mental age?

[Lin]

I have a question.


Last night at Alanon this came up. Two different people said their loved ones learned that the year you started drinking you totally stopped in mental years from then on. So if you started drinking at 13 you woudl remain 13 forever...even if you stopped drinking for a long time. I heard this mental maturity rule differently at one of Mike's rehabs. I heard that if you started drinking at 13 your maturity stopped at thirteen until you stopped drinking. So if you started at 13 , stopped at 20 and now are thirty your mental maturity is 23.

Do you know the actual rule? Do you know if there is a place I can read it and copy it? Is it in the big book?

LIN

[caressa]

A good question Lin. I heard it your way, but I also heard that your mental state was stunted at the first traumatic thing that happened in your life.

I stole a glass of communion wine at 10, and never had another taste until I was baptized at 14. As I have said before, I can remember trying to take a gulp and make it look like a sip. Alcohol was not in our home until my mother passed away.

If you take the traumatic into effect, I had a birth mark surgically removed when I was a year old and was badly burned and in the hospital for a week at 18 months old. I think I was about 6 years sober when I heard this and tried to figure out if I was about 7 or 16. That makes me 1+21=22 or 10+21=31 in today, even though in April I will be 71. I know I am young at heart, but most times the body can't keep up with the mind.

When we quit using, I understand we metabolize and change IF we practice the 12 Steps in our life. I also heard that it takes an alcoholic/addict 8 years to get to a stage where they 'think' like normies or Earthlings, what ever you want to call them, considering they aren't too caught up in and/or recoverying from their own addiction(s) (work, food, gambling, shopping, computer, relationships, obsessive compulsive disorders such as cleaning, and organization/discipline disorders, religion, exercise, etc.) like I heard this week, people who watch Dr. Oz, and think they are dying. I had to quit watching the show. I had too many of the symptoms and even though I know that certain illnesses have the same signs, it is the mental aspect of the situation that I found difficult. My magic magnifying mind can still make mountains out of mole hills, if I don't apply the program and bring it down to size.

I don't think it is just alcoholics. I only had about an inch of a glass red communion wine, but I remembered the feeling when it hit bottom, and was always searching for that feeling again, whether it was a chocolate sundae, a job well done, winning $400. with Nevada tickets, etc.

I think that is why they call it an obsessive/compulsive disorder and it doesn't matter what the substance is or how much of it you use, it is what it does to you when you do use it.

This morning was a good example, I got the thought to try to recipe for peanut butter cookies, I don't like peanut butter and could hardly get by the smell to it, but I forced myself to do it. I kept telling myself, it is only 1/2 cup of sugar, 1 cup of peanut butter, and one egg, stirred, rolled into 2" balls, and they can't hurt me. I flattened the balls with a fork, baked for 15 min. in a 325 deg. oven and baked

I had two trays and ate at least 6 cookies before I went to bed.

I had been thinking of making these cookies for a long time, because the peanut butter was low in fat and no sugar, and my son didn't like it. I never ate it and had it in my cupboard for when he stopped by to eat (people pleasing). Like everything else in my life, when you can't have or not suppose to have, my disease turns into more.

Attachments:

[Lin]

Thanks Caressa. Do you know if the rule is written anywhere where I can copy it?

LIN

[BW]

Great question Lin..Thing is there is only one actual rule in AA...LOL Yep you quessed it..Rule 62..Everything else is suggestions and traditions and expereince and of course many throw in opinions.

I've heard the same thing tho I don't recall where it is written exactly. It may be in Dr. Silkworth's writings tho I do not believe it is in the Big Book itself. It may be in the book Emotional Sobriety the Next Frontier...tho pls don't hold me to that with certainty.

[caressa]

Don't recall reading it. I was told in the recovery house I went to and later a woman with over 30 years of sobriety who worked in AA Central Office. In Mary Ellis they asked us in group to figure our ages. I was always in a quandry, because of the early trauma in my life or to just take it from the time I was drinking.

It took me several years to connect with my inner child. I had no knowing of her for several years until I saw a friend's daughter sitting in a hospital bed all alone, looking very fearful, scared and lost. I looked at her and thought, "There is me." She was the same age as me when our house was struck by lightening.

On the other hand, I had a friend who said, what do you mean inner child, you are one big kid who never grew up, when I had been sober for 6 months. I personally believe it affects the mental and the emotional.

[majestyjo]

Still a good question in today. I had a birth mark removed when I was one year old and was badly burnt at 18 months and was hospitalized. I saw my brother killed when I was three years old. He was two and apparently, I nominated myself as his caretaker the day he was born. Did this close me down mentally, I really can't say. I know that the drink of communion wine at 10 years old affected me greatly. As I said in my previous post, "When that wine hit bottom," I never forgot the feeling and searched for it all my life. When I found it, it was great, but eventually, because our disease is progressive. I found it, couldn't stop, and always wanted more. It took more and more alcohol to find the feeling and it got to a stage where I could no longer get there, I was too depressed and down on myself. Every time I picked up, I lost a piece of me, and there wasn't much me left, be it mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically.

[majestyjo]

What age are you?

If I consider the first traumatic event I was one and got clean when I was 49. Now I am almost 79, I am really only 49 mentally.

If I take the time when I had my first drank at ten, I am 59 unless my math is off.