Let’s try this. Since it’s so far proving impractical to expect off-topic debates to relocate to the actual debate forum on the community pages, here is an open thread, where anyone can introduce whatever topic you’d like to beat into the ground.
The rules are:
Exactly what the man says right here.
It’s all yours…
From the hogwash thread. It has been said that people on this blog are asserting that they seem to know more than ‘doctors’. This is a good point. My respect for the medical community has been assaulted by what I have seen and read about this cult. Isn’t everyone brought up to respect doctors? They were the brightest at school and had to learn lots of science before they went to med school. And yet they do not condemn this magical nonsense. And therapists. But doctors are meant to be trained in science and that must include bad science, which the cult is. I get the feeling that many doctors have looked at the cult, decided it is nonsense but are afraid to criticise it. But they should. Because it is so damaging for the vast majority of people who are not happy to join a cult.
Primrose,
First off you have to come up with a better definition for AA, then a Cult. Because you will be hard pressed to find any Doctor of medicine or science to agree with you. Terrance from the Orange Papers does not qualify.
Now instead of saying AA is a Cult, why don’t you say that some people who attend AA can form a Cult amongst themselves. This I would agree with you on. I have seen it, it usually starts when the name of the homegroup is the person chairing the meeting, ALWAYS.
The books and literature is far from qualifying as something encouraging a cult. I hear there are web sites out there for people looking for a better AA, more exclusive. Just because people want to form a group and call it AA doesn’t mean they are AA.
The entire organization is a cult.
“Just because people want to form a group and call it AA doesn’t mean they are AA.”
Actually, you are wrong about that.
Tradition 3…
Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover. Nor ought A.A. membership ever depend upon money or conformity. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an A.A. group, provided that, as a group, they have no other
affiliation.
Stanton Peele on is AA a cult?
@Gunthar,
No, Gunthar I am not wrong about that. Plenty of AA meeting have been shut down for unscrupulous acts, there are many ways to do this. The biggest one is the meeting will either become healty or it will disband.
Please don’t confuse principles of the 3 tradition with your understanding of it just to prove your right.
Peele is da man!
@diablo… You have an answer for everything doncha?
@diablo…
How many people have you helped to stay sober using AA’s 12-step method?
@Martha,
Stanton Peele is talking about certain people who attend AA. I get it. Thank you. Why is it so hard to understand for some of you that there is a difference between AA/GSO and people who attend AA.There is a separation.
Well that’s just how we do it in this soceity/country we live in, We blame the President for congress not acting right, we blamed our parents because we turned out uneventful and we blame AA/GSO for not governing the people who attend the meeting. They have turned it into a cult.
When the president had sex with his intern he was censored.
If your daddy abuses you, even years later, you can call the police and have him arrested.
If someone in AA abuses you they’ll ask you to look for your part in the situation, cover the whole thing up by denying that it ever happened, and ultimately they will deny responsibility for the behaviors of individual members.
Why is this so hard for you to understand?
Martha, Gunthar and Mike,
Cult-Like!!!!! Does not have a hedgemony, GSO does not rule. People coerice others in AA to say the same things.
No Stanton Peele never said AA was a Cult. As a matter of fact said it could not be because it lacks a hedgemony.
Gunthar2000 says When the president had sex with his intern he was censored.
If your daddy abuses you, even years later, you can call the police and have him arrested.
If someone in AA abuses you they’ll ask you to look for your part in the situation, cover the whole thing up by denying that it ever happened, and ultimately they will deny responsibility for the behaviors of individual members.
Why is this so hard for you to understand?
So what you are saying here is, these are the people you associate with in and out of AA. Well that is good for you, “if you lie down with dogs you may just get fleas.
I happened to associate with people who care for others, are honest and hold accountability as a value to have.
That’s not what I said at all.
Here is Stanton Peele’s intro to Charles Bufe’s Book “AA CULT OR CURE.”
AA: Cult or Cure, Tucson, AZ: See Sharp Press, 1998.
Introduction to Charles Bufe’s AA: Cult or Cure
Stanton Peele
Morristown, New Jersey
“AA: Cult or CureCharles Bufe begins AA: Cult or Cure with a description of a standard AA meeting—dominated by a few people who tell their same, self-serving stories for the umpteenth time, the proceedings unfocussed and unhelpful, the environment filled with smoke and other unhealthy environmental contaminants—from which most people leave with basic psychological and social needs unmet. This opening vignette conveys a lot of information—it tells you that Chaz Bufe has been there; that AA, for all its grandiose claims, consists of meetings of typically not particularly helpful people with their own ample blind spots and personal needs; and that this is a book that takes a different slant on what has been up till now the sacrosanct topic of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Chaz Bufe writes in the great tradition of the independent scholar, someone devoted to the pursuit of knowledge and understanding without institutional support for doing so. In AA: Cult or Cure, Chaz combines personal experience, historical analysis, review of government, AA, and other research data, and analytic interpretation into a seamless whole. His work on the indebtedness of AA and Bill W. to the Oxford Group Movement (later known as Moral Re-Armament), AA’s Carl Jung connection, and Bill W.’s fiddling with funds earmarked for publishing the Big Book breaks new ground.
But Chaz’s larger task is to evaluate the overall impact of AA on the individual and on society. In conducting this evaluation, the reader feels Chaz is not an ideologue. He gives credit where credit is due, acknowledging the brilliant insights of AA-founder Bill W., represented particularly in the 12 Traditions that Bill authored for AA. Chaz sees in these a successful blueprint for ensuring the democracy of AA as an organization not beholden to commercial, political, or intellectual interests. AA is in the alcoholism business, plain and simple. Chaz likewise points out that AA has not lent itself as an institution to oppression of women, blacks, or homosexuals as have other religiously based organizations.
Unfortunately, this strength is vitiated—as Chaz’s analysis shows-by the tyranny of the group and AA philosophy over the individual. There is little room for individual variation and none for individual questioning of AA. The AA attendee does not speculate that he or she may not be an alcoholic, or question any of the 12 steps—for example, the need to turn oneself over to a “higher power.” Despite AA’s innocuous claims that this higher power may take any form, Chaz shows through its own 12 steps that AA requires a belief in deistic authority, with a corresponding diminution of self.
Chaz also shows—often through analysis of original data sources—that AA succeeds with relatively few (5% at most) of the massive numbers of alcoholics who wander through its meetings. The data which show this are general population surveys, AA’s own membership studies, and research on outcomes of AA and other 12-step treatment (which forms the overwhelming majority of treatment programs in the U.S.). But AA is not concerned with data about its effectiveness or the numbers of people it leaves out in the cold. The fundamental goal of AA is to propagate the 12-step belief system and to support the small minority that finds this approach facilitative of recovery. This single-minded purpose has led to repeated ugly instances of career-endangering attacks on those who dare to gainsay AA’s methods and success.
Chaz takes as his fundamental task to evaluate whether AA (and the ubiquitous 12-step treatment programs based on AA’s model) comprises a cult involvement. In reaching his conclusion, Chaz roams widely over the acknowledged cults in recent American experience—the People’s Temple, the Moonies, and Scientology, among others—along with the work of cult researchers and theorists. Examining cult philosophies and indoctrination techniques, he answers with a qualified “yes”: the most important therapy group/technique in the U.S., in the eyes of the public, media, and health care system, is in many ways a brainwashing factory, one whose impact has led to no reduction in alcoholism in the U.S. In fact, by discouraging alternative approaches and free thinking about America’s drinking problems, AA may have had exactly the opposite impact.
But the good news, in Chaz’s analysis, is that America’s honeymoon with AA is nearly over. Chaz traces this cultural shift to the recent more critical thrust of popular articles on AA and its 12-step philosophy, repeated negative court decisions on the constitutionality of forcing people to attend AA/12-step programs, and a growing awareness of AA’s limited effectiveness—as well as to his own and other books, many published by See Sharp Press. In the next quarter century, Chaz predicts, what has often been AA’s reign of terror over American alcoholism treatment will end.”
—Stanton Peele, Ph.D.
Author, Diseasing of America, co-author (with Archie Brodsky) The Truth About Addiction and Recovery
Diabolo. I am pleased we have a thread where we can say what we like without going off topic.
I do refer to AA as a cult sometimes. Sometimes I refer to it as an entity.
You are right that it is not a cult in the way that Scientologists, Mormons, Children of God etc are.
What I do not think is in question is that AA has ‘cult-like characteristics’. Would you agree or not that AA has ‘cult-like characteristics’?
Would you be kind enough to give your answers to this questionnaire? It is nothing to do with AA.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:NqwGu27ko9MJ:www.gospelassemblyfree.com/facts/questionaire.htm+cult+questionnaire&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
I will be interested to read your answers and I thank you for your attention to this. P.
Amazing how someone who says he has moved on from AA behaves in a semmingly brainwashed manner by responding to even the slightest criticism of AA with a swift and often vitriolic response. This seems to be true of all AA’s I have encounter when confronted with criticism of the “program”.
@Vera,
Amazing how someone who says he has moved on from AA behaves in a semmingly brainwashed manner by responding to even the slightest criticism of AA with a swift and often vitriolic response. This seems to be true of all AA’s I have encounter when confronted with criticism of the “program”.
Vera, you are being a hypocrite. Why do you have to attack. I am debating and giving my point of view. Why do you have to insult me for wanting AA to be there for others who need help initially.
Primrose,
Read my posts and you will see where I have said that groups of people who do attend AA have formed what I call cults, they act as everyone of those questions you wanted me to answer. (sorry been there done that)
Some members of AA are all the bad you folks can speak about and worse.
I have read your posts, Diabolo.
Would you do me the courtesy of giving your answers to the questionnaire. I am not talking about minor groupings within AA. I would like to hear your answers from your own understanding and experience of AA. Thank you in advance. P.
The Song That Never Ends
At the risk of being childish and troll-like – “hedgemony” ??
ftg – I like the never ending thread idea. Sort of a freedom of thought and expression stinkin thinkin fight club.
Diablo _
I have actually been a participant in forming two groups. This is the pamphlet we used, and it supports Gunthar’s citing of the Tradition 3:
http://www.aa.org/pdf/products/p-16_theaagroup.pdf
As far as I know, no AA group has ever been closed by GSO or AAWS. I have known plenty of them that closed because of internal strife. Since neither GSO nor AAWS did anything about the public problems like the Midtown Scandal, I would like to see from you exactly what the corporate body of AA did to close them.
The AA site above would support my position, but should you doubt me, I would direct you again to the AA website and Service Manual which references the autonomy of groups to do as they please . If you find a place in the Manual which allows for the outside or corporate dissolution of groups, you must have a different Manual
http://www.aa.org/en_pdfs/en_bm-31_04-05.pdf
Thanks.
(Sorry, Diabolo! I forgot to include the link. I honestly don’t know many aas at all and I would like to hear (read?) what you make of it. In my experience people who attend aa meetings can put what they like in and no one knows anyway, so I don’t know. As I read about other entities with cult-like characteristics, the big factor seems to be money, generally going in the direction of a (living) leader. I don’t see that in AA. In fact, many people in aa are vehementally against any sort of activity that could even be construed as encouraging people to give more than they feel they want. I’d be grateful if you would give it a read. Thanks. P.
)
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:NqwGu27ko9MJ:www.gospelassemblyfree.com/facts/questionaire.htm+cult+questionnaire&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
(Assuming this is a thread for random ideas)
Does anyone have any idea of the ethnic make up of AA?
(In the UK, one is encouraged to tick one of a number of boxes anonymously at every interaction with govt. It would be second nature to anyone from the UK, not sure about the US)
@prim, here’s a hint: play that funky music, white boy. To be fair, there are minorities in program, not sure about percentages. Never saw any asians and only knew a few jewish members.
Also thinking about an old post I have looked up here, and the Irish.
Primrose, I saw that one somewhere. I’ll try to find if for you. I’ve rarely seen anyone ethnic and always wondered about it.
@Lucy,
As far as I know, no AA group has ever been closed by GSO or AAWS.
diablo wrote:
never said that, I said the DCM and Intergroup.
(I am half terrified that I might offend anyone, or be called a racist)
but I do would like to ask what peope think about the ethnic make up of what they have seen in ‘the rooms’, or to direct me to a relevant post,
Whitey rules AA. I think they include the numbers in their surveys.
Primrose says
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:NqwGu27ko9MJ:www.gospelassemblyfree.com/facts/questionaire.htm+cult+questionnaire&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
diablo:
I thought i answered this in a post earlier.
MA: I am not prepared to accept what you have said unless you provide me with links or references to your last post. I am not very computer literate so I would be grateful if you or anyone else would provide a link.
Diablo: I am not prepared to accept what you have said unless you provide me with links or references for your last post. I am not very computer literate so I would be grateful if you or anyone else would provide a link to the posts of which you speak.
I suppose it depends which area you’re living in. I saw many black people in S.E london aa meetings. I’ve seen a couple of black people in West country meetings. I saw one Sikh in a West country meeting. I myself am mixed raced. Mother white -english and father black-jamaican.
Thanks, Acacia.
Primrose, soberbychoice offered this in his post, AA’s Own Stats: http://stinkin-thinkin.com/2011/01/10/aas-own-stats-show-slow-demise/
AA’s Triennial Survey shows the membership to be an average age of 47, sober about 8 years. Approximately 85-90% of the members are white, and those numbers are not changing appreciably with the dramatic demographic changes in the US population. The US Census Bureau estimates our country will be minority white by 2042. AA is going to somehow have to miraculously either bring in the minorities that have not flocked to it over the decades, or else it is going to have to dramatically increase its penetration rate in the white population, if it is to remain anywhere near its current size in a decade or so.
Primrose, that is the UK. In the United States AA is essentially all white and over 95% male. Prison populations might be an exception to that.
I have seen on this blog that in the USA, people can be mandated to AA. In the UK, people also have to have aa slips signed for probation.
Its called the CHIT system
Thanks ftg. I think it was that post that got me to ask the question, and old posts. TY.
AZ. I think you make an important distinction between UK and US.
If Diablo is lurking, please D, have a look at the questionnaire. Much appreciated. http://stinkin-thinkin.com/2011/01/10/aas-own-stats-show-slow-demise/comment-page-3/#comment-24877
Posting this quickly.
AA has had very little luck in trying to increase the minority membership. Black membership is about 5.7% according to the last Triennial Survey; Spanish at 4.8%.
A few years ago (maybe 2006) the AA Trustees decided to hold an “Inner City Forum” in Philadelphia to see if they could figure out why blacks were so underrepresented in AA. One of the conclusion in the final report was that black ministers saw AA as “competition” and discouraged attendance. Black ministers must know another “religion” when they see it!
Spanish membership is growing in many areas, and the AA Conference has lost $3-4 million dollars in promoting “La Vina,” the Spanish Grapevine to that population since the nineties. There has been little integration of the Spanish-speaking membership into the folds and inner sanctums of AA, however. It’s common in Area assemblies for there to be an interpreter for the three or four Spanish members who show up,;however, most Areas now have their own Spanish “district” that is not integrated with the rest of AA. The typical annual GSC in NYC has only one or two blacks and Spanish speakers in attendance every year. Any way you want to cut it, this is a white person’s recovery program with a sprinkling of diversity far less diverse today than most other institutions in our society, except maybe for churches.
Someone asked about AA meetings that get closed down. The only ones I’ve ever seen closed are those “behind the walls” where wardens decide they don’t want the meetings. AA still reports around 60,000 members “behind the walls,” but that number has fluctuated up and down by year for the past decade.
What amazes me is that AA claims to be “based on attraction rather than promotion” per tradition 11. I don’t understand, aren’t they going to prisons to promote AA and the 12 Step program? Aren’t hardcore AAer’s complaining about criminals being sent to the rooms by court order when they get out of jail? Why are they going there if they are not trying to promote AA? Could it be that the 12 traditions is being subverted by the home office by promoting this and some of the hardliners are objecting? Do they have dissension among their own ranks?
There is dissent within the ranks, JRH.
=======================================================
I have been told two ‘facts’ (no references) by a devout al-anon person.
1) More partners of alcoholics commit suicide than alcoholics
2) Many members of al-anon suffer from OCD
Acacia,
“…In the UK, people also have to have aa slips signed for probation”
Are you SURE about this ? If so I will raise it with my chums on WiredIn, as it goes against our human rights, and I am sure they would be mortified to learn it was going on. Just as I was mortified when the police drug squad used to inspect my CD registers to see who was getting methadone, and thus an addict. I got that stopped!! This isn’t the USA yet!!
It’s all white up here in Northern England aa even though we have the biggest concentration of muslims in the UK. I can only recall ever seeing 2 people of colour, in the rooms and one of them was a visitor. As someone said above, “…whitey rules”, but it’s always been a white middles class organisation, reading the bb it’s obvious that the pitch is for the white middle class male.
Yes, Acacia: I didn’t know about this in the UK. Could you tell us more.
Make up of my nearest group: 3 over 60, one over 50. All with 18+ years. All white. 3 middle class, one a bit of a character. Plus random newcomers, none of whom have stuck. Occasional visitors from other groups. Occasional ‘celebrity’ who says as little as possible and CERTAINLY does not do 20 minutes meeting before a meeting, nor 20 minutes after. Curious. Perhaps he ‘has’ to go due to pressure from family or something. All this reported faithfully to me by one of this ‘confidential’ group.
Acacia: I meant could you give details of the probation service requiring cult membership? Wondering about the (moderately vocal) atheist campaigners. Dawkins and his bus.
Kinda quiet around here tonight, the true believers must be at church.
MA hit the gong on the Great Tony J Experiment of 2011
What no Tony? You mean will have to go to Stinkin Thinkin Revealed Blog to get his wisdom? Oh No…………………..Not!
Tony is just another burn out. His best days are behind him
Dang, I was hoping I’d chased him off.
Actually I think it is an honor to have two blogs dedicated to this site. Especially when it is only 2 or three people who really post on them. It is good publicity for this site. Anyone who goes to them will want to find the real truth and find their way here. They will realize who is the trouble maker and who is not automatically, they are doing good advertising for this site without even knowing it. I mean come on, they even have a posting about how they are being accused of being trolls at this site. When the average person comes to this site and sees that they are only causing trouble, they realize what the real issues are. I wonder how many people they have sent to this site through their advertising?
Either tony j’s been banned again or he’s at an alcathon….
Maybe the “Miracle” finally happened……………….???
Yeah, I banned him. It was a nice experiment, but he wasn’t interested in any reasonable dialog, and it was becoming Tony’s blog. He can get a tad exhausting. If he wants a blog, he can start his own. He can rant there to his heart’s content.
OK, back to our regularly scheduled AA bashing.
Lol, good riddance to the racist bully
FTG and MA ,you did the right thing. If Dombeck’s blog is any example it would be how Tony and to some extent Mcowdog would take it over. He did the same thing here and believe me he would not stop until all dialog was extinguished. It is his form of censorship.
As an epilogue, here is part of Tony J’s response to his banishment on mcGows blog:
“The only possible response is to kill the opposistion. They did it to John the Baptist. Hell, they even did it to Jesus.”
I wonder if Jesus knew how to use a spell-checker. And then the truth comes out:
“Although unlike Jesus, I would probably throw one of them off a subway platform if the heat of the moment.”
I didn’t realize the “J” in Tony J stood for Jesus. Your own personal throw people under the train Jesus. Good Riddance.
He definitely has a messianic complex! It’s so interesting that they can come here, insult everybody for so long, and still play the victim when banned. Tony J, your cross is calling you.
Now he knows how Jesus felt! That is, if everyone on the planet were a Christian, and Christians influenced every facet of public policy, and no one publicly criticized Jesus or his followers ever. Ever. And Jesus found a small insignificant group of critics who are wrong about everything and spent every waking moment obsessing about them, calling them names, shit-talking and browbeating them into falling in line with the status quo, until they said, “Jesus, go preach to the choir,” who, it turns out, didn’t want to listen to him either. And Jesus got so mad that he fantasized about killing them. In that way he knows exactly how Jesus felt.
Both Tony and McGowDog have violent tendencies. Typical fascist mindset .
Tony J. has more in common with Caiaphas than he does with Jesus.
Of course, I have to add “Now I know how Jesus felt” to the tags.
WWTJD?
@ Mike. I have not seen many examples of AA members who are capable of having a give and take discussion. On their blogs they delete and boot dissenting voices and when they come here or to other counter AA sites they resort to insults and attacks. I think the reason for this is they really believe they are powerless and can only commit to being sober for a 24 hour period and their grasp on sobriety is so weak that any questioning can push them to drink. I really wonder sometimes if the steppers who say they want AA to get back to its roots have the Oxford Group’s far right politics in mind. Don’t forget that Buchman admired fascists and attended nazi rallies in the 1930s.
@Martha, I agree. I have to say that not too many years ago I would have been one of those steppers. I remember maybe 10 years ago how there was a woman and a man at one of my meetings who used to mock the idea of powerlessness and using a higher power. I despised them for no other reason than that they were saying something I found so contrary to what I had been inculcated with up to that point.
It has been a long process for me to get to the place they were at. The big difference is that I do not want to step foot in another meeting. I literally feel sick after 5 minutes.
tony j reminds me of foster brooks crossed with polonius
let him live in that little dream world that he has created for himself
AA is mostly white; white, middle class, protestant.
@Mike – I relate to you a lot. Sometimes I wonder why it took me so long to get to this place. I have seen posts and read books of individuals who find this out in 6 months or so.
FTG says:
Now he knows how Jesus felt! That is, if everyone on the planet were a Christian, and Christians influenced every facet of public policy, and no one publicly criticized Jesus or his followers ever. Ever. And Jesus found a small insignificant group of critics who are wrong about everything and spent every waking moment obsessing about them, calling them names, shit-talking and browbeating them into falling in line with the status quo, until they said, “Jesus, go preach to the choir,” who, it turns out, didn’t want to listen to him either. And Jesus got so mad that he fantasized about killing them. In that way he knows exactly how Jesus felt.
diablo says:
Now that is just to funny. Thanks!!!
He’s just warming up folks… Stay tuned for more.
@freedom, some are sicker than others. /-8//
Well I did post it in another place on this blog, but I think is it worth posting again here.
“God and the devil were walking down a path one day when God spotted something sparkling by the side of the path. He picked it up and held it in the palm of his hand.
“Ah, Truth,” he said.
“Here, give it to me,” the devil said. “I’ll organize it.”
Source: http://articles.cnn.com/2010-06-03/living/spiritual.but.not.religious_1_spiritual-community-religious-god?_s=PM:LIVING
Well, Tony J certainly pushed the limits, didn’t he? Has anyone here listened to AM radio recently? Thank God the FCC isn’t run by MA or FTG (both self-described “first amendment junkies”).
I researched most of Tony’s posts, and don’t see where he broke any of the rules stated above, except the vague number 4 rule.
Maybe the commissars of Stinkin Thinkin could specify the particular offenses committed which prompted his dismissal, perhaps?
I always thought that the first amendment was a right and not just a privilege, and that America was a nation of laws and not men.
Ralph are you one of Tony J’s disciples? I can see violations of 1,2 and 4. Perhaps you can go wave your flag on their blog. Shit, he should have been banned for being stupid. Maybe we can enact a new rule.
Ralph,
You don’t seem to be clear on the First Amendment. It doesn’t guarantee you the right to someone else’s private venue. It doesn’t, for instance, grant me the right to set up a soapbox in your living room so that I can insult you morning, noon, and night as you go about your daily business. It doesn’t guarantee me the right to publish an op-ed piece in the New York Times just because I want to. It protects citizens from government censorship. Tony still has his constitutional rights: he can set up his own blog. He can stand in the public commons with a bullhorn and say whatever he wants to about us.
We welcome debate and differing opinions, but we don’t owe anyone free reign to turn our blog into a gutter — to destroy something that we and our community have created. We have First Amendment rights, too, and we are exercising them here by building and maintaining this blog. Everyone has the right to build and maintain their own blog, and to decide what’s unacceptable behavior in their own private venue.
Our ideal is free debate — and debates get hot, so there is a lot of leeway for that. For instance, when you were debating the disease model with other members of the blog, the discussion may have been heated, but it didn’t degenerate into character assassination and shit-talk. We never threatened to ban you for your opinion. Your opinions weren’t blocked. You would never be banned for expressing your opinion on this matter either. Tony is banned, not because he disagrees with us, but because he doesn’t know how to disagree with us without turning this blog into a sewer.
I spend a lot of hours on this blog, posting stories, writing articles, keeping up with and corresponding with members, doing the behind-the-scenes administrative stuff like making sure things are updated and compatible, activating accounts, perusing reams of spam to make sure that no one’s comments have been eaten by the filter. I even tweak the code, to make things look better or work better. I wrack my brain to try to come up with solutions that will best accommodate everyone who participates here while keeping this blog as open to debate as possible. Someone requested t-shirts, so I made some t-shirts. I set up the community pages. And I’m not getting paid. We have no sponsors or advertisers. We make no money here. (Now I know how Jesus felt!) This blog is a pure exercise of our freedom of speech.
I also have a right not to put all this time into the blog just so that Tony J has a place where he can call me amoral. My respect for the free flow of information does not translate into an imperative to honor a relentless and colossal asshole on his mission to shut down all discourse on our blog.
So, I log in this evening, and start scrolling through the spam to make sure that no one’s comments were eaten by the filter, and there’s your shitty, self-righteous comment, thanking God that we’re not in charge of the FCC, accusing us of hypocrisy and civil rights violations.
How about this, Ralph: How about Tony’s right to swing his fist ends where my nose starts.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/heckled-christian-rock-band-knows-how-jesus-felt,17446/
@Rotten – Tony J broke the ultimate rule. He is boring.
Why is it that those who cite the first amendment, very often have no understanding of its intent, how it has been interpreted by the Supreme Court, or where its protections apply?
As an epilogue, here is part of Tony J’s response to his banishment on mcGows blog:
I took a look at that blog today. I didn’t disagree with everything I read over there. It was really the way a lot of it was presented that I didn’t care for. Some of it was offensive to me. I didn’t see anything I wanted. I didn’t see any serenity. The blog didn’t make me reconsider my thoughts about AA or offer anything meaningful to me.
MA: You said it perfectly: it was becoming TJ’s blog. TJ is entitled to his opinion, but he isn’t entitled to hijack your blog.
“My respect for the free flow of information does not translate into an imperative to honor a relentless and colossal asshole on his mission to shut down all discourse on our blog.”
Exactly, FTG.
About the CHIT SYSTEM…..
I think I left AA about Sept/Oct 2010. At every meeting the secretary would mention that they had the CHIT and if anyone needed them signed for probation then just see the secretary at the end of the meeting.
Although I had nothing to do with probation, Social Services wanted me to also have these slips signed for me, as proof I was attending AA meetings.
Sorry its took so long to get back to you guys on this, but I’m a bit thick and could’nt find this bloody thread.
If anyone goes to the AA UK site, under HOW AA CAN CO-OPERATE. You will see that they state…
Confirmation Of Attendance System
Where he Criminal Justice System requires the offender who attends AA meetings to produce a record of attendance, this can be arranged by the meeting Secretary giving the offender at the end of the meeting a numbered “CHIT” to give to their offender Manager.
So this is already in place. AA has lent itself to the UK justice system. What I personally found frustrating is the times I did’nt make it to an AA meeting due to child care. But Social Services would look at these slips as a committment to my sobriety. The more slips I had, the more it would help my case getting my kids back.
Must point out. I had one child at home, hence the child care issue and one child in local authority care.
So this is already in place. AA has lent itself to the UK justice system. What I personally found frustrating is the times I did’nt make it to an AA meeting due to child care. But Social Services would look at these slips as a committment to my sobriety. The more slips I had, the more it would help my case getting my kids back.
Sounds like chit to me.
@ftg!!!!
Living room… Soap box…
I just posted the same thing in the Trolls thread.
You and me must have the same type of tinfoil hats.
Thanks Acacia. Could we talk about this in the community pages? I didn’t know about this.
Could anyone comment on these two ‘facts’ that I have been told by an al-anon truebeliever?
1) More partners of ‘alcoholics’ commit suicide than ‘alcoholics’.
2) Many members of al-anon suffer from OCD
Thank you.
Amoral? I’d not say that was true FTG, as it would signify a large degree of flexibility in thought and the ability to understand the different facets of an issue or organization.
But, it’s something you could strive for.
There is an al-anon/OCD connection.
At that time, Obsessive Compulsive Anonymous was virtually nonexistent in my area. My Psychiatrist suggested I go to Al-Anon. I said to him: “Now wait a minute, I don’t think so. There’s nobody in my family that is an alcoholic, why are you suggesting Al-Anon? I have OCD.” He sat back in his chair with a gentle smile and said; “The first step of all 12 step programs reads the same except for one word. For instance, in Alcoholics Anonymous it will read; ‘We admitted we were powerless over alcohol -that our lives had become unmanageable’. In Codependent Anonymous it will read; ‘We admitted we were powerless over others-that our lives had become unmanageable’. In Emotions Anonymous it will read ; ‘We admitted we were powerless over emotions-that our life’s had become unmanageable’”. Then he looked at me with his soft nonjudgmental eyes and asked; “Jim, what are you powerless over at this time in your life?” I replied;” My fears, my OCD”. He agreed and continued to ask me these bottom line questions. “At any level, has your life become unmanageable or out of control”? I thought for a few seconds. Bang! It all made sense. I had no control over my fears from OCD and my life was a mess because of it. He then asked the crucial question, “Jim, in that first step, do you think you could replace that single word with “fears”?
http://www.ocdawareness.com/pages.cfm?ID=30I'm a Type A personality, workaholic, obsessive-compulsive, overachiever with ADD, ADHD thrown in. I’ve bought in to the myth that ‘success is measured in
personal output.’ After several health setbacks, I’m using Al-Anon slogans as mantras for recovery. Recovery is takes its own sweet time; I’m accustomed to a hurried pace. Recovery is one bite at a time; I live in gulps. I’m being forced to take baby steps when I’m more comfortable striding. I’m learning how to live a green tea lifestyle with a caffiene addict’s coping mechanisms.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5852810/recovery_from_ocd_and_perfectionist.html?cat=5
Does anyone have experience of OCD? David Beckham is a sufferer. That is about all I know.
Is it my imagination or did JD’s posts lighten up a bit when Tony J. was posting?
I found that too, G2k, but FTG has the ability to track source IP addresses and she has said they are not the same poster. It it possible that he is either using another device (smartphone) or a proxy server for posting. I do find the general patterns of his posts similar. Then again, the true-believers probably find all of us to be very similar in our posts too.
Mike and G2K, you know that is just anecdotal evidence!
If you read Tony J’s post on Mcgowdog’s blog it is really clear that he was really upset that he got banned. He shared in a meeting about it. He talked to the fellas. He prayed on it. He really has no life and JD showed up here around the time Tony J couldn’t hold court no more on the Dombeck Blog. Pathetic.
Listen it is rather simple to come back to a web site you were banned from. Use a different computer, floating proxy ect…
What is sad is the motivation.
Oh, and to other topics. It looks like “Golden Voice” Ted Williams has left 12-step, Dr. Phil advised “rehab” against “medical advice” now. Surprise, surprise. Now the indignant 12-step armchair commenters get to laugh, point and pontificate.
http://www.theroot.com/buzz/good-guy-gone-bad-ted-golden-voice-williams-leaves-rehab
That business with Ted Williams is absolutely heartbreaking. Like watching a train coming down the tracks, with Ted tied to it.
To the tracks, I mean, not the train. I’m tired.
It is a bad situation. “Dr” Phil should have stayed out of it. He is the very model of: “people who go visiting in other people’s lives.”
@mona, right now ted *is* tied to the rehab/dr phil train. His dudley do-right moment is still to come.
The Ted Williams story could be an excellent time for Stinkiin Thinkin Activists to start putting out stories to the mass media about the destruction 12 Step Programs cause. This is a prime example. Something along the lines of how they are going to make him relapse multiple times to break his will and spirit.
I wonder if there is a way one of our people could contact Ted. Sometime down the road he may be very interested in what we do here.
Of course, that is based on the idea he will survive what he is going to go through and may be another dead victim of the recovery industry cartel, just like CHRIS BRADY, and another dead person will be blamed for not “getting it”
http://www.advocate.com/Arts_and_Entertainment/Television/When_Intervention_Isnt_Enough/
Review of The Big Book from From The Journal of the American Medical Association
Oct.14, 1939: http://www.morerevealed.com/archives/jama–big-book–review.html
“The seriousness of the psychiatric and social problem represented by addiction to alcohol is generally underestimated by those not intimately familiar with the tragedies in the families of victims or the resistance addicts offer to any effective treatment.
Many psychiatrists regard addiction to alcohol as having a more pessimistic prognosis than schizophrenia. For many years the public was beguiled into believing that short courses of enforced abstinence and catharsis in “institutes” and “rest homes” would do the trick, but now that the failure of such temporising has become common knowledge, a considerable number of other forms of quack treatment have spring up.
The book under review is a curious combination of organising propaganda and religious exhortation. It is in no sense a scientific book, although it is introduced by a letter from a physician who claims to know some of the anonymous contributors who have been “cured” of addiction to alcohol and have joined together in an organisation which would save other addicts by a kind of religious conversion. The book contains instructions as to how to intrigue the alcoholic addict into acceptance of divine guidance in place of alcohol in terms strongly reminiscent of Dale Carnegie and the adherents of the Buchman (“Oxford”) movement.
The one valid thing in the book is the recognition of the seriousness of addiction to alcohol. Other than this, the book has no scientific merit or interest.”
@Martha,
Now were getting somewhere. I can only hope that all the folks who want scientific solutions in the BB now can put to rest those desires.
“The one valid thing in the book is the recognition of the seriousness of addiction to alcohol. Other than this, the book has no scientific merit or interest.”
No scientific merit or “INTEREST”. (This is key)
Stop dragging the BB and the GSO through a myriad of thoughts and conclusions based upon the endless articles and documents/studies you read.
Gawd the Treatment Industry, Judicial System, Education Dept’s ect….are way ahead of us all in stripping AA of any of it’s original merits.
I’m afraid they are gone never to return.
AA never had any original merit. Ever. Period. The percentages in the bb are complete fabrications. Only 5% got sober then, only 5% get sober now and it’s not because of AA. It’s because they used their willpower to get sober and gave credit to AA.
Nobody desires scientific solutions in the bb because there are none. There never will be. The fact that AA engages, and always will engage in willful ignorance of anything remotely scientific, and to the extent that people have worse relapses, untold misery and higher death rates from drinking because of it is absolutely criminal.
@Cause,
Of course AA had merit at the beginning. It was helping people. Why are so hung up on %’s.
Cause, do a survey on any treatment organization for full blown alcoholics and drug addicts, there not good.
I am not disagreeing with your assessment of AA in general. I have said that it is no mystery that AA is not based on scientific evidence. That is why I like it. AA can be nothing more then a conversation at a kitchen table.
Now Cause, nobody has worse relapses, untold misery and higher death rates because of drinking because they read a BB at a kitchen table.
Now the people who attend AA, I can’t speak for all of them. I don’t say this cavalierly or without empathy.
Death is something that seems to be synonymous with self destructive lifestyles. I have witnessed this for over 40 years of my life.
I encourage your advocacy to clean up AA or put it out of business. I really do. I also am concerned about the drug addicts and alcoholics getting the initial help they need.
I don’t profess to have all the answers.
Not just Ted but all high profile people stuck in the same bs. I have been looking up UK celebs who have been involved in this. Some out themselves. Some of them are highly intelligent.
On exposeaa, someone said that one of two things would have to happen to propel this vile cult into the media spotlight. Either one of the anti-aa movement would be killed or a celeb (Lindsay Lohan was an example) would be moved by their own experience to speak out.
Why are so many actors/musicians in this?
Ronnie Woods seems to be a constantly relapsing member.
Relapse is part of recovery.
Wether you are in AA or not.
AA does two important things.
Firstly, It gives people solid, practical tools to stay sober by actually looking at why and how you became an addict and some tools on how to approach life that work so you can stay sober. Practical guidelines.
Secondly, it gives recovering addicts a like-minded community, new sober friends who can relate to what you are going through. Which is one of the most important parts to sobriety. New friends.
AA is not all good or all bad. I am startled at the vitriol on this site towards it.
I have seen it work for many, many people. In fact, of the dozens of recovered addicts I know the most successful ones STARTED in AA. One friend, he was in AA for 7 years. Then left because he felt certain he would never use heroin again but he was ready to drink. So, he left that model. With no rancour. As he said, it had a time and a place and suited his needs at that time. Then it didn’t. Big deal. 16 years of a manageable life.
Another friend she started in AA but also realized that her use of alcohol and weed are not gateway drugs towards her drug of choice, crystal meth, so she has stayed away from AA. She sometimes goes to CMA but finds there is less clean time and stability, inspiration in the members than in AA. She also uses AA/NA occasionally as she feels it is appropriate for her. Four years now of a manageable life.
My brother on the other hand, at 3 years off heroin, cannot drink or smoke or anything at this time. Altering his mind in any way has proven to him that it will drive him to his DOC (drug of choice) at this stage of his recovery. AA and his recovery house gave him a super cool dedicated group of new friends who support each other to stay clean, have fun etc. He isn’t dogmatic or weird about AA but it is working for him and a lot of other people I know.
AA doesn’t work for everyone. Nor is it the only path. AA won’t necessarily be needed by all who use it forever. Those who return to alcohol, or weed or whatever have not failed. Even my AA friends know this. The marker is, has your life spiralled out of control, is your life unmanageable due to your substance use? Not every addict can start with casual use. Some former addicts can never alter or don’t ever want to alter, again.
Though there is this understanding about casual use the organization works because it enforces total sobriety for the time that it is needed to get the emotional/ physiological addiction under control for those people who need that!!
There may be weird stuff in the internal workings of AA. I don’t know. I have only been to half a dozen open meetings to support friends or attend cakes.
All I can say is I have seen many of my horribly addicted friends and family get sober with the help of AA. Though many have left after a few years, they are amazing, vibrant people who maintain sobriety (manageable life not abstinence). Some have not left and are vibrant, amazing people who are sober and abstinent.
AA works for enough people that there is merit in it. Period.
One more thing.
Where I live the AA community places a high value on the higher power being whatever that means to you. Not god or jesus. It is very secular. This might be why there is a high success rate in amongst the people I know. None are religious.
As well, I do know a few people who just quit using and got over it with no outside help.
So many paths…
@Petal – I have heard of AA meetings where the focus was on solid, practical tools to battling addiction. But they were all meetings that existed 25-30 years ago, during the big boom of AA.
To be fair, I also heard some bits of practical advise in my meeting last year. But mostly I heard about the powerlessness of the alcoholic over his or her problem. “Solid, practical tools” were openly scoffed at and those who used them are ridiculed or pitied for their lack of understanding. The AAs who come in here agree. Complete dependence on the meeting, 12 step program and “higher power” is the core of today’s AA. The alcoholic himself can do nothing.
So I would not necessarily recommend AA as a way for getting started on a road to sobriety. For people who can ignore the program and take advantage of the instant AA community, that might work. For others, it’s a potential death sentence. IMO, anyone who truly buys into AAs powerlessness is not dealing with their issues and is not adopting practical solutions, but is just undermining themselves and setting themselves up for pointless relapses and deepening despair.
@Petal
“Firstly, It gives people solid, practical tools to stay sober by actually looking at why and how you became an addict . . . Practical guidelines.”
I’ve yet to see any ‘practical tools’ or ‘practical guidelines’ whatsoever suggested by either AA, the 12-step program or the big book. What exactly are these? Praying? Confessing your sins? Daily seeking God’s will? Going to meetings and hearing people endlessly crap on about what they did when they were drunk? None of this has anything to do with practicality or reality.
I’ve even less seen any 12-stepper really suggest people look into the causes of their drinking and why they became addicted in the first place . This takes proper, genuine, professional therapy. The AA line is that people become addicts because they are basically spiritually defective people, for who ‘bottles are but a symptom’. Not a very helpful answer for most people trying to overcome an addiction.
If people’s lives have become ‘unmanageable’ because of their addiction (and people in AA are told to say this whether their lives actually are unmanageable or not) , stopping drinking or using is usually enough to make it more ‘manageable’ again. This would happen whether or not they went to AA.
“Where I live the AA community places a high value on the higher power being whatever that means to you. Not god or jesus.”
This is good, obviously, but it also means that the people in your AA community are not actually following the 12-step program, in which the ‘higher power’ is a very well-defined specific god who’s interested in hearing your prayers and confessions, who will keep you sober if you pray enough, and who is personally interested in your case. The higher power (known coincidentally as ‘god’) also has a personal will for you that you must constantly seek out. He (the AA god is definitely a ‘he’) also created the universe, btw, It’s good that the people in your community have seen through this deception.
“Secondly, it gives recovering addicts a like-minded community, new sober friends who can relate to what you are going through. Which is one of the most important parts to sobriety. New friends.”
Yes, AA can function well as a support group in some cases – peer support can be a very good thing. And if ‘new friends’ – if they are genuine friends – doesn’t mean dumping your existing friends and family, then that’s good too. Unfortunately it often does mean the latter. And if anyone decides to leave AA, they might find those AA friendships were very fleeting and conditional indeed (conditional on carrying on in AA) – plenty of testimony of that going on in this blog. And some people very much regret dumping their true friends along the way.
Finally : “Some former addicts can never alter or don’t ever want to alter”
What does ‘altering’ mean in this case? The only ‘alteration’ necessary in stopping drinking is . . . stopping drinking and staying stopped! So what further ‘alteration’ do former addicts need, in your opinion, and how will AA help them achieve this?
Relapse is part of recovery!!! what a load of bull! if thats the case, then no one would be capable of staying sober for more than a short time. There are people that stay sober for 20,30,40 years.
If some people see relapse as part of recovery, then they set themselves up. Self fulfilling prophesy. What a load of cack!
PS. @Petal – I do appreciate your understanding that people don’t need to stay in AA for life. Unfortunately a lot of people don’t recognize this.
Time and time again I heard in meetings that only other alcoholics could understand other alcoholics. This was such f**k-up speak! For gawd sake, when I was in rehab, none of the staff were in recovery, but they understood. They had years and years and qualifications of working with all addicts, drinking,drugs,gambling, self-harm and so forth. We were taught about triggers, CBT, PSYCHO ANALYSIS, PERSON CENTRED THERAPY. It was a Holistic approach. It was important that we expressed our feelings. CBT,PSYCHO ANALYSIS AND PERSON CENTRED THERAPY were the tools we were taught.
The vitriol can be startling; but, for someone with critical distance, it should not surprise. As petal described, it does some good for some people. It is. also, free and readily available.
AA can, also, do some good as a support group. That may be the main source of the good that it does do.
I think that after AA done the task that the person has assigned to AA, it is right and proper to leave.
For myself, that is what occured: AA performed the task that I assigned it. There was no reason for me to stay, so I left.
There are reasons for the vitriol; and those reasons are good reasons. AA has earned the criticism.
@ Petal,
Thanks, AA can be a place for rebuilding. Great testimony.
@howlerMonkey
Yeah, your right on the money in most of your post. Ya know if you wanted you could get the correct definition that AA was referring to for “powerlessness” or you can just stick with the one you heard from everyone else or the one you made up.
Second thought here, 25-30 years ago I was in AA and we were trying to get clean and sober. I was one of those heroin/cocaine addicts and Wild Irish Rose drinkers. AA was well into it’s decent back then because of the overload of treatment center hostages inundating AA. Jesus we even had people going to mental wards trying to bring the message to schizophrenics, (who we getting our fifth step from today Timmy or Johnny literally).
AA to me is plain and simple. I went there because I could hang with other drunks and junkies. We were trying to put the pieces back together of our life we blew up. I saw others I knew on the street (and wondered where they had gone) in AA, they looked good, sounded good and were working towards a better life.
This is the AA I knew, nobody ran around trying to intellectualize the fucking dream, we were not drinking or shooting dope, staying out for 2-3 days (on a run) leaving wifes and kids behind, jobs lost, jails and hospitals. The nightmare had subsided and i was with others who knew of my pain. They did not feel sorry for me, they just knew and were there.
If you can not understand that you are powerless over alcohol and drugs then fine. I am not going to argue with you because I don’t know that world. I just know what I went through and if it wasn’t for God, family, friends and a understanding that dope and whiskey was more powerful then me. Well I would not be here, simple as that. I am grateful my family did not have to remember me as “waste of human potential”.
Ya know guys here on this blog it is real simple, you may not be alcoholics and addicts. Be happy your not or be happy you are. I am. I get to help people like me.
I guess many of you here are helping people like you.
tintop says:
There are reasons for the vitriol; and those reasons are good reasons. AA has earned the criticism.
diablo:
I have learned this to be true.
tintop says:
AA can, also, do some good as a support group. That may be the main source of the good that it does do.
I think that after AA done the task that the person has assigned to AA, it is right and proper to leave.
diablo:
“Right and Proper”!!!!!!!
Acacia H says
“Time and time again I heard in meetings that only other alcoholics could understand other alcoholics. This was such f**k-up speak! For gawd sake, when I was in rehab, none of the staff were in recovery, but they understood. They had years and years and qualifications of working with all addicts, drinking,drugs,gambling, self-harm and so forth. We were taught about triggers, CBT, PSYCHO ANALYSIS, PERSON CENTRED THERAPY. It was a Holistic approach. It was important that we expressed our feelings. CBT,PSYCHO ANALYSIS AND PERSON CENTRED THERAPY were the tools we were taught.”
Yes, because it seems that you were lucky enough to get into a program that saw you as a person first and an ‘addict’ second. 12-step “therapy” is not about seeing you as a unique human being who happens to have developed an addiction – it’s 100% about seeing you as an ‘alcoholic’ and exactly the same as any other addict. Every statement you make and everything you do is judged through the prism dictated by those of the faith. There’s no room for real people, with their own psychology and their own history allowed. Snap judgements and inferences are made about you by people who have minimal understanding of (and less training in) basic human psychology.
The ‘only one alcoholic can understand another’ is complete and utter bollocks – all this is about is convincing steppers that they are the only people who can be of any ‘help’ to other alcoholics, and this is why so many rehab places are wholly staffed by unqualified people. It is so dangerous that they should think like this, and even more appalling that they have managed to convince even the medical community of this.
The steppers who ‘treated’ my family member obviously had no understanding of him at all, even though he was very definitely a ‘fellow’ alcoholic. It didn’t occur to them that trying to bully him into a belief in the supernatural was really the not right way to go about delivering the ‘holistic’ treatment they advertised in their glossy brochures, nor was it particularly likely to deliver the desired outcome. He found the non-alcoholic , mainstream counsellor he saw during his ‘aftercare’ infinitely more helpful. Maybe because this person actually had some proper qualifications and training in helping people deal with addiction problems and had the skill to help him sort out his issues from the starting point of where he was coming from personally? (Seems like psychology 101 to me, but obviously a bit too complex for most steppers to comprehend.)
@human,
take your treatment center nostalgia and your nice slogans from your counselors and put them on the right side of your list (AA should be on the left). Now look at your list they will be equal, if your honest.
You sound like a stepford mutant, who was cloned and programmed.
Your not better for it my friend.
@diablo “. . .if it wasn’t for God, family, friends and a understanding that dope and whiskey was more powerful then me.”
@diablo, I appreciate your sincerity and your story, but why do you think that dope and whisky are more powerful than you? Dope and whisky are not sentient beings; they’re not out to get you. They have no ‘power’. You have absolute power to choose whether you drink whisky or smoke dope or not – they don’t have any kind of power to make you do it. Which makes you the infinitely more powerful one in all this. And by choosing not to drink or dope (as you presumably have) you have actually proved it.
Diablo says, I was one of those heroin/cocaine addicts and Wild Irish Rose drinkers.
Jcal says, gawd diablo! That just brought back some sorry assed memories for me lol.
diablo says
“@human,
take your treatment center nostalgia and your nice slogans from your counselors and put them on the right side of your list (AA should be on the left). Now look at your list they will be equal, if your honest.
You sound like a stepford mutant, who was cloned and programmed.
Your not better for it my friend.”
Oh shit, I actually posted what I though was a rational (and sympathetic) answer to this person, and then he comes up with this in the meantime. Oh well . . . will know better next time.
human,
I will answer your question if you will admit that you really have no idea what I am talking about. Have never experienced such a retched life and stooped as low.
If we can establish this first I would be more then happy to explain what powerlessness is all about (for me).
Jcal,
I hear ya, brother. Don’t miss those buggars.
@ diablo – The definition of powerlessness that I heard – the inability to control the most basic emotional and intellectual aspects of one’s life – was what was given to me in my main meeting and every other meeting I attended. People used quotes from the Big Book to back this up. Sorry if I somehow got confused and believed this to be the AA definition of powerlessness. If that ‘s not what you call powerlessness, maybe you could figure out a way to put your definition into words. This “you can’t understand” bullshit doesn’t fly. So put up or shut up.
And get this straight. Don’t you ever again claim that any person on this site was never really an alcoholic or an addict. Not only is that a cop-out excuse for being unable to defend your opinion, it’s a lie and a slander against everyone here. You do it again, I will push to have you banned.
@howler,
Please show me the quotes people used for such a intellectual Treatment Center definition of powerlessness.
That’s the first question, second. Isn’t the whole premise of the BB based on being a alcoholic. So while in the cusps of my alcoholism and drug addicted life I had a inability to control the “most basic emotional and Intellectual aspects of my life”.
I will say WTF I want to say whether you like it or not. I am sick and tired of reading your two day in the program BS. Yes you can intellectualize the shit out of AA, good for you. You went to school, problem with that is your floating above the real problem. You and your intellect fly right by the answer.
I don’t care if I am banned or not, got it. Good. If you dish it out stop fucking crying and take it.
Now back to are gentlemanly ways.
Good Day!!!!!
@Human,
The problem were having is your talking treatment center AA and I am talking about a regular `ole run of the mill AA meeting. No professors, counselors and definitely no science, unless it is watered down for us laymen folk. We like our AA real simple.
Problem, can’t find it to much anymore.
Much like everything else I learned in AA, the definition of powerlessness changed as I became more involved.
At first powerlessness seemed like something I could relate to. Powerless was more of a feeling that it’s literal implication. I definitely felt powerless over alcohol.
As time went on I went to more meetings and read more AA literature> More was revealed. The powerless concept became very much in alignment with the concept of original sin. As an alcoholic fallen from God’s grace I was powerless over people, places, things, and most of all my own emotions and behaviors. The only thing that could save me was God’s grace.
@Gunthar,
Like I said Treatment Center lingo….sorry everyone I knew and know, in and out of AA doesn’t see it they way the minority see things here, on this issue.
We understood the principle to mean, while under the influence. Once I sobered up and my head cleared, powerlessness was not a issue. Now if I “choose” to use this principle again in my life it is there. When my daughter turned 16 and we gave her a car, I found that principle to be very handy.
I signed this contract here in Oklahoma to do work, well the guy I thought I was working for left the company a week before I arrived. The new guy is pathetic and will be fired. Problem the big guy here in charge, this is his cousin. So the firing will take time. This principle comes in handy in this situation.
@diablo…
Treatment center lingo is AA lingo. The AA you’d like to believe in does not exist.
You go on with your fantasy… put all of the pathetic people in their places… and revive the spirit and principles of fantasy AA if you’d like.
How’s that workin’ for ya?
Gunthar,
Please, give it a rest. Your sitting on shoulders of many before you. We/I have been dealing with the decline of AA for some time.
Treatment Center lingo is “YOUR” AA lingo, not mine and many other AA people. This is the AA you were introduced to I guess. IDK.
@Humanspirit,
Yes, I do feel very fortunate. Before entering that rehab, I’d been in and out of AA for 5years. I even introduced my sister to AA. That was before the rehab experience. After I finished rehab, I was asked to attend an AA meeting by my sister whillst visiting her.
I was shocked, because when she spoke at the AA meeting her whole vocabulary changed. She talked in slogans. Everybody in that meeting sounded the same. The same old pat. This was not the sister that I once knew.
I reminded that there was no cross talk in these meetings. Something I was’nt use to in rehab. Our thought and perceptions were challenged in rehab. I was taught in rehab that I was’nt powerless over alcohol and that it was a choice to drink or not to drink.
So when I started to go to AA in my new area I knew they were talking a load of crap. Thankfully my sister stopped going AA after being in the fellowship for 8 years. She is still sober at14/15 years.
She saw the lunacy of these people and herself at one time.
diablo – like most other people here, I now understand that you are completely full of shit. You like being full of shit and you will use this state to avoid thinking about who you are, what you say, and what you do. Just like your buddy Bill. Thanks for showing us what AA is really all about.
Howler,
So now I am full of shit, OK.
Thanks
Steppers just can’t express themselves without stooping to personal attacks, can they?
Diablo: ” No professors, counselors and definitely no science, unless it is watered down for us laymen folk. We like our AA real simple. Problem, can’t find it to much anymore.”
Well you see, diablo, it’s this pesky IQ thing. In spite of the best efforts by popular culture to counter the gradual rise in generational IQ, our kids tend to be a little smarter than we are. There are a lot of theories as to why – better nutrition, strides in education, prosperity. The net result of all this is that the little scamps are more likely to cast a critical eye on what might have been considered gospel (no pun intended) by we who came before them.
For example, we no longer think that a guy who is convulsing is possessed by a demon. We no longer whip schizophrenic people to help them snap out of it. We don’t use leeches to cure the plague. We don’t consider homosexual people to be mentally ill. We don’t doubt the ability of a black man to lead a great nation.
Sooner or later we will no longer offer mindless slogans and religious ritual as a means of countering addiction. All we need is another generation or two for that to happen. This web site is helping.
The idea that some gutter drunk is unfit for counseling or unable to think about their addiction is idiotic. That’s just another way to avoid responsibility, nothing more.
Some people do use their intellect to avoid facing their issues. Others use their lack of it to do the same. But intellect is irrelevant to addiction. You don’t have to be smart to admit that you’ve become addicted. And you don’t have to be smart to figure out why that is and what you can do about it. You do have to be honest, and you do have to believe that you can control and change the way you act, react and think.
But that’s hard work, and some folks get real used to mental laziness. It’s as comfy as pint of bourbon.
@Howler, Cause, Mike and Gunthar,
We all will sleep better knowing you 4 have AA all figured out with your collective I.Q. This is not to insinuate individually you don’t have superior I.Q’s but just think what y’all could do.
Stop being narrow minded. Open your mind.
Judges, Doctors, Lawyers, Business Owners (as myself) tradesmen, white collars, factory workers ect….. we all benefited.
Howler,
I have devoted a few years to counseling, I needed it. You just don’t get it. Quackery is infectious around here.
Mike,
I would reply but you really did not say anything. I’m trying.
@howler: What other practical tools where scoffed at? In my community many people who are in AA recovery groups also do therapy (we have good healthcare for addicts so it is accessible ie FREE), yoga, meditation etc…Where I live even acupuncture for recovering addicts (which has some success in treating addiction) is free.
@Acacia H: .When I say relapse is part of recovery what I mean is that falling of the wagon in early sobriety seems to be a part of the process of getting sober. Only two of the literally dozens of people who are close to me and now sober quit on a dime and never looked back. Neither went to AA. One found out she was pregnant and stopped. Another just quit using heroin when his life fell apart(he raged for 5 years, then just stopped) but kept using pot and alcohol but his life was manageable. What I am saying is that if AA or treatment doesn’t work instantly for someone it is not necessarily the programs fault but a part of the addicts healing process in action. Later, another place in their process of letting go, if they are not dead, they will finally quit.
My brother was in and out of treatment for 3 years.
His relapses were regular, every 30-90 days for one day, three days, a week, a month then back in the system. Then his best friend (whom he met in recovery) told him that maybe he wasn’t done and to not come back till he was. My brother went out for 6 months. When he came back he lived in a recovery house again but this time he stayed for 10 months where he had therapy (i don’t know what kind) in his house as well as AA meetings (in house and out in the community). He also had free weekly CBT therapy through our health system on top of what he received at the treatment centre. He also took a college program to possibly be an A&D counsellor.
Three years later he still goes to AA at least three times a week, sponsors people, has a great job that he loves (first time he has a real job in his life, was junkie from 14-28), and maintains good relationships with people in and out of AA. He loves the friends he has met through AA and the 12 steps (and this is someone who has done loads of therapy) as part of his toolkit to stay clean…
As well, he has learned that for him total abstinence from all substances is mandatory.
@human spirit: My brother and many friends have not had the experience of AA that your family member did it seems. The only reason the people I know gave up on it was that they didn’t want to be 100% abstinent whether that meant weed or booze. And that just doesn’t fly in AA. And thats OK.
Also, altering just means getting high, altering your mind state. Some people who have been addicts may be able to use other substances responsibly. Others just shift to addictions with less harmful consequences (ie weed for heroin or booze) and others need to never alter ie abstain from all ‘altering’ substances completely.
What I meant about letting go of old friends and making new friends is this: The people you used with. Initially, you may need to let go of them for a while till you have some distance from using yourself and won’t be triggered to use by your loneliness because of a lack of friends who can relate to you.
In my community there are 12 step off shoots: the 12 steps morphed, tweaked a bit, filtered to suit others needs. And all are OK here, openly accepted by the larger AA community. I am guessing from the vibe on this forum that in some places AA has a very Christian agenda which isn’t bad but makes it inaccessible or unpalatable to some people.Buddhist 12 step, Yoga for AA-ers(a woman who was in recovery with my brother runs it at place where a meeting is held), AA for Native Americans filtered through their spirituality.
Every (good) recovery house here has multiple approaches. Therapy. AA. I teach yoga and meditation on a voluntary basis in a recovery house.
Many paths all lead to freedom!!! One will work for you!!!!
@everyone: When a person credits something with SAVING THEIR LIFE (mine was meditation and yoga) it can naturally cause zealotry!!! This is normal!!!!(combine this with religion and there can be problems!) I hope that the baby is not thrown out with the bathwater in the case of AA. Maybe there needs to be a day of reckoning for the movement…I don’t know. It seems to work here.
I have more to add later but need to make dinner.
Be well, be happy…respect each other.
I am totally curious now, though. I am going to ask my friends in AA if and what they perceive as problems in their community.
We’re not talking about babies and bathwater here… We’re talking about a mind control cult that has the power to destroy people’s lives.
Everyone is different. People who’ve had the self-esteem beat out of them as children, or who’ve suffered equally traumatic experiences in their developmental years often self-medicate in order to escape the pain and confusion of not understanding who they even are. There is nothing selfish or self-centered about this. The last thing these types of people need is to be convinced that their insecurities are caused by defects of character. The worst thing they could do is to deflate their ego’s even further.
Howler says,
And get this straight. Don’t you ever again claim that any person on this site was never really an alcoholic or an addict. Not only is that a cop-out excuse for being unable to defend your opinion, it’s a lie and a slander against everyone here. You do it again, I will push to have you banned.
diablo,
It is not a lie or slander. It is a honest and would venture to say accurate assessment of the lack of time or (no time) in AA. IMO and FWIW, There are two types of peeps here that share their problems concerning AA and you can easily distinguish who has actually gone to AA (really) and who just happened to be in AA. Sorry if you feel I am being judgmental because your right I am (kinda hard not to). But lets be fair you are to against me.
Hey every time I have a negative response to someones post 5 peeps jump. Which is fine because most of the time the banter is cool then there are those posters who like to dig for a reaction. They get the reaction then want to cry about the reaction they received.
Yes, I am guilty of posts that can be a tad bit biting but believe it or not I am not intentionally baiting folks. At least not consciously.
Howler,
(it’s a lie and a slander against everyone here)
When I make a comment to someone directly in a post, it means I am talking to that person. If you then want to take it on as part of your business fine but to assume everyone else wants to do this is a bit presumptuous.
“Real alcoholic” is a term that has absolutely no meaning outside of AA. It’s maddening, but it’s ridiculous to argue the point. I mean, it’s like an atheist trying to convince a Christian that he is indeed saved. How can that conversation even happen? When someone says “You’re not a real alcoholic,” they might as well be telling you that you’re not Rapture Ready. It’s an impossible conversation because there’s just no common ground at all. Similarly, the word “sober” in AA has absolutely nothing to do with beating addiction — it’s a spiritual condition. We all use the same words, so we think we can talk to each other… but it’s a whole ‘nother language.
Someone around here needs a good pimp-slap upside the head. Where’s Speedy when you need him?
friendthegirl says
“Real alcoholic” is a term that has absolutely no meaning outside of AA
diablo wrote:
This is true, no, really it is.
Friendthegirl says:
Similarly, the word “sober” in AA has absolutely nothing to do with beating addiction — it’s a spiritual condition.
We all use the same words, so we think we can talk to each other… but it’s a whole ‘nother language.
diablo wrote:
That would be dead on. Thanks.
I am not smell’in what you cook’in.
I once worked with a woman that had a peculiar behavioral pattern. She always had to have the last word in any conversation, no matter how mundane the conversation. I tested it once by saying goodnight to her at the end of a long day. She replied, then I replied, then she replied, and I replied, then she replied even though she was nearly out the door on the other end of a long hall. Many other communication tests confirmed my suspicions. I guess some people are just wired differently. Sorry, gotta go piddle on some cow fat. Yes, no, maybe really.
Petal says
@howler: What other practical tools where scoffed at? In my community many people who are in AA recovery groups also do therapy (we have good healthcare for addicts so it is accessible ie FREE), yoga, meditation etc…Where I live even acupuncture for recovering addicts (which has some success in treating addiction) is free.
**************************
@Petal – all those things were talked about…a little.. by a few of the people at my meeting, including myself. Either during, after or at a subsequent meeting some “old-timer” would eventually let drop about the supposed stupidity and uselessness of believing in one’s own power and carefully work in a hint to indicate which speaker had failed. When the offender was me, I also got an “are you talking with your sponsor” lecture and some talk about the importance giving up control. Some of these people themselves saw therapists, but they had no problem saying that other people’s therapy was no good (“Oh, those Jungians, so sad, they think they can fix themselves”).
But the newbies who crowed about their inability to organize their lives or their failure at their projects or their giving up on some aspect of their lives received some very unsubtle verbal back-up from the oldsters, usually right in the same meeting. You could see the warm, creepy smiles light up for them.
This main meeting is in an affluent and powerful part of a large US East Coast city. I also went to a few in the suburbs. Same thing, only a fraction more subtle. The average “sober” time for the leading lights of the main meeting was 25-30 years.
I agree that AA doesn’t HAVE to be this way. And there were a few people with several years who didn’t care about what anyone else said and came for the fellowship alone. But they didn’t set the tone for the meetings. For someone like me who was looking for what more I could do to strengthen myself against my addiction, all I was finding was ways to weaken myself.
Several comments:
The term, ‘real alcoholic’, is an artifact off AA; it does not exist outside that venue. The term is irrelevant, whether it is ‘true’ or not. If you need to quit, you quit.
Consider the source. the people in AA are, amoung other things: disordered, turbulent, inappropriate in their thoughts, feelings, words and deeds. That is, in fact, why they are there. Is it the place to correctly ‘deal’ with those states of mind? The issue is in doubt, to put it kindly. But, it is what we, as a society, have decided is good enough.
The plain truth is, that is who you are sitting next to: people whose personalities are disordered, turbulent and inappropriate to such an extent that they have brought harm and distress to, both, themselves and other people. Apply the principle of caculated risk.
I remember someone had tried to share that he had read that exercise is good for the newly sober. The no cross talk rule was broken when he was interrupted and informed that it wasn’t in the big book so he had no business sharing it.
Hi Petal! Thank you for taking the time to post here. I know it’s hard for someone to post an opposing point of view. I am being very sincere. I do have some questions for you. I hope you will take the time to answer them without attacking me personally. I appreciate your time and consideration if you will answer them. Please keep in mind, I am not asking these questions to make light of your point of view. Perhaps you will have something that I want. And you know you have to give it away to keep it.
Relapse is part of recovery.
Why? I do not understand that statement unless you are going to tell that each time a person relapses (and I do hate that word) it makes them examine themselves that much more closely. What AA taught me is a relapse is something to be ashamed of. It happens because I am not working a good enough program because I am spriritually weak. I am failing the program. The program isn’t failing me. The reason someone relapses is because they don’t want it badly enough or they don’t want to do the work enough.
Firstly, It gives people solid, practical tools to stay sober by actually looking at why and how you became an addict and some tools on how to approach life that work so you can stay sober. Practical guidelines.
What does the program do to help me examine myself to see why and how I first became an addict? My understanding was I became an alcoholic because I had some sort of spiritual malady or weakness. Only by working the steps and getting a sponsor and checking my brains at the door and faking it until I made it while using rigorous honestly would I become sober.
So please, which solid, practical tools have you learned? Which practical guidelines have been shared with you? Many of us would like to know since we didn’t get them at the meetings we attended. We probably could use them in our daily lives.
Which city are you in? I am not asking you for your personal information or anything. Just which city? I would love to attend the meetings in your community since your AA seems to be so much different than the one I and so many of the others on this site attended.
Secondly, it gives recovering addicts a like-minded community, new sober friends who can relate to what you are going through. Which is one of the most important parts to sobriety. New friends.
I’ll agree with your statement about giving alcoholics and addicts a like-mind community. Yes, one of the things I enjoyed and benefitted from was having a group that truly seemed to understand what I was going through at the time. It did help me to refrain from drinking.
Be very cautious how you use the word “friends” though. I can count my true friends, the ones who hung by me through thick and thin, on my fingers and toes. Nobody I met in AA is among that number. They were my friends when I was at the meetings. And yeah, they talked about going to lunch or doing this or that. But none of them were my true friends. I even lost one I thought was a true friend due to AA because I don’t tow the party line. New friends, new life. Out with the old. In with the new. I have no doubt many of the people who post here can testify to what I am talking about.
AA works for enough people that there is merit in it. Period.
I hear this thought all of the time. What about AA worked for you? Do you think AA has helped more people than it has harmed? Or do you think the members of AA have helped more than they have harmed? How many people being helped is worth the ones who have been harmed or taken advantage of?
Thanks in advance Petal. I am really not trying to mock your involvement in AA or what you gained from it. I am asking you to share what you gained from it so that we can learn from your experience.
causeandeffect says
I remember someone had tried to share that he had read that exercise is good for the newly sober. The no cross talk rule was broken when he was interrupted and informed that it wasn’t in the big book so he had no business sharing it.
Jcal says
Ive also witnessed silly things said like that by program gurus before. A guy once brought in to a meeting fliers for a group ski trip and some over zealous AA asswipe got loud and made a big deal about it because it was not AA approved literature! So the guy who brought in the fliers asked the the AA -power tripper if he wanted to fight and the AA guru stfu and sat back down brooding. lol The AA zealot told everybody that this guy was a loose cannon and the group started to shun him, he ‘picked up’ a week or so later and I never saw him again. Some real brotherly love in that meeting huh?
I mentioned Chris Prentiss’ book “The Alcoholism And Addiction Cure” at a meeting and after the meeting I was surrounded by an angry group of men.
Gunthar, what is it about you that brings out the worst in these trolls? I’ve wondered about that when I see their posts to you. I can speculate. What do you think it is?
@hulahoop… Is it my character defects? I know that some of them are pissed off because I have a history of visiting recovery forums and speaking out against AA. It’s a bad habit that I’m working on. I suspect that a few of them have followed me here. I’ve even posted recently on McCowdogs blog, something I swore I’d never do again.
I am Satan to them. Please go ahead and speculate.
hulahoop says
Gunthar, what is it about you that brings out the worst in these trolls? I’ve wondered about that when I see their posts to you. I can speculate. What do you think it is?
I think the reason would be is that Gunthar has very strong convictions against the AA program and im sure they are warranted. And some others can see some good about the program. I myself could see AA as a positive support group if there was no steps and no AA books, but then again that wouldnt be the real AA. I am grateful that I had a place to go where there were others like me who were trying to quit also. I would have went to any support group to try to stay clean but AA is all there was. I wasnt damaged by AA but alot of people in the rooms got under my skin.
It would be nice if AA was just a psychosocial rehabilitation program for alcoholics. Unfortunately there’s a whole lot of brainwashing and religion that goes along with AA.
“AA works for enough people that there is merit in it. Period.”
This one always gets me. It is an ethical dillema of sorts. The Big Book and , hence the program, contain outright lies and manipulates the unwary. To endorse it as a program that “works” is to endorse lies and manipulation as viable methods for dealing with alcohol abuse. Is this ethical? Does the few lives it seems to turn around justify the many that are not helped or even harmed when there are other, more honest approaches to substance abuse treatment available? Is faith-healing and deceitful manipulation more palatable to society than scientific methods for the treatment of alcohol abuse? Today, it seems to be.
Gunthar I totally agree with you. The things I grew to really dislike about AA were the pictures of Bill and Bob on the wall like a shrine, the importance of time, the denial and bait and switch of god and the dont question anything program silent rule. It seemed to me that even though AA is supposed to be an ego deflation process the people who had the most time had the biggest egos. Not all of them but most who were heavily involved. Oh yeah and the thing that probably pissed me off the most was if you drink you failed the program the program never fails anybody who follows it thoroughly. I followed the program to a T in the beginning and kept relapsing for a couple of years.
Relapse is part of recovery… in AA. Binge relapse, to be precise. The “Outpatient Treatment of Alcoholics” study by Brandsma et al shows that, after 6 months, people in AA are 5 times more likely to binge than the control group and 9 times more likely to binge than people using CBT. That’s not a drop out rate. That’s a binge drinking rate.
Another study shows that people in 12 Step treatment — as apposed to psychotherapy — experience higher rates of depression and anxiety within the first four months: http://stinkin-thinkin.com/2009/03/23/higher-power-stymies-recovery/
FTG, you are sooo right. My ex husband could put them away, but never binge drank…until he joined AA. It was as if he was programmed to end up in an institution (hospital) with a blood alcohol content that should have killed him. Nobody that used to know the person he was before he entered the rooms could understand this. It was as if the program stripped him of all sense of responsibility. Also, he was very anxious and depressed and his sponsor was highly critical of psychiatric help and antidepressants as Gawd could remove this defect if he worked the program right. So I guess they should bottle the higher power and market it as a cure for clinical depression. It’s mind numbing!
@Gunthar, given what I’ve read about your program experiences here, I can easily imagine the kind of humiliation you were subjected to. I say that because I watched it repeated many times in the rooms with those who struggled to stay sober. I do not visit AA forums, so I really don’t know what you’ve posted elsewhere.
My friends in the program started dropping like flies when I started openly suggesting that people consider giving other options a try. I never suggested that anyone leave AA, but simply that they consider “outside” help as a possible adjunct to it. At about that same time, I privately began voicing my concerns about the abuses to my sponsor and a couple of others that I felt comfortable confiding in.
That was also when the “meeting-after-the-meeting” talks changed noticeably, and what were once friendly talks became lectures; always beginning with an awkward attempt to placate by reminding me what a reasonable person I was, followed by a litany of reasons why they were so misunderstood, and I was so obviously confused. The more they lectured, the more I simply began to pay closer attention to what I was actually witnessing in the rooms. That was a painful experience because people I once thought of as friends were simply insulting me (in a loving way of course) simply because I was pointing out things that they did not think should be mentioned. It’s interesting to watch those lectures that I received in those meetings-after-the-meetings become patterns that get repeated on the internet. Those lectures couldn’t change the reality I witnessed in the rooms then, and they certainly don’t work too well on open forums. People may not be quite as willing to alter their perceptions for the sake of “fitting-in” while at the privacy of their computer, and I personally think that’s a good thing.
Petal, I am truly blown away by what you say about your community and the AA meetings there. Please do tell what city they are located in. I never had the opportunity to attend meetings like you describe.
I understand the zealotry. I don’t understand the idolatry. Perhaps you can explain it to me.
@SoperPJ@7:07am – That’s a big one for me too. I know at least one person who benefited somewhat from AA, though that was 25 years ago. And I’ve seen some people who were probably better off (i.e. still alive) because they were using AAs to not drink, but who were otherwise very poisonous people. But of course there’s the huge number of people that AA isn’t helping at all, and the huge number of people it is actually hurting.
One of the big features of this quasi-mythical AA-of-25-years-ago, at least this is what I was told, is that the biggest organizing principles were the Serenity Prayer and the phrase “Let go and let God.” I actually have no problem with the Serenity Prayer. It’s pretty good as prayers go. You could even substitute the word “maturity” for serenity and it works even better. And if you see “let go and let God” in that same light, then it can serve as a reminder that we can’t control everything in our lives, but we can control how we react to stuff. I can believe that an AA that emphasized these things could really help any religious or spiritually inclined person get their shit together.
But as we all know, that’s not how it is in the vast majority of meetings, not any more. So what to do? I guess I think that what we’re doing now is the right thing. It’s not like we can destroy AA anyway. It will still be there for those few who can benefit from it in whatever way they can do that. But by telling what we went through and sharing our opinions on the whys and wherefores, I hope we can keep steering people away from something that might hurt them.
@Gunthar -@hulahoop… Is it my character defects? I know that some of them are pissed off because I have a history of visiting recovery forums and speaking out against AA. It’s a bad habit that I’m working on. I suspect that a few of them have followed me here. I’ve even posted recently on McCowdogs blog, something I swore I’d never do again.
I am Satan to them. Please go ahead and speculate
Well, I speculate that you pose some sort of threat to them. I don’t really understand it. You are one person sharing their experiences about AA. Yes, I think they feel extra threatened by you. I don’t know why.
I know you have sworn off the boards but sometimes “relapse”. That is because you are passionate about what you believe. Maybe some of these steppers are not as passionate about what they believe and you make them realize that.
Maybe it’s because you openly admit to taking a drug (forgive me, I forget the name) but you take something that actually helps you deal with the cravings. Personally, I look at you and wonder if I am truly am an alcoholic or not. I don’t have to take medication. I do take Zoloft for depression though. Maybe they look at you and think AA will be extinct if the members start taking this drug. I hope my intent is not lost in this post and you will understand what I am saying. I admire you for making the choice you made, but some people might view the medication as a threat.
I do not post on AA boards. I do read them. I’ve seen your posts as well as one or two others from here because y’all use the same name. Maybe AA folks are threatened by anyone who dares to challenge the dogma of AA. You make no bones about it. Me…meh…I come here and hope one person reads what I write and is at least challenged in their thinking. It’s like planting a mustard seed for me. You (and a couple of others from here) actively go out and pursue questioning the persona of AA.
Or maybe, just maybe, the trolls question if you really live what you preach in real life. Not just on the internet…but in real life. I do. Part of me really wants to fling myself down at the doorway of meetings and tell people not to do it. Don’t sell your soul for this bullshit. I don’t do that though. I only I know I live by what I preach as far as AA goes. I think you do too and it scares some steppers because they know you truly believe what you say and maybe they don’t. Does that make sense?
Just to be clear… I took naltrexone during the last four months or so of my drinking. I don’t have to take it any more. I virtually erased my cravings and made it much easier to quit. When I first started taking it I was drinking around 16-20 beers a day… A light day might have been 10-12. Soon after I begean taking naltrexone I was down to a six pack… Within 4 months I was down to 3 or 4 beers. Alcohol just didn’t seem that important to me any more… It just made me feel bloated.
I wanted to be sure that I’d never relapse again, so I did my best to learn as much as I could about other methods. I also had some pretty serious issues at the time. I took an extended nature hike for a while. I wouldn’t trade anything for that experience.
I’m pretty honest about my life because I think that people need to know that it’s okay to not be perfect… Just because you don’t agree with AA doesn’t mean that you are selfish… you have no goals to further develop your character… humility isn’t a value that you aspire to live by… You’ve never thought about helping other people. Those people who try to cram the 12 steps dpown our throats would like us to believe that the promises have come true for them… They present themselves as some higher order of spiritual excellence. They seem to believe that because they’ve learned to parrot a few slogans they have discovered the elusive key to happy land, and no one else will ever get there unless they submit to AA’s authority. Just like me and you they ride this emotional roller coaster we call life. They have learned to pretend that they’ve been blessed because that’s what the winners do.
Could we have a post on lovebombing? Or would someone provide a useful link? Thanks.
I think that I read, some years ago, of a US policeman who was against aa and had set up a group to that effect. Does anyone know what I am talking about?
Also, I would like to ask why there have been so few studies about the effectiveness, or not, of this cult?
ftg says,
Another study shows that people in 12 Step treatment — as apposed to psychotherapy — experience higher rates of depression and anxiety within the first four months: http://stinkin-thinkin.com/2009/03/23/higher-power-stymies-recovery/
diablo,
So is this supposed to be abnormal or are you saying that AA is responsible for this or is this just a statement (conclusion from a random study). What are we supposed to take away from this. It’s seems you want to change AA into a form of
Sorry folks my fingers slipped. Premature post.
It seems you want to change AA into a form of treatment you want. Ftg it is no surprise that AA would have more experiences with people suffering from depression. Many have yet to receive a diagnosis and medical attention, many have no insurance or simply don’t find it important yet.
AA helps more people without the means to acquire psychotherapy, lets just get honest here. Are we going to compare apples to apples or what.
You have it backwards, diablo. There are 3 groups of people, all with the same diagnosis. After 4 months, the ones in AA have a higher rate of depression compared to the other 2. That means that AA specifically did not help people who needed psychiatric help. It created people who need psychiatric help.
I don’t care if AA stays the same or not. I want to see it out of public policy, science, and conventional wisdom. And I want it to be very clear to all members about what it is (a program of spiritual enlightenment), and about what it can and cannot offer alcoholics.
AA helps more people without the means to acquire psychotherapy, lets just get honest here. Are we going to compare apples to apples or what.
Give proof then. Out with it.
Ftg said: ‘I don’t care if AA stays the same or not. I want to see it out of public policy, science, and conventional wisdom. And I want it to be very clear to all members about what it is (a program of spiritual enlightenment), and about what it can and cannot offer alcoholics’.
I agree with most of that. But AA needs the never ending churn of newcomers, from treatment centres or conventional wisdom. There would be no members if they didn’t persuade at least few newcombers to stay on. The kudos within this cult comes from lengevity of ‘sobriety’. The oldtimers (more or less) admit that they get a benefit from ‘sponsoring’, although it may not help their ‘sponsees’. This is why I think it would be hard to have a version of aa that dropped the bb, the bs, etc. No incentive to stick around and get the longevity status bonus. A bit like having a job that involves travelling and unable to commit to a ‘home group’. No incentive to lovebomb.
hulahoop says
Petal, I am truly blown away by what you say about your community and the AA meetings there. Please do tell what city they are located in. I never had the opportunity to attend meetings like you describe.
I understand the zealotry. I don’t understand the idolatry. Perhaps you can explain it to me.
diablo,
Here we go again with another member attacking incognito using sarcasm and invalidating remarks.
Jeesh I thought you did not like this behavior when it was done to you.
@diablo…
What can we do to make you feel more comfortable when reading this blog?
Thank you all for your responses.
I am very curious and am definitely going to check in with my friends who use AA now and those whom it didn’t work for about their negative experiences in AA.
I want you all to know I respect and hear that you or people you know have all had hard and horrible experiences in AA. My sharing of my experience is not meant to invalidate what you are doing here.
I am not in AA or recovery. I just happen to be an old hippy kid who lost a few dozen(!!) of my people to hardcore addictions for many years and watched the ones who didn’t die all come back in one way or another(AA or not).
My people who are sober and attend AA most also have done therapy (through treatment or otherwise) and alternate healing modalities in conjunction with AA. I have never heard anyone say they were encouraged to only use AA but I will check.
I am 39 years old and I can think of, off the top of my head over a dozen people (between 27-60) whom I know who have 3 or more years sober and are in AA. I knew them all as drug addicts and alcoholics, too. There are another few people whom I have met randomly (friends of friends, in my yoga classes, in Buddhist groups etc) and befriended whom I later found out are in AA and they also have years under their belts.
I can only look at the people in my life to see and say that AA has helped.
Just to reiterate some of my friends also got sober without AA. Some friends also left AA because they don’t practice abstinence from all substances.
@hulahoop: I live in Vancouver, Canada.
I answered the relapse thing in my second post. And I think the ‘tools’ question as well.
I know so many people in AA! I just called my Dads wife to see what the fellowship means to her. She has never taken a cake and only done the steps part way through. She hasn’t had a sponsor in years. She has a friend in her program who has 29 years sober and she calls him her mentor. She says no one has ever given her a hard time about this. She is 7 years sober. She says god for her is Good Orderly Direction. She says she was on an AA web board but got turned off by the narrow-minded zeal of the people. In her group you can talk about other things besides alcoholism. She says anything too dogmatic wouldn’t work for her. She says she has come across more ‘fundamentalist’ AA-ers in groups when she went to Mexico. I read her some of the stuff on this board and she said that in meetings she attended over 7 years in B.C. in Nelson, the Gulf Islands, Vancouver and Victoria she had not had or heard of people having those experiences. Except for 13 stepping. She says everyone here emphasizes that this is not therapy and to get that help if you need it. Which, I repeat, is accessible and free to recovering addicts here.
Maybe the west coast AA scene is ok. I bet there are some bible-belt area (we have that in BC, too) meetings that would totally not work for the people I know. I dunno.
Thanks for letting me on here. I hope I have not offended anyone.
Be well.
@Petal – You said nothing offensive at all, so I don’t think anyone was offended by you at all. You have been honest and respectful. I only hope that you feel that you’ve also been respected and treated honestly.
And don’t worry about diablo. He’s just a troll playing out his routine.
Interesting post Petal. Could you please expound on the comment “except for the 13th stepping.”
Celebrity stepper time:
“Charlie Sheen had a “briefcase full of cocaine” delivered to his home — and was using large amounts of the drug during the 36-hour bender that landed him in the hospital … this according to a source inside the house.”
http://www.tmz.com/2011/01/27/charlie-sheen-cocaine-bender-porn-star-party-coke-drugs-overdose-od-hospital/
***************************************************************************
Here we go again. Google news has over 800 links for this story. It is a good opportunity to go to the articles that allow comments and point out how totally useless 12 step programs are and post some links to counter AA websites. If I was into betting I would put money on Charlie Sheen being sent to NA as part of his likely prosecution.
Well he hasn’t been charged yet….. (Pun Intended) , but he was only 8 day from finishing his probation:
http://www.tmz.com/2010/10/26/charlie-sheen-drunk-naked-hotel-room-hospitalized-drunk-intoxicated/
Chances are he will have his probation violated and will end up in another posh rehab resort.
JR, that’s an old one… he was hospitalized again in the last couple of days
Oops – Didn’t look at the date. Seems like it is a familiar story though. Reminds me of a drunkalog, you know the story they tell over and over again, after they tell everyone they are powerless . I wonder if Dr Phil has a solution for this?
I’ll bet Drew and Phil are racing to Sheen’s side even as we speak.
@sugomom: she said there was 13 stepping in her experience of AA but not the other stuff you guys have talked about. She said for her 13 stepping was people trying to pick people up. I told her I thought 13 stepping was trying to pick up someone who had less than a year of sobriety. She didn’t think that was it.
All right.
I spoke to my brother.
He says that in his AA circle they say the rooms are a good place to visit not a place to stay. At first rely on it and get your work done. Then, take what you need and get on with your life.
He says people are always encouraged to seek outside help if the rooms are not enough.
His take is he spent the first year and a half of his sobriety going to meetings every day. He says it was and is a big part of his sobriety. He says in our city there are 700 different meetings a day. He figures he went to 300 of them. Of which there are only 6 he now goes to 2-3X a week. He says that for him the rest of the meetings had lots of people who he couldn’t relate to or didn’t like, messages/directions not to his taste, lots of men and women looking to pick each other up. He says it is super hard in small towns where there are less options.
He says he only has three rock solid best friends that came out of the rooms. They would love him regardless wether he was in AA or not.
He says to remember its not Well Peoples Anonymous. Its Alcoholics Anonymous and there are a lot of sick people out there. Be selective.
I asked him if he felt there was lots of politicking and ego in the organizational side of it. He said for him, not at all. He said in his experience people are very committed to principles before personality.
I asked why he thinks AA fails people. He just said if you do your work diligently it won’t fail. Thats his experience.
I asked him if he would recommend it to people and he said yes.
Maybe Dr Phil and Drew could spring for a Rehab for Charlie Sheen and Ted Williams, their both in show biz. Ted has just hit bottom(or so it seems, he can’t afford a briefcase full of coke). Maybe they could humble themselves on national TV and see who hits bottom first, or the hardest. The problem is that everyone remembers Charlie Sheen, but few people remember Ted Williams.
http://stinkin-thinkin.com/2011/01/13/ted-williams-concern-trolls/
Maybe one can be a sponsor to the other…….
Howler,
And don’t worry about diablo. He’s just a troll playing out his routine.
diablo,
Trust me, Petal is not worried about me. But you sure are.
Anyways, thank you all, again. I feel like I have almost satisfied my curiosity.. I will keep checking in with my AA and non-AA sober people but am done posting here. Be Well!
mr. diablo: “5 peeps jump.” come on. youre on a blog fulla people who hate aa? why are you even on here? but what you said about the dood from the orange papers was funny. i mean, the orange papers are out there. but, i love the orange papers anyway. so there.
Sorry Petal – this site actually has a lot to offer. We are a little rough sometimes and get off the subject because some people are continually trying to take other peoples inventory when they should be taking their own. You might want to try the community pages, only a few people do that their. The main thing that I have personally noticed is that 12 Step Programs are designed to break down the ego and tend to make you spiral downward. They call it part of the cure or the “Miracle” ,they promise. The only problem is that they thrive on relapse and want you to “keep coming back” at any cost by continually reminding you you will reelapse. It is the downward spiral that AA promotes that I am concerned with.
Petal,
Please tell your brother thanks. I also wanted to thank you for coming here and sharing. I have only been on here maybe 2-3 weeks, it’s tuff sometimes. I also know it is what I make it.
AA does work for many and does not work for many. I am learning the flip side of this coin here. I left AA after a long direct affiliation because I found that it was time to move on. I did not need to attend on a weekly bases and the message I was hearing from many meeting was a message of dependence on the people(members) and the meetings rather then asking people if they want to learn a set of principles that may help them change their lives.
I have always looked at AA like a surrogate voice that I needed to listen to. I found this voice through studying the BB and the steps. For various reasons in my younger years I failed to listen and assimilate the everyday life tools I needed to have to grow up. I was extremely embarrassed at the age of 27 when I realized how immature I was for my age. I had allowed drugs and alcohol to severely stunt my emotional/mental growth. Professionally I was a disaster, I had not even routimely balanced my checking account. I was not present intimately (not just sexually either) in any relationship nor knew how. My children were just a extension of me ect…..I had allowed drug and alcohol to set up shop in my life. Just about every decision I made was made about or because of drugs. This had gone on for over a decade, bad habits had taken hold, I had formed a personality based upon evading everyday life.
AA did not help with all of this obviously but what AA did do for me was give me the training ground to practice thoughts and actions. I would go to my counseling sessions and the various seminars/workshops I attended learn new ideas and uncover truths about myself and come back to my wonderful friends and share. It was great because they were on their journey too. Sometimes we would talk about our life lessons in the meeting (especially step meetings) most of the time after the meeting. The best part of AA for me was after the meeting when I gathered with friends and we talked. I mean really talked.
Because of all of this I became the husband I am today, father and Owner of a business.
I am so closer with my family, I have learned to let my family be. I don’t walk around with shame, I have nothing to feel guilty about. My life has changed and continues.
There are all kinds of people in AA, I knew who I wanted to gravitate to early on. Just like are towns we life in right now they are different types of folks. I have never suffered fools lightly. Including myself at one time.
i have asked a few times why ftg is not famous , but now i wanna know why gunther isn’t: “When the president had sex with his intern he was censored.
If your daddy abuses you, even years later, you can call the police and have him arrested.
If someone in AA abuses you they’ll ask you to look for your part in the situation, cover the whole thing up by denying that it ever happened, and ultimately they will deny responsibility for the behaviors of individual members.”
superbly put, buddy.
Unfortunately the “famous status” that you are talking about is just media hype. The true innovator of change does not wish their cause to be attributed to them, they want the cause to be attributed to the cause, unlike Bill Wilson who profited from it. A true innovator of change does not attempt to manipulate people for themselves, they do it for the cause and nothing else.
JR Harris,
A true innovator of change does not attempt to manipulate people for themselves, they do it for the cause and nothing else.
diablo,
Please do tell, who are you referring to for your ideal innovator. Remember we do live in a capitalist society here in America, so the conditional thought reform has already been ingrained in us.
Mother Theresa doesn’t count, she never lived in America.
Boy, it really bothers you folks that Billy boy plied his trade.
Exactly what “trade” would that be?
How about answering my question first that you so conveniently skipped over. Who would you be referring to.
I really got into it on a thread over at drugs.com. Some woman who is a counselor or some sort of treatment program employee was telling a current client of the St Jude Retreat (where I got sober and eventually taught) that the program was connected with scientology/narconon! I wrote way too much – but she distorted my words and refused to own up to the irresponsibility of her lies about st judes. I also found that some anti-scientology site is the source of the rumor, and tried to set them straight. For the record, if any of you have heard this – St Judes has absolutely no affiliation with narconon or scientology, and never has. Back in the 90′s, when narconon was like the only other non-12-step facility in operation, the people from st judes cited their research. Because of this, there are many people on the web claiming that they are connected. It’s pretty infuriating.
http://www.drugs.com/forum/need-talk/i-am-done-57686.html#post308670
Naracon and St.Jude did have a referral agreement at one time. I will either get the link to back this up or ask the person who told me to talk with you, Steven. Either way I don’t know from looking at your blog if that would be a bad thing. You seem to be convinced in your way of healing the addict. I applaud your convictions.
I just went back to that thread, and my most recent post is gone and the thread is now locked – which is upsetting, because that woman severely misrepresented me, and now I can’t respond to it.
@diablo Thanks for applauding my convictions. I don’t know of any referral agreement, but I’d definitely be interested in what your friend has to say – either way, I’ll ask SJRH about it directly.
I’m curious though, what you mean by “I don’t know from looking at your blog if that would be a bad thing”. And to be clear, that’s not hostility on my part, just an honest question.
I does bother me that Wilson spent his life plying his “trade,” which was conning people.
Not that I had to ask, but I did, and I just got it from the horse’s mouth – they have never had any sort of referral agreement with Narconon – never. And they have never referred a single person to Narconon.
These are people with whom I have deep personal ties, so I have no reason to expect them to lie to me about this.
Steven, I had also heard that St. Jude was connected to Narconon/Scientology… I wonder if they should make that clear on their website. If I’d heard that, and the person you were squaring off with heard it, too, maybe there’s some kind of disinformation campaign being waged for some reason (can’t imagine).
@ Steven Slate I had to copy the page before it disappeared. That substance abuse “counselor” is clearly so brainwashed I found it difficult to tolerate reading the comments. I only hope the original poster stays put. It is a good thing the thread is closed though, so nobody can read the misinformation that “counselor” spouted. I just can’t understand why someone would think it’s somehow easier to consider addiction a behavior than consider it a lifelong disease. It’s sooo illogical
I just went to see the thread, and it disappears. Weird. C&E, can i see your copy of the page?
Sure but it’s 19 pages in word. I’ll send it in a msg.
oh dang. ok. if you email it, i’ll put it in a pdf and upload it to the blog (unless you want to put it in a pdf
)
Don’t know how.
No problem. It will only take me a second.
I think I provided a bad link. This one works, and the thread shows:
http://www.drugs.com/forum/need-talk/i-am-done-57686.html
I had found this because I was too lazy to type Baldwin Research Institutes url, and I started typing there name into google, and “Baldwin Research INstitute Scientology” automatically came up. It looks like the source that several of the results point back to is an anti-scientology website called “Why We Protest” http://forums.whyweprotest.net/threads/baldwin-research-institute-a-scientology-fraud.29387/
FTG “Steven, I had also heard that St. Jude was connected to Narconon/Scientology… I wonder if they should make that clear on their website.”
That might be a good idea. But the reason this rumor floats around is because they quoted narconon research in a paper they wrote 15 years ago, when narconon was effectively the only other non-12-step program in existence in the US (with their own research). I can’t help to think that any further mention of narconon would fuel the fire, judging by the interpretation over at “whyweprotest”, and it would also probably result in more search engine connections to narconon too.
Oh, also, I had signed my post at drugs.com as “Steven Slate – Author – The Clean Slate Addiction Site”. And I didn’t put a link, because it was my first post over there, and I didn’t want to seem like a spammer. Now they’ve edited my post to remove the name of my site!
Steven Slate says
Not that I had to ask, but I did, and I just got it from the horse’s mouth – they have never had any sort of referral agreement with Narconon – never. And they have never referred a single person to Narconon.
These are people with whom I have deep personal ties, so I have no reason to expect them to lie to me about this.
diablo,
No Steven, the other way around. Narconon was referring people to your program. I can not get the link right now and btw way did a women by the name of W. email you here or there?
@Steven Slate – beware of the evil AA manipulators. They a sociopaths who have found a path to ply their trade through belonging to AA. They will use any tricks possible to manipulate you and will ALWAYS ask for personal information to use against you.
No email from a W. What I was told was that at times, people said they were referred by phone operators at narconon facilities that had no open beds – but this was not something solicited by St Judes in any way, and there was no kind of agreement for them to do so – it was something they took upon themselves. It would be like me referring people to the Sobells program at NOVA – I have no connection to the Sobells and no agreement with them, but I’ve read tons and tons of their work, and judged their program to be a viable alternative to conventional outpatient treatment.
@Steven Slate — He never seems to have a link to back up what he says. All he does is run around here, yapping and nipping at everybody’s heels like a chihuahua. Pay no attention to him.
@Steven if we could get these two dimwits to shut up long enough we could possibly have a decent conversation.
What I have been trying to say is I had heard Narconon had referred people to your facility (ST.Judes). In regards to my statement, “is this a bad thing” just that. Is it a bad thing that Narconon refer people to St.Judes.
Steve, W. will not be emailing she would rather just not get involved at this time. This whole conversation we tried to have here got to stupid (with interference) for her.
Another time.
You folks are doing great work there keep it up. All future correspondence will be done by email if that is cool with you.
JR, grow up and do your push ups in some other playground. Yeah, I notice you….OK.
Troll somebody else.
Question? If the devil speaks and no one hears it, does he really make a noise? Does the devil try and manipulate the people who are in desperate and in need of help.
A rose by any other name………………………. it doesn’t matter if it is in Spanish, French, German or Lithuanian…………….tag your it……………….
Here is a link to information about St. Jude Executive Retreat by the Baldwin Research Institute that clearly endorses NARCONON. The article also suggests that, ” psychological based treatment is ineffective in the treatment of alcohol and other drug problems.”
http://www.saintjudecountryretreat.com/addiction-treatment-22.php
My opinion is that these organizations are definitely affiliated with each other.
@diablo
No offense, but I don’t know whether to trust you – you said that they had “a referral agreement”, and that you would provide a link. Now, you’ve reworked that claim while acting like you just didn’t make yourself clear in the first place about it – when your words are crystal clear a few posts back for anyone to see. Heck, I don’t even have to go back a page to see that you’re backtracking, I just need to scroll up a bit. If there is a link, feel free to post it here – otherwise, there is nothing to discuss.
@steve, the guy has a problem with facts, it’s becoming well known.
Diablo,
Who do you think you are? Seriously. It’s an open thread. Do you REALLY think you’re that smart? Sorry. But you’re not. I am not interested in taking my time to go through your comments to see if you’re in AA, and to see the germ of your effing lame rantings. But, really, “go do pushups in another playground” as well as referring to people who have come to this blog for awhile, often to get support, “stupid” is pretty much jackass behavior. But you know what they they say about arguing over the Internet, right? You must know…
It’s interesting, I havd a light dawns on marble head mooment last night. I was in AA more for an addictoin to narcotics. REally, i was never a fan of drinking with other drinkers. Mostly, becasue I never truly liked other drinker. thus, why would I have ever expected to like the AA population. Some of your comments, Diablo,, are reminding me of this. Maybe you’re not even in AA though… Really, WHO. CARES?
Sorry Steve but the link G2K provided casts a shadow over your assertion that there is no connection between Narconon and St Judes. The 2 organisations seemed more closely affiliated than the innocent referencing of a solitary narconon study would suggest.
@Gunthar “My opinion is that these organizations are definitely affiliated with each other.”
Hi Gunthar, I’ve read many of your comments on here, and have come to respect your opinions, and hold you in high regard – which is why it pains me that you have this impression of St Judes. I can see how this statement on it’s own, gives you pause (if not downright contempt!): ”psychological based treatment is ineffective in the treatment of alcohol and other drug problems.”.
Now I have to say that I don’t think the paper this is from, “Treatment Doesn’t Work”, is the best paper around. It is long (takes up 27 pages on their site), it is rambling, and takes on too many issues. However, I understand the conditions under which it was written, that is, I know the background of what these guys were going through when they were developing their program and fighting for survival. When they say “psychological based treatment” they are referencing the wider world of treatment, and the dynamics therein. The status quo at the time (mid to late 90′s – and essentially it hasn’t changed too much since), was that you were told that you needed treatment, and that without this “medical” help, you would be unable to deal with addiction. Your savior would be a counselor who used a model of therapy or counseling based on the 12-steps. The very setup of walking into a place filled with authority figures that traditionally “fix people” transferred the responsibility for change (and indeed the locus of control) away from yourself, and into the hands of treatment center staff (who then transferred responsibility to god! But that’s another issue). What they were against, is making the “addict” feel like an outside force would fix them – especially when in reality, that outside force had no effective way to fix them. To contrast this, their approach to the addict was not “we’re better at fixing addicts than those other guys, sit back and be cured” – it was “you can fix yourself, you are already capable of doing so, and we will show you how”. Also, having started out as devout AA members (but rejecting the disease and powerlessness concepts) believing in some core principles of the 12-steps, they thought the social aspects of going through this with others was important. Thus they offered what they called a “social/educational” approach, which they felt was drastically different than the “psychological methods” involved in treatment – where the addict was dependent on doctors, therapists, psychiatrists, and counselors to fix them/be the agents of change.
Now, their curriculum has constantly evolved, and at one time you might have summed it up as being the 12-steps rebranded, whilst lacking the disease and powerlessness concepts – and today it is wholly it’s own thing with barely a trace of anything that resembles the 12 steps. But obviously, principles of psychology have been involved all along, and they respect those principles – it is the methods of “psychological treatments” which are regularly employed in the addiction treatment world that they disdain. But I know them, and I know that they hold high regard for some psychological approaches – within that same paper, they also quote some of Miller’s work on Brief Intervention and Motivational Interviewing, and they have shown me that they look favorably upon these approaches. I have no doubt that if they chose to offer a “treatment” program today, they would probably use Miller’s methods, and they would probably use CBT/REBT, or do something in line with the views of Martin Seligman, William Glasser, or Jeffrey Schwartz – but they are not choosing to offer treatment, because psychologically, they don’t want their clients to feel as if their problem is something which takes doctors to fix, they don’t want to pass along any sort of psychological dependence on “treatment” to their clients. They want them to know from the moment they walk in the door “we’re not going to fix you, we have no doctors here, we’re going to teach you, and you’re going to fix you”. It is by design, that they have no medical staff, because traditionally, those people do something to you to achieve results which would be impossible without treatment – and being in a “treatment” environment implies such a framework even when it doesn’t explicitly state it. St Judes believes there is no disease to be treated, there is only beliefs, thought patterns, and values to be considered, and new patterns of choices to be embarked upon.
In their quest to justify an educational approach, they quoted research from Narconon, which clearly was a mistake at this point. As they moved from getting clients by word of mouth in the 90′s to having a strong web presence in the 2000′s, they started to receive many clients who had been to Narconon, and the stories these people told made us all aware of the horrors of that program. And personally, comparing those stories to what we were doing, there was never any doubt in my mind that the work I had done at St Judes was drastically different from Narconon – which is why I was shocked to find out a few days ago that there were people on the web not only comparing us to Narconon, but claiming that we were somehow affiliated with them. When I first was in the St Jude program, my good friend Bobby McLaughlin (the subject of HBO’s “Guilty Until Proven Innocent”) who went through it with me, told me all about his narconon experience – sitting in a chair for hours on end while a counselor screamed insults at him until he wouldn’t react or be affected by it, drinking oils, and spending countless days in saunas (even eating meals in the sauna!)- both as a client, and eventual director of the program, it never occurred to me that I was involved in anything like the Narconon program.
I know why they cited Narconon – because it was the only other non-12-step approach employed in a residential setting at the time (when the paper was published in 1998), and it was billed as “educational”. It wasn’t because they wanted to emulate them, or because they themselves were closet scientologists – they wanted to challenge the current paradigm, and justify moving beyond it themselves by saying “we’re not the only ones”. I feel that St Judes should either edit “Treatment Doesn’t Work” to remove any references to Narconon, or take it down from their site. But I also know something about those conspiracy theorists who are set on branding St Judes as Scientologists – that they would simply site such an edit or removal as further evidence of ties to Scientology, and characterize it as an even darker hidden connection. The words on that whyweprotest thread convince me of that – they say something like “Look at how they put a disclaimer in true scilon fashion before they suck L Ron’s cock” – in reference to a legitimate disclaimer within the paper that says something like “this is not an endorsement of narconon or scientology”. These people would continue to reprint it, and they would quote and distort it even further out of context, leading to a larger trail of a web-based mythology. So it’s probably best that it just stays up on their site, where people who really want to know, can read the whole thing for themselves.
But more importantly, anyone who is interested in St Judes, but has been concerned by the claims that it’s Narconon, can investigate what goes on at Narconon and then call St Judes to ask what goes on there – and then compare these two things, and realize that they are drastically different.
As my own disclaimer – I do not speak for St Judes or BRI in any official way. I am a former employee and client of theirs – I speak as someone who knows their program from the inside, taught their program, believe strongly in it’s effectiveness and their mission – and who is personally outraged that people may be deterred from the help they can get there by these vicious rumors. I am not a Scientologist, nor have I ever been – I haven’t even read dianetics! I am not “anti-psychiatry” or “anti-medication”. I am anti-conventional addiction treatment, and anti-12-step. I am pro-using-medical-treatments-where-properly-indicated-and-effective.
-Steven Slate
@Steven Slate…
Thank you for your comprehensive evaluation of St. Judes.
I’m not a conspiracy theorist… My own experience tells me that people who are seeking treatment for alcoholism need to be wary of those who would use double-talk and outright lies in order to recruit new members for various religious cults. Because of this I would caution anyone against involving themselves with any organization that endorses either AA or NARCONON in any way.
The argument as to whether or not alcoholism is a disease is irrelevant when considering whether or not someone should seek professional help or treatment. Every alcoholic is different… Some people need help from the medical establishment in order to recover or manage the underlying issues that may have led them to drink in the first place. Residential recovery programs that do not employ a medical staff are simply reckless and irresponsible institutions run by unqualified people who don’t know what they are doing.
@diablo diablo,
Here we go again with another member attacking incognito using sarcasm and invalidating remarks.
Jeesh I thought you did not like this behavior when it was done to you.
Seriously, you don’t know me. And very seriously, you need to stop. I did not use “incognito sarcasm and invalidating remarks.” That is your opinion. Feel free to express it. But don’t be surprised when I call you on it. Let’s see, so far you have called me greedy, tried to invalidate my experience on AA based on my brief time spent there and backpeddled when I called you on it. And then try to tell me about non prayer based meetings. And also questioned my belief that AA is a religious program.
I asked Petal questions based on the fact my time in AA was brief and I come in to contact with so few steppers. I am trying to learn. Of couse I will give my point of view when I ask a question so they will know where my question is coming from. I do not have the luxury of speaking directly to people I question. I depend on a message board. Just as you do. Do not read in to what I am asking nor the way I do it. Again, you do not know me and truly do not know what my motives are. Do us both a favor and do not assume. Thanks in advance.
@petal – Maybe the west coast AA scene is ok. I bet there are some bible-belt area (we have that in BC, too) meetings that would totally not work for the people I know. I dunno.
Thanks for letting me on here. I hope I have not offended anyone.
Be well.
No. Your post explains a lot. Especially about help being free for addicts in your country. It is free in the United States but you have to prove you are destitute and most likely they will send you to a twelve step based after care treatment. That goes on to include a twelve step based after treatment because they have had twenty-eight days to fertilize your mind with bullshit in order to prepare it for even more bullshit.
AA is considered real deal therapy in the United States. A lot of people (such as myself) went there thinking it was a support group only to find out it is something completely different. It is not real deal therapy either. There are no licensed mental help professionals there in the capacity of therapist. Nope. It is a lot of unqualified people speculating on how to give advice to others they have no business giving advice to. Also, odds are if you do seek real deal therapy, your therapist will be all about the twelve steps because it worked for them so it should work for you too. Or because they don’t know any better.
Thank you for coming back and taking your time to post to answer some of my questions in a positive light.
@Gunthar – I’m sorry if I worded something to imply that I think you are a conspiracy theorist – to be clear, I meant no such thing, and was referring to some of those who populate that “whyweprotest” forum, and the general type.
@Steven Slate…
I’ve read a bit of what you’ve written on your site. While it’s not exactly pithy, I agree with most of what you have to say… In fact I think it’s brilliant… the same goes for Baldwin.
We just happen to disagree on a few key points.
If anyone remembers the site ‘exposeaa’, I would like to read the essay about ‘What science means to me in my daily life’, or something to that effect. Also, a piece where someone questionned why, if this ‘program’ works, there are not millions of happy long term steppers clogging the place up?’, or words to that effect.
AA/TWELVE STEP expansion into India:
I do not know where I read about AA’s plans for expansion into India. If anyone else has read about this, would they please supply a link? I am thinking about how hard it is to remove someone from a cult. There is a thread in the community pages about a potential shortlist of what potential recruits should be aware of ‘BEFORE they go to AA’. I don’t know a great deal about REAL help for alcohol problems, but I wonder what you all think.
(eddy posted this: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/health/Helping-others-helps-alcoholics-stay-sober/articleshow/7384428.cms
)
Thanks.
Further to the query about the piece on exposeaa called something like ‘What reason/science means to me in my daily life, does anyone know how hard it is to get a drug appoved? It is a glacial process. In the UK at least. And it is the side effects that stymie the drug. (Obviously I am thinking about the ‘side effects’ of AA, which are unrecorded). I don’t think that aspirin would get a license today because of the strictness about side effects. And if one is trying to get a new drug thru trial, one finds that the burden of proof is very much on one, not on detractors to prove my drug is wrong.
Steven Slate says
@diablo
No offense, but I don’t know whether to trust you – you said that they had “a referral agreement”, and that you would provide a link. Now, you’ve reworked that claim while acting like you just didn’t make yourself clear in the first place about it – when your words are crystal clear a few posts back for anyone to see. Heck, I don’t even have to go back a page to see that you’re backtracking, I just need to scroll up a bit. If there is a link, feel free to post it here – otherwise, there is nothing to discuss.
diablo,
Listen you can saddle up with your cronies here and interpret my previous posts anyway you like. I don’t give a shit. What I said from the beginning is this, I had heard Narcanon was referring AA people to St. Jude and there was a woman that was going to confirm this statement. She saw what was written here and decided to say forget it. It wasn’t worth the trouble.
In the big picture this whole conversation mean nothing anyway. So please have your opinions about me and shove them up your ass. I am tired of taking stupid shit around here. If you did not understand my post act like a man and Private message me with your complaints, don’t embarrass me out in public, that is just plain being a asshole.
Violet,
read through your post. I got nada.
Sorry.
Diabloooooooo, half truths availed us nothing
Steven,
But more importantly, anyone who is interested in St Judes, but has been concerned by the claims that it’s Narconon, can investigate what goes on at Narconon and then call St Judes to ask what goes on there – and then compare these two things, and realize that they are drastically different.
diablo,
I am from a web site (Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora) I am sure you are familiar with, W. was from this site.
If I may express a opinion on the above comments. Asking Narcanon or St.Judes employees about how successful their program works is not very prudent I would think. I would think bias would play a role.
Do ex-clients have a facebook site up and running, are their blogs or sites that clients have created concerning St’Judes and their treatment methods. Positive and negative, I’m sure not everyone had a great experience.
Thanks
Oh, so now like the case of the no-prayer aa meetings you go from stating something as the truth then backpedaling and telling us to go off and do our own research. Are you the reincarnation of bill w?
HH,
Seriously, you don’t know me. And very seriously, you need to stop. I did not use “incognito sarcasm and invalidating remarks.” That is your opinion. Feel free to express it. But don’t be surprised when I call you on it. Let’s see, so far you have called me greedy, tried to invalidate my experience on AA based on my brief time spent there and backpeddled when I called you on it. And then try to tell me about non prayer based meetings. And also questioned my belief that AA is a religious program.
diablo
I don’t have to know you, to comprehend a post you write. Sorry you have a problem with my comments concerning your posts.
HH, I have not back petal on anything I written here, you have me confused.
Mike,
the more you write the more you leave no doubt. Your a fool and I don’t suffer fools patiently.
Go dance for your buddies and stop bothering me.
fool or not, I’m having an easy time seeing through your charade. I suppose every site needs its trolls. Oh well.
No Mike your not seeing a charade, what your seeing is a self projection of your own narcissistic attitude playing itself out once again all over someone else. This is your MO as I have seen with others that came here. Nice try though. I am not a punk and will not get pushed or bullied by you.
Your a fool who gets his rocks off tormenting others.
@diablo, I resort to mocking when I feel a person is not being honest about their motives. I see you as such a person. I have to question why you’re really here in the first place. Anyone with a moderate level of reading comprehension and basic logic can quickly see how disingenuous your posts and train of thought are. As another poster wrote yesterday it’s almost like multiple people are sharing your handle. Either that or you are one of the most bi-polar people I have ever encountered.
BTW, it’s cute the way you answer reasoned responses to your posts with phrases like “not smellin’ what you’re cooking”, “got nada out of your post”, etc. You know exactly what we are saying. A third grader could understand the substance of most posts here. Cut the BS and kindly go haunt some other site.
Mike,
Why is it that you can not see yourself in any of this. If a third grader can comprehend then this should be a walk in the park for you.
I’ll try in help.
I am on the fence basically concerning AA, I don’t have a problem with the literature as written and what I believe it meant. What I do have a problem with is the people in AA (majority) and the influence of treatment centers.
Being bi-polar/schizophrenic why not. I have been everything else, I’ll try this on. Actually it wouldn’t be so bad on some days to slip into another personality.
Thing you need to remember is, since I am on the fence on certain hot topic issues here, the feedback I get is multiple. Little different then you. So when it is sarcastic and name calling x 6 I get a little offended.
When I say I got “nada” I mean I got nothing. Some posters here are responding with emotional rants. I don’t care to read most of them.
Last but not least pal, you have questioned my integrity (due to your confusion) to many times. I no longer am interested in hearing about your concerns anymore.
fair enough, diablo. I’ll try to neither read nor respond to any of your future posts. Good luck finding your niche on this forum, I think you’ll need it.
How about parity, equal standing. Do we have to fight over who is going to get the remote.
@diablo diablo
I don’t have to know you, to comprehend a post you write. Sorry you have a problem with my comments concerning your posts.
HH, I have not back petal on anything I written here, you have me confused.
Yes, you back pedal all of the time. You speak out of both sides of your mouth with a forked tongue.
Really, a false apology to me is almost as bad as someone who is trying to sell me a shiny new false religion while telling me that is not what they are doing. No need to apologize. You keep right on posting your erroneous personal judgments here. Don’t be surprised when people get tired of it and you receive no response at all.
You are right. I probably have you confused with all those thumpers I met within the program who privately denied their level of involvement but still pushed the agenda of AA in public. Part of the reason I decided not continue the AA religion was based on people just like that and the ones I obviously have you confused with.
You said you would be in Okalahoma for two years. Two years is long enough to start your own AA meeting and run it the way you see fit since there is no accountability to anyone and each “chapter” is autonomous. Do it up old school. Refuse court ordered people and all those folks from rehab. Shit, you can call it “Old Timers Only” or the “10 Year and Up Club…” or the “Let’s All Get Together and Lament About the Way It Used to Be.”
What is your purpose here? My purpose is to at least get one person to see AA for what it really is. To alert the the possible newcomer to the dangers of AA and to let them know it is not the simple little support group it represents itself to be.
diablo,
I haven’t been reading all your comments or these discussions very closely (I just can’t follow the arguments lately), but by now I’ve gotten the gist. I wonder if you were aware that you’re not alone in your quest. There are plenty of By the Big Book types — AA purists, or “back to basics” people out there. I was reading on Friends of Bill (I can’t find the post now) about how these guys are organizing and sweeping through AA groups and recruiting their newcomers.
Danny S is a 100% by the Book guy, and holds no truck with conventional AA, treatment centers, etc. Have you visited his blog? There’s a link at the bottom of the sidebar. You might like his perspective.
I find that we have common ground with the Big Book guys in that we all want to see AA occupy a more appropriate niche.
ftg, isn’t it like the orthodox jews supporting the plo?
Recently, the biggest conservative Libertarian icon and the most well-known liberal Green Party consumer rights activist got together on a common cause: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/8288-ron-paul-and-ralph-nader.html
But, certain of the big book guys seem to really start spitting nails when you suggest that there might be common ground. Makes me wonder whether they really believe what they say they believe.
ftg, that’s what I was talking about. thanks. I support hardcore aa. Keep the non ‘alcoholics’ out. Keep it pure.
I can get behind that. Some people want to be God’s chosen and some people want to be “real alcoholics” — that’s fine with me. Just keep it out of public policy.
I still wouldn’t ally with BTB types. I understand the enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend thing, but there’s a price to pay down the road for giving such people a feeling of legitimacy. Religious fanaticism is the next (maybe current) major crisis facing the USA IMHO, and we don’t need the ‘real alcoholics’ joining the fray.
Diablo, You may want to try this website to be with fellow hardcores:
http://mcgowdog.blogspot.com/
Rotten Ralph or Ralph Rotten is over there. They may be more to your taste. They also believe in the sanctity of early AA mythology-er-history.
Eddie Izzard (British comedian) did a sketch along these lines. Some people are so profoundly uncool that they are cool. The really cool people and the really really really uncool people have some sort of meeting. How can I support hardcore AA? Get rid of the non-alcoholics, leave it pure.
I have never met a 100% by the Big Book person – Danny S included. Those self-appointed protectors-of-the-faith pick and choose with the same bias as any Orangeophile. Some will swear by the first 164pp but dismiss the stories. “Back to Basics” groups as a rule won’t even look at “To the Employers.”
A “return tn the origins” movement is typical of any “spiritual” community that has lost its way – and 70 – 100 years out was when both Buddhists and Christians both thought, “Hey, maybe we should write some of this stuff down before we forget what it means.”
AA was constructed to be amorphous, unorganized, and constantly evolving out of any limiting definitions. It will survive and outlast treatment centers, sites like this, and its own myopic stupidity. But in what form? Your guess is almost as good as mine.
Well said, Mr. AA.
Guys I am very comfortable right here. In time as we plow through diablo this and diablo that, my existence for being here will have proved itself. I do belong here I read the preamble and enough of ftg comments to know this is true.
My only difference is the literature and how I interpret the message the first 100 including Bill and Bob wrote.
What I will try very hard not to do is respond to insults and engage in stupid arguments.
I have noticed one thing here more then others the dogma. Ftg says something (expresses a opinion) and out come the so called minions saying the exact same thing. Guys this is scary. I mean shit can’t you at least put a different slant on the opinion.
I do not follow, short step or go all in on anything. I am very leery about any organization including AA. You folks are a bit over the top.
I am not a Big Book thump-er, a big ra ra guy never sponsored many people. Had a family and a business that took most of my time. My wife has never been involved in AA or Alanon, she came once for my first year chip (btw the only chip I ever picked up). I never brought my family around AA. I found them to be very intrusive and out of step with boundaries. Unsolicited advice is common and making over-dramatic comments is another.
Hey y’all, stop trying to figure me out. I am not your science project. Go about your business, I will do the same. Try to judge me by my content not by your ill conceived assumptions.
friendthegirl says
I can get behind that. Some people want to be God’s chosen and some people want to be “real alcoholics” — that’s fine with me. Just keep it out of public policy.
Diablo says,
interesting statement.
No body wants to be a real alcoholic, at least this has been my experience. It is what it is.
Making this public policy can border on arrogance if you were to ask me.
Mike: I just don’t get why they’d rather obsess on our insignificant, fringe group rather than turn their attention to their “own side of the street”. If they think we’re killing alcoholics, then MOTR AA must be slaughtering them en masse. You’d THINK they’d be doing the same thing we’re doing. I don’t want to get in bed with anyone — I just don’t understand the fixation with us when some of our goals are so similar. If AA were exactly what they want it to be, we’d have no blog.
Ben: I heard poor Ralph was over there claiming he’d been banned from ST. In case anyone’s wondering, he wasn’t banned — and isn’t banned. After MA banned TJ, he put the words “Tony J” on the blacklist — sort of like putting “penis enlargement” on the blacklist, so that any comments with those words will end up in the spam file. A couple of Ralph’s comments went into the spam file that day because he used TJ’s name, and I fished them out and approved them — nasty as they were. Maybe he got the idea that he was banned when his comments didn’t appear right away. I guess he’s connected with his tribe over it, so all’s well that ends well.
HH says,
What is your purpose here? My purpose is to at least get one person to see AA for what it really is. To alert the the possible newcomer to the dangers of AA and to let them know it is not the simple little support group it represents itself to be.
diablo says,
well this is noble and I mean that. Just leave your personal emotions which tend to blind your “purpose”, out of it.
HH, if you don’t respond to me that will be fine. If nobody responded to me that would be fine. I have plenty of friends I’ll survive.
I feel as though I am talking to myself here. Why is the burden of proof on the people who oppose this cult and its hold over policy? I am not really anti-aa as much as anti-bizarre rubbish. Surely anyone spouting bizarre rubbish should be justifying what they are doing.
Not me justifying why I am against bizarre rubbish in all forms.
Mr. AA, That’s interesting. I suppose I have absolutely no idea if I’ve ever met a 100% by the book AA because I’ve never felt inclined to question them about that. I just take them at their word. What I have found incredibly weird about those Big Book guys, though, is how vehemently they defend mainstream AA against us. You know, if AA were what they say it is, then what do they give a damn what the statistics say? You’d think that would be irrelevant to them. And they want to insist that AA is not full of criminals and predators when we say it is, while at the same time, they rail against court-mandated AA.
Prim, I agree with you! When I talk to MA about this, he uses the term “special pleading.” It’s what makes debate impossible, because one side gets to claim all kinds of unprovable lunacy and call foul when they’re asked to defend it logically. This seems to be par for the course in a country which won’t take a presidential candidate seriously unless he’s a Christian.
I was thinking about that this morning, in terms of new age types, and it reminded me of this event: I went to a “fire walk” with a friend. This is where people get together and walk on hot coals. So, there was just no way I was going to participate in this, but I went to offer support. When it was over, all these people were lying around inside the cabin with their feet in the air, crying and screaming because every last one of them had burned the freak out of their feet. It was horrible! And I’m there with the facilitator of this thing (who, conveniently opted out of the fire walk) trying to get ice and aloe to these people.
What happened is that this facilitator had built the fire on the side of a hill, and had everyone start their fire walk from the bottom of the hill and run up! However, when she surveyed the mess she’d made, she stalked over to me and said, “This is your fault, you know. Because you wouldn’t participate, you brought bad energy to the whole event.” It’s a good thing she made everyone sign a waver, because I don’t know how far that defense would have taken her in court.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading
ftg says,
I haven’t been reading all your comments or these discussions very closely (I just can’t follow the arguments lately), but by now I’ve gotten the gist. I wonder if you were aware that you’re not alone in your quest. There are plenty of By the Big Book types — AA purists, or “back to basics” people out there. I was reading on Friends of Bill (I can’t find the post now) about how these guys are organizing and sweeping through AA groups and recruiting their newcomers.
diablo,
I would not say I am by the BB type. Like I totally lock step with the message. I am not a member of AA anymore nor choose to ever be again. Even if AA went back to only 100 members I would not be the 101st.
All I am saying is AA when written and presented to the small number of people became a simple unsophisticated roadmap for people struggling to stop drinking. Was this supposed to be the only way “I” don’t think so, is it scientific, No. Can it be improved, Why?? Don’t like it don’t do it.
Form your own brand of program to help people with drug problems.
I don’t like how AA is being used today, it is a reward and punishment model. This is bs.
I always enjoyed the smaller meeting that focused on just talking, getting stuff off your chest, Trying to find simple answers to help myself.
My impression of AA, is that if you are not a Hardcore Alcoholic, you are shunned until you become one. To become accepted, you are first probed by the advanced guard, the elite Big Book Thumpers who have been thoroughly trained in the 12 Steps. Their job is to make sure that you are a Hardcore Alcoholic or you shunned by the group.
Thumpers use advanced tactics to find out information about you, and then use it to convince you that you have an incurable disease. If they can not find enough information out about your past to convince you that you have this disease, they subtly suggest that you are a YET…. and shun you for not being an Alcoholic. To become a member of the group they have planted the seed that you will eventually relapse and become one of them. They sit back and wait for you to become Hardcore.
I realize that there are many true tragic stories in AA, but….. I have to wonder how many stories are embellished by a new comer, to gain acceptance into the elite groups of AA? To become one of the elite, you must give your soul to the group and they gladly accept it. Once you become a full fledged member, you start to hear everyone’s story and it becomes the norm. Relapse is considered inevitable, and now becomes one of the societal norms that you deeply believe will happen to you.
The Thumpers sit back quietly, and wait for a relapse to happen. When it does they use this to prove their wisdom by telling everyone in the groups about how another person has failed. How many times do you hear in the rooms that someone has left an not had any problems? I am sure it happens, but you very rarely hear about it. You won’t hear about it because it does not put another notch in the gun handle (or bedpost if they are a 13th stepper). Thumpers gain immense power the more notches they have, and try at any chance they can to gain another one. If you do not believe me, go to a meeting and watch a Thumper talk about someone who has relapsed. Chances are they will have a big smile on their face because they have just added another notch, and are becoming more and more powerful in the AA Cult.
Thanks for the reply, ftg.
And why, in 75 years, do we only have 3 comparative studies of the effectiveness of this wonderful self-help fellowship?
i have heard many fire walk stories like this one. the only successful fire walk i have ever seen happen when pam did it on the office and was able to tell jim she still liked him. seriously though, WHY would anyone want to walk a fire any way?
question–off topic–ST. JUDES… i got there b/c there has been discussions about this retreat and one of their workers (right?) comments here and also has a smart blog. (clean slate) he has an open fb page, i think. anyway… i worry it is a scam? but clean slate does seem real, cool, and smart (other than i think maybe supporting the tea party, um yikes, right?)
thoughts?
they have research that i agree with on the site, but then, the researchers seem to work for st. judes. so confust!
ftg says,
And they want to insist that AA is not full of criminals and predators when we say it is, while at the same time, they rail against court-mandated AA.
diablo says,
who has ever said that. They have always been there since day one (criminals/felons). I thought this would be a no brainer. Most crimes that are committed usually happen while under the influence. This includes sexual crimes just check your colleges.
I don’t like court ordered people being forced into AA because it is not right. Not so much for AA but for the individual and their rights.
Jesus Christ diablo!
Would you just fuckin’ go away?
Gunthar,
Now you know how I feel about you.
“when i say nada it means i got nothing.” really? thank you for letting us know. i was really confust before. emotional rant to complete clarity.