Yeah, that’s why.

By on March 10, 2011

Lucy just posted this link in the comments, but it is begging for a thread crashing. It is such a nasty piece of passive aggressive, sanctimonious AA gaslighting that I think I should issue a trigger alert for people who are still untangling their minds.

7 Reasons Charlie Sheen May Hate AA So Much

In one of the myriad interviews he gave over the last week, Charlie Sheen said clearly that he hates AA.

A lot of people have trouble with Alcoholics Anonymous. AA is full of people and people can be messy and flawed.

The human train wreck formally known as Charlie Sheen is a common sight in the AA meeting halls. The only difference between Mr. Sheen and other self-absorbed, delusional, frantic addicts is the size of the audience to which they rant. These people do not last long in AA. They mock the Fellowship and the 12 Steps (PDF) as too religious or simplistic. AA is beneath them.

Here are a few possible reasons why Charlie Sheen might hate AA so much.

Reasons Why Charlie Sheen May Hate AA

  1. He would have to admit he is powerless.
  2. He would need to embrace Humility.
  3. Deep tissue Change would be required.
  4. He would have to be Anonymous!
  5. His Higher Power could not be Charlie Sheen.
  6. He couldn’t blame anyone else for his troubles.
  7. He would need to learn to be Grateful.

This article offers one really sound reason why anyone might hate AA.

This entry is filed under 12 Step Treatment Industry, Abuse in AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, assholes, Crash This Thread, Gaslighting, powerlessness, Propaganda, Serenity Hornet and tagged , .
  • Sugomom

    What first hit me was that this author had a brief experience as an addictions counselor between college and her PHD and then I read Blame’s comment asking the same thing…who know’s more, the author or Sheen who has 22 years of experience. I would add she doesn’t say what her undergrad or PHD degree’s are. I was shocked they handed out 30 day chips to anyone, why would she be proud of a thirty day chip if she didn’t drink in the first place. Maybe because she made it through thirty days of boring drunkalougues and slogans?
    But, I loved Fried Egg’s comment:
    Did you know that AA will continue to hand out chips — for YEARS — if you switch from alcohol to another substance? No need to argue the point with me. My ex has a 25-year chip, and our marriage ended five years ago after his home group decided to give him that 20-year chip knowing that he had been abusing Ativan, Ambien, hydrocodone when he could get ahold of it, that his marriage and family were suffering from it, that his health was deteriorating from it…. But dang, they got themselves a new high priest!! This wasn’t the only group I knew of — another on the other side of the country — that got technical about whether someone got chips for switching substances. I hate AA. If I decide to head in the direction of addiction, I’ll use SMART, which doesn’t cherry-pick substance abuses.

  • Lucy

    That whole article pissed me off.

  • mikeblamedenial
  • Martha

    I see other people from here have posted at that article, but my two posts have not shown up. I wonder if it filters out posts that mention Stanton Peele because I pretty much made some of the same points that others have made. I am glad the link to 4 reasons AA is religious made it there.

  • mikeblamedenial

    Martha, it is a moderated site where posts have to be approved, but they seem to be approving everything. It took each of my posts a couple hours to show up.

  • causeandeffect

    Ever have one of those days where you look the huge quantity of misinformation the steppers spew and just feel overwhelmed by it all? I just don’t even know where to start.

  • http://duischooltruth.wordpress.com JR Harris

    Taking the logic of a stock broker (direct correlation to Bill W. made) there is a practice called “churning” where the stock broker makes as many transactions with the client in order to charge them more money. When Bill W. set up AA was he thinking of a way to keep that revenue stream going by “churning” the account?

    Could it be that Psychologists are sending people to AA knowing that it is ineffectual and they will be back, instead of sending them to something that works? Are Psychologists “churning” their clients through AA to boost their revenue stream?

  • Lucy

    Well, Gary Busey is praying for Charlie Sheen, and that will make everything okay -

    http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20471524,00.html

  • mikeblamedenial

    Hey, C&E, rebutting the false info is much more tenable now than it was not so long ago. The 12-step critics are much more vocal now, and our facts are easy to keep straight. Conversely, the step adherents’ arguments are very predictable and easy to refute. Whenever we debate with them, know they will invariably attack us personally. For me, I know I am an ex-AA member, no more, no less. I’m not angry, disgruntled, crazed or in denial. I don’t drink or use drugs. Beyond that, I do not even acknowledge their personal taunts, insults and barbs. I never become angry when debating with them. That in and of itself generally frustrates them. Generally, I stick to the following:
    AA is a thinly-veiled faith healing religion which denies its own religiosity;
    AA has terrible retention rates;
    It incorporates and promotes quack psychology;
    It has no oversight or mechanisms of accountability;
    It is anti-intellectual, anti-research, and rigid in its own doctrine and dogma;
    If addiction is a disease, 12-step faith-healing won’t cure it. If it is not a disease, 12-step faith healing won’t cure it.

  • Martha

    I got a dose of the “you are angry and have resentments” line when I posted on the article in Scientific American. No matter how I tried to explain that it is okay to be angry and that being told that I was angry did not phase me the stepper still kept coming back like a parrot saying “resentments and anger.” When they meet people who refuse to feel shame for being angry it really makes them quite mad that they cannot bring you up short with that.

  • http://duischooltruth.wordpress.com JR Harris

    @Lucy – You shouldn’t worry about it they also said that you didn’t quote a reputable source. I automatically makes them look like they do not want to look at new ideas and are rigid. It is very hard to get published in Scientific American. Plus it is a magazine for intellects, they wouldn’t be able to understand the multi-syllable words.

  • http://duischooltruth.wordpress.com JR Harris

    Oops — I mean @Martha not Lucy. Also remember Slogans don’t have many multi-syllable words in them.

  • Mike

    I have to agree with the point that list made about sheen and humility. The guy really is a deluded dork.

  • causeandeffect

    I take insults from steppers as compliments. I usually get a good laugh out of them too. The difficult thing is just having to read their endless nauseating stream of misinformation and choosing where to start. Much respect to anybody who can do *that* on a regular basis.

  • Sugomom

    @Blame, you always have a very succint way of filtering out the garbage. I respect that. And you are right, when they launch personal attacks you know you are a “winner” and it’s usually at that point that we should just let our cyber views hang there. Well, I kind of just paraphrased you, hope you agree!
    @Everyone else, as long as we sound reasonable and quote our sources I think we stand a chance to make this a real grass roots movement.
    I for one am happy to have found a place to do that!

  • Sugomom

    Mike says “I have to agree with the point that list made about sheen and humility. The guy really is a deluded dork.”

    True, but I trust that most of the members of ST have grasped the humility thing. I can only tell you this, for every story I have heard from people harmed by AA, I have an equal and opposite one from some “deluded dork” that feels it’s his or her unalienable right to be an AA dork. With no scientific evidence to back my theory up, but much anectodal evidence, I would venture to say that some learn to be jerks in the rooms of AA. From personal experience, I found this to be so.

  • hulahoop

    There was a pizza buffet at work today. They ran out of pizza before I got my turn at the buffet. A coworker and I walked across the street to a fast food restaurant. Another coworker showed up because he didn’t get any pizza either. We ate and walked back to work together. We walked in to the convention hall. I said, “Wow! I can still smell the effing pizza.” My coworker said, “Really? You smell pizza? Let’s see…(as he took a big whiff of the air) I smell ANGER, indifference, frustration, and a whole lot of resentment.” His use of the word resentment made me laugh very hard. It was my favorite moment of the day. He didn’t know why. He thought he made a funny. I didn’t explain. I laughed very hard though.

  • hulahoop

    By the way, I read this article a few days a go. It offended me then and it does now. The author makes a lot of assumptions she shouldn’t make. Then again, she wasn’t the usual run of the mill, totally desperate person who goes to their first AA meeting willing to try in anything that will help to get their life back on track. Mostly, she didn’t have the huge WTF??? experience where something she totally believed in turned out to be a big crock of shit.

    I totally understand why Charlie is angry with and at AA. There are things about him I do not approve of. That is how he chooses and chose to live his life. Just because I don’t approve of those things does not mean I dismiss his point of view about AA because I know what he has to say about it are one hundred percent true.

    It is sad for me when I see steppers hoping Charlie will fail and come back to AA begging and crawling with his tail between his legs. That says so much more than anything I could ever say about the way I feel about it. I am glad he had the balls to come out and to be honest (truly honest) about his feelings when he knew what he had to say about AA would be unpopular. It brought the issue to the table even though the media is doing their best to make AA sound good – Charlie sound bad. The most telling part to me is the words of the true steppers.

  • AndyM

  • AndyM

    hulahoop
    I think a lot of these people fear for their careers and livelihood and are also too smug and self-satisfied to admit that they were duped by naive and mistaken ideas based on childish magical thinking. In reality most of them could easily adapt to new and better approaches if they just stopped being wise in their own conceits. The more outrageous quacks, shills and quacks ( like Dr Drew) might fall by the wayside, but I don’t think anybody’s really going to miss them.

  • http://profacero.wordpress.com Z

    @JR: “Are Psychologists ‘churning’ their clients through AA to boost their revenue stream?
    Í do wonder.

    @AndyM “too smug and self-satisfied to admit that they were duped by naive and mistaken ideas based on childish magical thinking”
    Yeah.

  • AndyM

    Money must be a big driving force. In my own country Chai Patel (of the Priory rehab chain) became emboiled a few years back in the general cash-for-honours and political finance scandals, behind the scenes political string pulling to secure favourable treatment etc. It did become big news, but all the dots weren’t really connected up:

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article740216.ece

  • AndyM

    Any hard-bitten and “resentful” ex-stepper financial journalists out there to make sense of the cash trails?

  • http://gogorach.com Go-Go Rach

    What a pathetic rant from a brainwashed, weak suck puke who is also a heartless piece of shit. Typical of THE CULT to look down their nose on people, while they shove them into their limited boxes. LAME. *shrugs*

    The way I look at these days is that every minute a Twelve Step dumb ass spends on one of our sites is another minute a “newcomer” is spared their bullshit. Am I right?

    @sugomom I gotta tell ya, I spent 21 years going to A.A. while I believed EVERYONE in the rooms was completely clean. I was shocked to find out most of them lie about it, including people who were in my direct “support group” for years. This just adds to the level of disgust I have for the program and the people in it. What a lame waste of time for losers who can’t find anything better to do with themselves than to attend meeting after meeting, pretending to be something they aren’t, while acting HOLIER THAN THOU, like the douche bag above. Really, why bother?

    Thanks , ftg, for another reminder of why I am so HAPPY I LEFT!

  • AndyM

    Still none the wiser about what her areas of study actually were. She seems very coy about that.

  • AndyM

  • Lucy

    JR – I thought it was interesting that they wanted MY citations for his mania, but had no trouble diagnosing CS with no citations at all.

  • Mike O

    You know, I’m tired of all this constant back and forth about Charlie Sheen. Obviously he’s not a well man and the sooner he can get into SOME sort of a mental care and treatment institution the better. He doesn’t speak for anti-AA people any more than the unfortunate, crazy unmedicated homeless people I see on the streets of most major cities do. People are fascinated because he once was a talented actor right in the center of the public eye and rarely has someone mentally and emotionally disintegrated as far as Sheen seems to have (even Michael Jackson was more coherent and logical near the end of his life). It’s simply a sad case of someone caught in advanced mental illness and those capitalizing on him at this point are only cheapening their own agendas.

  • AnnaZed

    I’d have to disagree about the relative coherence of Michael Jackson, just sayin’.

  • truebeliever

    ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
    He’s got the whole world in his hands, Chucks got the whole world in his hands.

  • http://www.stinkin-thinkin.com friendthegirl

    How did you make those little notes, tb?

  • truebeliever
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