Stinkin' Thinkin'

I especially like the post of 05-07-2011, 06:14 PM from CarolD the forum leader:

“Post have been removed that bashed AA groups and the program.
others that quoted them are also gone.
Please respect others and stop the derogatory posting.”

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/alcoholism/226439-concept-powerlessness-2.html#post2960675

You missed the best part of the quote from DesertEyes where he brags about how they bait thier prey (The alcoholic:)

“That’s the difference between amateurs who think they know all about this disease and professionals who have been educated in the different stages of recovery and how to bait, cajole, feed, shove and rejoice with an alkie who actually becomes a healthy, productive person. ”

So professionals are educated on how to BAIT, CAJOLE, FEED and SHOVE thier victims? That sure sounds like a confession to me……………….. spoken like a true Wilsonite.

I think I have a resentment.

I wonder if people “mature out” of AA? Much like those that quit drinking or using on their own, the concept of maturing out of AA might apply. I can say that is what happened to me. Some may call it waking up, but isn’t that what maturing out is all about? You simply become aware of the absurdity of your behavior and environment and decide to change? And then you change.

AllyB:

The psychological and emotional abuse that goes on in the “Friends and Family” forum over there is reprehensible beyond words. Any newcomer (spouse/son/daughter/etc) who posts on another forum is told to go to the “F&F” forum, where they are, of course, repeatedly told that they need to go to Al-Anon meetings and work on their own recovery.

One of the reasons that I stayed on SR for so long was that I was helping some people. Many sent me private thank you messages for my posts. Most of those who I sent private messages to did as well. Of course, many of those who I directed elsewhere moved on and left SR.

I’ve gotten a few of the (F&F) members out of there before they where “done in” by the group, but I remember one wife in particular, who posted asking what was wrong with AA and what it had done to her husband:

I didn’t get to her before she was told she needed to go to Al-Anon and that her husband “needs his brain washed at AA”:

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/alcoholism-12-step-support/222710-does-aa-brainwash.html

susanlauren is what I like to call classic AA. Another example I will use to inform the un-informed about the narrow-mindedness of 12 steppers.

Jonny Quest,
I did a quick google on her and found this link..must be the same person? I also just posted this in the neverending thread..sorry for the re- post. This opens up the topic of moderation and though I will never attempt to drink again but I did take nyquil now and then for sleep but only doubled the dose (I dont do this anymore). I still take a low dose of klonopin once in a blue moon..I am sober almost 3 years now.

http://www.recoveryrealm.com/Forums/tabid/126/forumid/6/postid/10161/view/topic/Default.aspx

Unfortunately the steppers are becoming extremely computer literate and using it to spread the Bill Wilson faith through corporate AA. If they wish to run a forum that is only pro Bill Wilson Spiritual awakening, they should be made to put that disclaimer plainly viewable when first logging in or viewing the site. Since they delete at will, any anti Bill Wilson posts, people get the impression that Bill Wilson is the only way to go. They are skewing the facts.

Everyone loves to play the “Spiritual, not Religious” card. I’ll bet the really good posts proving it wrong get quickly deleted.

I remember how difficult it was for me when I was true believer and trying to explain the spritual stuff..I remember how I felt uncomfertable for the new comer as they frowned on all this “spiritual” stuff. AA thinks they are about attraction but they turn away so many with their religion.

JR Harris: You won’t find many threads on SR that are “too bad” – they delete anything that is. I had a classic post saying that to tell atheists and those who believe that G-d gave them free will, and that G-d is not going to control their facial muscles to prevent drinking, that “AA Works! It really does!” is like telling Atheist, Jewish, and Christian “alcoholics” that “Islam works! It really does!” and that it is just as disrespectful to do so.

I pointed out that Islam, at least by numbers, may historically have the best track record of any religion or “program” in curbing alcoholism, thanks to Islam’s clear prohibition on consumption, production, and sale of alcohol 1400 years ago, but that I would never disrespect someone’s existing religious beliefs by suggesting they convert to Islam to cure their alcohol dependence.

The post was deleted.

The Islamic one step program is far more successful than the 12 Step Buchmanite, Judeo Christian program. However, that is simply too large an issue for an American AA, trained forum moderator to handle. They would actually have to think and that is not allowed. It is much easier for moderators to delete rather than think. According to the WHO, 50% of the worlds population does not drink. The majority of those are Muslims, so I guess Islam does work as an alcohol abstinence program.

Jonny Quest,
Yes it is good they turn away from AA and go elsewhere. But they always talk about “helping” the suffering alcoholic but it has all these conditions and step strings attatched. So their real concerne is conforming to the AA church and promoting it rather then actually helping people. They are unwilling to look at how “dishonest AA is as a whole. And I do have some understanding of that because I was a stepper. I referred to myself before as a true beliver however I think I was much more a moderate lol…maybe I’m rationalizing again lol.

@ Johnny Quest. “I didn’t get to her before she was told she needed to go to Al-Anon and that her husband “needs his brain washed at AA”:

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/alcoholism-12-step-support/222710-does-aa-brainwash.html”

OMG, that thread is absolutely foul. I’m very glad I completely missed that one. And sadly, variations of that woman’s story are so common when one spouse gets taken in by the 12 steps. It’s not too dissimilar to Sugomom’s (a poster here). The poor woman is clearly hurting an awful lot and all she got was nastiness from those horrible, messed-up people. Strangely enough she hasn’t been on SR since.

I also loved this gem from one of the AA’s about amends. Which the OP commented sounded selfish, so her thread got locked.

“What may not be clear to you yet is the amends step is not there for the benefit of you, or your parents or your children, or anyone else he may have harmed. Those we make our amends to often do benefit when we clear our side of the street, but the step benefits your husband most of all because they are part of what will keep him sober for his lifetime.

After he completes the amends he decides to do he will be free and feel amazingly good. They produce the biggest charge or high ever. He’ll be floating on air and never want to come down.

Many don’t get to the serious amends right away, it may take 3-7 years for him to get around to his family. And it seems you have some expectations that they are involved or lengthy. Usually they only take 5 minutes more or less, then he’ll be done.”

I do regret that I won’t be around to give some people more sound advice – I did manage to get to quite a few – but I had to get out of there. There was just too much institutionalized degeneracy and depravity. It was starting to affect my mental health.

I think one of Jack Trimpey’s comments on Usenet (newsgroup) support groups could easily be applied to the SR forum:

“I look into the Usenet groups from time to time, and it appears the participants aren’t really interested in learning anything, but use the discussions for petty gossip and juvenile outbursts against others. Everybody there pretends to be an expert on addictions, but none of them can explain how to quit an addiction, except for a few who have been to this website. Worse, none of them are interested in how to quit drinking or using; they talk about all kinds of irrelevant stuff, especially pop-psychology and bio-babble about addictive disease. It’s hardly a place to find people who are serious about quitting their addictions, or to find people who know what they’re talking about. For someone trying to withdraw from A.A., Usenet is one of the worst places to check in, because one will invariably be accosted by little shrinks who found a way to be a therapist without going to college, or by A.A. missionaries with a 12-track mind.” — Jack Trimpey

Trimpey is right. Which is the problem that SR has with him.

It is OK to make use of places such as SR for a limited time and for a limited purpose. As long as you know your purpose and act to accomplish that purpose. Places such as SR are quite limited in their capabilities; which are much less than they think that that they are.

I have been hanging around SR for close to a year now. When I first got there I thought I found a support group that was just to help me learn more about alcoholism. I had attended AA in the past, (because I was forced to), before I had a major problem with alcohol, and I realized that the 12 Step model would never work for me because in my mind it was a farce.

Yes I did get accosted by AA members telling me to give it another try, and it’s not religious etc. I told them no thank you and stuck around the board and read and learned some new ideas regarding getting off alcohol, and although there is alot of AA preaching going on, I was able to use the SR Forum as a tool to get off alcohol by myself.

So I do agree that it is an AA bredding ground, there are other messages being sent as well that are positive and did help me. The other way it has helped me is it gives me a forum to go and read and converse about alcoholism on a daily basis, which basically keeps my mind on quitting drinking., which I have been successful at. It basically paved the way for me to find a workable solution of my own to quit drinking. And believe it or not their are alot of people in that forum that think alot like me and Johnbarleycorn.

SuperC: “And believe it or not their are alot of people in that forum that think alot like me and Johnbarleycorn.”

You are right, there are non-AA people on SoberRecovery – many of these people contacted me privately to thank me for my posts.

However, the moderators don’t allow anything that makes AA look remotely bad, even if it is true. They considered it “program bashing.”

They have the same moderator who runs the 12-Step forum moderating the “Alcoholism” forum and the “newcomers” forum, so the 12-Step AA members have a “protected” forum, where they are safe to say the most outrageous things, but no one can question them.

Meanwhile, these same AA members are allowed to go to the other forums, including the “Alcoholism” and “newcomers” forum, and talk about powerlessness, spiritual awakenings, surrender, the steps, and to tell every single newcomer that they should go to AA.

Even if someone posted that they’ve been in AA for years and were still relapsing, the serenity hornets would come out of their forum and tell the newcomers to find a new meeting, get a new sponsor, or to fully accept Step 1.

At the same time, people who do not work 12-Step programs are told to go to the “secular” forum (why is it called “secular” if AA is not “religious”), where members are *NOT* allowed to discuss 12-Step programs AT ALL.

Then there is the unwritten, but nevertheless official ban on discussing Rational Recovery or AVRT, which is, as far as I know, the only organization that provides direct instruction on how to quit and stay quit.

Posts of mine were deleted even if they did not mention AA at all, but mentioned RR in too much detail, as occurred once when I corrected someone’s inaccurate description about the nature of AVRT.

The “chat room” is even worse. There is a separate Step Chat room, but nobody uses it. All of the 12-Step proselytizers are on the main chat room, where all the newcomers first sign in, trying to get them to go to AA, get a sponsor, and work a good program.

If you try and tell the newcomer not to go to AA or Al-Anon, you will be warned. Even “private” messages in chat are logged and reviewed, and I have been warned about those as well.

I am mindful that it is probably difficult for the moderators to keep the peace on there, but it became entirely too draining to filter my posts.

It was quite obvious that the balance is tilted heavily towards 12-Step programs, with a big graphic of the 12 Steps at the top of every forum page.

I am not going back there.

@SuperC:

BTW, I’m glad to see you are here – I was wondering if you would see this thread. Like you, I wasn’t really there for “support” anymore, but I stayed because every time I wanted to leave, another person would contact me saying thank you or ask me for help. They seemed to be able to discern from my posts that I wasn’t toeing the party line.

They didn’t delete many of my posts by the end – I got very good at walking a fine line after a while. It was “interesting” as you say, but it was just starting to affect my mental health, so to speak.

What really made me decide to leave was this post by keithj which was a response to my brining up court-mandated AA in this post.

I was not upset by his remark: “John, aren’t you part of the problem of which you speak? Somebody attending meetings who is not motivated to do what we have done?”

However, my response to him – in which I said “Keith, I’m sure you absolutely love all that extra foot traffic from those who are forced to attend by court orders, which are backed by guns. As for telling me I’m not motivated, that’s rather like telling a convict that he is part of the prison overpopulation problem because he is not motivated enough to escape, is it not?” – was deleted, and I got a warning from the moderator saying “that was rude, and as you know, John, court mandated attendance is a matter for individual group conscience.”

This is the excuse AA members always use to conveniently violate AA’s Sixth Tradition, which states, “While an A.A. group may cooperate with anyone, such cooperation ought never to go so far as affiliation or endorsement, actual or implied. An A.A. group can bind itself to no one.”

When a moderator is deleting posts because she has an opinion on AA, which many others, even in AA, disagree with, something is wrong. It came down to either telling her I was going to let that go, or telling her what I really thought of such behavior.

I had been contemplating leaving SR for a few weeks prior, since I was reaching my self-imposed limit on SR attendance. I finally concluded that I didn’t need support from SR, or anyone, for that matter, to stay sober, and that staying would be reneging on a decision I had made.

I do, however, regret that I won’t be able to help more people on there, but I cannot “save” everyone. The Internet is a vast resource, and people can look for alternatives if they choose to search for them. The people in “the rooms” are actually far more vulnerable in that respect.

That said, I will miss some of your posts, though. I hope all is well with you, friend.

Hey Jonny-

The way I see it, these people take any ANY criticism of AA as a direct attack on their religion.

I do think the word ‘denial’ is soooo overused in the recovery world, however it is the right word about AAers disclaiming their organization is a religion. As Agent Orange has stated AA is a religion in denial.

This is why they are so overly protective of their program, and because they cannot make documented claims of their ‘rarely have we seen a person fail’ claims, or for that matter really make ANY rational claim of nonanecdotal success rates, they stoop to biting personal slurs. Usually it involves the words ‘denial’, ‘dry drunk’, and ‘resentment’

Johnny, I am unimpressed by CarolID. I have heard this version of we police ourselves about a thousand times and guess what; it’s bullshit, they don’t.

13-stepping in AA is a completely accepted and established part of AA. Most women in AA do absolutely nothing to interfere with the men with time™ in AA doing whatever they feel like doing and on the rare occasions that they do they go for slut-shaming tactics and manipulating the woman, not the man. The cougaring of young men is accepted as well. I have never seen so many late middle aged females with younger men as boyfriends as I saw in AA. It’s very, very common. At gay men friendly meeting (like Silverlake NA meetings, Los Angeles) the predatory behavior is blatant as well.

The absurd thing is that even if what CarolID said were true (which it categorically is not) it would be absurd. The idea that the well intentioned busy-bodies can be all-seeing, be everywhere all of the time and somehow intercede when vulnerable people who have been told to trust AA members are manipulated and preyed upon is ridiculous and impossible.

13-stepping and other predatory behaviors (like financial scams) are built into the very structure and ethos of AA, nothing can change this fact. As long as people (often clinically mentally ill people) at vulnerable crisis points in their lives are placed in situations where unlicensed, untrained and unaccountable people are put in control of them then predation will occur. Predation is bad enough amongst medical professionals and their employees, in a room full of ex-cons and practiced manipulators practicing a religion that literally mandates lying as a component of its practice; predation (sexual and financial) is going to flourish.

I should clarify that I *WAS NOT* one of the predators… I just did not trust anyone in those rooms… better safe than sorry, if you know what I mean.

Pretending that AA has any sway over the sexual behaviours of consenting adults is akin to pretending that it has any sway over their drinking behaviours. Does its very essence lend itself to predations and outrages? Of course. Will any amount of hectoring, discussion or disclosure change that lack of governance over human propensities? No. Alpha walruses do what they do, as do the hand-wringers. Wilson called them elder statesmen and bleeding deacons.

No Mike, AA doesn’t have any sway over anything, you’re right. But they also pretend that the groups are benign and safe, when they are not. 13th stepping is rampant, yet they’ll claim–right in the middle of people telling how they’ve all experienced or seen it–that it’s rare or is effectively dealt with by benevolent oldtimers.

I know that they can’t and won’t do anything about it but it would be nice if they quit lying.

Mona Lisa, AA pretends everything. It pretends it is safe, effective, non-religious, theraputic, well-adjusted, and helpful. It will quit lying only when it quits breathing.

Many AA meetings, especially those in urban areas, are downright dangerous. A lot of them are court card oriented and also used by vagrants to beg. I avoided them in my later program years like the plague.

@Johnny, I don’t think carrying a weapon is the way to handle such things. Why not just avoid the meeting?

You are correct. I DO NOT advise this course of action for others.

For some of the guys I have met in AA, that would only serve as a turn-on.

True.

Seriously, if you were to reach for that dagger in a potentially-threatening manner, you are most likely bought and paid for in a use-of-deadly-force determination.

I don’t want to get into this too much, since this is not the purpose of this blog, and again, I do not recommend that people carry a knife. If you don’t know how to use it, and you pull it out on the wrong person, you can (probably will) get yourself killed.

That said, in close quarters, there is no more deadly weapon than the knife. It takes a lot of practice, though – about 800 times, at least – for the “draw” to become etched in muscle memory and become second-nature, almost automatic.

With some basic knowledge of human anatomy – where the major arteries are located – the “opponent” will not get a second chance. That knife in particular is not a toy – by design, its only practical application is combat.

The question, of course, is why people even feel compelled to carry weapons for defense into a presumably “safe” environment (if one is to believe the propaganda).

The answer, of course, is that the rooms are full of unsavory characters – ex cons, sex offenders, and various other sociopaths for whom alcohol was “but a symptom.”

I noticed very early on that the more depraved people were, the more “cred” they had in the rooms. People would “share” about going to jail, and nobody would bat an eye, at least unless someone else had to “one up” that particular share with their own tale of degeneracy.

This will certainly continue as long as the courts sending such types to the rooms of AA/NA, and with AA/NA welcoming them.

My own personal opinion on this is that people with certain types of criminal offenses – violence, rape, etc – ie, not the drunk drivers – should not be mandated to go to just any AA meeting. If meeting attendance is a condition of their parole, they should be told which meeting to go to, where they will be with like company, and where everyone knows what the deal is.

Lucy, I am all-too-aware of the shortcomings of the symbiotic relationship between AA, the courts, the parole system and the mental health community. When those shortcomings get lumped in with the normal behaviours of the species in the quest for some higher moral imperative, separating the two become impossible. The 12-step movement is rotten to the core, and trying to separate the peeing and non-peeing ends of its pool is an exercise in futility. The only solution is to stay out of the pool.

mikeblamedenial says: “The 12-step movement is rotten to the core, and trying to separate the peeing and non-peeing ends of its pool is an exercise in futility. The only solution is to stay out of the pool.”

Sadly, you are probably correct. This is the conclusion that Jack Trimpey reached – just stay away.

“Recovery groups are bad company; they will pull you down to make sure your shadow does not eclipse their tiny accomplishments of refusing to drink for just one day, or confessing to every sin but drinking.”

The best course of action is probably to starve it – cut off the flow of coerced members, and force it to be a voluntary organization. It will then become an ever more fundamentalist cult, with the “Back to Basics” and “Primary Purpose” groups taking over, and people will see it for what it really is.