Infinite Summer

This footnote is profound. I am so in alignment with him on this.
The "advanced AA" who so completely eradicates his humanity that he turns into ashes in a room alone and is wiped up with a damp rag.

P.S. I am posting to maintain my sanity. Thanks for listening. Grateful to be .........

I was just talking with some friends about this footnote and how it relates to Hal's essay about the hero of non-action. How much difference is there between the "advanced AA" and an addict in the total depths of it if they are just using different means to achieve the same end - to get out of the cage, to use the book's own words. The advanced AA sounds a little bit like Erdedy holed up in his apartment.

I totally agree. After 20 years I do not go to meetings any longer for this reason. I didn't know why at the time, and I needed professional help to de-program, but I knew in my gut that my run with AA was over and I needed to go it a different way or I was in trouble. The top of the mountain in monk's robes alone in a cave wasn't for me.. And I didn't see the benefit in becoming a crocodile/dinosaur. It became an empty place. Enough said.

I must add that if it wasn't for my first 10 years I wouldn't be here today - so I'm not bashing AA.

My anonymity has been breached, I realize, but somehow in this forum and this discssion it seems appropriate. My experience in AA is an important part of how I relate to IJ. I'm sure there are others on this forum but I have not run into anyone else openly AA. For someone currently in AA this book could be difficult.

As a Boston AA I find his observations of the programs pros and cons very well said. "god puzzles" " feeding the spider" and c. all are keen observations of this unique society of drunks and druggies. I don't know anything of competitive tennis, but DFW has captured the feeling of early tenuous sobriety.

I feel like the advanced AA not really an AA point per se. It's more like, on the other end of obsessive destructive desire that reduces you to an inhuman state, you can't be human without some measure of desire and escape. You vaporize instead of rot. The book is about one end of the spectrum, but I think it provides the occasional glimpse at the other.

I loved this footnote so much, but I really saw it more about balance than about program.