And Romenesko has picked up on it!
A day after a Romenesko reader noted that Roger Ebert was an Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor for reporters, A.A. sent a message to journalists on its email list. It says that “our fellowship does not comment on matters of public controversy, but we are happy to provide information about A.A. to anyone who seeks it.”
Check out some of the comments.
Alcoholics Anonymous Host Allegedly Sold Drugs at Meetings
“We took a closer look and realized what we had here was a pretty significant drug operation,” said Sgt. Sean Whitcomb with the Seattle Police Department.
[...]
“It’s like, show-up early, stay late and get your drugs and in-between,” Whitcomb said. “If you want to learn a little more about AA, we can talk about that too.”
The New Republic review of Anne M. Fletcher’s Inside Rehab: The Surprising Truth About Addiction Treatment-and How to Get Help That Works
Why Rehab Fails: The dogma of AA has taken over
My favorite two sentences in the Alcoholics Anonymous literature are: “Alcoholics Anonymous does not demand that you believe anything. All of its twelve steps are but suggestions.” When a drunk at the end of his tether, Bill Wilson, founded Alcoholics Anonymous in the late 1930s—a spiritual program based on meeting with other addicts—there was a fundamental humility to his ideology: It might work for some.
But that sentiment is often forgotten in the rooms of AA itself, where I spent a lot of time getting sober. There I found that what are suggestions to some are fundamentalist Scripture to others. In the rooms of AA, suggestions and traditions can sometimes feel more like ironclad laws, and when I inadvertently trespassed upon those laws, I was humiliated and rebuked. The predominantly AA-based culture of rehab in America has become one of imposition and tautology: If the program doesn’t work for you, then you didn’t work the program. If you succeed in staying sober, then you did a good job working the program; ergo, the program works.
h/t AntiDenial:
Parents Accuse AA of Harboring a Predator
LOS ANGELES (CN) – Grieving parents say in court that their daughter was murdered by her sociopathic addict boyfriend because Alcoholics Anonymous concealed his history of domestic violence. Eric Allen Earle allegedly strangled 31-year-old Karla Brada to death on Aug. 31, 2011, after Brada asked him to move out of her condo in Santa Clarita. After the murder, Earle reportedly spent the night sleeping next to Brada and called the authorities when he found her unresponsive in the morning.
If you’ve been a regular, you’ll notice that I took down the last two posts on the subject of Jim Bock and the Sponsorship Group in Chatham, NJ. I want to be clear that the episode detailed in those posts did not drive us to close the blog, so I’m going to tell the story again with more clarity.
Now then:
There is someone leaving comments on forums around the internet about someone named Jim Bock who runs the Sponsorship Group in Chatham, New Jersey. They’re hit-n-run cut/paste comments that look like this:
One of the all time most pathetic and dangerous AA groups ever is based out of Chatham NJ. They are called the Sponsorship Group and their leader is Jim B.
Dictator Jim B. and his disciples have been ruining the lives of young women since at least 2000. To call what they do “13th Stepping” would be a compliment. Imagine a group of people with no medical or psyciatric training that tell people how and why they need to stop taking necessary medication! It’s a disgrace. People have suffered and in some cases are dead as a direct result of this groups actions!
Jim B. and his disciples at the Sponsorship Group all have SG tatoo on their wrists and live by the rules of Jim B. He takes advatage of people who are in need of help. He should be charged with mental abuse and should have to register as a sex offender. He will experience KARMA soon.
A few of these comments appeared here (using the full last name), buried in the discussion section of random posts, and they were not on my radar.
So, last week, I received an email from Jim Bock that looked like this: Continue reading The Jim B. Episode, Revised and Expanded
Is The Alcohol Message All Wrong?
And if you want examples of bizarre beliefs and weird customs, you need look no further than our attitude to drinking and our drinking habits. Pick up any newspaper and you will read that we are a nation of loutish binge-drinkers – that we drink too much, too young, too fast – and that it makes us violent, promiscuous, anti-social and generally obnoxious.
Clearly, we Brits do have a bit of a problem with alcohol, but why?
The problem is that we Brits believe that alcohol has magical powers – that it causes us to shed our inhibitions and become aggressive, promiscuous, disorderly and even violent.
But we are wrong.
[snip]
In high doses, alcohol impairs our reaction times, muscle control, co-ordination, short-term memory, perceptual field, cognitive abilities and ability to speak clearly. But it does not cause us selectively to break specific social rules. It does not cause us to say, “Oi, what you lookin’ at?” and start punching each other. Nor does it cause us to say, “Hey babe, fancy a shag?” and start groping each other.
The effects of alcohol on behaviour are determined by cultural rules and norms, not by the chemical actions of ethanol.
h/t WatchSurvivingStraightInc
Richard Dreyfuss delivered the keynote address for the Oklahoma Outreach Foundation, where he offered up a some of the standard Sobriety Woo, but ended his speech with this grand heresy, which I dedicate to the new incarnation of JD:
Expressing a desire that his keynote would make the audience think, Dreyfuss encouraged recent graduates of Mission Academy to reach beyond sobriety.
“Remember, sobriety is a fabulous goal, but is it better to be a sober wife beater than a man who drinks occasionally and loves his family?” he said. “You have (graduated from) a sober high school, I commend you. I truly commend you. But as you grow up, you’ll find that what also counts is good acts and moral behavior and being kind and patient and being a loving parent and husband.”
I guess I just never got drunk enough to molest a kid.
Man gets jail for alcohol-induced sex abuse
PROVO — According to his lawyer, Jason Ririe Smith’s legal troubles all came from a bottle.
“What I have here is a man who is destroying his life with alcohol,” attorney Robert Miner said during a sentencing hearing Thursday.
Miner described the Springville man’s troubles with booze while pleading with the court for a light jail sentence. Smith, 42, was arrested in April for sexually abusing a teenage girl who was visiting his home. According to a police affidavit, Smith initially denied the abuse but acknowledged that he had been drinking. The affidavit states that he eventually admitted to touching the girl.
[snip]
Miner acknowledged during Thursday’s hearing that the deal was an unusually lenient one, but said that he believed there were reasons it had been offered to Smith. Miner said that the victim was not suffering extreme emotional distress as a result of the abuse. Smith also was working very hard to curb his alcohol problems.
“I don’t know that there’s a day he doesn’t go to AA,” Miner said, referring to the Alcoholics Anonymous program.
Related:
AA’s “Too Young?” pamphlet.
