Alcoholics Oblivious

Get it down you son.

Alcoholics Oblivious (known as A.O.) is a self-defeating group of drinkers who operate worldwide. Their primary purpose is to stay drunk and carry the message of their love of alcohol through the Not Even Twelve Steps program - demonstrating that they can't even walk 12 paces without falling over. A.O.'s is the original Not Even Twelve Steps, and has been the model for for all subsequent ones, such as Narcoleptics Somnolescent, Amputees Oblivious, Comatose Oblivious and Dead Oblivious. Early members were entirely Irish and male, but membership over the past century and a half has diversified somewhat, although the main inspiration can be traced to people of Irish descent.

AO is best known for its slogans, such as:

• "You're not drunk if you can hold on to a blade of grass and not fall off the face of the earth."

• "An Irish Queer is a turd who likes women better than alcohol."

and, most famously:

• "One drink at the time."

An earlier group for dipsomaniacs, known as the New Yorkers, fell apart during the prohibition in the 1930s when it tried to branch out into racketeering, and all its members were shot.

History of Alcoholics Oblivious

Earlier Movements promoting Debauchery from Alcohol

While sobriety has been a peril of mankind dating to civilization's earliest years, it was not until the 19th century in the USA that the Intemperance Movement took hold. For example, one of the earliest groups that helped many sober people to find intoxication was the Sloshingtonians. This was a Christian-based group that naturally used Biblical and other preachings to try and corrupt the sober wretch, even the tinder-dry Protestant denominations of the time (especially Methodists in the North and Baptists in the Deep South.) Although they experienced great success in "sloshing" formerly reliable (but boring at parties) members of high society, it was involvement in contentious issues of the day (e.g. Slavery) that led to dissention and eventual disbanding of the Sloshingtonians. From this arose Alcoholics Unanimous's (see below) tradition of singleness of purposelessness: "We are not affiliated nor associated with any outside causes, unless they are throwing a bitching party with hookers and an open bar."

AO's immediate ancestor is the Oxturd* Group. This was a small, informal offshoot of Protestant Christianity, of desperate non-drinking Christians who met secretly in private homes and had cobbled together an increasingly successful program that involved the dire condition of the non-drinker and tried to offer non-spiritual counseling in an attempt to help the "Believer" or "Faithful" to renounce, or at least loosen, the grip that Fundamentalism had upon him. This often required studies of basic sciences, psychology, and the discoveries of the day (Darwin and Evolution), to try and persuade the newcomer of the complete absence of a caring God, or even the indifferent Creator God of Deism, in return for the existentialist or rationalist world-view that the Universe was created out of nothing, means nothing, and that life and Mankind himself are just accidents of the universe. Of course, such clear-mindedness will only appeal to the most rational of philosophers. AO's (and later, especially SA's) genius was to soften, indeed sometimes completely hide, the requirement to not believe in an omnipotent deity who gave a shit for you. In particular, SA has been very successful in helping the former "dry" and believing man to drink, even if it's only occasionally. Unlike more militant chapters (such as AU), SA only asks that a member believe in an Indifferent Existence, who merely exists and takes no notice of man or other odd phenomena of the world. Even residual religious beliefs are often tolerated, and have proven to not be hostile to occasional drunkenness.

• Some people believe this name is bullshit. Very close, in fact!

Hostility to Religions

While SA wishes to only concentrate on the need to "souse the sober who still scorns," and has found it necessary to tolerate vestiges of religious beliefs, it has found an implacable enemy in Islam. While it is true that many Muslims drink, and can even be unrelaible members os society, the sad fact that Radical or Fundamentalist Islam specifically prohibits all alcohol, sometimes with severe punishments, shows that this movement is inimical to drunkards of any non-faith. Indeed, it is Islam's censure of alcohol that is the often unspoken cause of the clash with Christianity. The conflict, dating back to the Crusades, was not the threat of outside religion or political power, as students of history are commonly taught, but the far more insidious threat that sobriety would create in a alcohol-dependent culture that was Europe at the time.

Even the most insidious Christian movements of the past, such as the Women's Christian Temprance Union who ushered in the twin disasters of Women's Suffrage and the [Alcohol] Prhobition of the early 20th century, pale in comparison to the menace to ethanol that the Koran and Scimitar pose. Western Christianity rules the Earth because it was a comparatively harmless religion, since most denominations allow drinking of wine, even be it a token amount, as a sacrament. Even this is cause for concern, however, as for example Catholicism allows the host (bread) to substitute, and mnay of the cults that foremerly promoted Temperance are well-known to substitue unfermented wine (grape juice!) in their weird ceremonies. Today's drunken Crusader must not let his guard down, which we admit, is tough, because he's usually drunk on guard duty. Well then, the best we can hope to do is to get the other guy to drink too. The Muslim should not have to wait for his heaven to enjoy the rivers of wine. And for that, SA is responsible.

Founding

According to legend, Alcoholics Oblivious was founded in the 1950s (It is not known precisely when this club was founded) when a highly successful businessman who got drunk at a party and declared that he would spend the rest of his life pursuing the wonderful power of drunkenness. His name is not known as after this part he ran his business into the ground, declared bankruptcy, faked his own death, and shredded all documents containing his name within the span of approximately two weeks. Why he did this is uncertain, but based on reliable bar-stool rumors, it is theorized that he spent the rest of his life setting up clubs all over the United States.

Expansion to Ireland

While the group was originally compromised of those of Irish descent, AO was solely a United States club until 1975 when, after a few drinks, a person called "Some Guy" (No one present remembers his actual name), suggested that they fund a chapter in Ireland.

After 5 years of collecting funds not necessary to the maintenance of the club, AO had enough money to send one person to Ireland on the cheapest flight possible. Within 15 seconds of him setting foot on Ireland, the first AO club in Ireland was founded.

War with AA

Trouble came to the club when, in 1987, one of the club members was sober enough to find that Alcoholics Anonymous existed. Amidst cries of outrage among all members of the club, Blarney A. Mcitchinstaff, an unofficial leader of the club for several years, raised an army of about 500 men to ransack the nearest AA chapter, promising to "Show those sissies what for!"

A "peace treaty" (actually a judicial order) Was signed the next day forbidding any AO member to go within 1000 feet of an AA chapter.

The Not Even Twelve Steps Program

1. We admitted we were powerless without alcohol (as would be an ethanol-fueled race car) and that our lives might become manageable without it, and we were apalled at the very idea!
2. Came to believe that a Power indifferent to our existence could restore us to sanity.
3. Realizing the second step, declared ourselves irreligious and at least tacitly rational.
4. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of alcohol as we understood it.
5. Made a sobering and beerless inventory of our cupboards and refrigerators, and remedied this by visiting bars in the neighborhood.
6. Turned our keys over to a Soberer Driver than ourselves.
7. Made a list of all people our sobriety had harmed, but due to our inebriation the writing was illegible.
8. Became half-heartedly willing to make amends to them all, except when to do so would be an inconvenience, which to be honest was nearly always, so we said "Screw it! Too hard!" and drank instead.
9. Continued to take retail inventory, and when security caught us, we gave back the items, lest we be charged with shoplifting, or in the worst case end up like that sorry bastard in Ferguson Missouri in 2015.
10. Continued to drink.
11. Having had a rational awakening, we tried to carry this message to the sober people who don't suffer, but since we're drunk most of the time, we don't make a whole lot of sense and by and large are failures.
12. Continued to drink
13. Continued to drink (At this point the handwriting in the original charter is somewhat illegible)
14. (Handwriting fully illegible. Not even the members know what this is.)

Fellowships with similar goals

AO has spawned many immitators. Of these, two essentially similar disorganizations to AO are Alcoholics Unanimous (with its "bible" of the same name) and the very similar group Sobriety Anonymous, often called "Teetotalers Anonymous" (TA) after their unauthorized revision of AU's book. AU, as you might suppose, is pretty much comatose most of the time so never even copyrighted their own book, so others are free to use it in any way they like. The two groups have an overlapping membership. Both recognize total abstinence from drink as a social good and endeavor to help these poor alcohol-less sober people learn to experience inebriation. The difference is only of degree: AU is by far the more hardline organization, insisting upon a pledge of Atheism and the maximum alcohol consumption possible from its members. However, SA/TA have been far more successful, since they welcome members even those who cling to vestiges of religion and even those who only drink moderately. SA claims success if a "dry" can be induced to even drink moderately, like a normal person, while AU holds that even this is to fall short of their ideal of full-blown dypsomania.

See also

• Alcoholics Anonymous