the ten most overrated things in our soceity

[backbreaker]

1. women - relationships

this is pushed down our throats that if you do not have a GF or or not in a relationship, something is wrong with you, and you are not normal. This has long been a woman trait, a good looking well adjusted female is supposed to have a male, but not necessarily the case for a man. a man should not be determined by if he is or is not in a relationship or not, yet that is all most care about. that's why most guys here here in the first place.


it really is okay, sometimes even beneficial to be single. there are many benefits to being single. First you get more **** done. then, you don't have to answer to anyone. if i feel like getting up and going to miami tomorrow if i'm single and have the money i can go. if i want to buy a new car i dont' have to run it by my GF or wonder what she thinks. if i want to go blow all my money in the strip club i can.


2. friends

Are very overrated. Business has sold us on the 4-5 guys night out. rarley does real life work like this. anyone seen that dave chappelle guys night out skit lol? this is what most guys nights are like. between **** blocking, jealousy, mootching and just incompatibility, most friends are not worth it.[

keep associates. be willing to met u with people, have fun, but this whole "oh we ride and die together" **** is so damn played out. most of your friends iwll **** your girl if she is hot enough, just like a woman would cheat on you if she found a man that was more deseriable than you. it just IS.

having the wrong friends canb e worse than having the wrong GF. they can be emotionally draining. then if you are trying to better yourself, do things (like come here) or go to the gym, or read a book every now and then, most of yuor friends will try to hold you back.

i have not had real best friends since i was 22 years old, and ironically (not really) my life is alot less drama filled

3. savings

most business people will tell you to save 10% of your money. Saving money is overrated. not to say that you should not save, there is a point int me that you should save money, but you should first invest in yourself. always invest in yourself before you start saving. make your money work for you and your money will not work more for you then if you put it in yourself. books, seminars, gym memberships, even clothes.


4. home ownership

This is probably the worst of all. ****ing suzy oreman and all those real estate shows have basically told everyone that owning a hose is a win win, and you got these stupid ****s with credit scores about at the mendoza line going out and taking out loans for houses at stupid fuvck interest rates, and getting patted on the back because now "they own a house!".

Renting is your friend. if you are taking out a loan for a house you should not even consider it unless you have a 700 credit score. Your rent does not go up if you have a high credit score, but your mortgage does. get your credit score down then buy if you want.

5. credit

Credit is good to have, very good to have, but these finance guys that walk around trying to convince me that there is a such thing as good debt i'd slap with my ****. debt is never good. it's that simple. there is a such thing as acceptable debt. ther are some thigns that i would consider going in debt to do, but there is never a such thing as GOOD debt. it's better if you can not be in debt.

right now i have all of 1200 dollars worth of debt, 900 in an amex card that gets paid every month and another 300 i keep on my balance on my cc's for credit score purposes. i could pay both off in 10 mintues if i felt like it.. we use amex for everything and just pay it at the end of the month...

when you don't have debt you have the freedom to do things. if i decided i wanted to go backpacking for a year tomororw i could. if something is possible to save for, save.

6. college

not becuase i did not go to college but college in genearl is overrated. notice i did not say important it is, but it's overrated. college in itself will not determine if you are going to be successful or not. and i'll tell you now if my son doesn't show any lack of effort for school when he gts older i'm not going to pay for him to go to school. do not confuse college with an education. education is priceless. you do not have to go to college to become educated.

7. thanksgiving

**** i hate thanksgiving. nothing is open, i have to see my damn family or go over someones house for diner and eat bad cooking, and watch bad football.

it wouldn't be so bad if good football was on all day. no horse tracks are open, nothing. not even any good history channel specials which is the only thing that gets me through the 4th of july now.

8. abstinence

in general is overrated. from sex, drugs, alcohol. i was in AA for a long time, 4 years. it was drilled in my head that i could not drink, and drinking as bad for me. in reality it's not. i never had an alcohol problem, never will, i dont' like it enough to develop a problem, yet i deprived myself from social drinking to keep up a facad and to maintain a sobriety date.

i have a problem a big one with cocaine. i know that so i don't play. but that's just my physical thing, it doesn't mean i have to stay away from everything. i smoke a joint from time to time and you know what, i ****ing like it. if i could do an 8 ball from time to time without emptying the bank account i'd dot hat.

realizing what you can and can't do and staying within your boundaries is most important.

and what does staying abstinent from sex prove? not a damn thing. why would you want to **** someone who has no experience?

9. Television

in general is overrated. very little of it is good anymore. Give me a good book and a good music CD and \some good wine over TV any day.

10. sex

is very overrated. don't get me wrong, it's good. but we live in a pinned up society that revolves around sexual tension. it's not that serious.

 

[SoldMySoul]

Man, I am compelled to reply!!!! I almost agree with everything you say!!!!! I mean spot fvcking on too!!! I really do not have any substance problems that are illegal though, so I really cannot relate with that one and I drink very little. But everything else you mentioned just about describes how I have felt about it and what I am going through RIGHT now!!!

Great post my man!!! Relationships, friends, credit, saving money and home ownership bullet points hit home for me! Hell I own my home and lost 50k last year on it. So I am deep underwater. Been out of work for over a year due to my injury and s h i t t y ex employer. I have always had GREAT credit, but if things do not improve I will bankrupt on everything and let them have my worthless house. Not to mention dealt with sorry a$$ friends and women.

The saying goes if you have friends you can really count on one hand you are doing way better than most. I guess your post made me see that I really do not give a $hit too much about anything. People let you down, and will do you sorry.

Again, thanks for this and it needs to be about me from now on since me trying to be good has screwed me. As a matter of fact, I just received from your post more spiritual food than my attendance at a Catholic church(first time ever in catholic church too) yesterday.

 

[Warrior74]

Home ownership.

My parents friends and coworkers keep telling me that I am throwing my money away on rent. The point is, I live check to check with middle of the road credit. It would be the dumbest thing ever for me to invest in a home as a single man. Better to rent a house, and work on my credit score and get a house when I decide to settle down.

 

[SoldMySoul]

Home ownership.

My parents friends and coworkers keep telling me that I am throwing my money away on rent. The point is, I live check to check with middle of the road credit. It would be the dumbest thing ever for me to invest in a home as a single man. Better to rent a house, and work on my credit score and get a house when I decide to settle down.

Fvck owning a house Warrior!!! The people that are telling you this garbage have not opened a newspaper or watched the news lately! I am speaking from experience. Owning a home is the best investment you can ever have???? The biggest fvcking lie ever told!!! Sure it works for some. But I am among the many underwater on my mortgage. Just last year I thought I had about 40k in equity (bought house new 12 years ago) until I went to refinance and was hit with a huge reality.

My damn mortgage company raised my payment almost $80 bucks a month too. I was able to appeal county tax and get them to tax what my crappy house was appraised for last year.

If you can pay cash for a decent house then it would be a break even thing most of the time, but otherwise, how is paying over 3-4 times your homes worth logical? It fvcking isn't!!! The biggest lie ever told!!!! You get a 100k house and pay 30 years and you will have paid over 300k and more depending on variables. How is this an investment??? It is not!!! Worse than buying a damn car in my book!!!

Warrior, keep doing what you are doing and SORRY Backbreaker about highjacking thread for my rant.

 

[backbreaker]

a house does not become an asset unless 1. you got a freaking steal on location or 2. you put down an sizable deposit.


we were raised to think cars depreicate in value and houses appricate in value. this is generally the case, but not with crappy credit and not without putting down some money in your house

really, if you go to a 10 year plan instead of a 30 year plan and bite the bullet you will have equality in your house. it's no different than a car. i've never in my years selling cars seen someone on a 48 month plan that was upside down.

stretching the payments out is what makes you upside down not the house itself.

if you are going to buy a house do not fiannce over 15 years, i don't care waht your GF or the real estate guy says. if you cant' afford it on a 15 year plan it's too much house for you.


SmS no worries. we are working together and we are America's worst nightmare. single men that are hip to the game that is society.

 

[RMM]

Home ownership.

My parents friends and coworkers keep telling me that I am throwing my money away on rent. The point is, I live check to check with middle of the road credit. It would be the dumbest thing ever for me to invest in a home as a single man. Better to rent a house, and work on my credit score and get a house when I decide to settle down.

My parents were quite insistent that I should be investing in property right after I started working, instead of renting and how I was throwing the money away and all that.

Then the crunch came... Nobody is talking about buying anymore.

EDIT:

if you are going to buy a house do not fiannce over 15 years, i don't care waht your GF or the real estate guy says. if you cant' afford it on a 15 year plan it's too much house for you.

Interestingly, that's around what I've been looking at myself. Works out about 2.5 times my current gross annual salary, and it'd be quite comfortable payments (with a flexible mortgage even). Turn the clock back 10 years and people were trying to convince me to get into a 30-year mortgage plan in Europe. No f- way.

 

[SoldMySoul]

a house does not become an asset unless 1. you got a freaking steal on location or 2. you put down an sizable deposit.


we were raised to think cars depreicate in value and houses appricate in value. this is generally the case, but not with crappy credit and not without putting down some money in your house

really, if you go to a 10 year plan instead of a 30 year plan and bite the bullet you will have equality in your house. it's no different than a car. i've never in my years selling cars seen someone on a 48 month plan that was upside down.

stretching the payments out is what makes you upside down not the house itself.

if you are going to buy a house do not fiannce over 15 years, i don't care waht your GF or the real estate guy says. if you cant' afford it on a 15 year plan it's too much house for you.


SmS no worries. we are working together and we are America's worst nightmare. single men that are hip to the game that is society.

You are absolutely right!! If I would have gotten out of my home maybe 3 years ago, I would have made money. But NO, I did the 30 year thing and BOY am I paying for it now. I will probably stop paying on it soon enough and make them throw me out which in a lot of cases will take a year and half two years.

 

[RMM]

You are absolutely right!! If I would have gotten out of my home maybe 3 years ago, I would have made money. But NO, I did the 30 year thing and BOY am I paying for it now. I will probably stop paying on it soon enough and make them throw me out which in a lot of cases will take a year and half two years.

You have it easy (in comparison). While in the US the bank takes the house and that's it, in Socialist Spain (which, AFAIK, is similar to the rest of Europe, but since I'm not sure I can't generalize) the bank is entitled to seize your house, auction it, and if what they get is less than what the loan was, they can seize other assets you have and even have a claim on any future income of yours until the loan is repaid - with interest!

This, by the way, is something that most people didn't know until the crunch came and people found themselves unable to repay their mortgages.

Caveat emptor indeed.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

Most of your list are great if them come about naturally, that is they would be considered "bottom up" situations.

Example:

You meet a girl, you have a lot of common, you go on a few dates, you like each other more and more to the point that neither of you have any desire to see anybody else. Becoming exclusive is natural. Your relationship is a natural outcome of several micro desires collectively taken into consideration.

When you first look for a relationship (as most men, and almost all women do) you've got it ba$$ ackwards, and it is found to fail. (that would be "top down" planning).

Many of the rest of the items fall into this category, even Thanksgiving, which (according to the myth) was a "bottom up" celebration, until they nationalized it and goaded everybody into traveling half across the fukking country to eat dry fukking turkey with distant fukking relatives that they can't fukking stand.

But be careful of shunning these altogether. They are natural outcomes of common human situations (including gaining credit, and owning a home).

Only when people lose sight of the road that naturally leads there, and see only the end result, do they get sidetracked and fukk themselves.

As far as TV goes, over the last couple of years, I've found WAY WAY WAY more entertaining stuff on youtube than there is on TV.

 

[Lexington]

It makes me nauseous to see people breaking the bank just so that they can keep up with the Joneses. Do you really need that big a house? To me, a house is mainly a place to eat and to sleep. Why the fvck would you want to spend so much money on expensive dining tables, chandeliers, sofa sets, showcases etc.? None of these things make you any more comfortable. In functional terms there's no difference between that mahogany desk and the one you can buy at Ikea.

And what the fvck is with all these "soccer moms" driving around in massive SUVs. Really? You need that big a car to transport your kids around town? Given that most of these moms can't drive, they are nothing but a hazard to the rest of us. Those things cost a fortune, they're boring to drive and they guzzle gas like Jenna Jameson guzzles ***. But guys just shell out the cash to please the wives who probably don't even put out!

 

[squirrels]

I continually wonder, when I drive around here, "Who is buying these $500K McMansions?". I mean, I understand there are wealthy people out there, but in this economy, they are building SO many of them, and people CANNOT honestly be able to afford these homes without two working parents REALLY tightening their belts.

I could afford a $250-300K house on my own probably, but I wouldn't get to do a lot of the things I do now. I bought my townhouse for $150K and it's worth somewhere between 200 and 250 now. The next house I buy, I will likely live in for the rest of my life.

BB, I'd like to cue in on something else you mentioned in this list..."friends".

The fact that you said that you don't have any real close friends...I mean, who do you confide in? Do you still spend time with people beside your wife? Or are all your hobbies and things you enjoy "solo activities"?

I mean, people are social animals...I'm interested in knowing how you deal socially when you don't have any close friends.

 

[Julius_Seizeher]

And eliminate from your consciousness the belief that a home is an investment. A home can be an investment, when it is an income-producing asset. And a home is only an income-producing asset when someone other than you lives in it and pays you rent. Otherwise, a home is the largest liability you will likely ever incur-it takes money instead of making it.

Thank you Robert Kiyosaki

As a side note, I am looking into Section 8 housing. The stock market and real estate are the tried-and-true methods of creating abundant wealth. I am already in the stock market, and growing my holdings there, but real estate is the next frontier for me. True, the real estate market is truly dead in the water now, but there are no lack of Section 8's living off the government. If these people are going to profit from the government, I might as well profit from them.

 

[backbreaker]

I continually wonder, when I drive around here, "Who is buying these $500K McMansions?". I mean, I understand there are wealthy people out there, but in this economy, they are building SO many of them, and people CANNOT honestly be able to afford these homes without two working parents REALLY tightening their belts.

I could afford a $250-300K house on my own probably, but I wouldn't get to do a lot of the things I do now. I bought my townhouse for $150K and it's worth somewhere between 200 and 250 now. The next house I buy, I will likely live in for the rest of my life.

BB, I'd like to cue in on something else you mentioned in this list..."friends".

The fact that you said that you don't have any real close friends...I mean, who do you confide in? Do you still spend time with people beside your wife? Or are all your hobbies and things you enjoy "solo activities"?

I mean, people are social animals...I'm interested in knowing how you deal socially when you don't have any close friends.

honestly, to be hoenst with you i'm a loner. over the years i've learned how to deal with my own ****.

my mom and i well.. lol. my dad and i don't have that type of relationship. my fiancee when something is really getting at me but for the most part just me. i've been through the ups in life and the downs and in the downs i've seen some of the worst in people, even my own family, eye opening. i just don't trust people that much.


dont' get me wrong. hell we went to a 4th of july get together today with about 50 people there. we go eat at friends house at least once a week and we generally have company once a week for dinner.

we have peple that we hang with, people we do things with, peole that have common interests. but i don't depend on these people for antyhing more than entertainment.

think of it like a no strings attached sexual relationship. every guy you met, you don't have to be best freinds to the end with. i have no doubt every last guy i know would bend my fiancee over a table if given the opportunity and not think twice about it.

i have realized that, friendship, the commercialized that you see on shows like friends, only last for as long as you can benefit that person. and hell joey still wanted to **** rachel.

i go to clcockers corner at santa anita and damn near talk to everyone there in the morning.

i'm not talking about not doing anything with people.. i have associates, but i keep them all at an arm's length if that makes any sense. i don't' get emotionally attached


but i have always been a loner and i stay busy enough where i don't have time for my fiancee let aalone to cuture some friendship. tomorrow i have ot get up, go to the gym,, i'mg oing to finish this book i have been reading for the last 2 weeks, i have to clean, clean the house, you know how every few months you really need to scub down, it's that time, I make sure i get a few hours of practice in on the piano a week and i need to do that tomorrow, and i am going to the track from 12 until 7 as i plan on makings some money tomorrow lol.

then i have to come home and cook dinner as we are having fish tomorrow and she can't cook fish and not burn it, and hopefully when it's all said and done i can watch the 2nd episode of entourage that i tivoed.




funny all this talk about houses. we have tossed around the idea of moving to Lexington. i might end up buying a house there regardless. we both love lexington, ky but I dont' know if i can give up living where i live now for good.

 

[Julius_Seizeher]

honestly, to be hoenst with you i'm a loner. over the years i've learned how to deal with my own ****.

my mom and i well.. lol. my dad and i don't have that type of relationship. my fiancee when something is really getting at me but for the most part just me. i've been through the ups in life and the downs and in the downs i've seen some of the worst in people, even my own family, eye opening. i just don't trust people that much.


dont' get me wrong. hell we went to a 4th of july get together today with about 50 people there. we go eat at friends house at least once a week and we generally have company once a week for dinner.

we have peple that we hang with, people we do things with, peole that have common interests. but i don't depend on these people for antyhing more than entertainment.

think of it like a no strings attached sexual relationship. every guy you met, you don't have to be best freinds to the end with. i have no doubt every last guy i know would bend my fiancee over a table if given the opportunity and not think twice about it.

i have realized that, friendship, the commercialized that you see on shows like friends, only last for as long as you can benefit that person. and hell joey still wanted to **** rachel.

i go to clcockers corner at santa anita and damn near talk to everyone there in the morning.

i'm not talking about not doing anything with people.. i have associates, but i keep them all at an arm's length if that makes any sense. i don't' get emotionally attached


but i have always been a loner and i stay busy enough where i don't have time for my fiancee let aalone to cuture some friendship. tomorrow i have ot get up, go to the gym,, i'mg oing to finish this book i have been reading for the last 2 weeks, i have to clean, clean the house, you know how every few months you really need to scub down, it's that time, I make sure i get a few hours of practice in on the piano a week and i need to do that tomorrow, and i am going to the track from 12 until 7 as i plan on makings some money tomorrow lol.

then i have to come home and cook dinner as we are having fish tomorrow and she can't cook fish and not burn it, and hopefully when it's all said and done i can watch the 2nd episode of entourage that i tivoed.




funny all this talk about houses. we have tossed around the idea of moving to Lexington. i might end up buying a house there regardless. we both love lexington, ky but I dont' know if i can give up living where i live now for good.

You move to Lexington and you and I will be associates.

 

[Rescue Mission]

you know what else is overrated?

"doing the right thing" and staying with a woman you barely know who you knocked up by accident.

If that kind of thing ever happens to a man, and the woman does not want the abortion, he needs to RUN, not walk, away from the situation, and start a family only ON HIS OWN TERMS whenever that may be.

 

[backbreaker]

you live in lexington? where?

i actually looked at a place in georgetown (we go to lexington quite often, I love malone's, eat there every time we go there) that was just as nice if not nicer than my house now and about half the price i could sale my house here (i own it straight up) and could move there and actually turn a profit. or i could just buy that house and keep this one and have two houses but that's not really practical. if i moved i'd probably move and then just rent something for the summer here.

but we are throwing around the idea


anyway

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/203875/faking_rich_being_poorthe_thirty_thousand_pg2.html?cat=3


never heard this term before but it makes so much sense..

i do lease the car i drive, but simply because 1. i have acknowledged the fact that i am going to always want a newer car, 2. i can afford it and 3. i don't drive enough to warrant buying a car outright.

we have 4 cars. 1 is my 98 lexus SC400 that i never will sale and that i STILL use as my daily driver car, one is a 2004 Mercedes clk 320 that is my fiancees car that she never ****ing drives, but that's another post, dont' get me started. she wanted that car so bad and i bought it for her last year for her birthday, i can count the number of times she's drove it on both hands. Anyway, we have 2 cars we lease, a 08 nissan maxima which is what we drive when we all are going somewhere and she drives everyday and a 09 mercedes S class. i leased that car a year and a half ago, give or take, i dont' have 10k miles on it, not close actaully about 7k. i dont' drive. but i like having a nice car. it's my treat to me for working my ass off. in a few months i will take it back and get a new one. and in two years i will take it back and get a new one.

two of our cars are paid for, if things ever got tight we just would not lease the other two cars.

i think my disputation is perfect for leasing. i don't drive enough, at least the Mercedes to warrant purchasing it. the only places i rally go are to the gym, to the grocery store, and to the horse track and i'm not taking my 80k car and parking it in Inglewood on a Friday night, no thanks.


I read on this forum not too long ago some guy had been struggling and got a new job and went and got him a camero.stupid ****er. there is nothing wrong with nice thigns, as long as you are doing it within your means. buying a camero with your first paycheck so you can floss is not investing in yourself.

you know who harold Simmons is? the guy had 5k when he got out of college. the avg guy would buy a car or some clothes. he took that 5k and used it to buy a drug store, which he turned into a 100 drug stores and made 50 million dollars.

you have to find a medium. i will never be the warren buffet type, living in the same home i am. i like nice ****. i like eating in nice restaurants on the oceanside, i like nice clothes and i like listening to nice music in my nice sound system in my nice car.

but at the same time, it's nto that serious. i never will be the guy with 15 cars or 10 different color mercedes and **** like that. hell when this mercedes lease is up i am debating not getting anything else. i drive my fiancees car more than she does. i fi don't want anythnig i won't get anything but if i see something that i really really want **** it (i am waiting for the new tesla car to come out, i want that bad)


actually a funny story relating to this well not funny ha ha but funny wow women are ****ing stupid.

anyway about a half year ago, give or take around labor day we went to a labor day cookout at a friends house. this was before i had bought my fiancee her clk which is a convertible, and the weather was good, so we drove my lexus which is a 10 year old car, or was a 10 year old car at the time, because i have made it a drop top.

anyway there was this really stuck up tramp there, she was probably about 30. so she makes this snide ass comment that "i guess guys are getting girls with 10 year old cars now, what is the world coming to". she was drunk so i didn't make anything of it. even if she wasn't drunk i could care less, i did not go to impress her.

but think about this, and this is what is wrong with America. America is broke trying to impress *****es like this. the irony of it all is, i had an 80k Mercedes sitting in my garage, and she probably could not afford the lease that i pay on it.

after she gets her claws on some poor guy he won't either.


you really can put this all on *****., seriously. we are broke trying to impress women like that. we drive beemers to pick up women like that, we max out CC's to buy clothes that make women like that look at you, we buy furniture to dress up our cribs on credit cards, to impress women like that when we come home and hope to get laid.

 

[Rogue]

2. friends

Are very overrated. Business has sold us on the 4-5 guys night out. rarley does real life work like this. anyone seen that dave chappelle guys night out skit lol? this is what most guys nights are like. between **** blocking, jealousy, mootching and just incompatibility, most friends are not worth it.

keep associates. be willing to met u with people, have fun, but this whole "oh we ride and die together" **** is so damn played out. most of your friends iwll **** your girl if she is hot enough, just like a woman would cheat on you if she found a man that was more deseriable than you. it just IS.

having the wrong friends canb e worse than having the wrong GF. they can be emotionally draining. then if you are trying to better yourself, do things (like come here) or go to the gym, or read a book every now and then, most of yuor friends will try to hold you back.

i have not had real best friends since i was 22 years old, and ironically (not really) my life is alot less drama filled.

Whom you choose to enter into your life to have as deep intimate friends is largely reflective of you and your social radar. Principles over personalities.

The "4-5 guys night out," though certainly an observable social mode, is not the primary social mode for most people for most of life. In fact, it's well-established in sociology the universal rule for the conversational groups is six -- any larger and the group will splinter, so you're talking about an inherently extreme behavior. The behavior, however, wasn't "sold by business" but by the nature that humans are highly sociable social primates.

I'm an introverted guy, with a small inner circle of friends, who is most engaging a conversationalist talking to one person at a time, and so I have never felt the need to have 300 friends (keeping up social bonds is such a chore), but forging intimate friendships is an enriching and integral component of the human life experience. Friends are worth it, but it's how and who you decide who will be a friend. My batting average isn't perfect but the overwhelming majority of the friends I've gained, past and present, have been awesome.

But friendships are dynamic by nature, not static. Friendships are like two boats in a river or ocean and usually drift apart. I once read somewhere the durability of long-term friendships is usually governed by staying in the geographical location and staying the same fundamental person. I also recently read, I think in Scientific American, that people usually change their circle of friends once every seven years.

8. abstinence

in general is overrated. from sex, drugs, alcohol. i was in AA for a long time, 4 years. it was drilled in my head that i could not drink, and drinking as bad for me. in reality it's not. i never had an alcohol problem, never will, i dont' like it enough to develop a problem, yet i deprived myself from social drinking to keep up a facad and to maintain a sobriety date... i smoke a joint from time to time and you know what, i ****ing like it.

Pass me the pipe. I'm a stoner and haven't smoked up in seven months, long story, but it's cool with me.

Most people have no problem with moderate social drinking and 99% of stoned potheads, much more pleasurable and safer than alcohol, never proceed to harder drugs. But I've attended a dozen AA meetings and AA is mostly comprised of people who delved into the extremes, the waking up in the morning and 'Hey, when does the liquor store open?' They need the help. They lost control. I read an in-depth article in Wired magazine exploring the science behind AA and how the group experience, particularly of publicly exposing your flaws and making amends, rewires the brain, reactivating the damaged prefrontal cortex of the brain which is responsible for making decisions. (I highly recommend the article.)

I was at AA for a dozen meetings because I was undergoing some alcohol counseling and had more of a driving problem than a drinking problem; I loathed the meetings but I wasn't their real audience. The message of AA, directed towards the small exception of hardcore alcoholics in broad society, to never drink again, should not be construed as advocating abstinence to the general population. It's a difference of audience.

 

[backbreaker]

well i have 4 years of AA and i can tell you that it's bull****. they have a 98% failure rate for a reason.

I am the only person I know that has never relapsed. I had my mini intervention, i checked my ass into an impatient facility for a month and have not used since. that was 5 years ago.

even if you end up staying clean and sober you become so ****ed up in the head that i'd rather get high when it's all said and done. that **** really is coltish and i mean that.


if a meeting is all that will keep you clean do what you do. hell i hate AA and i have no qualms to this day taking my ass to a mereting if that is what it will take. but i know that that is not wht it will take for me to stay clean. i have more money than i have ever had in my life, i could make a call tuesday when the bank opened and put any dealer out of business with the money i **** off on a weekly basis, and i have absolutely no desire to use drugs and i was hitting the pipe. no desire whatsoever. hell, iv'e been over a guy's hosue, that i had pretty good suspsiions was smooking dope, and this was like 3 months ago.. i think he was just starting but his actions were just too familar to me, and the thought still did not cross my mind.

alcoholism and drug addiction is nothing more than learned behavior that needs to be re programmed. you aren't morally bad if you use drugs, it's an addiction.

I did alot of work with chem free houses, just helping out and charing meetings. as soon as you take 80% of them out of the cem free environment, they release, and usually within days. people who had 3-6-9 months clean in AA. just taking the drug from someone does not cure them. you have to get to the root of the problem and cure the problem and the problem in most cases is that youa re ****ing programmed to buy dope/alcohol when you get money. as soon as the conditions are reset and the reward to using is higher than the risk of using you will use again. this is something that AA never addresses. they shame you into soberity.

 

[Julius_Seizeher]

I'm actually in Ohio but not far from Kentucky. We used to go to Louisville all the time, my favorite city east of the Mississippi.

 

[DJDanny]

4. home ownership

This is probably the worst of all. ****ing suzy oreman and all those real estate shows have basically told everyone that owning a hose is a win win, and you got these stupid ****s with credit scores about at the mendoza line going out and taking out loans for houses at stupid fuvck interest rates, and getting patted on the back because now "they own a house!".

Renting is your friend. if you are taking out a loan for a house you should not even consider it unless you have a 700 credit score. Your rent does not go up if you have a high credit score, but your mortgage does. get your credit score down then buy if you want.

5. credit

Credit is good to have, very good to have, but these finance guys that walk around trying to convince me that there is a such thing as good debt i'd slap with my ****. debt is never good. it's that simple. there is a such thing as acceptable debt. ther are some thigns that i would consider going in debt to do, but there is never a such thing as GOOD debt. it's better if you can not be in debt.

right now i have all of 1200 dollars worth of debt, 900 in an amex card that gets paid every month and another 300 i keep on my balance on my cc's for credit score purposes. i could pay both off in 10 mintues if i felt like it.. we use amex for everything and just pay it at the end of the month...

when you don't have debt you have the freedom to do things. if i decided i wanted to go backpacking for a year tomororw i could. if something is possible to save for, save.

These are the only 2 things i disagree with. There certainly is such a thing as good debt. If you can borrow say 200k at 6% and turn around and invest it in a asset producing a return of say 15% on that 200k, you're essentially making 9% off of someone elses money. Debt is good as long as the returns from investing the money are higher then the cost of holding the debt.

Why do I disagree with the home ownership? More on the basis of having equity in it generally allows you to borrow larger sums of money at a reasonable interest rates. I actually don't live in the house I own, it's rented out.

Ohhh and I love turkey and my family can cook so thanksgiving rocks.