (up until quite recently) the place to send alchoholics.

Funny thing is that they really don't have a higher success rate compared to those who quit unassisted.

The fundies like you when you are weak so they can build you back up in their image. Not unlike Bootcamp: Break you down and build you back up.

My bud kicked the sauce by strong will and learning to live positively. He found a rehab center that was non-religion based. We all help him but he is strong and doesn't really need it. More power to him!

[dflprincess]

12. "I used to be fucked up on drugs, now I'm fucked up on Jesus."

I have a cousin like that. Turned Republican too - my aunt says she could deal with the religious crap, but would rather he'd kept drinking that go over to the dark side.

[KitchenWitch]

14. Fundamentalism offers safety in a rigid way.

[hyphenate]

16. I think it has a lot to do with

absolving one's self of blame for how much they have fucked up their lives. In this, it becomes a way for them to lose all the guilt of being alcoholics, but it does end up replacing one addiction with another, instead of owning up to their own failings.

Some people just have addictive personalities (it's hard-wired in the brains of some people), and would rather become religious than going to a psychologist. The stigma attached to seeing a "mental" doctor is so ingrained that we would rather avoid it altogether. I think that attitude sucks, but it's real and too many people believe it. (No wonder Americans are so screwed up!)

A lot of the alcoholics I know are already aggressive in one form or another, though some, like my dad, were mostly happy drunks--he would avoid conflict at all costs, but use avoidant behavior to get out of things he didn't want to do, even if they were the right things. (Once, my mom was waiting for him to sign documents to buy a house, and he never showed up at all, and more than once he would show up hours later for making long distance drives with the whole family.) But trying to stop drinking, as alcoholism is a real illness, is very difficult, and those who have the worst time doing so, find themselves needing an outlet for their emotional release. Becoming fanatical religious followers gives them an outlet that legally allows them to let off steam and an excuse to emotionally attack people.

[SharonAnn]

17. Please, I'm not a fundie! Though I'm a recovering alcoholic from an alcoholic family

Of course, I may have had my eyes opened by being in recovery.

Active alcoholics (including me) lick black/white thinking, us vs. them thinking, "they're out to get me" paranoid thinking, grandiose thinking (I'm perfect and they're not), etc.