Posted on 02/09/2011 1:43:14 PM PST by truthkeeper
Former television personality Laurie Dhue says she no longer knew who she was and was tired of suffering in silence from alcoholism when she decided to quit drinking and get help four years ago.
Dhue, who turns 42 tomorrow and was an anchor for the Fox News Channel, MSNBC and CNN, battled her addiction to alcohol for "at least" a decade and a half, she told the "Today" show Wednesday.
"I hid my alcoholism for many, many years," she said. "I was probably a high-functioning alcoholic, as so many people are. But there were cracks, certainly, and there were definitely times when people asked me what was wrong, and I just -- I didn't even know, myself."
Dhue remembers the day she realized she had a terrible problem and decided to get help...
(Excerpt) Read more at aolhealth.com ...
Probably, women get hooked quicker then men and it’s harder our their bodies.
For we alcoholics next to sobriety , our anonymity is our most treasured possession, ever reminding us to place principals before personalities and that it’s important for us to maintain that anonymity at the level of press, radio(and tv) and films so that we may carry the message to the still suffering alcoholic since experience shows that discovery might make the still suffering alcoholic shy away from treatment. I guess Ms. Dhue feels otherwise.
AA is a program based on attraction, not promotion.
With all due respect, that's liberal-mindset nanny-state horsecrap. It most certainly IS a human "weakness" in that it is entirely, 100 pecent behavioral within the context of an allergy. If you were one of the small minority of humans who broke out in a rash every time you ate strawberries, what would you do? YOU'D STOP EATING STRAWBERRIES.
I'm allergic to alcohol. I'm one of the small minority of humans who break out in arrests when I drink. I have woken up every place from a laundromat dryer to jail, with no idea how I got there, because I am alergic to booze. So guess what I finally did? I STOPPED DRINKING IT. That was about 23 years ago.
And you'll never guess what happened! All of the symptoms of this so-called "disease" disappeared! That's right! Imagine that!
It was quite simple. It sure as heck wasn't easy, but it was very, very simple. It was for me, and it is for every alcoholic alive. Not easy, but SIMPLE.
Listen, if alcoholism is a "disease," it's a self-inflicted and self-cured "disease." I can imagine how someone with a real disease, like MS or polio, would give his or her eye teeth to have the ability to get rid of all of that disease's symptoms SIMPLY by making a very cut-and-dried, straightforward behavioral change.
No counselor, no support group, no medical facility, no parent or loving husband or wife or suffering child can make an alcoholic stop drinking. There is only ONE PERSON who can do that -- the alcoholic.
God bless you. 21 years for me on the 23rd. of this month. It works when you work it.
Dude, a laundromat dryer, really? That must be some story.
Ah, no. The alcoholic can’t do it alone. Doing it his way is what got them there. AA works. I know , believe me I know. And only a power greater then one’s self can make the sufferer happily and usefully whole. For me it was a loving God.
Me too. I was thinking about her yesterday, wondering where she was. I hope she’s doing better. God bless her and all who struggle with recovery and addictions.
But other than that, you are so terribly, awfully wrong when you say "the alcoholic can't do it alone." IT'S THE ONLY WAY THE ALCOHOLIC CAN DO IT. You come into this world alone, and you go out alone. It's you and God and NOBODY ELSE.
Moral support from friends and family is nice if you can get it, but sure as heck is NOT a requirement. AA may or may not help -- I've seen it do both. AA doesn't work for everyone; for some (I've seen them), it's merely trading one addiction for another and still letting alcohol control one's life -- the presence or absence of alcohol decides where you go, who you socialize with, etc. etc. That's bullpuckey, no way to live. I determined early, and prayed about it, that if I wanted to go shoot a game of pool at the local bar with my brothers, if I wanted to go to a rip-roaring bbq where folks drank and were merry, if I wanted to go to a New Year's Eve party, then I was going to go -- the days of alcohol controlling my life were OVER.
And they were. I went to the bars and shot pool with my bros, and drank soda to their beer. I went bar-hopping and dancing with my friends just like always, but drank soda to their cocktails, and was even the "safe" driver. It was MY problem, not theirs. Trading war stories with other alcoholics is entertaining and informative, but that's all. The alcoholic becomes recovered when he/she stands UP and faces alcoholism in the face, knocks it aside, and moves forward without dragging other people into it. It's you and God, nobody else.
A loving God had EVERYTHING to do with my recovery. A loving God who told me to love myself (if He tells me to love others as I love myself, then I must take it as a commandment to love myself) and act on it.
But when a person stops drinking, that person deserves the credit -- not AA, not Schick Hospitals, not counselors. It is a very, very sad and tragic thing that people who quit drinking give others the credit for it. They -- and God -- deserve 100 percent of the credit.
“Go to any Lincoln Park (Chicago) or other upscale neighborhood and you can see row after row of the Laurie Dhues of the world on the barstools any night of the week.”
Here it is Laz!
I’m glad you’re sober. However it is you that are wrong not me. The alcoholics way of doing things brings them to the point of utter isolation and fearful loneness and without help, without surrendering one’s will to a Higher Power and the willigness to allow the 12 Steps to work it’s too much for one alcoholic alone. . AA is not a religious program. We ask only that you believe in a Higher power, be it God or the AA group but an alcoholic alone is in a bad neighborhood. The AA symbol is a triangle. At the top is God and at each side is AA as a whole and as a single group, the dot in the middle is the alcoholic. I never considered alcoholism a curse or a blessing. It was something I was born with. I come from a long line of drinkers. And being in AA is not about an alcoholic being alone but being part of a group and carrying the AA message to the still suffering alcoholic.
Knowledge IS the answer to correcting the problem.... not arrest and shame! Our previous sheriff set up an educational program at the jail. He had an outreach program to the community. Arrests declined. Families got help.It was very successful. His term expired and the new sheriff chose drop the program.
You too. (Sound like you were a pistol!)
Well thank you but hey, I finally figured that any fool can drink himself to death. I didn’t think I was a fool and I certainly didn’t want to die. Kinda like telling people ‘Hey I’m going to stop playing in the traffic’’. But thank you again for your kind words. I’ll pray for your family members.
Thank you FRiend.
But it is a harmful lie to tell people, to drill it into their head again and again, the falsehood that "they can't do it alone." It is the ONLY way they will ultimately do it. When I quit drinking and shared my story (in print, no less!) with others, people came OUT OF THE WOODWORK who wanted to tell me how they, too, had quit all kinds of addictions,from cigarettes to cocaine to booze to pot -- TWO people even told me of quitting their heroin addictions, and these were people I knew, and hence knew they were telling me the truth -- without going through the 12-step program that you erroniously believe is the sole path to recovery. It isn't. You aren't doing yourself or anyone else any favors by trying to convince them that they are too weak to do it on their own. All that does is foster a false sense of dependency, of inferiority, of neediness.
I know for certain sure that YOU are wrong becaue I am proof, and I know other people who are proof, as well. The 12-step way isn't the ONLY way, and indeed, I think that while it certainly can work, it doesn't succeed for the reasons you think it does.
One brother had to stop completely because he was not able to walk away after a shot or two...one drink turned into pissing in a phone booth.
My other brother is the same but hasn't stopped.
Of the four of us I was the only one who could take it or leave it. During my forties and much of my fifties I genuinely enjoyed drinking (single malts only). As I got into the second half of my fifties it became less enjoyable so I just pretty much stopped. It took no effort and I still drink when the moment calls for it but if nothing's going on I don't even think about pouring. I liked my drinking days but they're over.
Yep. Inside the dryer, curled up and comfy, still in my halloween costume, sun up and shining on the first day of November. Had no idea how I got there. *sigh*
Worse was the time I fired six rounds from a 357 magnum, just for grins (showing off!) into the floor, ceiling, and bathtub (!!) of a friend's old ramshackle house. God most certainly rode on my shoulder and protected me in those wild days; I guess it must have dawned on me that I owed it to Him to quit drinking! [^))
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You should post a picture of one of them.
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