Many of the stories about Mike Q.'s "Midtown Group" of Alcoholics Anonymous have disappeared from the Internet. Here are archived copies of some of the stories.

Where it says something like, "This message was sent by a concerned friend", that means that someone sent a story to the FOM (Fall Of Midtown) blog.

Thursday, July 05, 2007 We thought this was interesting blog - What do you think? Repost from Journey to Self Improvement on May 17  (http://timetoupgrade.blogspot.com/2007/05/midtown-is-cult.html) midtown is a cult My lead went over well enough. I was nervous and didn't speak for more than ten minutes, but I pretty much just shared my story and spoke briefly about tolerance. I was grateful the meeting was small. There were a little less than ten women present. They were all very nice and I even got a few laughs out of my story. Shocking. I rolled up to another meeting afterwards. It was fairly large and half the crowd was young people. I tried to dip out as soon as the meeting was over, but my friend wanted me to speak with a girl from the program. She was concerned about my plan to attend a Midtown meeting tonight. I assured her I was just going to go to see what all the fuss was about and kind of make fun of them. I had no intention of getting sucked in. I'm not that vulnerable... I think. I had been curious about the Midtown meetings ever since Washowillie brought the scandal to my attention. I got my hands on the Newsweek article and was immediately intrigued. I wanted to go to a meeting. I had to see this first hand. Were they really a batshit insane cult or was this all blown out of proportion? Also, I thought it would be fun to make fun of a few crazy brainwashed people and provide an entertaining blog post. Much to my dismay, despite a few long minutes searching the internet, I couldn't find a listing of the meetings. At a meeting last Saturday, I introduced myself to a young man I had seen a few times before. We shared small talk over cigarettes and he mentioned he attended Midtown meetings. My ears perked up and my eyes lit up. I berated him with questions. "Oh my god where are they!?" "What's it like?" "Are they really brainwashed?" "Can I get your number? Can you call me next time you go?!" He wasn't scared off by my enthusiasm, thank god. We exchanged numbers and I contacted him yesterday afternoon and made plans to go up there tonight. Needless to say, I wasn't too happy last night when my friend had told everyone I was going up to Midtown. I was introduced to a young woman whose first words out of her mouth post-introduction were: "You're not going to the Midtown meeting, by the way." Um... yes I am. "Why not?" "They're all fucking crazy, man. It's a cult. Everything you read in Newsweek is true. You can't just go up there alone. You're a young girl. They'll swarm you the second you walk in." My interest was peaked. Now I really, really wanted to go. She told me she had gone to Midtown meetings when she first got out of rehab and the people there were extremely close and clingy. She gave her number to one girl, who proceeded to call her six times a day. She had to tell her mom to tell the Midtown girl she killed herself to get her to leave her alone. She said they're all lame and they laugh too loudly in unison at unfunny jokes. They likened them to Stepford wives. I told her I didn't plan on giving my number out to anyone, I just wanted to make fun of them. She understood and offered to take me there one day herself. She said the only way you can get out safe is to go in a group. She'd tell them to fuck off if they tried to swarm me. A few other people came over and shared what they knew about Midtown. This one guy first started out at Midtown meetings. "Do not go to Midtown," he said. "Everything in the Newsweek article is true." He told me they assign you a sponsor the moment you walk through the door. They all get your numbers and call you constantly. They don't let you go to any other meetings besides Midtown. "Then... they tell you who to fuck. They may not come straight out and say 'fuck this guy right here', but they'll pressure you into seeing him." "And it could be some 40 or 50 year old guy that thinks you're cute. They'll try to assign him as your sponsor," The girl interjected. I was horrified. The guy continued, saying they start to make you all dress the same. "No!" I said. "I can't believe that. That's too much." "It's true" Apparently all the girls dress very preppy and have long, straight hair. The guys all wear a nice button down shirt and pants. The image of the guy from the Saturday meeting entered my mind. He always wore a button down shirt, tie and nice pants. Oh my lord. Another girl said they all work together at this Nordstrom's in Maryland and they usually pressure you to quit your job to work with them. Apparently a lot of them live together as well. The original girl told me she was convinced the 3 big heads of the meeting pocket a lot of the money. They all drive fancy cars, live in big houses and take multiple vacations to Costa Rica or someplace like that. She was surprised that didn't get mentioned in the Newsweek article. I was beginning to see that my plan to attend a Midtown meeting with a Midtowner was not such a great/safe idea. I still want to go to one, but I'm going to take that girl up on her offer to go with me sometime. Roll up deep. I don't want any of their crazy cultiness to rub off on me. And that, my friends, is the VA gossip on Midtown. I hope to do a future post with some first hand observations. Now how am I going to back out of the plans I made with Mr. Midtown tonight? Comments: Across The River said... Interesting. I read the Newsweek article when it first came out and also wondered whether it was all blown out of proportion. Seems like you have "straight from the horses mouth" evidence that it wasn't. May 17, 2007 12:44:00 PM EDT   ??????? said... Tell him you're shopping for a happy hour tomorrow so you can look hot and have lots of drunken hookups. May 17, 2007 2:45:00 PM EDT   KristXX said... I almost wish you'd go just so we'd get the stories, but I'm not crazy enough to actually wish that on anyone. You're busy with Scientology? You're awaiting the return of Hale-Bopp? You cannot afford to take on another cult? May 17, 2007 4:11:00 PM EDT   Washoewillie said... It's already late in the evening there, it is three hours earlier here on the left coast. I sent you an email a couple of days ago with the link to CH4 news there. Three stories have been broadcast on the CH4 news in the past two weeks about Midtown. Due to allegations like the ones you wrote about, they have been asked to leave three churches where they were holding meetings. This is totally unprecedented in AA. No AA group in the past has ever drawn this sort of controversy. I am appalled, but I am a bit jaded about AA, years ago any member was on a pedestal to me, but I have learned, like many have said, if a bank robber gets sober in AA, you have a sober bank robber. There are still untrustworthy people in AA even though they are sober. We didn't get sick overnight and we don't recover overnight. Check out the DC CH4 web site and read the stories about Midtown. I have yet to see a story in the Washington Post about them. Glad the meeting went well. Congratulations on your first lead.

Seeking Recovery, Finding Confusion AA Group Leads Members Away From Traditions By Marc Fisher Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, July 22, 2007; A01 When Kristen was 17 and drinking out of control, her psychologist referred her to an Alcoholics Anonymous group that specialized in helping the youngest drinkers. In the Midtown Group, members and outsiders agree, young people could find new friends, constant fellowship, daily meetings, summer-long beach parties, and a charismatic leader who would steer them through sobriety. But according to more than a dozen young people who structured their lives around the group, the unusual adaptation of AA that Michael Quinones created from his home in Bethesda became a confusing blend of comfort and crisis. They described a rigidly insular world of group homes and socializing, in which older men had sex with teenage girls, ties to family and friends were severed or strained, and the most vulnerable of alcoholics, some suffering from emotional problems, were encouraged to stop taking prescribed medications. Kristen, now 26, said that for eight years, she was "passed along" from one middle-aged male leader of Midtown to another. She said her sponsor urged her to have sex with Quinones — widely known as Mike Q. — as a way to solidify her sobriety and spiritual revival. Kristen, who spoke on the condition that her last name not be used in keeping with AA traditions, also recalled helping to persuade other teenage girls to sleep with older men in the group. "I pimped my sponsees out to sponsors," she said, referring to the AA members who agree to watch over a fellow member's sobriety. "I encouraged them to sleep with their sponsors because I really believed that this would help with their sobriety." Rianne McNair, who left Midtown in 2005 after three years in the group, said, "Several of my friends had sex with Mike Q. One of my friends went to the beach house, and her sponsor assigned her to Mike Q.'s bedroom. The younger girls looked up to these guys; Mike is idolized, like, 'I got invited to Mike Q.'s house for dinner tonight. Can you believe it?' " Midtown, also known as the Q Group after its leader, has expanded steadily to about 400 members since Quinones assumed leadership in the 1980s, but appears to be reaching a turning point. Quinones, a 63-year-old real estate agent who grew up in Baltimore and served in the Army in Vietnam, is fighting an advanced case of prostate cancer, according to group members, friends and relatives. He did not respond to repeated requests for comment. In response to questions raised by some parents, therapists and churches where Midtown held meetings, the group this spring issued a statement denying improper acts. "We cannot be all things to all people . . . " the statement said. "We do not condone underage sex. While we are not the arbiter of other people's sex conduct, underage sex is illegal and our experience shows that it can endanger your sobriety. "We cannot tell you what to do with regard to taking medications such as anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, etc. While we have no opinion of medication in general, based on our personal experience, many members of the Midtown Group do not sponsor people who take mood-altering medication." Outside Quinones's house, young Midtown members who often hang out around the front steps declined to talk to a reporter. A senior member of the group, who is close to Quinones and who spoke on condition he not be named because of AA's tradition of anonymity, said, "Anyone who has anything positive to say about the group is going to respect AA's policy of dignified silence in the media." Montgomery County police said they are looking into allegations of underage sexual relations. But they said the women who have come forward have told of relationships that took place when they were 16 or 17; Maryland law considers women 15 and younger to be underage. Many of the allegations were aired in Montgomery County District Court in a domestic relations civil suit involving a member of the group. "We interviewed 15 to 20 people, and they all said he's doing it. But it was all, 'It wasn't me,' " said Montgomery police Sgt. Ron Collins of the department's pedophile section. "Nobody's come forward with anything we could charge him with. The girls can be 16 or 17, and it's legal." Controlled by Leaders Over eight decades, Alcoholics Anonymous, a pioneer in the support-group model of treatment, has grown to attract about 2 million members in more than 100,000 groups. Despite a stellar reputation and worldwide brand, it has never been more than a set of bedrock traditions. It has no firm hierarchy, no official regulations, and exercises no oversight of individual groups. Disgruntled former Midtown members discovered this in recent months when they tried to get the central AA office in New York to condemn Midtown's tactics and departures from the traditions, including a highly unusual practice of assigning older men to sponsor young women. "The assumption since our founding was that groups that did not follow the traditions and concepts would fall away," said a staff member at AA's General Service Office, who spoke on condition of anonymity "because we are all alcoholics, and that is our policy." The main office does offer "strong suggestions" for how groups should operate, including how to pair each member with a sponsor who shares confidences and helps the member stay sober. AA recommends that "it's best if a man sponsors a man and a woman sponsors a woman, so that there are not outside distractions," the staffer said. In Midtown, Quinones and several friends, who are also longtime AA members, have taken on leadership roles that go well beyond the typical part played by organizers of meetings, according to local therapists, ministers and AA members. AA tradition suggests that "our leaders are but trusted servants," the New York staffer said. "They do not govern." Quinones and other senior members have not only run two dozen weekly meetings across the Washington region but also organized ski trips and summer beach parties, helped young members find jobs at stores such as Nordstrom and the old Hecht's, and encouraged young members to live together in group houses in Gaithersburg, Rockville and Bethesda, members and ex-members said. "It's like a prepackaged community," said David, 26, a former Midtown member who initially adored the group but now is highly critical of it. "You're thinking, okay, maybe I can stay sober for the rest of my life, but how do I have fun? I went to a different group, and it was 50-year-old men who went bowling on Tuesdays. That wasn't going to do it for me. At Midtown, everything is there for you. Here are your women, here are your dances every weekend, ski trip every March." But some former members describe the Midtown life as overwhelmingly controlling. McNair said she was pressured to pay $950 for a share in a three-bedroom summer house in which 20 Midtown members slept, most of them on air mattresses on the floor. Kristen described being pressed to pay $1,200 for a summer house share in which she slept on the floor. Some therapists who used to refer young people to Midtown and some pastors whose churches have hosted Midtown meetings say they have heard of too many disturbing practices to maintain a relationship with the group. Ellen Dye, a clinical psychologist in Rockville, said two of her clients "suffered significant harm as a result of their involvement with Mike Q. and his followers." One young woman said she was assigned a boyfriend and encouraged to go off her antidepressants and cut off contact with Dye, the psychologist said. Without her medication, the woman became acutely suicidal and was hospitalized, Dye said. When Midtown members learned that the woman was back on medication, she was ostracized and "was considered to have relapsed," Dye said. That young woman told The Washington Post that her sponsor in Midtown refused to continue as her adviser if the woman kept taking prescription medications. The sponsor also directed her to stop seeing a therapist " 'because you need one clear voice — your sponsor's,' " the woman said. "These are very needy people — they're young people who can be looking for a parent figure," Dye said. "Mike Q. plays that role. Midtown is doctrinaire and controlling. It's totally against the 'Big Book,' " the written traditions that guide AA groups. Now, Dye said, she warns clients and colleagues about Midtown and even has become reluctant to refer clients to any AA group. After hearing about sexual relationships inside Midtown, Clancy Imislund, managing director of Midnight Mission, a Los Angeles nonprofit group that serves the homeless, said he asked senior Midtown members about the allegations and found that "there probably have been some excesses, but they have helped more sober alcoholics in Washington than any other group by far." Imislund, who speaks frequently to AA groups across the country, said he concluded that if sexual relations between older men and young girls "ever did take place, it's not taking place now. It had been an issue, but wherever you have a lot of young, neurotic people, they're going to cling to each other." Although Imislund portrayed parents of young people in Midtown as "immensely grateful that this group has managed to get their children sober when no one else could," other parents said they were appalled to see the group draw children away from their families. Barred From Some Churches Cathy McCleskey became alarmed after hearing her daughter and other young people in Midtown talk about one practice after another that would not occur in most AA groups: They described being told by Midtown's leaders to stop taking medication prescribed by a psychiatrist, being permitted to visit family only in the company of other Midtown members and regularly cleaning Mike Q.'s house, mowing his lawn and doing his laundry. Her daughter had a male sponsor. "On one hand, she was sober for nine months, and I was so glad that I thought, whatever's happening with this group is fine by me," McCleskey said. "But then, after about a year in Midtown, I got a call that she was in a mental hospital." McCleskey said her daughter remained there for four weeks, depressed and suicidal. The daughter is now out of Midtown and faring well. McCleskey said she tried to get AA's local coordinating body to look into allegations against Midtown but was told that each group governs itself. Parents and former members, armed with a recent Newsweek article on the control Midtown exerts over young alcoholics, approached several area churches this summer to ask them to bar the group from meeting at their facilities. A meeting held on Sunday evenings for nearly two decades at the Church of the Pilgrims near Dupont Circle left the church this year after ex-Midtown members provided "detailed and credible allegations," said the Rev. Ashley Goff, director of Christian education at the church. Midtown leaders told pastors they were being criticized unfairly by "disgruntled people who couldn't keep their act together," Goff recalled. Even though some church members said Midtown had saved them from addiction, church leaders concluded that "this group crossed boundaries in very strong ways," Goff said. "Clearly, they were targeting young women who were in their first rehab program — the most vulnerable people." Informed that the church was "about to make a decision about asking them to leave," Goff said, "Midtown came to us and said, 'Oh, our group's gotten too big, and we're going to leave.' " Goff added: "Our fellowship hall is huge." At St. Mark Presbyterian Church in Rockville — the site of one of 20 or so weekly Midtown meetings across the region — the Rev. Roy W. Howard said that after Midtown leaders refused "to give me an explanation of the allegations against them, I decided to ask them not to meet" at the church anymore. St. Mark still provides facilities for six of the hundreds of Washington area AA groups not connected with Midtown. And at St. Patrick's Episcopal Church in Northwest Washington, the Rev. Elizabeth S. McWhorter told congregants in May that although the allegations against Midtown "would have been difficult to prove or disprove," the group "will not be returning to St. Patrick's." But at United Church of Christ in Bethesda, the Rev. Allison Smith said she concluded that "there was really no bite behind the charges," so "we've decided not to ask them to leave." After meeting with Midtown leaders, Smith said that "maybe there were some incidents of an older male taking advantage of a younger woman who was in recovery, and that's terrible. But was it a systemic policy? We really haven't found anything to back up those charges at the group that meets here." When Kristen left Midtown, she was utterly alone. "Everyone in my cellphone was Midtown," she said. "I was 24, and I knew literally nobody. I had cut off my ties with my family at the direction of my sponsor." "Eight years of my life was wasted," Kristen said.

August 22, 2007 - Wednesday   Today's blog comments on WP article Current mood: frustrated It was 1 month ago today the the Washington Post's front page article "Midtown Group: AA Group Leads Members Away from Traditions," by Marc Fisher, hit the news stands. We are posting the blog comments, still being posted today, about this controversy: DCC, I would like to commend you on the honest and forthright manner in which you have approached all of this. I mean it must have taken as much courage as one could muster to be able to come forward and stand up behind anonymous blogs, websites, reporters and journalists. It sure is easy to stand off stage and whisper lines to the actors isn't it? Hey, I got a question. Exactly how many members of the press that decided to report on this "controversy" have actually attended any of the meetings in question or have even picked up a big book? That doesn't really seem like informed journalism to you does it? I find it highly ludicrous that the author would openly admit to not even having attended the meeting in question on his blog. Now thats what I call making an informed and bias free opinion. Let gather all the facts and then decide. I had to laugh when I read one that myspace profile about the anxiety some "concerned friends" were begining to feel when they feared that if "townies" got kicked out of all of thier churches that they may storm other meetings. I especially got a kick out of some of the suggestions that were offered to help protect the "sanctity" of thier meetings. Some of the same actions that were suggested, are the very same actions that these concerned friends accused and berated midtown for in the first place. True? By the way, what ever happened to our friend May? Been going to a lot of other meetings in the area, and not against sponsor direction mind you, and haven't seen her in a while. Heard she went back out again. If that is true, I do feel bad. If it is true I hold those in contempt that would seemingly stand behind her and ever so gently push and prod her to come forwardand "tell her story" for the good of the cause. You want to preach to me from your moral and spiritiual pulpit about taking advantage of a newcomers? I'll pray for you tonight. I imagine it must be a miserable existence to wake up every day and hate on a group of people, most of which you don't even know. You wake up on a Tuesday mad. You go to work and are still mad. After work you grab some dinner and go to a meeting and conspire with all of your friends about the evils of Midtown and get even madder still. You hang out for a while, go home and go to bed mad. You wake up the next day and begin all over again. WOW (shaking my head). I identify, I really do. Sounds like me before I foud a higher power and a program of recovery. Posted by: | August 22, 2007 01:18 AM Dear Mr or Ms. ?, Sorry, I don't know your name or even a handle here so I address you as ? I am not, as you put it, standing "up behind anonymous blogs, websites, reporters and journalists". After the articles came out, I did a considerable amount of research on my own, relying on my network of member friends gathered over the twenty two years of my sobriety in our program in this area. I have talked to a number of members who have personal experience of the Midtown sexual predators. People I have known for many years, and trust completely, who had never mentioned these things happened to them until prompted by this controversy. If you want the details, you can read my posts above. What the Midtown "hierarchy" did to my friends is sickening. As far as your speculation about my life, you have a vivid imagination. You think I am in some sort of conspiracy? You think I spend my life thinking about you? Isn't there a term for the way you are? Oh, yeah, I remember. Are you what Midtown is like? If you and your ilk are what Midtown is like on a day to day basis that's frightening. I need no more information than the abusive posts -- generally removed by the Post censor, unfortunately -- from Midtown enforcers to conclude that the "cultlike" characterization of Midtown is spot on. However, if it will ease your mind any, I don't think about you at all. Nor do I hate you at all. What I do is check this blog each morning, and if I see something that catches my eye, I respond. I think it's important to keep this conversation going. I also think it's important to participate in AA-associated organizations which might have a say in our program in this area, and nationally. I haven't done that for years but have started again. Because, as the famous quote says, "All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing." I think you'll find this will not go away and that many, many others feel as I do. Posted by: DCC | August 22, 2007 07:11 AM Yawwwwnnnnnn. Someone sounds a little cranky first thing in the morning :0 Posted by: | August 22, 2007 10:04 AM So people who haven't been to midtown meetings don't know what they're talking about, and people who have been don't either (because they're clouded by resentment)? Boy, what a "misunderstood" group. I've been. And I have heard young women repeatedly and openly share about their male sponsors. And I've seen quite a few older men and younger women couples. So when allegations arise in the media that older men have been exploiting and taking advantage of younger women in the group, it's really not that much of a mental leap. Even if it isn't true, Midtown has ignored AA literature and AA oldtimers who have suggested that men sponsoring women is not a good idea. And this is precisely why. There is too much room for misunderstanding, allegations, and impropreity. But the group ignored that advice then, and continues to ignore it now. Further, they DEFEND it. Despite the negative attention that they've received and have brought upon AA as a whole. It's not in line with the principles of AA to behave in this way. There needs to be an inventory and amends. It's not that complicated. If Midtown isn't handling this situation in a way that upholds the principles of AA, how can anyone assume that they are upholding the principles anywhere else? Posted by: Jane D. | August 22, 2007 10:19 AM I think tthe point hat the blog before DCC last was trying to make was how could members of the media make informed opionions on the goings on of ANY group or meeting if they have not exposed themselves to what they are reporting about in the first place. That does not paint a picture of unbiasedness, does it? By the way, nobody ever did mention whatever happened to May......... Posted by: | August 22, 2007 10:28 AM DCC, It could just be me, but after reading the article initially, I was struck by the fact that these accusations are in the neighborhood of 5-9 years old? Did I get that right? I kinda agree w/ the guy above about the author not Fischer not ever having been to an AA meeting. If enough people came toghether and told this guy that the sky was pink, would he write about that as fact too? By the way, what ever did happen to May??? Posted by: | August 22, 2007 10:33 AM Biased or not, informed or not....doesn't really matter now. The articles are out there and how Midtown is reacting to it is NOT in line with the principles of AA. If someone makes slanderous comments about me, I still have a responsibility to conduct myself in a certain way. The Program doesn't say, "practice these principles in all our affairs.....except when the other person is really, really wrong." If a charge of criminal wrong-doing is made, who cares how long ago the crime occurred? If a crime occurred within a group, that group is still responsible. That individual is still responsible. And they both still bear SOME responsibility for their part of any FALSE allegations, as well. Yet none of that has happened. Midtown hasn't acknowledged ANY responsibility for any of this. That speaks volumes. And it is in keeping with everything I've ever seen or heard about this group. Posted by: Jane D. | August 22, 2007 10:58 AM Biased or not, informed or not? Het I got some ocean front propert in Arizona for sale, I'll give you a really good deal. You in? Lets set the record straigh about "criminal wrong doing" too. who exactly has been charged and or arrested here? Last I hear, some accusations have been leveled. If even the FBI has a file on these guys, home come a SWAT team hasn't shown up at thier meeting w/ a paddy wagon to lead them all away? I laugh when you say Midtown hasn't acknowledged any responsibility. You are telling us that the group as a whole needs to atone for the sins of a few? If I am a member of midtown and all of these "crimes" happened before I even got sober, I somehow have to answer for them? That would be like a college player just signed by the Alanta Falcons having to stand up to PEETA and face the music for how Mike Vick reats dogs. If I am a member of Midtown who has only been there 3 years, please explain to me me how or why I would need to stand up and answer for whataver Mike Q has been accused of that happened well before I even knew what AA was? I'm glad to see that I have been tried and convicted in the court of public opionion w/o my day in court. Quilt by association really is an ugly thing isn't it? Posted by: | August 22, 2007 12:13 PM I didn't say anything about guilt or conviction. The fact is, however, that the media has named both Midtown and Mike Q. of carrying out questionable acts. If you are a self-identified member of Midtown, then, yes, you are responsible for addressing the issues with regards to YOUR group. Accusations were never made against the Atlanta Falcons, yet they made a decision to IMMEDIATELY distance themselves from the person who was charged. Accusations have been made against Midtown. Guilt or not, Midtown should be handling it in a manner in keeping w/ AA's steps and traditions. And if it were me, and a few members of my group were responsible for sullying my group's name, I would want to hold them accountable. I surely wouldn't be defending them and minimizing their actions. And if I felt that those folks were not acting in an above board manner, I would make a choice to disassociate myself from them. If you choose to align yourself with a controversial group, feel free. But don't act surprised when all that controversy ends up in your lap, too. Posted by: Jane D. | August 22, 2007 01:17 PM Quitly by association in your eyes, is still just as ugly. We can argue here all day and not change eithers mind. I don't even know why I bother responding......... You can preach to me "from your spiritual hilltop" all you want, I'll let reasonable people judge me based on my actions as an individual and as a sober member of AA. Not off of rumor or inuendo. I'll let you hold onto that one, you can have it. Posted by: | August 22, 2007 01:54 PM Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah. Can we please get some healthy discussion going on here?? all these people that have it in for the Midtown group need to stop believing that they are defending AA as a whole. Talk about ego and self will run riot. Resentment is especially ugly when you have others there to co-sign them. Posted by: | August 22, 2007 01:58 PM What rumor and innuendo? Has Midtown, in fact, done anything with regards to this bad press? Have they contacted other local groups? Area? National? World? Asked for advice on whether or not they are violating Traditions? Asked how they can seek to make amends with any of the individuals levelling charges, or with AA as a whole? It's not MY "spiritual hilltop." It's a program of recovery which suggests a level of behavior for individuals, local groups, and the collective whole. Part of the concerns that people have is that Midtown does NOT operate within AA's guidelines. All I'm saying is that their behavior on this issue (bad press which is affecting AA as a whole) is in keeping with the accusations that Midtown is NOT operating within the principles, steps, and traditions of AA. It isn't convicting anyone of anything. But it sure doesn't look good. Nor does it strengthen the argument that Midtown is, in fact, operating under the principles of AA. If you can explain how your group is dealing with this issue in a way other than what I've suggested, I would be very interested in that. Posted by: Jane D. | August 22, 2007 02:20 PM Jane, Come on. Your last blog stated, and I quote "Has Midtown, in fact, done anything with regards to this bad press? Have they contacted other local groups? Area? National? World? Asked for advice on whether or not they are violating Traditions? Asked how they can seek to make amends with any of the individuals levelling charges, or with AA as a whole?" You know for a fact that Midtown has not tried to do anything about this? who they have and have not contacted. Glad to know you really are the end all, be all, know all about AA in this area and across the country. You really do have it all figured out, wow. Posted by: | August 22, 2007 02:49 PM Nope, that's why I was ASKING. Posted by: Jane D. | August 22, 2007 03:00 PM (blank), if you wish to have any conversation it would be helpful to put at least some handle or letter in your name so others could respond, especially if you are going to address others in this forum by their initials or pseudonym. As far as May goes, I have no idea who that is. Jane, yes, of course I believe you are correct. If crimes occurred in the past, it is incumbent upon others who can to try and discover what they were, who perpetrated them and what amends can be made to the victims. Let's not forget the victims here. In our program, as we all know, we are required to make amends to "all persons we had harmed where to do so would not injure them or others." And no, Midtown enforcers, 'not harming others' does not mean covering up for Midtown sexual predator "sponsors" so they won't be exposed. Midtowners, there is plenty of evidence the crimes are still occurring. The sexual predation I referred to above was not very recent, but I have talked to others who confirm it is still occurring. And you also believe that a newspaper reporter has to personally witness events to report on them? A reporter, just like a court, accepts evidence and eyewitness statements and writes a story about them for the public. A reporter or newspaper that does not do its job accurately will not be working for long. Marc Fisher is one of the most respected journalists for one of the world's principal newspapers. By the way, Midtowners, all I have seen from you is a stream of personal insults directed at Marc Fishers, former Midtown members, and members writing in this forum who do not agree with you. I have not seen a single fact alleged against Midtown refuted, and not a single argument directed against the Midtown position argued against logically. Your tactics here are what is called "ad hominem", defined as "attacking the character, motives, etc. of an opponent rather than debating the issue on logical grounds" and "appealing to prejudice and emotion rather than to reason". Wikipedia explains this tactic as "replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim. It is most commonly used to refer specifically to the ad hominem abusive, or argumentum ad personam, which consists of criticizing or personally attacking an argument's proponent in an attempt to discredit that argument." Since essentially all the Midtown enforcers in this forum use exactly the same tactics, and essentially the same language, perhaps we should call their technique the "The Attack of the Clones". As AA members, we all have a responsibility to see that "the helping hand of AA" is made available for all those who seek it - it's our Responsibility Statement, something we all subscribe to. Not the hand of sexual predators masquerading as AA "sponsors". Posted by: DCC | August 22, 2007 03:12 PM (blank), you got a post out there while I was writing my last one. You ask Jane "You know for a fact that Midtown has not tried to do anything about this? who they have and have not contacted." I can answer for those I spoke to. No one who was sexually abused that I spoke to was contacted by anyone from Midtown for the purpose of making amends. Not the person who perpetrated the abuse or anyone else. And everyone who has alleged any abuse in this forum has been consistently attacked here. You also addressed the issue of Midtown's relations with other AA groups and with the General Service Office of AA. Perhaps you could address this specific question: How much money has the Midtown group donated in the last two years to any AA Intergroup or the AA General Services Office? That is a factual question. If you want to refute the charge that Midtown has contributed nothing, zero, not a penny, you can find out and give an answer. We know that Midtown, while a small part of AA in the Washington area generally, is a large overall group and collects a lot of contributions. Where does this money go? Who accounts for it? Since almost every other group donates much of its contributions to AA Intergroups and AA GSO, that's something many members are interested in. Perhaps you can give an answer as to what happens to the money, rather than just going on the attack. Thank you. Posted by: DCC | August 22, 2007 03:33 PM Do you ever feel like your a character in Charle Brown? Posted by: | August 22, 2007 04:28 PM Jane D., you are a facist and a Nazi. So are all of you. Basically what you are saying on this blog is that everyone in Midtown is guilty until proven innocent. That they all must answer to crimes that occurred several years ago by people they don't even know. Here's a realistic paradigm for you: It is a fact that a couple of years ago, there was a person who attended the Du Pont Circle Club who was a known sex offender. This person frequented meetings there in 2003-04. After some sobriety time, this person committed another sexual crime against a minor female who was also in AA. He was charged and convicted. Now according to your logic, everyone who attends Du Pont Circle Club must now answer for this man's crimes. Everyone there is all guilty by association. Are you not? For that is what you have just stated with regards to a proported similar scenario in the Midtown Group. That is facism and its finest. This is not the country or the time in history for you to be living. Your time was in the 30's under Hitler or in the 40's under Stalin. The things you suggest on here are indentical to the tactics used by those two regimes. Are you hunting Jews next? This is especially true for you DCC, as we all know that DCC stands for Du Pont Circle Club. It is written on our Big Books at the club. DCC, what have you done since then to answer for these crimes committed by this man back in 2004? Are you not responsible and therefore subject to a certain degree of berating and accusations now. Or did you not even know about since it never made it to mass media? DCC, you are not the spokesperson for our club, you should change your handle. All of you freaks on here bashing Midtown in your facist Nazi witchunt need to get it straight that not everyone agrees with what you're doing. I know that's hard for you to accept because you only surround yourself with others that agree with you. In that way you are insular, and your insularity breeds a certain amount stupidity and blindness to wrongs you are committing against these people and to AA. Nothing you say will ever convince me otherwise. You are a lynchmob and a sad group of people with no life. Answer my questions above. Posted by: The Miz | August 22, 2007 04:51 PM BTW, yes I realize that I am dealing with some low IQ people on here, but go ahead and just try to address what I said above. Oh, and please don't bore me with "another Midtowner attacking us". Yeah, yeah, whatever, we know, everyone who disagrees with you is a Midtowner bent on revenge, blah, blah, blah. Your argument is plainly stated in your posts. Anyone at all who attends an AA group where someone has broken traditions or committed a crime at any point in the past is themselves also guilty of that said break in traditions or crime, and therefore must take responsiblity. THis is what you have stated on this blog verbatim. Now, defend your argument like a goddamn American instead of ducking around the fact that you don't have one or just simply denying that you said it when it is only 2-4 posts above. Posted by: The Miz | August 22, 2007 05:00 PM DCC, thanks for your post explaining the "ad hominem" tactics being used by the Midtown defenders. You sooooooooo nailed the description of their handling of this whole controversy where they NEVER address the issues logically and can only go on the attack with sarcasm, completely without substance. That's because there is no defense to the truth. This "no-name" person obviously believes that all these personal stories which have been publicly exposed by reputable journalists in distingued newspapers and magazines, and on local DC TV News stations EVERY NIGHT FOR A WEEK, are "rumor and innuendo" which happened so long ago (if they happenened at all) no one should be held accountable any longer. Good Lord, what does it have to take for you people to admit something is wrong here. How many more people have to be harmed and come forward? How many more TV stories and newspaper articles have to be written? How many more years of allegations, obviously 20 is not enough, does this have to go on before the defenders realize...maybe you should look a little closer here, maybe something IS wrong here! DUHHHHH! Why don't you play "WHAT IF?" "What if" you suddenly believed all of the stories were true? "What if" you suddenly believed Midtown leaders have been taking their contributions for YEARS and using it for trips and vacations? What would you say then??? This is NOT going away until something is done. These allegations are MUCH MORE than rumors and innuendo and are not just going to be swept under a rug and forgotten. Surely you can see that? Posted by: Atlanta | August 22, 2007 05:20 PM With all due respect, the title at the top of this page, does not specify individuals, it says, "Midtown Group: AA Group Leads Members Away from Traditions." Low IQ, notwithstanding, that to me seems pretty clear. Group. Midtown. Who should that apply to, exactly? And who is being "lynched?" Questions, discussions, and opinions are not the same as mass graves and genocide. If you could disagree without the name-calling, that would be nice. I believe the user agreement for this page is pretty clear. And it seems that you've violated it with the personal attacks and profanity. Posted by: Jane D. | August 22, 2007 05:25 PM If one steps on the toes of others, expect them to retaliate, it's a shame this system is in A.A Posted by: | August 22, 2007 05:33 PM Miz, your wrote that "I realize that I am dealing with some low IQ people on here, but go ahead and just try to address what I said above...This is especially true for you DCC, as we all know that DCC stands for Du Pont Circle Club. It is written on our Big Books at the club. DCC, what have you done since then to answer for these crimes committed by this man back in 2004?" Miz, thanks for some comic relief in this otherwise serious forum. I am disappointed to interrupt your hate ranting here, as you seem to enjoy calling everyone who disagrees with you "fascists" and "Nazis", but the Dupont Circle Club does not have exclusive use of the letters DCC. Actually, I have nothing whatsoever to do with any Dupont Circle Club and while I have certainly heard of Dupont Circle from way out here in the sticks of Virginia, I have never heard of a Dupont Circle Club. Perhaps this is a surprise to you, but you and your club are not the center of the universe or really, anything in it. A member with about a year sober once wailed to his sponsor about all his petty complaints. His sponsor answered, "Go up to someone at the meeting who has only a few days or weeks sobriety. Ask him what's bothering him at that moment. I guarantee you 1) there is no way to predict what this person will say except that 2) it won't be anything about you." Perhaps you could consider this in your own life. As far of any crimes committed by "this man back in 2004", I have no idea what you are talking about. If you are talking about Michael Quinones, I have written voluminously above that I found out about these charges only recently, after the articles came out. Posted by: DCC | August 22, 2007 05:51 PM tom Here is my 2 cents, I got sober in 1995 at the VA hospital and I was 21 and from out of town. I needed a young people group to go to because I needed people to relate to. I spent a few months just hanging around the edges going to some of their meeting and some other ones. I finally got involved and life was great. Even back in 87 and 88 there was all this talk about Mike Q. I didn't like hime because I thought he was very arrogant. I stayed around for years and then I left. I came back a few years later and got involved again and started working on the young people convention. I later had a talk with Mike and did a 10th step with him. I had said a lot of bad things about him. I later got him as a sponsor and did another 5th step with him. Never once did he judge me. I used to go over to his house on Monday nights for a meeting. He told me one thing that has helped me out more than anything, he told me I needed to get a Higher Power and he was not it. Was there sex going around Midtown "yes". Was I involved 'no'. I had my share of one night stands in the past and other girlfriends. Anytime you have that many young people together, it doesn't matter what group it is or where it is, it will happen. AA does not judge anyone sexual conduct and that is one reason I left. I was involved in some of the plays, some of the ski trips and had a lot of fun. Before anyone condemns MIDTOWN check it out for yourself, however, I would never go to just the meetings they go to. It is good to see AA all over the DC metro area. Tommy Y. Posted by tom on August 22, 2007 - Wednesday at 10:35 PM *Shirley Ann* From what I've read, it isn't the "sex" in Midtown that is the problem. As long as both persons are of legal age, have stable sobriety, and know what they're getting into, there IS no problem. The problem arises when a) newcomers, and their innate vulnerability, are preyed upon, and/or b) those who are underage are preyed upon by others who are older. These people are NOT good examples for others to look up to. They are predators, pure and simple, and should be in jail and/or shunned. If people are being victimized, told that sex with ANYONE will help them stay sober, or otherwise manipulated, it's wrong, pure and simple. I also agree with the call to look into the group's finances. If they're collecting money at meetings "for the support of AA", then some of it should be going to their local district, area, and GSO. Ski trips and other things are fun, but group money shouldn't be going to fund them at the expense of support of AA as a whole. Posted by *Shirley Ann* on August 23, 2007 - Thursday at 12:24 PM sligoridealiac the brain is a terrible thing all this stupid shit drama over what go help some addicts and get some buisness enough already with the stupid blogs The Q ball is dead everyone knows he was a con and a pimp wake the fuck up i did when i walked away from that group 23 years ago and so did most of the people whoe came around him duuhhh Posted by sligoridealiac on August 22, 2007 - Wednesday at 10:36 PM Raphael I have to comment on the comparison made above between the convicted sexual predator at the Dupont Circle Club (yes, that's the correct way to spell it) and the controversy surrounding the Midtown Group. I just want to say that the comparison is between apples and oranges. The incident which occurred at DCC was isolated and perpetrated by a single offender. The problems at Midtown appear to be institutionalized and ingrained into the culture of the group. I think the latter scenario is far more insidious and detrimental to AA as a whole. Posted by Raphael on August 23, 2007 - Thursday at 12:23 PM Punk Friends in Recovery Together... FOREVER!! MIKE Q. DIED LAST WEEK. HELL GOT A NEW CITIZEN. Posted by Punk Friends in Recovery Together... FOREVER!! on August 23, 2007 - Thursday at 5:03 PM

August 23, 2007 — Thursday   Message from a friend who shall remain unnamed Current mood: contemplative One of our supporters has allowed us to repost this message. First of all, I have to admit that I was wrong about who created the Myspace profile, "fallofmidtownlairs". I had assumed that it was "sickgirl", because she was (at one point) its only friend and supporter and because of the previous emails that I received from her that were overtly negative and all too frequent. Although I cannot understand why anyone in A.A. would accept a friend request by such a site, I have to make amends to her for calling her out as the creator, now that it has been proven to me that she is not. I am sorry that I called you out as the creator of that slanderously fictitious profile sickgirl. Unfortunately, you allowed yourself to be used by what has been proven to be a Midtown Group member, to help strengthen Midtown, at the cost of A.A. as a whole. The creator of the "fallofmidtownlairs" Myspace profile is a long term member of the Midtown Group; a group that has represented itself as a cult, and has behaved as such, for over 20 years now. The name of its creator is Shawn. Shawn is a typically weak willed Midtown Group member who has been conditioned to become and remain completely dependent on the Midtown Group. I can say this without any reservation for he, himself, has (publicly) gotten on top of his Midtown soapbox and described how he couldn't stay dry from alcohol without the Midtown Group, and if truth be told, he could not and he did not, when he tried. Perhaps, if he was introduced to A.A.'s program of recovery to begin with, he may have had a real chance to recover from alcoholism. I cannot say. Myspace, with the help of some very concerned and highly agitated friends of mine were able to track the exact residential address of the thefallofmidtownliars profile creator (Shawn), by several methods; one of which was a means of tracking, known as "pinging". I'm not going to pretend that I understand the exact process, or the small pains that they took to secure all of the other information involved, but the result points to one person, and that person is Shawn, who lives in a typical Midtown Group Home, near Seven Locks Road. Sickgirl obviously does not live near, or around Seven Locks Road. There are two other Midtown informational sources that have confirmed that he was the creator. These helpful individuals were able to discover several other identities that Shawn currently uses, in order to spread his Midtown Propaganda. These online identities are, but are not limited to: onegoodlookinthemirror@gmail.com timparsons1@gmail.com timparsons2@gmail.com AndynMaryland www.doitsober.com MySpace URL: http://www.myspace.com/thefallofmidtownliars And "Easy", also of Myspace, who happens to be thefallofmidtownliars only real friend. There are several other web addresses that are documented, but those show the exact identity of Shawn. Out of my respect for A.A., I would prefer to handle this without revealing his full identity. He did not respect my identity, by any stretch of the imagination, when he posted my full name on various web addresses, as he stated that I was stalking and 13 stepping my wife when she was 16. What Shawn knows, all too well, is that she was preyed upon when she was 15/16 with less than two weeks experience in A.A. A Midtown Group member who was in his 30's preyed upon her, as he had with numerous 14/15/16 year olds, over a period no less than 10 years... To suggest that this pedophile was the only one (in the Midtown Group) who behaved as such, would create a large laugh throughout many other A.A. groups, as well as within many Midtown meetings. Every time I hear people saying that that never happens, I want to spit in their face. To be sure, when I first read Shawn's shining example of his spiritual program, I and others, wanted to do worse than that to him. The truth is that many of these females that were preyed upon or basically raped, before or after their 16th birthday, have such a level of disgust over what was done to them (by the Midtown Group-as-a-whole) that many of them choose to walk forward and attempt to wash themselves of that horrible experience. Remember, it's usually their sponsorship lineage, and their "closest Midtown friends" that led them to that (possibly ongoing) horrible experience, then it was their sponsorship lineage, and their "closest Midtown friends" that manipulated them to suck it up and hold it deep inside of them, less they be ostracized from the only higher power that most of them have been manipulated to become co-dependent on. Don't even mention the fact that the judicial system is not gentle with those who have been victimized and want justice. Most of them, and for damn good reason, have little interest in being victimized twice. Every time Shawn emailed me, over a period of 6 months, he used the name onegoodlookinthemirror. I initially assumed that it was Sickgirl because she was sending her emails through Myspace, at around the same time. When I finally blocked him, he began emailing my friends, with personal information about me, which included pictures of me, and previous Myspace comments, that I had posted up to six months before he had emailed me. To suggest that he is overtly obsessed with me would be a vast understatement. Unfortunately, his obsession didn't stop with me, nor did the harm stop with him. He has had help from other Midtown Group members, who have (for the most part) apparently worked independently of one another, in order to publicly discredit ex midtown members who have spoken out against the group and the harm that they provide to A.A.'s vulnerable Newcomers. Shawn, as well as (at least) three other (confirmed) Midtown Group members (of whom I will not identify by name at this time) have continually posted the contents of previous Midtown Group member's personal 5th steps or intimately private conversations on the internet, after those that confided in them were ostracized from the Midtown Group. Need a recent example? On the internet is a (less than two week old) posting from one of these 4 Midtown Group members who heard, in an extremely intimate and private conversation, how another (now ostracized) member drank the bath water of his Guru. This was discussed, at depth, in full confidence that this Midtown Group member would not disclose that which was meant to be heard by him and the higher power of the person who was discussing this with him. Unfortunately, for most of the Midtown Group, the group itself is their higher power, so the established hierarchy of the group hears a great many of these 5th steps and extremely intimate and private conversations . This behavior was first established by Mike, who encouraged his trusted Lieutenants to tell what was discussed in their pigeons 5th steps. I remember seeing this when Mike was my grand sponsor, over 20 years ago. That behavior, as well as others, have only become more refined since then. What these Midtown Group members have done, in regards to this behavior (out of many), as it relates to A.A.'s principles, is criminal. This is one of the ways that the Midtown Group attempts to discredit the members who are voluntarily or involuntarily exiting, as they are being ostracized from the only higher power that they were motivated to rely upon. You see, if those exiting members thrived outside of the care of their self made higher power, then Midtown's hypothesis that anyone who left the group will drink, would crumble, and as a result, the fear that holds a great many of them there, would no longer work. Keeping them distracted by sex, (false) status, (false) security and humorous activities can only keep the young people there distracted for so long. I cannot even begin to calculate the amount of harm that these Midtown Group members have consciously implemented; all so that their self made higher power could thrive and temporarily relieve them of their thirst for alcohol and destructive habitual tendencies. What most of them have chosen to ignore, is the entirely new and destructive set of behaviors that their new group, as a whole, have helped them to implement. Here's a little personal information about the thefallofmidtownliars profile that a few Midtown members already knew of. One the date of its conception, Shawn, several other Midtown members, Anna and I shared a single cabin at a spiritual retreat, hosted by A.A. members, both inside of and outside of the Midtown Group. These A.A. members endeavored to create a growing sense of unity throughout our local fellowship, as our differences continued to rise and climb, because of the Midtown Group, its philosophy and a great many A.A. members having difficulty accepting or understanding it. On the second day of the retreat, while I was conducting an 11 step workshop, Shawn created thefallofmidtownliars profile. The reality of the situation is that he was not alone in this creation. Several other Midtown Group members knew about this at the time, or very soon afterward. Another reality is that a Midtown Group member called me a couple of days afterward, and expressed a sincere disgust over what was done to Anna and me. For this, I thank him. It made me remember that there are individuals with character left inside of the Midtown Group, and that I have to remember this fact. That Saturday night, as a true musician and I played music together in front of a beautiful fire, I also made fireplace treats for those sitting around the main musician. I approached Shawn with one of them and offered it to him unconditionally. He accepted it without gratitude, as I would have expected from him, then I continued playing the drums on a true musician's guitar case. That night, Anna offered him and the other Midtown group members blankets, because it was getting colder. One of them accepted a blanket with gratitude, for that person was ill prepared for the night weather. The next day he stayed physically inactive in the hectic kitchen as people worked around him, in order to make breakfast for everyone there. He video taped my (then) fiancée climbing on the chef's rack (in order to help stabilize the chef's working environment), hoping that she would fall. When he sarcastically asked her a fairly stupid question, she chose to ignore him and he posted that on the internet as well. When he created that site and posted various other lies about her and I on other internet web sites, he knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Anna and I were not only coming up on our Birthdays in a couple of days, but that we were to be married in less than a week. As with most alcoholics with untreated alcoholism, he remains in a state of conscious misery, and as with most alcoholics who are fixated within this constant and horrible state, he would prefer that others remain there with him. In a large way, I do feel sorry for him. To be within his head, alone at night with his eyes closed and nothing but his misery to distract him from himself, would be a state of being that I would find unbearable indeed. In ending, I would like to offer the clearest case of hypocrisy that I have ever seen in my entire life and I'm offering it up to you, for your viewing displeasure. View for yourself, just how hypocritical and dishonest this Midtown Group member is. Remember, he is NOT acting alone. On www.doitsober.com (of which he is the administrator) he wrote this message and then stated that an A.A. member outside of the Midtown Group wrote it. I highlighted the parts which are overtly hypocritical and dishonest. In essence, Shawn created the site to defend the Midtown Group, then wrote a defensive letter to that site, then stated that it wasn't himself who wrote it. After which, a couple of months later, he created thefallofmidtownliars. A greater monument to hypocrisy you will never see. (BEGINNING OF ADMIN'S —Shawn's- BULLSHIT) Dear fellow members of Alcoholics Anonymous Posted March 14th @ 6:36 am by admin ———- Forwarded message ———- From: DC Young People Date: Mar 14, 2007 12:01 AM "We, a group of AA's from the DC Metro area, are writing this email because we are upset by the amount of hateful propaganda that has swarmed Young People's AA in our area over the past year, specifically via the internet. The emails and websites created and recklessly sent by a very small group are by no means representative of the majority of AA's ideas and/or opinions in the Metro DC area. In fact, the majority of Young People in AA along with mainstream AA's are quite opposed to the actions and the methods in which they have been taken. AA's around the area who are aware of such measures, especially the Young People in AA, are appalled that sites such as Love & Service, Fall of Midtown, and Concerned Friends Group continue to operate and gather some measure of support. A very small few are speaking on behalf of the many who feel quite opposed. These few are unfortunately the loudest voice violating Traditions in a contentious, judgmental, and resentful manner. These sites can only harm AA as a whole using character assassination and thus totally disregard the importance of Unity as one of our 3 Legacies of recovery. As active members of Alcoholics Anonymous the rest of us seek to build up rather than to tear down. "Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety," and we live this principle by practicing attraction rather than promotion as we carry the message of the program of recovery found in our Big Book. We believe that our groups should serve as safe approachable havens for all AA's, most importantly newcomers. We try to practice patience, love and tolerance of others, as resentment and judgment are fatal. We live in the constant process of creating the fellowship we crave with our doors always open to any and all who wish to recover as every other AA group does. As members of Alcoholics Anonymous we welcome any AA who stops in for a meeting that they don't normally attend with open arms and without judgment, condescension, or resentment. We welcome any AA to any of our groups and look forward to the opportunity to see the miracle of AA working in yet another’s life. As members of Alcoholics Anonymous we have no opinion on any matters outside of those that affect AA as a whole and we feel that the choice of home group membership is ultimately up to individuals to decide upon for themselves. In our experience, contempt prior to investigation goes against the spiritual principles that we must apply in all of our affairs. What has been written and said is simply not the voice of AA in the Metro DC area. It is most certainly not the voice of the Young People in this area. There are more of us than we could ever count, men and women alike, whose single purpose is only to be of service to the suffering alcoholic while we trudge the road of happy destiny, together. We thank you for the time you took to read this and hope that together we all remain happy, joyous, and free." Filed in: Groups, YPAA, History Tags: No Tags ? AA Boosts Sobriety by 30 Percent, Study Says Bill W. and Dr. Bob Final Show ? 4 Comments 1. George May 1, 2007 There is absolute freedom of thought and action in AA. Instead of defending yourselves maybe it is time for the leadership to rotate out. AA says if anything the alcoholic is a rebellious non conformist. So, if there is hell going on in that group, maybe it is the sign of the rising tide of democracy that Bill W said that occurs in groups with intrenched leadership. Good luck. 2. admin May 1, 2007 This post is a copy of an open letter that's not from anyone within Midtown Group. As far as service within the group and "leadership" goes, it is open to any and all who would give of themselves in love and service. Open means that the people who show up are the ones who get the service. Those who show up again and again tend to become "the leadership" as you call it by default. The fact is that all are welcome but few stick around for very long. Most have a lot to critique but are not willing to actually put away chairs, mop floors, etc. for any length of time. But they want "the leadership" to change? I've got a much better idea. It has worked for many in AA for more than 70 years. Start a new group. Go to that one. (END OF ADMIN'S —Shawn's- BULLSHIT) In this correspondence, Shawn lies about the "open letter that's not from anyone within Midtown Group", as well as the "Leadership" within the Midtown Group. One blatant example of the :Leadership" that exists there is Mike's example, that has been successfully transmitted to his first Lieutenants. That example will live on through their sponsorship lineages. It has been continually proven over the ages that those who are in power, would have want to remain in power, and few in the DC area who are really aware of this situation would suggest that that pattern will not present itself, in regards to Mikes first Lieutenants and their sponsorship lineages. It has also been proven that those who have been securely placed within a continued state of unhealthy co-dependence would do most anything to allow whatever they depended on, to stay exactly the way it is. Because of Shawn's actions and of others within the Midtown Group that have continued the overwhelming harm to A.A. members both inside and outside of the Midtown Group, I openly support Love and Service, and The Concerned Friends Group. Both of these organizations are non profit organizations dedicated to helping those discover the truth about the Midtown Group and its Cult activities and practices, while offering professional psychological services to those who are well assimilated within this collective, to get out of it and to become well. Although I have never been an active member of either group, I did go to one of their bi weekly meetings, just to make sure that it wasn't a resentful 15 year old with a keyboard. Clearly, it was not. I saw a unified group of adults, which met in a local church, who, for various reasons, were focused on exposing the truth and helping conditioned alcoholics out of the Midtown Group. Thank you, Love and Service, the Concerned Friends Group and select Midtown Group members, for taking the time to discover and document these details for my Anna and me. I will not put my name on this document in case some reporter from "whatever" will want to contact me, and I will not even entertain the idea of an interview. Don't even mention the fact that A.A. has 12 suggested Traditions in place, which I am asked to respect, for the whole of A.A. This email is from an A.A. member, to other A.A. members. Everyone, (including many Midtown Group members) in our area who is concerned about this matter, knows exactly who I am. Of that, I am certain. I do not hide behind the concept of anonymity. I endeavor to pay attention, learn from and respect the concept of humility, which should remain forever intertwined with the concept of anonymity. On a personal note, I wish that everyone involved here would leave the press alone. From what I can recall, certain Myspace sites which endeavor to shine some light on, and expose the truth about the Midtown Group, while helping those that were hurt from the Midtown Group, were created to inform A.A. members about what was going on, so that we could all express our ideas and deal with the problem accordingly. We can continue to heal our fellowship from this ongoing harm, without airing our differences to China. No one outside of A.A. paid attention to these Myspace sites before Newsweek came out. So, from now on, let's try to limit this to ourselves, if at all possible, ok? And while I'm on my soapbox, stop posting full names and pictures of A.A. members on the internet. I know that a certain Myspace site posted a Midtown Group members full name and the another site posted pictures of the Midtown Groups yearly New Year vacation (that was paid for by their New Years Eve play — a play that was advertised in A.A. meetings and on a certain A.A. web site...), after Shawn did what he did, but that's no excuse. The reality is that these Myspace sites are here to help and not to hurt. We cannot condemn them for hurting our Newcomers while we go about hurting them in return. Need a recent example of this, as well? I had removed all of my personal comments from these Myspace sites and distanced myself from the ones that ran them, because a midtown group member (that I deeply cared for) agreed to go through all 12 steps with me, in a simplistic, 4 session workshop environment. He was not able to complete all 12 steps for reasons that I will not disclose. He was also one of those that Anna and I shared a cabin with, during the retreat. Unfortunately, he was also one of the Midtown Group members who co signed what Shawn did, when he did it. He had full knowledge of what had been done to us, and had mislead me from that truth, over a period of months while he continued to act like my friend. Do I feel mislead? Yes. Do I feel betrayed? Yes. Do I feel hurt? Yes. Will I ever speak of what we discussed in his 4th and 8th step? No. Why? Because behaving as such, is not suggested within A.A.'s way of life. I am now going to request a friendship with those Myspace sites, as a token of my appreciation for what they have done for my wife and me. I believe that we need to openly discuss what is happening within our fellowship; where all of us can see the truth. These sites help to provide that medium, and within a short period of time, John/Jane Public will not even know that they exist, because they are not important to him/her. I also believe that those that were, or are being hurt by this group (as a whole), should have a known port in the storm, where they can go and be heard. It is their inalienable right as a human being, to speak out against the harm that has been done to them and theirs, and it is our responsibility to hear them out, help them back up and unconditionally help them to honestly recover from alcoholism, through the teaching and application of our 12 steps, which are suggested as a program of recovery. CathyMc This person's action would be unbelievable if it came from any other AA group. If Just One goodlookinthemirror@gmail.com hadn't sent me an email at my own personal email address, I could assume this person just had it in for the above poster. In fact, this person sent me several emails over the last 1 1/2 yrs. Another one from timparsons2@gmail.com accusing my husband of using drugs. Now this person has never met me or my husband and lives over 800 miles away from us, so what is he trying to prove or accomplish? I can only assume its a matter of intimidation...I can't think of any other reason, but he seems to like to pick on couples. Now if you search the timparsons2 email address on Myspace, you'll find the Easy profile. I know b/c I did. Easy's only friend is Renee who is really Shawn, a long time member of Midtown. Nuff said? Maybe now that he's exposed he will stop sending me emails and we can only hope that someone in Midtown with any decency will "encourage" him to stop. I know there has to be folks in that group who wouldn't support this kind unsolicited and uncalled for harassment of my family and the poster as well. Isn't there??????? I think my family has suffered quite enough from that group. Posted by CathyMc on August 24, 2007 - Friday at 8:49 PM

Friday, September 07, 2007 Another message from a supporter — money implications FOM has screened the names below from this supporters messages. L**i, who is b****a's piegon i think, while mike was dying they put all of mikes money in her acount, i know that she is always with j**k when they go over the money stuff, she is the one who "found" the rec center through her personal contacts, i heard that she just started another business, but my guess is she is the one where they put the money. ----------------- Original Message ----------------- From: THE FALL OF MIDTOWN. AKA: THE Q. GROUP Date: Sep 7, 2007 4:23 AM You can trust that we will not post any information you send us without your permission. You can also trust that we will not use your name or identity without your permission on any information you send us. We understand your question about girls who control the girls. No one has sent us specific information about them that we could post. We are particularly interested in what is happening to the money being collected at meetings. If you let us know specifics about what you see the girls doing who control the girls, or how money is being funnelled, we will be honored to post it anonymously in one of our blogs. Thank you for contacting us, we appreciate your support. FOM ----------------- Original Message ----------------- From: Date: Sep 6, 2007 12:53 PM I have been reading all the stuff you guys have been writing, and am dissappointed that you arent talking about the women who are doing bad stuff. my friends sponser, L**i the blonde one, works for j**k and a**o she took "care of mike" when he was dying. i dunno if they made her stay there or what but she says she has a business but my sponser says that she really is "funnellinng" j**k's money. She lived with mike in florida and would line up girls for him, she has been doing it for him for years. B*th and Br****t do the same thing, i dont understand why you arent talking about them, they are the ones who controls the girls.

Sunday, September 09, 2007 Ex-midtown member shares their story. This message is being reposted with permission. We did not make any edits. Here's my story below. Please feel free to make any edits as necessary. I didn't bother to use capitals all the time, proper punctuation or even grammar. Also, there may be references to people you may wish not to include. I'd appreciate it if you would post it anonymously. Thanks! To all: i've been waiting over ten years for this group to be exposed. everything is true. in 1997 at age 19 i began attending meetings of this group. at the time the young men were spreading herpes around to all the young women. there was a 15 year old girl who contracted herpes from one of the guys. When I brought up my concerns with my "pigeon-sister" she told me she had herpes too very matter-of-factly — like it was no big deal that herpes was being spread among members of the group. mike q. had been in a relationship with my sponsor when she was 19. she claimed the reason the relationship ended was completely her fault although she didn't give details. during my time he was dating an 18 year old who was relatively new to the group. The girl's mother who was also new to the group bought mike q. a car! the men highest up in the hierarchy loved to host sponsor-sponsee/pigeon family meetings in their group homes. during those meetings i was told by B.S. repeatedly that my problem was that i needed to get f***ed! i was heavily encouraged to date while i was newly sober and from what I remember AA recommends waiting at least a year before attempting an intimate relationship. after all, alcoholics have serious relationship issues. i went out as friends with one guy and apparently he had been prepared for an actual date. when he leaned in to kiss me and i rejected him, he was angry. they had absolutely no respect for the same-sex relationship that i was in at the time. Even though that relationship was unhealthy, they weren't trying to get me out of it so much as they were trying to get me to replace it for a relationship with some loser guy in the group. i never would have been involved with the group if i had known who they really were. my dad who had been sober for 17 years at the time and was very involved in AA warned me to stay away from the cult-like "Q group". when i joined them i only knew them as the Midtown group so I didn't make the connection for a long time. they finally just creeped me out. their meetings had never been convenient because i lived in VA when they insisted on going to the same meetings in MD and DC every week. they all worked at Nordstroms-Tysons. they were collectively obsessed with the musical RENT. they all used and sold HerbaLife. i even remember they shared many of the same catch-phrases (beyond the typical AA slogans). some of the most immature people i had ever met. they lived, worked, ate, met and thought together. they told me i would surely go out and drink if I didn't go to their meetings exclusively and become exactly like them. I was told to give up my friendships with ALL my friends, including the non-alcoholic ones. They even attempted to come in between my relationships with my family members. fortunately i came out of the group relatively unscathed. However, I have been angry for years at the attempts these people made to ruin my life that was already damaged. these pathetic people were the types most wouldn't have partied with. in fact i believe that many of the men may never have been alcoholics in the first place. whatever brought them there is irrelevant. once they realized that it was male-dominated and easy to have sex with vulnerable young women, they most certainly stayed on. Some of the girls I believe were also convinced they were alcoholic when really they just ended up there by chance because they were busted smoking pot by their parents or something minor. A friend of mine who I met in the group never drank but they convinced her she was a drunk. She originally came there because she was caught experimenting with drugs. In her lifetime, she has taken drugs less than a handful of times. So I left after about 7 months or so. It was very liberating and I talked with a lot of people about my experiences. There was so much more going on at the time. However, I don't remember as much. I hadn't thought about Midtown in a while when my mom showed me the Newsweek article. Well, I hope this helps someone in need relate. Let me know if you have any questions. I wouldn't mind discussing it further to jog my memory. Especially if there are those that were in the group around the time I was. Thanks!

Thursday, September 13, 2007 Repost of some of the blogs from WP article [That is, the FOM blog reposted some comments from the Washington Post article.] We feel this is important information to share on this website. I just found out about the whole exposure of what we used to refer to as the "Q group" now called the Midtown group. First, I must say, Crapfully yours, you are the self righteous 15 year sober egomaniac person, how dare you judge that what you are clueless about. We meet the sickest and wellest people in AA, and also the most cunning and manipulative. Then you add to that vulnerable, young, survivors of trauma as most young women and many young men coming into the rooms are, and they do not have a chance against this group of predators. I moved to the DC area when I was sober seven or eight years, and that was twenty two years ago. I was at that time a young person, and found the whole situation beyond belief. The only thing we could do was to try to protect young people and newly sober people against them. You cannot call the police when someone does not know that they are being used and abused by those abusing their power, new people look up to persons with time. There were times when I had to leave Montgomery County just to have a social life, they have been involved everywhere for years. And to the person who says they are just getting into Virginia, I moved out of the area six years ago, and they were very well already entrenching themselves into Virginia. I could go on and on about the group. They did not just victimize young people, I watched them do the same to my brother, I finally spoke out to him when they started making him believe he would get drunk if he did not do things that were abusive, including telling him to have sex with the young girls. See, they had a way of turning people against people and making you look bad if you spoke out against them, and of convincing persons that those who were against them were, as full of Crapfully yours says, jealous of them. That makes me want to barf, no one that I know that had a healthy appreciation of sobriety were jeolous of them, mostly we spent time trying to keep their ability to victimize others as minimally as possible. I personally witnessed plenty, and had plenty of persons, including my own brother disclose many abusive situations, I saw money exchange hands, I saw people attempting to solicite sexual favors of newcomers. Unlike what they represent, I saw many of their victims who were abused and went back out and end up in treatment centers where I worked. To the mother who gives them credit for her son's recovery, you better hope that he does not become a sexual preditor, and he probably already is or he would not last in that group. For those of you trying to change things, go for it, although some of them are not involved in all the sexual and financial abuse, for any life they helped, it is not worth the lives they destroyed or tried to destroy. Most of the people who got sober, did not need them to get sober, individuals and groups do not get anyone sober. The person who is open to change, the 12 steps and a God of their understanding has the ability to get there without a special group of people. So, crapfully yours with 15 years, those of us that love AA and have been exposed to this cult, would try to breakup this group out of selflessness and for the preservation of something precious and life saving. I have 30 years, have lived in several areas, and I have never found anything as disgusting as the "Q Group/Midtown group", I hope that God can forgive Mike Q, and it is a good thing that God is in charge of his soul and not me, because I would send it right to the flames of hell forever. Posted by: used to live in DC area | September 12, 2007 08:38 PM used to live in DC area "Most of the people who got sober, did not need them to get sober, individuals and groups do not get anyone sober." There is a sane person that understands one does not need to be sponsored or have to go to a certain place to go to get sober, A free spirit that knows it begins within. Where there is one or two A.A. can survive and start over. Posted by: ??????? | September 12, 2007 09:32 PM "used to live in DC area" dude you seem like a really happy guy.. 22 years and the same resentment.. you are pathetic.. my father molested me when I was six.. the steps really helped me see that being a victim is pointless.. grow a nut and work some steps! Its like the homophobe who is gay.. does taking advantage of others ring a little too close to home for you? whats up "used to live in DC area" you touching some little wieners when you were drinking? perhaps a little experimentation on your little brother? its classic.. its always what we HATE in others that we can't come to terms to in ourselves.. I'm not saying that people weren't hurt in DC.. but what actions are you taking to make the world a better place? who are you helping with your hate? how much trust do you have in God? Posted by: sober and happy | September 12, 2007 09:56 PM 'used to live in DC', thank you for your story! The content and tone of your story above is almost exactly what I have heard in person from victims of Midtown Cult. To other folks who had Midtown experiences, please post them here. The publication of the personal experiences and devastating damages to people are the means that will ultimately end this parasitic, predatory cult. The ugly and downright inhuman responses of the Midtowners themselves are damning as well. WashingtonPost.com censor, please, please do not remove the Midtown post as you have removed many of the others. This shows better than anything what this group is like. One reason that the "Q Group" went on so long is that the decent people in AA (99%+ of the membership) couldn't comprehend just how vicious, degrading, and damaging this cult actually was. They didn't have the means to understand - thankfully, few people do. The above post together with the Midtown Cult response may well be the single best exemplar on this blog of the magnitude and viciousness of this phenomenon. No more Midtown Cult victims. This must end now! Posted by: DCC | September 12, 2007 10:24 PM Dear Sober and Happy, and obviously a Midtown supporter, I do not have any hate. I do not hold resentment, and I know who I am, it is certainly not a victim, nor did I imply in anyway that I am. I trust very much in God, which is why I said it was a good thing that Mike's fate is up to him and not to me. By the way, most victims of abuse will go out of their way to try to protect others, some becomes perps, sounds like you certainly condone the victimization of others.................. posting here is one very small way I make the world a better place, otherwise I will not stoop to your level to defend your your ridiculous accusations. Posted by: used to live in DC area | September 12, 2007 10:37 PM DCC..In all fairness to you, I think you wish that they couldn't comprhend it, however I have 1st hand experience with many young women who have left the group. I am talking about young women starting from 10 yrs ago and to tell you the truth, I have tried for so long to talk to old timers and many people in AA about the behavior and they always said to me that I was being over sensitive and that I should't believe everything i hear, especially from new-comers. I am so sick and tired of trying to defend the women that leave Midtown to a bunch of men in the program. I am still in shock, after all of the media , that anyone in their right mid would would still defend this group. I have lost so much faith in AA..They continue to manipulate everything around the Traditions and the fellowship and Anonimity..It is just a bunch of bull! I am sober 18 yrs and I now realize that AA is group of drunks that won't stand up for themselves. Sad state of affairs ..My Opinion Posted by: betsy.tate | September 12, 2007 11:33 PM Hi Betsy, glad I checked in here before bed. Yes, I certainly have many of the feelings about our program and members that you do. I have been pretty disgusted by many members who just don't seem to care, or don't want to get involved, or think that that would risk their sobriety, or who make every excuse under the sun, invoking traditions, never getting upset about anything, 'there are no big deals', 'God will take care of it', etc etc. Honestly, I have lost respect for these people. However, there are many others who wish to become involved and help out, really quite a few. This gives me some hope. But like you, I have lost a great deal of faith in our program. It just doesn't seem possible to me that this situation could have lasted a month, much less twenty years. I am even at the point where I question that if our fellowship doesn't care that we're being used to facilitate systematic sexual abuse we should exist at all. If we are so concerned with our own personal sobriety that we turn our backs to the mammoth human wreckage facilitated by our name, performed in our name, we are complicit. In that case, can we believe our program is grounded in morality and honesty? My main motivations at this point are to 1) provide some moral support to the past and current victims to facilitate their recovery and 2) prevent more victims from being created. I think that exposing this situation to the world outside our fellowship, including religious, educational, and professional groups and institutions, and to the general public, will be very productive. As a non-AA member pointed out here a few weeks ago, people outside our fellowship are not tortured about whether exposing a group of sexual predators violates AA traditions, or whether it's unhealthy for AAs to become upset about this sexual predation, or whether we'll lose our sobriety if we speak up. They simply expect the molestation and predation to be stopped. They believe that's the right outcome here. Obviously, so do I and so do you and so do many others on this blog. And I'm feeling very confident if we do some work here that is going to happen. But is this discouraging as far as the future of our fellowship goes? You bet. Posted by: DCC | September 13, 2007 12:10 AM DCC... discouraging, To say the least! I am disgusted by the response from people in AA. I am no longer willing to stand up for AA because after 18 yrs of sobriety and a program that has taught me to be honest, I cannot be dishonest about my morals, values and convictions. I no longer want to be affiliated with AA. I think it is a big bunch of people that do not want to recover from not only sobriety but from emotional damage that Alcoholism has caused. Alcohol is but a symptom. I am recovered and want nothing to do with a fellowship that allows and accepts behavior that is morally and spiritually wrong... simply wrong! I don't want any responses about Traditions, judgement, resentments, Steps, Sponsorship or any of the AA babble. It is so disturbing to me that many who are Sober can even entertain this behavior. WAIA, GSO anyone in AA can even think twice about this. I'm so sick of all of the talk and bull. I do not want to be affiliated with any group like this. I think too much of myslf to lower myself to this type of group. It is sad because I was a believer in AA until this. I really thought that something could be done but now I realize that it is all beauracracy and politics among WAIA. Just my opinion and very dissappointed. Posted by: betsy.tate | September 13, 2007 01:01 AM Some can't see, others don't want to see, while others can't believe it just might be the institutionalized sponsorship system was what and why the Traditions were written for as an ought that cannot be live today because of the system everyone is caught up in and don't have the courage to change it. It's a Let go and let your sponsor pony follow-ship show with no Program. Posted by: | September 13, 2007 02:11 AM Well, I woke up after sleeping a while and started thinking about this again, Betsy. As I said, I have lost respect for a number of people in the fellowship but by no means all. Many people want to make the situation change. But on the whole everything about AA seems to make the fellowship a sitting duck for this kind of cancer. I feel the future may not be bright for our fellowship. But I wish that were not so. Because I really do want the same helping hand that was there for me when I needed it to be there for others. Authoritarianism, as practiced in governments, cults, and similar organizations, will always have followers. To a certain mindset, it appears to provide security, order, and certainty without drawbacks or cost. And our fellowship's principal response to a parasitic authoritarian invasion is...? Denial? Self-Centeredness? Paralysis? Cowardice? Intentional blindness? Selfishness? Does anyone else have a more positive spin? Because I'd like to hear one. I do recall the very oft-repeated slogan "If nothing changes, nothing changes." However, again, we can stop the cult. Churches, schools, and hospitals will not give it access as long as they are aware of it. Civilized society will not permit it to continue as long as they are continuously aware of it. Posted by: DCC | September 13, 2007 02:33 AM Betsy and DCC, I feel like I am somewhere in between the both of you. I did not move that far away, just to Baltimore, and I struggle with maintaining involvement with AA. After thirty years I have seen and heard of much abuse in AA. But I remember that this program is there to attrack sick people. And since these people are dealing with alcoholism, that means many of them have been self medicating lots of "ISSUES". While many hide behind the traditions to ignore and/or not act upon abberant, deviant behavior, the 'principles over personalities' has been helpful for me to separate the actual program 12 steps from these persons so that my faith in recovery through those principles can continue. This does not mean I have to condon and/or ignore the behavior, I do not think our Founders meant for us to allow anyone to do anything they want in the name of AA. I do not turn my back on AA, to me that means I am turning my back on me, since I know that left to my own devices, 30 years will go out the window, I can drink again. For many, this means that emotionally they cannot stomach dealing with the Q Group issues. For others it means that they must. I certainly was one that had to deal with them, and would have loved it if I had been able to get anyone to press charges against them. Even when the Q Group was not there, I lived places where there were '13th steppers'. I went face to face with many of them in protection of the women I sponsored. I was accused of being a man hater, gay, jeolous and the list goes on by those who wanted me silenced and ignored. (And now the latest, homophobe and playing with my brother), it will never end as long as I speak out. There will always be sicko's out there. It would work until the victim finally realized what was happening, and then at least they knew where to turn for help in sorting out things rather than picking up a drink. They knew that somewhere among the zombies there was that big mouth sacriligious woman had not backed down, had not been silenced, and that that behavior also represents AA and the possible recovery path that is different. We are many and varied.......................... Posted by: used to live in the DC area | September 13, 2007 06:44 AM — Well, I woke up after sleeping a while and started thinking about this again — DCC that is called a resentment. The problem with what you are doing is that A.A. is a place for sick people to get well. For alcoholics to come recover. It is not a place for nice kind folk to become saints. If you start making behavior rules, which is in essence exactly what you are trying to do, where does it end? Do you really think people are trying to condone illicit behavior? No, that is not what people are saying. What they are saying is that "no matter how far down the scale" you have gone, you are welcome in A.A. If you don't change, well, you won't stick around. You are welcome to come, but why would you? A.A. is for the sick trying to get well, and if you aren't interested in getting well, you won't be around long. That is why the traditions state 'there is no A.A. police'. Get it? That is why A.A. members — and I live in PA — have a hard time listening to you. If you start trying to make a list of unacceptable behavior, you are essentially making a list of rules for membership, of which there aren't any and hopefully never will be. I fail to see how you can not comprehend this. Our fellowship can not deny even the most unsavory of individuals. Even in the midst of their lowest points, they are welcome. And, your behavior is totally unacceptable, and you are losing sleep over it. A resentment is reliving the emotions of events, thinking about what you should have said, what you could do, etc., and that is what you are doing. Even if you were dead nuts on about this group, two wrongs do not make a right here. I better explain what I mean by this before you interpret and mess it all up. Churches generally try to lend a hand to A.A. groups, let them meet, etc. They do not like controversy, as your merry band of harassers has so cleverly found out. So when you start bothering them, they simply don't want anything to do with A.A. anymore because all they associate is A.A. = problems. They don't care about the specifics, they can't hear when you try to explain that although this meeting is some crazy cult, this other meeting is just fine. They just don't want anything to do with A.A. anymore, and we as a fellowship lose another facility. This has happened before, and that is why more experienced members like myself would like for you to knock it off. Personally, I think you better find a way to accept that if this midtown group is really as bad as you say, that a HP will take care of them and that you don't have to rent so much of your headspace to them. I have never seen a person stay sober over a long period behaving the way is claimed about this group, but I have watched many a member leave with justified resentments as well. Posted by: inventory | September 13, 2007 07:12 AM [Orange here: I just have to comment on this one. This A.A. apologist is actually trying to argue that there are no rules in Alcoholics Anonymous, and that it is against "The Traditions" to demand that people behave in a moral manner. The A.A. "Third Tradition" says, The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking. It does not say that the only RULE that A.A. members must follow is "a desire to quit drinking". There are still other rules that are expected of all people: don't rape, don't rob, don't murder... A.A. does not get to suspend those rules because "We are not saints". Also, the writer argues that "If you don't change, you won't be around long." That isn't true at all. The thieves and rapists in the Midtown Group have been around for 20 years, and they show no signs of going away. Why would they quit A.A. when they get money, power, and sex from running a cult?]

September 28, 2007 - Friday If you are a Virginia member and wish to register your concern.... If you are a Virginia A.A. member and wish to register your concern about cults in AA and Midtown's moving of meetings to Northern Virginia, please attend a special meeting this Saturday, Sept 29 at noon—2pm at The Falls Church (108 East Fairfax St, Falls Church, fairly near corner of main and Broad St. Ted K., the Virginia delegate to GS conference, will talk about the recent conference in NYC. Also, volunteer to be a GSR if your group does not have one, or discuss this matter with your GSR and group. Just to be clear, this meeting will be about a number of topics. Actual invite as seen on the Northern VA Intergroup page. Link: http://www.nvintergroup.org/Delegate_Sharing_Flyer.pdf COME ON EVERYBODY TO THE DELEGATE SHARING AND LUNCH SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2007 FROM 12:00 UNTIL 2:00 p.m. AT The Falls Church 108 East Fairfax Street Falls Church, Virginia 22046 Ted K., the Delegate from Virginia, will tell us about what happened at the General Service Conference in New York City! Sponsored by Alexandria Districts 1, 45 and 46, Arlington District 2, Fairfax District 5, Falls Church District 6, Mt. Vernon District 11, Mount. Vernon, and Springfield District 21 and Wilson District 25 Come join us and bring a friend! I am a GSR and I assure you, I am going to register my concern about this situation. Do you think it is possible that after an article in Newsweek, a front page article in the Washington Post and numerous stories in the local TV media about the Midtown cult, that this topic is not important and did not come up at the Conference? And if it did not, what does that say about our fellowship and GSO? Because these are strongly supported allegations that hundreds or more of YOUNG WOMEN, MANY UNDERAGE, were SEXUALLY ABUSED by MUCH OLDER ASSIGNED MALE SPONSORS BY A CULT called MIDTOWN in the NAME OF AA. That many Midtown members have had their prescription medication taken away and subsequently needed hospitalization; some have committed suicide; that many members were pressured to drop psychotherapy. That many members were pressured to give large amounts of money to their sponsors to finance their vacations and other expenditures, manipulated to perform housekeeping and yard work on a regular basis. That members were "encouraged" to live in Midtown-sponsored housing with other members ( more than half do). That members were isolated from their families and needed to have Midtown monitors present when they visited them; that members were discouraged from attending non-Midtown meetings. That sex with other members of Midtown, especially older male "sponsors" was proclaimed part of the AA recovery program. That an AA slogan was "If a woman has a dick in her mouth she can't put a drink in her mouth". That the sex and the economic exploitation, and all the rest, were called "service work", or "selflessness", and were part of "going to any lengths to stay sober". Midtown has moved its main Sunday night meeting to Northern Va (after being expelled from church of the Pilgrims in DC). It is listed in the WAIA web site (i.e., for DC and Md) but not in the Virginia/Northern Virginia web site. Apparently true of other meetings out here now, as well. So again, I say that if you are a Virginia member and wish to register your concern about cults in AA and Midtown's moving of meetings to Northern Virginia, please attend a special meeting this Saturday, Sept 29 at noon—2pm at The Falls Church (108 East Fairfax St, Falls Church, fairly near corner of main and Broad Sts). Ted K., the Virginia delegate to GS conference, will talk about the recent conference in NYC.

Friday, October 26, 2007 THE TRUTH ABOUT MIDTOWN. This was emailed to FOM by: http://www.myspace.com/punkfriendsinrecovery here is a blog i wrote about midtown. it is my opinion and i want you to use my name and link my page. if we keep hiding then alot of people wont come forward. i understand that some need to be protected but not me, i will speak publically only. if you feel the need to change anything please let me know before you post the blog. again, i want people to know that this is MY experience with midtown and my opinion. thanks guys. keep up the good work. THE TRUTH ABOUT MIDTOWN. What can you actually say about a group of people that hurts and kills others? How about if that group hides behind something as wonderful as Alcoholics Anonymous? Evil lurks in the DC area and thy name is midtown (I will not capitalize this groups name). Hell got another citizen in August when Mike Q., their founder and leader, died. I know what killed him too; he finally tried to do a 9th step. Mike, may you never rest in peace and get what you deserve. MIDTOWN SEEKS MAINLY YOUNG, ATTRACTIVE, WELL OFF PEOPLE BUT IF YOU ARE WILLING THEY WILL TAKE MOST PEOPLE... ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE WILLING TO TAKE A FALL FOR THEM. THEY WANT MOSTLY SHEEP, THOSE NOT REALLY ABLE TO STAND UP FOR THEMSELVES BUT THEY WILL TRY TO TEAR DOWN THOSE THAT DO. I speak as an outsider, I've never been a member of the midtown cult, nor did I ever wish to be. I am a member of recovery and a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and have been coming around for more than 13 years. What I know is from what I see and what I hear from those that manage to escape the clutches of this CULT. The damaged kids that somehow come beaten and broken back into the real rooms of recovery. I have seen a lot of harm done over the years and nothing is being done about it. YES, MIDTOWN IS A CULT. They have distinctive leaders that are protected by the "lesser" members of the group. They are revered and almost worshiped and they seem untouchable, while the lieutenants take the hits that come their way. When their leader, Mike Q. died they did not call the police, an ambulance or any other authorities right away... they called their members in to pay respects to his dead body. For hours people streamed into his house to say goodbye to this guy before his body was hauled away. Midtown also practices a type of control over their members, especially newcomers. They are very subtle with this. When a newcomer comes in, they shower them with attention and love. This is very welcome to someone new in recovery. We come in feeling like we are pieces of shit and they surround you telling you that you're not. This is a good thing but they take it too far. They "smother" newcomers. They don't let them be alone, they alienate them from friends and family (even healthy ones) and they keep them in midtown meetings only. They don't allow the newcomer to think for themselves at all. They are told who they can associate with, where they can work and what to do. They are never exposed to real AA. The brainwashing has begun. Once they have you they get to work on you. They give you a girl or boyfriend and teach you the midtown ways. Protect the group is their main thing, not protect the newcomer. Midtown feeds on newcomers, especially young women. Sponsors use sponsees to perform chores and work on their homes, all in the name of "recovery". They also use character defects against their sponsees, another form of control. The sponsers get together from time to time to talk about their sponsees. Fourth steps are openly discussed and ways of using these against you are figured out. When someone does a fifth step with a sponser it is expected to go no further but with midtown that fifth step goes up the chain of command and then rains down on all the members of the group to be used to control undesired behavior. This group goes so far as to tell members to get off medications, life saving meds. You are told that you are not in recovery even if a doctor is prescribing meds to you. I'm not talking about Xanax or Percocet here, I'm talking about bi-polar meds, anti-depressants, heart medication — what next, are they going to tell diabetics to stop taking insulin? These people are NOT doctors yet they seem to think they can do this. This almost always leads to disaster. Probably the most cunning form of control is their way of making people do what they desire simply by threat of banishment from the group. Who wants to lose the loving family they have made? This group uses this threat all the time. There are countless ex-midtowners that were thrown out and ostracized. Alcoholics Anonymous throws no one out but this group does. Then they crank up the rumor mill. This causes some to relapse. They do whatever they can to ruin reputations of those that won't obey. A devious mind control device. The midtown hierarchy survives on the money donated at meetings, fundraisers, dances and other "events." They pass the basket and the majority of the money goes into the leaders pockets. The midtown elders are supported by AA and the donations of the group. Midtown also keeps track of their members. I have, in my possession, a list of all midtown members. This list was sent to me by someone who will remain anonymous but was once a midtown member. This list has the names of every member of midtown. It also has their address, home, work and cell numbers, email addresses, birth and sober dates and other information. This list was complied by midtown leadership. Nowhere else in AA does a group need or keep this kind of information. I will only briefly mention the sexual allegations — there is rumor that there is statutory rape going on in this group. This is in fact truth; the unfortunate fact is none of these young ladies wants to come forward because of fear of this group. When you are one young girl and they are over 400 strong, how would you feel? For every accusation that can be levied against them they can produce dozens of "witnesses" that will say it didn't happen. I know that inappropriate sex goes on everywhere but with midtown, it's a matter of accepted practice. I have personally spoken to several young women who were "assigned" older boyfriends when they first came in. I am talking about girls under the age of 17 who were pushed into sexual relationships with men in their 20's, 30's and sometimes even older. These girls are told that this is part of recovery. Parents, concerned people and law enforcement are very eager to talk to anyone who comes forward with proof of actual crimes. Midtown recruits. They have small groups that take "meetings" into rehabs and other places to ferret out new membership. They send in the most attractive members of the group, even those with little actual recovery time. Their aim is to make midtown attractive to newcomers. They run these meetings tight. They speak the whole time, never giving anyone a chance to share. They then stick around after, telling anyone who will listen to only go to their meetings. Midtown has been banned from many rehabs, institutions and other places, they have even been thrown out of some churches. Midtown controls the Hospitals and Institutions Sub-Committee in our area. They assign who takes what meetings where. Steps are being taken to rectify this. Some people get fed up with midtown and leave. Some never return to recovery because they think all of recovery is like midtown — some relapse and die. The midtown cult has given young peoples AA in the DC area a very bad name. In fact, all of AA suffers from groups like midtown. They hurt their own members, then these facts get out, and it hurts AA as a whole. Who wants their kid to go somewhere they might get raped? AA suffers from midtown yet will do nothing about them. That's where me and people like me come in. We fight against groups that hurt others on purpose, especially newcomers. We are there when these damaged kids come out of midtown and seek real recovery. If I stand by and watch this than I am just as guilty as those doing these very things. Do you suffer cancer and do nothing about it? Midtown is a malignant cancer in AA and it needs to be removed. Jeff.

Thursday, November 01, 2007 WAIA needs Intergroup Representatives, for any and all groups w/in area 13 WAIA needs Intergroup Representatives, for any and all groups w/in area 13, to show up once a month and stand up for AA, or the midtown cult members will take it over again in December. They realized that they dropped the ball last December and have been re-organizing themselves by making certain that all of their Intergroup Representatives show up and vote on all issues as one, so that they can manipulate their will on Area 13 again. Midtown has had no fewer than 40-50 reps there, every single month, voting as one on what they want to occur (manipulate) in Area 13. Considering that midtown only has 23 meetings under their control, many midtown group members have taken over the responsibilities of that position for meetings who are too irresponsible to have one. So, call a group conscience in your home group, find out if your home group has a WAIA Intergroup Representative. If not, nominate yourself if you have to and have the group take the nominations to a vote. If someone else happens to take the majority of votes, wish her/him well and go to your other home group and repeat this process. Area 13 WAIA meetings should have no less than 1000 Intergroup Representatives there, every single month, to conduct an effective meeting. Without an effective meeting, The Q. Group manipulates it's will on Area 13 and the integrity of our life saving program continues to be compromised, all for the financial and sexual gratification of a very few, at the cost of the future Newcomers survival. Separate individual members, representing different home groups, as Intergroup Representatives, believe that this is the poorest trade of all, and this is where we are making our stand. Please, please come and make your stand here, as well! Don't vote for our groups interests! Don't vote for the Q. Groups interests! Vote as an Intergroup Representative for your home group and make that vote count! The December elections are a little over a month away. The current non midtown group members are stepping down. They have done what they said they would do. Now, it's your turn. If you do not show up and be able to prove that you are an Intergroup Rep and vote, midtown will have complete control again and you will have to accept that your inactivity helped that to happen.

And then a true believer just had to insert this post into the discussion of the Mike Quinones' "Midtown A.A. Group" rapists: Wednesday, November 07, 2007 80's tribute to untreated alcoholism/drug addiction. In case you were unaware, you can remain dry/clean, and still suffer from untreated alcoholism/drug addiction. It doesn't matter how many like personalities continually surround you, nor does it matter if the character defects you display are generally accepted by those within your social group. In truth, if those within your social group are cosigning your behavioral reactions to your unchecked character defects, they are actually cosigning your death warrant. Our character defects are what block us from the Power that can and will relieve us of our alcoholism/drug addiction. Untreated alcoholism/drug addiction is untreated alcoholism/drug addiction. Untreated or treated, your disease continues to progress; however, when the high of these social interactions no longer distract you from your disease, drinking will not only become an option, it will become mandate.       I have to comment on this post. This is one of the purest statements of A.A. cult dogma around. Every single statement there is untrue, with the only possible exception being this meaningless truism, "Untreated alcoholism/drug addiction is untreated alcoholism/drug addiction." If someone has quit his addictions, then he is not suffering from "untreated alcoholism/drug addiction." If he has quit drinking and using drugs, then he is not addicted any more. Notice how they try to change the meanings of the words, like "addiction". Addiction means that your body is habitated to getting a regular dose of a chemical, and that you will suffer from very unpleasant withdrawal symptoms if you don't get the dose. Addiction does not mean that you have "character defects", or emotional problems, or that you are "unspiritual", or that you are "too far away from God", or that you "have resentments". There are actually only two possible treatments for addiction: Consume more of the chemical to prevent withdrawal symptoms. Quit the habit and go through withdrawal and detox and be done with it. Notice that joining a cult religion and confessing your sins is not a "treatment for addiction". "Alcoholism" is not caused by "unchecked character defects". People who tolerate your behavior are not "cosigning your death warrant." "Character defects" do not block you from "Power", with a capital 'P'. (What they mean is, "God won't talk to you, or save you, or give you power, if you don't do their 12 Steps.") "Untreated or treated", alcohol abuse and/or alcohol addiction do not continue to progress when you are not drinking alcohol. "Alcoholism" is not a disease. Chronic excessive alcohol consumption is a bad habit. This statement is also untrue: "...when the high of these social interactions no longer distract you from your disease, drinking will not only become an option, it will become mandate." Someone does not have to drink alcohol just because the giddy emotional high that comes from partipation in a cult religion wears off. And that is why A.A. is a bunch of bull that doesn't help people.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007 Watch out for idiots. The WAIA nominations are tonight and the elections are coming up fast. This was sent to FOM: The WAIA Intergroup Representative meeting is tonight at 8:00 pm. The main topic will be the nominations for next years Executive Committee. As we all know, last year, several A.A. members outside of Midtown, were voted in as Executive Committee Members, when Midtown wanted control of every seat. Throughout the year, Midtown has been gathering its masses to retake, with democratic force, every single seat on the Executive Committee. You can, with active participation, change the outcome of their manipulative gestures and become committed to service work at the Area level. I am not recommending lip service. I am recommending responsible participation, based on a foundation of love and service. Become a rep, then represent yourself as one. Why am I suggesting this? Well, let's look at what happened last year, and its ongoing aftermath. Last year, one particular and far reaching idiot, ignored a question that was directed at him no less than 4 times. That question was, "are you an Intergroup Representative"? He answered yes (4 times), accepted a nomination and was voted in as an Executive Committee Member by the majority of Intergroup Representatives present. Before the next WAIA Intergroup Representative meeting, he approached the Executive Committee Chair, who is controlled by Midtown, and notified him that he didn't understand the question that was asked (4 times), wasn't a rep, and he didn't believe that the non Midtown A.A. members who were voted in as Executive Committee Members, were Intergroup Representatives either. Before the Intergroup Representative meeting began, he sneaked out of the back door and was never seen there again. Needless to say, that particular and far reaching idiot has been used as an example of what not to do, or be, ever since. Midtown, as a direct result of this idiot's action, created a position at WAIA, to confront idiots like him and control the vote count during its monthly meetings. That particular idiot gave Midtown all the ammunition they needed to suggest that they are the only young peoples group that's accountable in Area 13 and unfortunately, Midtown had a point. This idiot was with two other idiots and all three of them represented one Sunday night young peoples group; one of these idiots was the Chair Person for that young peoples meeting. All three of them lied about being reps, and all three of them never returned and committed to service through action. They couldn't have made Midtown look more attractive, and other young peoples meetings look less attractive, if they were paid. The moral of the story? Don't be an idiot. We have enough of them and they have done enough damage to area 13 and A.A. as a whole. Case in point: Throwing shoes, tea bags, water bottles and chairs at newcomers as they're picking up chips, happens at this Sunday night meeting and it has only made Midtown look 1,000 times more attractive to those desperately seeking recovery. Use that group and those who run it, as examples of what not to be and become an Intergroup Representative for your home group. Help your home group to be the best it can be. We, as A.A. members, have a responsibility to offer newcomers an alternative to a Cult-like meeting, or one that is run by a hierarchy of idiots seeking approval from one another through any and all means of nonconformist behaviors, like taking newcomers into the woods and having them throw bullets and soup cans into camp fires, after vandalizing farmer markets and their venues. Yeah, it's that bad there. That is what they offer those who come into A.A. seeking recovery. Little wonder why Midtown has over 400 members, and they are not attracted to A.A. outside of their group. Members of this young peoples meeting, including the same Chairperson mentioned earlier, are the ones that ran the Del Ray Midnight meeting into the ground before it withered and died. Their behaviors drove the real A.A. members out, then the "meeting" couldn't pay the rent. Selfish people never want to pay for the place they shit on or in. Would you be attracted to A.A. outside of Midtown, if that other young peoples meeting and its hierarchy was your first introduction to A.A.? No, you wouldn't. You would probably buy what Midtown sold to you, hook, line and sinker, if that other group was your first exposure to A.A. So, don't let a bunch of idiots take your A.A. meeting hostage with inappropriate behaviors, because that is exactly what they will attempt to do, once they run theirs into the ground. Be the best A.A. member you can be and represent your home group well in all matters. It's easier than destroying it, you'll help others to recover from alcoholism and your home group should be represented regardless. Hopefully, I'll see you there tonight.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007 WAIA UPDATE The WAIA Executive Committee nominations were last Tuesday. Around 200 people showed up. Well over 160 of them were midtown members. At least 20 midtown members nominated themselves. The current midtown member, who was the only midtown member left on the Executive Committee after last year's election, was nominated for Chair. This is the same midtown group member who, on two occasions, has written dictations for the current Chair to read — for the entire Executive Committee; an act that is clearly void of moral or ethical accountability. The Vise Chair (who is not in midtown) was nominated, but declined to run, due to the extraordinary measures midtown has taken to shut her and her husband down from further participation in any kind of midtown confrontation. The two Executive Committee Members who were to receive nominations could not be there due to sickness and therefore, could not receive nominations without their participation in the Intergroup Representatives meeting. It needs to be noted that for the last several months, fewer and fewer A.A. members have taken part in the WAIA Intergroup Representatives meeting. All of the Sub Committees (like the Hospitals/Institutions and Rules Committee) that hold any level of power are directly controlled and solely operated by midtown members. If you wanted to put something on the WAIA website, it's a midtown member that will decide if it's going to be put up, and it's going to be that same midtown member who will take it off, without anyone's consent outside of the midtown group. How did this happen? Look in the mirror. Every single time that you and your designated home group WAIA Representative didn't show up and offer to be of service within one or all of WAIA's Sub Committees, you and your home group allowed, if not asked for this to happen. Midtown is an institution onto itself. It has few goals, other than that of self survival and population growth through manipulation, dictation and consumption. If anyone has taken time to read the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, these responses are not representative of a spiritual awakening. So, here we are with an institution that behaves and carries itself quite unlike that of our A.A. fellowship, yet we allow them, through our inactivity, to be the sole carriers of A.A.'s message of recovery, within Hospitals and Institutions, through WAIA's Hospitals and institutions Committee. A clearer example of insanity would be difficult discovering. If you do not show up next month as an Intergroup Representative and vote for someone outside of the midtown group, the entire WAIA Executive Committee will be manned, controlled and operated by the midtown group. Think about that for a moment: One group of people, who behave in a manner and transmit a message of recovery based in human control and codependency, characteristics on the polar opposite of A.A.'s belief structure, dictating the way A.A. is operated within Montgomery County, Prince Georges County and Washington DC. In case that escaped you, we're talking about one (seriously) misdirected A.A. group, playing God and sucking the life out of the other 1500 A.A. groups. If that makes sense to you, keep doing what you're doing and don't show up. If that doesn't make sense to you, and it shouldn't; then show up as an Intergroup Representative and be counted.

Thursday, January 10, 2008 Why Midtown needs to be stopped This message was sent by a concerned friend: Imagine, if you will, you are a young 14 or 15-year-old girl. For a few years you have been battling addiction — It does not matter to what, just that there has been an internal and external battle with drugs and alcohol. You have been fighting this battle alone and losing it the whole time. Your life has become horrible; perhaps you are doing things for drugs you could not have imagined doing; stealing, selling drugs, selling yourself and everything you can do to get what you need. You have alienated your family and your good friends, you are failing out of school (or even been kicked out) — you may even be looking at serious jail time. You are drained and emotionally dead. You are alone and suicidal. Everything good in your life is gone and you are barely a teenager. You are truly lost. Eventually some sort of intervention comes along whether through your family, yourself, the law or school. You perhaps see a possibility of life becoming good once more, rehab might be an option but almost certainly, AA is needed. Then you are faced with the midtown group. Ok — this is make or break time. On the outside, midtown looks very good. They are very attractive to newcomers, especially younger newcomers — especially young girls. Midtown is a very cohesive group, they are tight. They are a large group of mostly attractive, young, positive seeming people. They welcome newcomers with open arms and seem very interested in them. They ask a lot of questions and seem to actually want to know more. They pry information out of people. They surround the newcomer and almost smother them. Once the newcomer is theirs, they do not relent. They isolate them from outside friends, meetings and even family — indoctrination has begun. It is very simple how midtown works: they take a lonely, isolated, scared child and make them feel safe, secure and loved. It's all fake. Little does the child, or their family, know that the harm is about to come. MIDTOWN IS NOT ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS! They do not follow any of the traditions set down by the founders and in fact seem to go the opposite way to fill their needs. Midtown feeds on young people, especially young girls. Again, on the face midtown looks harmless. This is what they want AA and the public to believe. They are very harmful to people and AA as a whole. Midtown uses up people until they either conform or are tossed out. This is what you can expect from midtown if you attend their meetings and you are young and seem new: They first surround you with pretty people asking all kinds of questions (How much time do you have? Do you have a sponsor? A home group? They want your number and almost force theirs on you. They then won't leave you alone; they call, they insist on doing everything with you, you are given no free time, you are told that midtown meetings are the only real, good AA meetings. You are then not allowed to go to any meetings but midtown meetings under the threat of being expelled from the midtown group. This is a very important psychological tool; by this very threat, midtown implies that to not do it their way is to be ostracized by the group and to probably return to active addiction. They prey on the weakness and fear of the newcomer of being abandoned by those who seem to love them. This gets the newcomer into an even stronger stranglehold. These kids have come from being fearful and alone in their addictions and some of them are willing to do anything to not return there. Midtown knows this and uses it, after-all it was used on them. Once the fear of being kicked out of the group takes hold, the brainwashing begins. Midtown uses all the dirty tricks; they set you up with a boy/girlfriend (something severely frowned upon in early recovery), they find you work where they want you to work, they assign you a sponsor (sometimes even a sponsor of a different sex, something else also severely frowned upon), they make you feel important to the group and give you face time with their leaders. This is also important, as the leaders are very important to midtown; they are like idols to the group. Those with time in midtown are put on pedestals and their words are midtown law. To be recognized by a midtown elder is a great thing to younger midtowners — to date one is even better. Most of the elders are over 35, mostly men (although there are some women midtown leaders) and have serious time in midtown (usually 15 or more years). One word from a midtown elder could get you raised in the hierarchy or get you expelled from the group. They take their leaders very seriously. Almost any midtown member would do anything for an elder; sex, take the fall when the heat comes down, recruit "dates", give them money, do work/chores for them, etc. In midtown the leaders hold absolute power and suffer little or no consequences for their actions. Recognition from a leader is very important to any midtown member because it might eventually elevate them to a leadership position themselves. There is a lot of ass kissing in this group. The newcomer doesn't have a chance. They must comply with everything because everyone else is "above" them in the group. This is where it gets dangerous. There is a lot of borderline illegal activity in this group; statutory rape comes up a lot. Because they have control they tell you who you can date, it will always be another midtown member and sometimes a young teenage girl is paired up with a 20 or 30-year-old guy. While no one has come forward — yet (there is a lot of fear about making any legal case on these creeps because if one girl comes forward than 20 people from the group will come out and say it did not happen), there have been many testaments against this group for just such activity. In fact, you can find testimony on this very page. Fear keeps these victims quiet. There are also questions about where all the money this group raises in the name of AA goes. Nobody seems to have an answer for that but the leaders seem to take an awful lot of expensive vacations ... hmmm. They also seem to get a lot of beach houses for the summer as well. Nobody says you have to spend the money in any particular way but if you are collecting money in the name of AA it should be spent on recovery. My opinion. Sponsorship is a very scary thing in midtown. In AA it is recommended that you get a same-sex sponsor — someone you can trust because you are going to be sharing some very secret stuff with them. There is a sponsorship hierarchy in midtown and frequently you are assigned a sponsor of the opposite sex. Your sponsor is also sponsored and so on up to the leaders. It used to be Mike Q. sponsored all the leaders but after his death I am not sure who is running the show. Anyway, anything you share with your sponsor is shared up the leadership ladder and then used against you to further tighten the control over you. You will share your deepest, darkest secrets with your sponsor and in a matter of days everyone in the group will know it all and it will be constantly thrown in your face if you deviate from the midtown norm. The goal of midtown is control, absolute. It starts with what seems to be love and concern and then becomes tactful and sometimes nasty — any way they can get the reins of control from you. It is all to serve the leaders and the hopes of those who wish to become leaders. It's about money, sex and power over people, especially young people. This group warps the AA message and turns what should be a beautiful thing into something dark, scary and downright dangerous. If you don't comply you are kicked out. If you go to the authorities you are ganged up on and shouted down. If you speak against the group you are threatened and sometimes lied about to others in recovery and the police (false charges have been brought about against someone who dared speak out publically against the group). This group hurts people, especially kids — young girls. People are coerced to do things they don't want to do by threat of relapse. Some kids who do figure out this group is bad leave recovery, sometimes to never come back. Some go back to active addiction because they think that midtown is what all AA and recovery is about. Some die. THIS IS NOT AA! AA is about love and caring and helping, not using people. AA was founded on steps and traditions that make it impossible to do what this group regularly does as a matter of policy. Midtown teaches those who rise up in power to act this way. It perpetuates itself and has for more than 25 years now. This group numbers somewhere between 300 and 400 people. They do not represent AA or young people's recovery but they think they do and many people believe them. Just because the leader and founder died doesn't mean midtown died with him. No, it still exists as strong as ever, recruiting more and more young, gullible kids with false promises and evil hopes (midtown is known to go into schools, rehabs, institutions and jails to "recruit" members, they send in their prettiest people and tell clients and patients them that the only good recovery is in midtown.). Midtown grows stronger and gains more control because there are those in recovery feel that if they are untouched by it, it's not their problem. A small minority fights against midtown while most of recovery just ignores the problem and just hopes it will go away and every year midtown claims more victims. What's it going to take, your kid joining the group, before you do something about a very real evil in our midst? Do more kids have to be raped or die because we won't do anything about it? Aren't I as guilty of a crime if I know it's happening and I do nothing about it? Does an actual crime have to be committed before we do anything or is just plain wrongness enough? How much harm does a group have to do to the AA name before something is done? Who will stand and catch these kids when they are expelled from the group and form an opinion that all recovery is like midtown? Who will stay and tell them that there is real recovery out there? Who will reach out? Isn't it all of our responsibility to do these things? To give what we were so freely given. We were given a gift and didn't have to give up our bodies and minds to get it. Should these kids have to do just that? Why don't we stand against this evil instead of sitting by doing our own thing? For shame to anybody out there who knows yet does nothing. THE MIDTOWN CULT AND ALL OF THEIR POLICIES AND PRACTICES ARE JUST PLAIN WRONG AND VERY HARMFUL TO ANYONE IN RECOVERY AND TO RECOVERY AS A WHOLE.

Sunday, April 06, 2008 A concerned friend writes FOM. "I am in New York, but I know about the Midtown Group and I think it is sick!!! We have a similar although not quite as intense group here in New York called the Atlantic Group, which has links to the Pacific Group in Los Angeles. Midtown has some loose connection to these groups and the one they call Clancy, the Guru of the Pacific Group. These are very dangerous people. The word is out in the rooms about Midtown and believe me, people do not like it and it does not represent what AA is really about. Unfortunately, the Midtown-types here in New York are making their voice heard at Intergroup and causing lots of problems for some other meetings. Thank you for your service"

Wednesday, April 09, 2008 We received this message from a friend: i was just reading the last post and something occured to me- if there are clear connecitons to the pacific group, why not start to address the problem there, too? mike q is gone, but clancy and johnny harris still run the show, so why not go all the way to the top? that way the various affiliated groups in ny and pa and anywhere else will have ot reevaluate there structure, etc. just a thought. and i'm curious, have you guys figured out how to work against the evil some people are displaying in these meetings without threatening the traditions and the sobriety of the newcomers in these various areas? i'd like to know cause i haven't thought of anything and i'd really like to see some principled and effective methods of dealing with this. Don't forget Tampa, Florida. Mike and some of his disciples started a satellite Q. group there when he was on the run from his exploits, up here. We've received several updates, and, as is the case here in DC, they are not effected by Mike's death. I was on a Men's Advance with J. H. recently and people are really sucking up to him. He definitely controls Midtown from Ca. My favorite take of his is that you can't be an alcoholic and a depressive, bi polar, etc. The point being that you are either an alcoholic, or you're a depressive, or you're a schizophrenic. You cannot be both. More important is his stance that if you are on any medications whatsoever for any of these "other conditions", you are not sober. That makes about as much sense as stating that you can't be an alcohol and a diabetic, yet they suck it up like good lap dogs nonetheless. Pretty shocking that people in this day and age would accept such ill conceived lunacy as fact, however, when you're compromised enough to allow man to become your god, once he has become accustomed to it, he will do just about anything to remain your god. Of course, that will include sacrificing you, so that those who are as compromised as you are will remain within the structured fold and worship him still. Posted by THE FALL OF MIDTOWN. AKA: THE Q. GROUP on Wednesday, April 09, 2008 at 8:49 PM CathyMc I've heard Clancy preach the same shit as a speaker. I don't know how he's gotten away with that for so long or why so many listen. THAT'S NOT AA PEOPLE. Bill W. fought depression many years of his life, so if you believe J.H., Bill can't be alcoholic. Posted by CathyMc on Wednesday, April 09, 2008 at 9:03 PM

Monday, April 21, 2008 We received this message about the Tampa YPG from a friend In keeping with Traditions, FOM has removed the full names from this post and left the initials: Tampa YPG was formed roughly 6 or 7 years ago by members of Midtown. Two in particular that I know of, Txxx Cxxxxxxx and Jxxxx who sponsor a couple pigeons Dxxxx Dxxxxxxxx and Rxxx Axxxx. It is almost a mirror image of what is going on at the Midtown group. It has increasingly sickened me beyond belief as to what I have seen and heard going on. Newcomer women are being sponsored in the group and being encouraged to sleep with members in the group to get used to having sex in sobriety. New members have been told to sleep with Txxx and Jxxxx who visit Tampa quite frequently. STD's are running rampant within the group and I'm now aware of 1 recent forcible rape as well as at least 2 statutory rapes in the recent months. For all the people who they help stop drinking, there are just as many who are permanently scarred from the forcible sex and mind bullshit going on. Rxxx Axxxx and Dxxxx Dxxxxxxxx are encouraging all of it as well as their pigeons and getting the direct direction from Txxx and Jxxxx. If the group were investigated thoroughly starting today, I would take a guess that there would be at least 15 to 30 arrests on sexual charges not to mention one of the members is so I've been told is HIV positive and having sex on a regular basis with newcomers. I have been a member for almost 6 months now and I didn't see this when it started, but it is all coming out now. My sponsor who is outside the group tells me to stay away, but I still go because of some of the friendships I have there. I have been told the police are actively investigating them and have been for quite a while now but haven't seen anything happen yet. It was hard enough getting sober at 24 and trying to stay sober with all the crap going on at Tampa YPG. Please keep me anonymous if you repost this. I don't want to lose some of the friendships I have made. Not all of them are bad. They are just getting bad direction.

AA Renegade Dies—Whither Midtown? Michael Quinones, leader of the Midtown Group, the network of local Alcoholics Anonymous chapters that appeal to young people and break with AA's traditions in some very disturbing ways, died last week. The Midtown Group, the generic name for a cluster of AA groups that meet in Maryland, the District and Virginia and specialize in helping teenaged and other young alcoholics, has been accused of encouraging young female members to have sex with older men in the group, seeking to sever or at least limit members' ties to family and friends, and encouraging members to stop taking prescribed medications. The passing of Mike Q, as he was known within AA circles, has people talking about whether Midtown will continue to thrive within AA, wither away, or move closer to the practices that protect other AA groups from the kind of controlling leadership, abusive sexual practices and socially exclusive methods that Quinones was accused of putting into practice in Midtown. As I reported last month, AA has been unable to address the allegations that former members of Midtown have raised because the movement's loose structure prevents it from exercising effective authority over rogue groups. Former members who want to make certain that other young people do not feel pressured to have sex with leaders and older members of Midtown have been trying to get the local Intergroup, the assembly of Washington area AA groups, to take a stand about Midtown's practices. But it's not at all clear what will happen to that effort now that Quinones is gone. Ex-members expect Quinones' close friends and associates who have been running the network of groups during Mike Q's long illness to continue that work. Some say they would be surprised if there is any substantial change in the character of the group. But others point to Quinones' personal charisma and his studies of the work of George Gurdjieff, — whom Mike Q pointed to as the source for his beliefs about the importance of sexual relationships as a source of healing and strength—and conclude that Midtown was effective and attractive primarily because of the power of Quinones' personality and ideas. Quinones, who was 63 when he died, lived with other members of the group in a house in North Bethesda that served as a focal point for many young people. Some Midtown members live in group houses in Gaithersburg, Bethesda and other suburban locales, and many of the young people buy shares in summer houses in Rehoboth. "I guess it will work out fine for the hierarchy," one commenter on an anti-Midtown web site said after learning of Quinones' death. "They will make him a martyr for 'saving all their lives.' Now begins the countdown to the giant picture of him attached to the podium, or the life sized bust...." Another commenter who said she attended a Midtown meeting Sunday reported that "A moment of silence before the meeting was in place and other than that it went on as usual." Groups like Midtown often collapse or are radically reshaped after the death of their founding leader, but in this case, there are hundreds of vulnerable young people who rely heavily on the group for emotional support and social structure. Despite AA's longstanding policy of granting all of its groups near-total independence, it behooves members of other local groups to step in and offer alternatives to young people who are caught up in Midtown. By Marc Fisher | August 22, 2007; 7:56 AM ET Washington Post Also see the comments that follow this story: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/rawfisher/2007/08/aa_renegade_dieswhither_midtow.html One of the comments says something very strange: "I do not celebrate the death of anyone but I know that the DC recovery community is better off without Mike Q (real name Edward Quinones, Jr.). If he was such a great man, why did he go by his brother's name?" And this one is really grim: i got sober in the dc area almost 20 yrs ago and i watched the reality of the mid town group and what they practised. about 17 yrs ago i met a young lady at a mtg at mont general hospital who had gotten involved with the midtown crowd almost from day 1. she was shaking and crying because "they" had told her that she could no longer take her prescribed meds for her depression and bi-polar disease because if she did, she would be "using" and therefore not sober. she desperately wanted to be sober so....she did as she was told. at about 90 days she found a gun and blew her brains out. what i remember best was a midtown "member" saying...."well, i guess she wasn't ready yet". not a bit of remorse. EVERYTHING that you have printed about the Q group is the gods honest truth and the only ones who will write defending the group are their own members. keep up the good work Posted by: kf hawaii | August 23, 2007 4:47 AM

1. "If you witnessed the things I saw in my year active in this group that calls itself AA you would be disgusted."
   Young women have been raped by much older men. My old sponsor had sex with a 14 year old girl and he is in his 30's. He acted like it was no big deal. I mentioned to him that such things are wrong. He said "who says so"...

2. "Now you must report...

3. Mike Q.'s group sponsors the A.A. Young People's Conference.

4. NBC4, the local TV station in Washington DC, has been hammering away on the sexual exploitation of underage girls issue.

5. Here is another new story, from NBC4, reprinted by ReligionNewsBlog.Com:
   http://www.religionnewsblog.com/18333/midtown-aa-2
   Woman Describes Teen Life As Member Of Midtown AA
   "I would say overall, it was like a seven-year stomachache that I walked around with," she said.
   Michelle told News4 that sexually transmitted diseases are endemic in Midtown: "It was almost your rite of passage. I would say that it would be uncommon to not have something once you've been there a couple months," said Michelle.
   Also, the original NBC4 article is here: http://www.nbc4.com/news/13361410/detail.html

6. The prevous NBC4 stories here.
   

7. Search results for Midtown AA Group on NBC4. This lists all of their stories.

8. Also see the previous list of stories about the Midtown Group, here.

9. a police officer's wife says that the Midtown Group encouraged her to have sex with group members and to divorce her husband

10. Midtown group in DC just won the bid for SERCYPAA, South East Region Conference of Young People in AA. So these perverts will be running a Young People's conference sometime this year in DC.

11. A reader sends in the Newsweek article.

12. http://freedomfrom12steps.blogspot.com/
    == A blog that covers a whole lot of issues, including Midtown.
    • http://freedomfrom12steps.blogspot.com/2007/05/midtown-aa-group-update-and-some-random.html — Comments and links about the Midtown Group of A.A.

13. A new web site about the Midtown Groups: http://thetruthaboutmidtown.com/
    • http://thetruthaboutmidtown.com/index.php?option=com_content&task;=view&id;=4&Itemid;=2 == description of the Midtown Group.
      — Especially note, "Sponsor direction to a MG member to stop seeing a psychiatrist and/or a psychologist, resulting in relapses, suicides, and psychiatric episodes."
    • http://thetruthaboutmidtown.com/index.php?option=com_content&task;=view&id;=6&Itemid;=5
      == A list of links to many more stories about Midtown Groups.

14. http://www.wheremostneeded.org/2007/05/aa_group_accuse.html
    == Where Most Needed; The Charity Industry Observer Probing the Deeper Links & Linkages; AA Group Accused of Cult-like Practices

15. http://www.jointogether.org/news/headlines/inthenews/2007/dc-aa-chapter-a-cult.html
    == D.C. AA Chapter a Cult, Critics Say

16. http://www.consumerelectronicsnet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=133698
    == NEWSWEEK: Recovering Alcoholics Taking Sides in Dispute Against a Washington D.C.-Area 'AA' Group

17. http://syddv.proboards88.com/index.cgi?board=general&action;=post& thread=1167116573"e;=1178922926&page;=1
    == A very interesting discussion of the Midtown Group. Definitely read this:

    "There are individuals that have formed a organization, which call themselves "Love and Service" (LS). They have every intention of bringing the MG's negative influence, to light, for all of the world to see, as well as help the MG's conditioned members receive psychological help, as they attempt to leave the MTG.
          "The MG, feeling the threat of exposure, that could limit their consumption of Newcomers, decided to fight back by setting up the Public Relations Chair Person of LS with a false charge. The MG not only used a woman to file false "stalking / harassment" charges on this Trusted Servant, they also manipulated (pressured) more than 30 of their impressionable Newcomers, to lie in a Court of Law, to back up said charges.
          "What the MG didn't count on was that what manipulative practices that work in AA meetings and on its broken fellowship, does not work, by any stretch of the imagination, in a Court of Law."

18. Alcoholics Anonymous sure isn't cleaning its own house, in spite of all of the high-falutin' talk about how A.A. is self-managing and self-governing. The Midtown Group is still listed in the schedules of A.A. meetings. Look at the bottom of this page:
    http://www.aavirginia.org/hp/meetings/waw.asp?day=0&town;=FREDERICKSBURG&b;=-2

19. http://vicariousrising.typepad.com/vicarious_rising/2007/05/status.html
    == Vicarious Rising — another thread of comments.
    Especially see the last comment, by Eric F., who took over the management of http://www.blamedenial.co.uk

20. Speaking of which, here is an essay by Eric F. about the A.A. effort to not publicize the behavior of the Midtown Group.

21. http://community.myfoxdc.com/blogs/WISDOM_MARTIN/2007/05/10/ALCOHOLICS_ANONYMOUS
    == opinions on the Midtown Group, including the usual list of rationalizations.

22. http://prompt.newsvine.com/_news/2007/05/15/720011-church-calls-alcoholics- anonymous-a-cult-and-bans-it-from-its-premises-for-sexual-misconduct
    == more opinions

23. http://community.myfoxdc.com/blogs/Roz_Plater/2007/05/14/Renegade_AA_Group
    == MyFox, Washington DC, Renegade AA Group?
    A reporter trying to get the facts can't get anybody inside the Midtown Group to talk.

24. http://www.topix.net/music/punk/2007/05/controversy-continues-in-midtown-aa-scandal
    == the start of a thread on the Midtown Group

25. http://www.doitsober.com/?p=99
    == And of course we get the A.A. apologists who, rather than caring about the welfare of the children who are being raped, are crying about how "hateful" the "propaganda" against the "Young People's AA in our area" has been:

    "...we are upset by the amount of hateful propaganda that has swarmed Young People's AA in our area over the past year, specifically via the internet."

26. http://groups.msn.com/PillsAnonymous/general.msnw?action=get_message&mview;=0&ID;_Message=101996
    == MSN board, more comments. The usual pros and cons.

27. And finally, how sweet it is. Rick Ross now has a couple of web pages up on his web site that declare that Alcoholics Anonymous (at least the Washington DC Midtown Group branch of it) is in fact a cult after all.
    This is after Ross banned, censored, and erased messages of those people who insisted on his forum that A.A. was a cult.
    • http://www.rickross.com/reference/general/general915.html
      == Critics Say Washington AA Chapter Is Cultlike
      Recovering alcoholics say a Washington, D.C., group has hijacked the 12-step program's name.
      Newsweek Magazine/May 7, 2007
      By Nick Summers
      

    • http://www.rickross.com/reference/general/general923.html
      == Former Midtown AA Members Claim Cult-Like Behavior

28. Oh, and I have one lingering question: One correspondent told me that the Midtown Group "also just won the bid for SERCYPAA, South East Region Conference of Young People in AA. So these perverts will be running a YP conference sometime this year in DC."
    Is that still true? Is the Alcoholics Anonymous organization going to allow a bunch of known and outed sexual predators to run a young people's convention in Washington DC this year?
    Wow. A.A. really doesn't believe in cleaning house, does it?

29. And one more addition, recommended by the "Recovering From Recovery" blog,
    http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID;=185546838&blogID;=265904083
    This author describes a Midtown-like A.A. group in Minneapolis.
    (Also see the one in Phoenix, Arizona, here.)

30. And this is curious: Apparently, there is such a fire-storm over this issue that some publishers are scared and can't stand the heat. Newsweek magazine actually blanked the comments to the Newsweek story:
    http://health.talk.newsweek.com/default.asp?item=584518#comments
    

    This is the URL of the original article:
    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18368218/site/newsweek/page/0/
    

    What is it that they call it? Journalistic integrity? or Journalistic courage?
    So is Newsweek no longer in the "freedom of speech" and "free press" business?
    

    Oh well, at least they published the orginal article. I commend them for that.
    

    Still, you might want to write a letter to the editor, just for the fun of it, complaining about them stopping the dialogue.
    Try this email address: Customer.Care@newsweek.com

    And this is strange: at the bottom of that web page, it says "© 2007 MSNBC.com" and "© 2007 Microsoft".
    So is the Newsweek magazine web site now controlled or owned by MSNBC and Microsoft?
    Are they the ones who are deciding that the issue is too controversial for us children to handle?

31. Later: And this is an interesting post: the MySpace group "The Fall of Midtown" has posted an article on how to keep your group from getting taken over by the Midtown group. It seems that Mike Q. and his gang have taken over 18 A.A. groups by invading them in large numbers and then voting the previous leaders out, and changing the rules to make the Mike Q. clique dominant. It sure sounds like an invasive cancer to me. (Or the Borgs: "Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.")
    The original post is gone. A local copy is here.

32. And here,
    http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID;=137850505&blogID;=276903523
    a former member of the "Pacific Group" on the West Coast states that the Pacific Group and the Midtown Group share a lot of the same characteristics. Especially notice the missionary attitude, the intention to move to other towns and start Pacific-style groups there.

33. http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID;=137850505&blogID;=284461657 == Another report on the Midtown Group
    

34. A Washington Post article:
    http://blog.washingtonpost.com/rawfisher/2007/07/midtown_group_aa_group_leads_m.html == "Midtown Group: AA Group Leads Members Away from Traditions"
    Includes a good debate between the people posting comments.
    

35. 2nd Washington Post article: Mike Quinones, the Midtown Group leader, dies:
    http://blog.washingtonpost.com/rawfisher/2007/08/aa_renegade_dieswhither_midtow.html
    == "AA Renegade Dies — Whither Midtown?"
    Includes a good debate between the people posting comments. What is especially revealing is the Midtown Group members posting using faked and forged identities to post fraudulent messages in other people's names.

36. ReligionNewsBlog's list of Midtown links:
    http://www.religionnewsblog.com/category/midtown-aa/

37. And then over in Oregon, the old group leader seduces and marries a 15-year-old girl who came to A.A. meetings seeking help.

38. Also see this list of links to media coverage of the story.

39. LATER, 2009.08.05: Most of the stories about the Midtown Group that were posted to MySpace have been deleted, and the FOM (Fall Of Midtown) account has been cancelled. There are archival copies of many of the stories here.

40. LATER: 2011.09.20: The sexual exploitation of underage girls at Bainbridge Island, Washington State, is also criminal. Look here.

41. Also see Stories of Clancy I.'s West-Coast cult and its sexual exploitation of women. Clancy Imusland was the grand-sponsor of Mike Quinones, who was the leader of the Midtown Group.

Also see the stories about other A.A. groups running sex societies around the country:

1. the Phoenix, Arizona, Young People's A.A. says that it's all about "cars, pussy, and money"

2. the Bainbridge Island, Washington, A.A. group is another sexual exploitation club

3. This author describes a Midtown-like A.A. group in Minneapolis.

4. Clancy I.'s "Pacific Group" in California. Note that Clancy Imusland is the grand-sponsor of Mike Quinones, who took over the Midtown Group and made it into the sexual exploitation society that it is.

5. Here is a whole list of more stories about the Pacific Group and Clancy I.

[UPDATE: Most of the following stories about the Midtown Group that were posted to MySpace have been deleted, and the FOM (Fall Of Midtown) account has been cancelled. There are archival copies of many of the postings here.]

There were many stories about the Washington DC "Q Group" on myspace.com:

1. http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm? fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid;=10139602
   About halfways down the page, there is a letter from "THE FALL OF MIDTOWN. AKA: THE Q. GROUP", that says:

   Jan 10 2007 12:39P
   "As a measure of validity here are some key names of the midtown Hierarchy: Mike Q, jack, John, Chris Dugan, Joe Snider, Arno Sewall, Kevin, Mike(pizza),...

   I was a member of Mid town from 1999 to 2004...."

   It's worth reading.
   Information on sexual exploitation and financial mismanagement.
   Also, sponsors tell newcomers to stop taking their doctor-prescribed psychiatric medications.
   

2. http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm? fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid;=137850505
   More on THE FALL OF MIDTOWN. AKA: THE Q. GROUP

3. http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view &friendID;=137850505&blogID;=221441430
   == A call to send letters to Senators and Congressmen. It also lists police officers who are investigating the group.

4. http://www.myspace.com/loveandservice
   == Another overview of the problem.

5. http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view &friendID;=137850505&blogID;=214221299
   == "My 12-step sober friends and I all knew Mike Quinonis and his group of "13-steppers" that were known for focusing on "helping" young females through Mike's pre-designed set of concepts of the 12-step process, which focused primarily on having sex."

6. http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view &friendID;=137850505&blogID;=211591362
   == "in midtown your sponser is chosen for you. sponsership is a prestige thing in this group, the more sponsees the higher up you are. they also encourage different sex sponsership. anything you share with your sponser becomes group knowledge, its shared and used against you."

7. http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view &friendID;=137850505&blogID;=210142254
   == "The Q Group is appealing. What do I mean by this, you ask? They do things. Fun things. They have dances, beach houses, ski trips, they bid for conferences, they host conferences, they travel...you name it. This is VERY appealing. You have to admit it!"

8. http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view &friendID;=137850505&blogID;=208664621
   == The origins of the "Mid-town" group.

9. http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view &friendID;=137850505&blogID;=205272365
   == Her sponsor sets up an underage girl to get raped by a 60-year-old oldtimer.
   Also, sponsors tell newcomers to stop taking their doctor-prescribed psychiatric medications, and to stop going to therapy.

10. http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view &friendID;=137850505&blogID;=204885675
    == Financial mismanagement and domination of the local intergroup — the WAIA (Washington Area Intergroup Association).

11. http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog&FriendID;=137850505 == Another ex-member tells his story.

12. http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID;=137850505&blogID;=231474462 == Another person's experiences with the "Midtown Group"

13. http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view &friendID;=137850505&blogID;=238112366 == And yet another bitter experience

14. And then there is this reply from a member of the Midtown Group:
    http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view &friendID;=137850505&blogID;=233446555

15. And then more: Newsweek magazine published an article:
    http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID;=137850505&blogID;=258918827
    == A 15-year-old girl is told to cut off all communications with people outside of A.A., and stop taking medications for a bipolar disorder, and is encouraged to have sex with MUCH older A.A. men.
    And that's just the start of the article.
    A therapist says: "We're all saying, 'Go to AA, go to AA,' and we may be sending people into this terrible situation and not realizing it."
    Worse of all, the police say that they can't find anything wrong with it.

16. Still more from the Midtown Group: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID;=137850505&blogID;=264204266
    == A good historical narrative from one of the earlier old-timers, who saw how Mike Q. took over the Midtown Group.
    Includes stories like how girls are counseled to have sex with the older male members of the group:

    Those that questioned the idea of sleeping or dating within the first year were brought aside and were dealt with quickly. "What do you know that will help you get sober?? All you know is how to drink or drug.." "Get out of yourself and try to focus on someone else for a change." The guilt was heavy, I would see the ladies crying in the corner of the Saturday night Special meeting. To challenge your sponsor or leave the group, man it sucks to be you. Once folks left, it was over, they were out. The word was "Hey Suzi doesn't want our help, remind her of what fellowship is all about." "Tell her to go find it somewhere else." Little Suzi would be gone in minutes.
    

17. And more news: Midtown Group banned from another church in Washington DC: See the story here.

18. And another NBC4 story is described here. The Midtown Group encouraged a policeman's wife to cheat on her husband and to divorce him.

19. Here is another new story, from NBC4, reprinted by ReligionNewsBlog.Com:
    http://www.religionnewsblog.com/18333/midtown-aa-2
    Woman Describes Teen Life As Member Of Midtown AA
    "I would say overall, it was like a seven-year stomachache that I walked around with," she said.
    Michelle told News4 that sexually transmitted diseases are not all that uncommon in Midtown.
    "It was almost your rite of passage. I would say that it would be uncommon to not have something once you've been there a couple months," said Michelle.
    

20. A new web site about the Midtown Groups:
    http://thetruthaboutmidtown.com/
    • http://thetruthaboutmidtown.com/index.php?option=com_content&task;=view&id;=6&Itemid;=5 == A list of links to more stories