Date: Sun, December 20, 2009 10:14 pm     (answered 25 December 2009)
From: "RJ"
Subject: Powerlessness

Hi Orange,

Man, I love your site. I can spend a lot of time popping around from one thing to the next. It's so engrossing I sometimes forget where I started.

I got a quote from one essay that I'm now using as my mantra:

I know I've seen or heard variations on that before, but I like this phrase better than any way I've ever heard it before. It's really so damn obvious, isn't it? Plus, if focuses like a laser beam on the whole idea of powerlessness.

When I was in rehab this year I already knew from my stay in rehab in '85 that I didn't totally buy into the powerlessness stuff. Not completely. Not in the way AA means it, anyway.

I say "totally" because when I went into rehab in '85 I did in fact know I was pretty damn screwed up, and when I first heard of Step 1, I sort of said to myself, well yeah, my life did get unmanageable, didn't it? I mean, I couldn't even show up for work at a high paying union job, with great benefits. Unmanageable? Ok, I'll buy that. So, I went with the flow on that one. But as time went on and I started hearing the rest of the Steps, I knew they weren't for me.

This time (this year) when I was in rehab, I already had a fixed opinion about "powerlessness", and I said it in groups anytime I had the chance to speak, or anytime the subject was the focus of a meeting. My time to talk usually went something like this:

There are two parts to the idea of "powerlessness" that I would like to talk about. The first part refers to being powerless over drugs and alcohol while you are taking them. The second part refers to being powerless in your life before you even take the damn drug, or drink the damn drink. But do we really drink/use because we're powerless? I don't think so. Let me use a couple of examples from my life.

The first time I took acid, I didn't take it because I was powerless. I took it because an old friend just got back from the west coast and asked us if we wanted to try acid. We said yes! Within seconds of his question, we ate it. Same thing goes for beer, gin, or just about any drug you can think of.

Yes, I will admit that when I went into rehab in '85, my life was unmanageable from drugs and alcohol, and that I didn't know what to do. I needed help. If that's powerlessness, well then ok, I had it. But I never admitted then, and I certainly don't admit now that I'm powerless over taking that first drink/drug. I decide! I'll never admit that one.

And yes, I admit I did relapse after 12 years, but I didn't relapse because I was powerless, I relapsed because I thought it would be no big deal to stop and have two beers, as long as I stayed away from drugs, which I did. In hindsight, I was wrong. Little by little, over the course of the next 12 years, my drinking got the best of me once again.

But this time around, when I went to rehab, my life wasn't at all "unmanageable" at the time I came in, but instead my health was deteriorating to the point that I knew, and my wife knew, that I better damn do something about it. So the first half of powerlessness, or unmanageability, didn't really even apply. I'd be lying if I said I was powerless, and my life had become unmanageable. True, I was once again chemically dependent on alcohol, but powerless? No. And apparently, I wasn't powerless to do something about it, either, because I'm here, right? (This might cause some rumbling in private conversations: Why did you come here then? Why not do it on your own? Ans: Because I didn't trust doing it without a medical detox, and I wanted to get a few weeks behind me, with some structure, good food, meet some good people, socialize, etc., before I ventured out on my own. I even thought I might need aftercare like last time, but really didn't.)

It's one thing to say that we're prone to chemical dependency, so that if we drink/use, we're liable to go down a path of personal destruction, and find ourselves back in rehab, jail, the hospital, or worse, but it's an altogether different thing saying "we're powerless to run our lives" or "we're powerless from taking that first drink". I'll never believe I'm powerless from taking that first drink, and I plan to keep telling myself that for as long as I live.

That's why I like your phrase so much Orange. I can't think of a more "powerful" way to say it:

Take care,
RJ

Hello RJ,

Thank you for the letter and all of the compliments.

And yes, I really like that line too:

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**      To think we are able is almost to be so; to determine upon
**      attainment is frequently attainment itself; earnest resolution
**      has often seemed to have about it a savor of omnipotence.
**         ==  Samuel Smiles (1812—1904)

May 17, 2009, Sunday: Day 17, continued: A Canada Goose gosling prowling for food This is probably one of the "Family of 9" goslings.

[The story of Carmen continues here.]

Date: Mon, December 21, 2009 2:31 pm     (answered 26 December 2009)
From: "Ric D."
Subject: Bill's dry date

Dear Sir;

I've searched everywhere and can't find anything to address "Bill's Dry Date". I thought for sure you would have information on this in your web site. Please consider this, many would like some kind of insight!

Yours truly, Ric D.

Hello Ric,

Thanks for the question.

The story is that Bill Wilson entered Charlie Towns' Hospital for detoxing and "treatment of alcoholism" on December 10 or 11, 1934. Since Bill drank four beers on his way to the hospital, that day can't count as Bill's sobriety date, so it was ostensibly the next day. But even then, considering how much Bill Wilson was being dosed with chloral hydrate, morphine, belladonna, paraldehyde, hyoscyamine, strychnine, and apomorphine, it's questionable how sober he was. More like stoned out of his gourd and tripping his brains out. After two or three days of "The Belladonna Cure", Bill Wilson flipped out and "saw God". That is described here. Still, some people count Bill's second day in Towns' Hospital as his sobriety date. That would be December 11 or 12, 1934.

However, some people have told me that Bill Wilson relapsed all of his life, and when he died, he had less than a year of sobriety. (And Bill Wilson died screaming for whiskey.) That would explain why you never hear about Bill Wilson's sobriety date, and you also never hear about any "birthday parties" for Bill, where Bill celebrated 5, 10, or 20 years sober. I guess the other A.A. members didn't want to embarass Bill by revealing how long Bill had really been sober, if he was. So no "birthday parties" for Bill.

Have a good day and Happy Holidays.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     O, judgement, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
**      and men have lost their reason.
**         == Shakespeare

[There is more of this thread here.]

Date: Tue, December 22, 2009 4:14 am     (answered 26 December 2009)
From: "Ray S."
Subject: Florida recount

Saw your mention of the Florida recount on Letters 115. Just watched a great film on it, "Recount":
http://www.hbo.com/films/recount/

Found it at the local library.

Hi Ray,

Thanks for the note. I'll have to find a copy of that and check it out.

Have a good day, and Happy Holidays.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**       Deceivers are the most dangerous members of society. —
**     They trifle with the best affections of our nature, and
**     violate the most sacred obligations.
**        ==  George Crabbe (1754—1832)

Date: Mon, December 21, 2009 5:59 pm     (answered 26 December 2009)
From: Jim
Subject: Help Exposing AA

Mr. Orange,

I have been using some of your writing to show people that AA is dangerous. I need your help in explaining the column in Vaillant's book that says Abstinent or social drinking 38%. An AA member says that this column proves that 38% of those that Vaillant followed were no longer drunks because of AA treatment. How can I answer this?

Thank you for your help.

Jim

Hello Jim,

Thank you for the question. The answer is simple: Just because 38% of the alcoholics cut down on their drinking does not mean that A.A. is due the credit. In fact, A.A. is due NONE of the credit, and Dr. Vaillant said so.

First off, there are two columns that we have to look at there: "Abstinent or social drinking", and the next one, called "Improved". Add them together to see how much the alcoholics' overall condition really improved, and you get 45%. (It's kind of a hair-splitting judgement call to decide whether someone is "drinking socially" or "improved" — and an enthusiastic A.A. promoter was doing the judging.) When you look at the numbers that way, you see that the results were similar with most of the various methods of treatment. A.A. and two other methods all had about 55% of the alcoholics still abusing alcohol or dead (while some of the other treatment modalities did not fare as well).

And worse, A.A. had the highest death rate of any way of treating alcohol abuse — much higher than the other treatments. Look at the "Dead" column. The A.A. death rate was anything from 128% to 580% of the other programs' death rates. Teaching alcoholics that they are powerless over alcohol produces some very bad results.

That "45% improved" in A.A. treatment is what usually happens with a bunch of alcoholics after 8 years. The alcoholics get sick and tired of being so sick and tired, and watching their friends die, so some of them decide to get their act together and quit drinking and not die that way. That will happen, over time, in any randomly-selected group of alcoholics. It doesn't matter whether they go to A.A. or the local Twiddly-Winks Society, or the Ladies' Home Garden Club. It also doesn't matter much whether they are left alone to fend for themselves. Some will choose to quit killing themselves with alcohol.

The funny thing is: A.A. considers a lot of those "improved" people to be failures. They are still drinking alcohol, either "drinking socially", or "improved drinking". So they aren't sober, not by the A.A. definition of "sober". It's kind of funny how one minute A.A. can be so judgemental and declare that any drinking is a failure, a "relapse", and the poor guy just lost all of his sober time and has to start over collecting coins at Day One again, but when it comes to grading the A.A. results, then suddenly "social drinking" is a success story. I think that's called "Moving the Goalposts", or maybe "Double Standards".

Also notice that the real sobriety rate is masked by lumping "Abstinent" and "Social Drinking" together. Those numbers do not reveal how few alcoholics are actually 100% sober.

Look at the table of numbers just above, Table 8.1. Notice that the second row in that table is three "no treatment" studies. There, with no "help", or "group support", or "treatment", the alcoholics improved just as much as those who got A.A. "treatment". So A.A. proved to be no better than no help at all. (But that nasty death rate made it worse than nothing.)

Dr. Vaillant clearly recognized that A.A. had not improved the sobriety rate of the alcoholics in his study. Vaillant wrote:

Not only had we failed to alter the natural history of alcoholism, but our death rate of three percent a year was appalling.

...

In table 8.2, the results of the Clinic sample at eight years are compared with five rather disparate follow-up studies in the literature which are of similar duration but which looked at very different patient populations. Once again, our results were no better than the natural history of the disorder.

The Natural History of Alcoholism: Causes, Patterns, and Paths to Recovery, George E. Vaillant, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1983, pages 283-286.

The same text was reprinted in Vaillant's later book, The Natural History of Alcoholism Revisited, George E. Vaillant, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1995, pages 349-352.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**    Truth is the foundation of all knowledge and the cement of all societies.
**       ==  John Dryden (1631—1700)

Date: Wed, December 23, 2009 3:54 am     (answered 27 December 2009)
From: explicitsoul
Subject: RE: Articles

I've never heard of this site before and I don't know if you are one person or a group. But your articles have so much common sense and cut through so much of today's BS I had to drop a line. The "Propaganda And Debating Techniques" are on point. Basically you can substitute ANY scapegoats of today that people tend to blame their "problems" on. Jews, Arabs, Latinos, Whites, Blacks, gays, just take your pick and fill in the blanks.

Lol!

Hello explicitsoul,

Thanks for the compliments. Yes, the use of those propaganda techniques by so many politicians and hate groups and cults and dishonest corporations is so universal that it's enough to get you mumbling "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity; nothing is new under the sun."

Oh well, have a good day anyway, and Happy Holidays.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**        You can get more with a kind word and a gun 
**          than you can with a kind word alone.
**            ==  Al Capone (1899—1947)

Date: Thu, December 24, 2009 5:06 am     (answered 28 December 2009)
From: "Alan K."
Subject: Merry Christmas

Hi Agent,

A very happy Christmas,and Happy new year, to you and yours.

I always enjoy reading your site, and agree with some of your points . As someone that has been in AA, out of AA, and back in again, but I remained sober, I am very much sort of in both camps here. I try to be open minded about you, and AA.

However AA does have some good results and its difficult to argue with what I have seen with my own eyes, even if you are right and these people where "just ready to stop anyway ", I doubt they could have do it alone.

One conclusion I have come to is that step one and 12 do work, We have to 1, Admitt and accept one's addiction or compulsion and 2(or12 ) help and be with others that suffer from the same addictions or compulsions .

Regards,
Alan

Hi Alan,

Thanks for the letter.

When you say, "AA does have some good results and its difficult to argue with what I have seen with my own eyes", I have no doubts that you have seen people quit drinking and improve their health. The question is whether A.A. is due any of the credit for that. The way to figure that one out is with proper testing. And when that testing was done, A.A. was shown to be completely ineffective, or worse. (Increasing the rate of binge drinking, increasing the death rate.)

While you may doubt that the successful quitters could have done it alone, that's just a guess, based on appearances. The Harvard Medical School says that 80% of those who do successfully quit drinking for a year or more do it alone, on their own. So it is actually quite common.

As far as Step One goes, it is no big deal to admit that you've got a problem. It's pretty darned easy when you wake up sick and hung over, again and again and again. Yeh sure, some alcoholics are massively into denial and insist that they don't have a problem, but we are not all like that A.A. stereotypical alcoholic. Most drinkers are capable of noticing that they are getting to be sick and tired of being so sick and tired so much.

And Step One is not about "admitting that you have a problem". Step One is about "admitting that you are powerless" over the problem. That is a setup for the demand that you surrender your life and will to the cult as the only escape from certain death. Step One is about making you believe that you cannot quit drinking and solve your own problem without the cult.

Step 12 is just recruiting, which brings in the two mind-bending techniques of "actionizing" and "self-sell", which helps to make true believers out of newcomers. Nothing convinces a new cult recruit like trying to recruit some more members — he will be selling himself on the dogma while he tries to convince others.

If you want a social group, there are plenty of others available: SMART, SOS, Lifering, WFS. The list is here.

Have a good day and a good life, and Happy Holidays.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     There are no greater wretches in the world than many
**     of those whom people in general take to be happy.
**         ==  Seneca

Date: Sun, December 27, 2009 7:01 am     (answered 28 December 2009)
From: "Alan K."
Subject: small point re:powerless

Hi again Agent,

Just a addition to my earlier email (24th of Dec) regarding being powerless, of course we have the power of wether we take the first drink or not, however I always understood that AA meant it was ONCE ! we took the first drink.......... we where powerless, as the addiction?compulsion kicked it.

Or is that just my interpretation ?

Alan,

Hi again, Alan,

It isn't just your interpretation. I've heard the same thing from several Steppers, who explain that they are powerless over alcohol after they have a few drinks. I can almost agree with that. I am pretty powerless over alcohol after I get 10 beers into me.

But that is not what Bill Wilson wrote in the Big Book, and that is not the official A.A. dogma. What Bill Wilson wrote in the Big Book is that alcoholics are powerless over alcohol BEFORE they have that first drink, and in fact they cannot avoid taking that first drink, no matter what kind of a "defense" they put up, because "strange mental blank spots" will happen and the alcoholic will think some silly thought and start drinking, and his goose will be cooked before he even knows what is happening.

So it's all part of the story that you are helpless and defeated and doomed, and only surrender to the cult will save you.

I quoted and criticized that story here.

Have a good day and a Happy New Year,

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     We have more power than will; and it is often by way of excuse
**      to ourselves that we fancy things are impossible.
**        ==  François, Duc de la Rochefoucauld (1613—1680),
**              French courtier and moralist

Date: Thu, December 24, 2009 6:35 am     (answered 28 December 2009)
From: "Jeff C."
Subject: http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-funny_spirituality.html

Just a response to your page... Let me start off by saying I am a member of AA. Your first section on Bill W's opinion of cigarettes... The big book was published in the late 1930's, the dangers of smoking were not known like they are today. Many in the fellowship, myself included, have decided to not use any harmful addictive substance, caffeine included.

On to your next claim, that if a man says he is not ready to stop, that that is somehow not tolerated in AA. On the contrary, the only requirement for AA membership is a DESIRE TO STOP DRINKING. If a man is not convinced, he is not able to take the first of the 12 steps. We are often faced with the inability to help those who are not yet interested in stopping, and our program is based on attraction rather than promotion. Our only aim is love, tolerance, and helpfulness (although many of us fall short of this ideal, we claim progress rather than perfection). We do not criticize. Many of us have friends and relatives who still may have problems with drugs and alcohol, lecturing them repeatedly helps no one. We simply offer our experience strength and hope if it is desired.

On to Bill W... Yes he is our founder, but was a very flawed human being. The real "miracle" of AA is how through these flaws a group of people came up with a solution to their problem that worked for many of them. AA is not for everyone, is not the only way to get and stay sober, but for many it has improved their lives immensely.

Instead of getting caught up on these perceived flaws, why not look at the positive? AA is free, has helped millions, and remains true to its ideals. I agree it is in no way perfect. "Our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little."

Sent from my iPhone

Hello Jeff,

Thank you for the letter.

Well, starting at the top, about tobacco: "the dangers of smoking were not known like they are today."
Oh yes they were. Bill's wife Lois knew, and she begged Bill to stop smoking so much, and Bill's response was to call her a Puritanical nag: "She thinks there is something rather sinful about these commodities". And what about God? Bill Wilson claimed to be in "conscious contact" with God during Step Eleven. Please don't tell me that God didn't know. Why didn't God tell Bill Wilson about tobacco? We have discussed this issue before, here.

I do not for a minute believe that people who continue to drink are considered A.A. members in good standing. I know of cases where they aren't even allowed to share if they don't have at least 30 days of sobriety. It's the people with many years of sobriety who have all of the status. And one drink, one slip, and you are back to the bottom of the heap.

Why not just look for the good in A.A.? Well, because A.A. does so much harm that we cannot ignore it. Somebody has to tell the truth about the bad side of A.A., to counter-act the river of publicity and promotion and P.R. that says that A.A. is great and really works.

Bill Wilson's "flaws", as you call his insanity and criminality, are highly relevant. Alcoholics Anonymous is nothing but the ravings of a lunatic, no more realistic than the ravings of Scientology founder Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (who also claimed to have a spiritual cure for alcohol abuse and drug addiction — one that NARCONON is still selling). Alcoholics Anonymous did not "come up with a solution that works" through those flaws. A.A. does not work. It is quack medicine and cult religion.

Have a good day and Happy Holidays.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     He hath a poor spirit who is not planted above petty wrongs.
**        ==  Owen Feltham (1602—1668), English author

Date: Sat, December 26, 2009 7:28 pm     (answered 28 December 2009)
From: "VINCENT P."
Subject: Merry Christmas!

Dear Mr. Orange,

I couldn't possibly devote even a fraction of the time that you have to this topic — not even to read your site fully. Nonetheless I think I get the gist of it. Actually, I have misspoken, I devoted nearly 20 years of committment to the program of Al-Anon Family Groups in close relationship to Alcoholics Anonymous and its membership.

I would think that given your drive to uncover the unseemly in everything, you would forever find it difficult to find 'home' in this world. That, perhaps is the most surest sign that you are one whom God is most fond of. I believe that you have judged rightly many things that are troubling in AA: strident believers who don't really understand what they believe, mentally ill and morally deficient individuals who rationalize their behavior and cling to an AA that is only a parody of sincere moral conversion, intellectual snobs such as you and I, etc., etc.

I think what is lost on most people, is that AA erupted from an era of true suffering for many many people, turning men back from their myopia to gaze inwards and unto the heavens. In spite of what you may say, I believe that there was a most sincere and burning Christian zeal of the time that ignited Bill & Bob's passion. Even more of a contributing factor perhaps, was Ann Smith's influence as a true follower of Christ along with her supportive friends. Her maturity and example must have been key to the whole movement.

As the idea of a personal "higher power" has evolved in the 12 step movement, I believe the true Source of these programs has shifted continually from the veiled Jesus to an undefined agnostic god to the spread of relational and group psychology to what amounts to little more than an ego-projection of the individual 12-stepper today. We've bred God out of the movement.

I agree with what I perceive to be your disdain of implicit and explicit collusion between civil and professional institutions and "The Program". Bill (and those who counseled him) knew better than this. The Traditions addressed these matters at the group level in terms of the prohibitions against outside affiliations and endorsements. It seems today though, that the "wink and a nod" cooperation between civil authorities and the Recovery System has diluted the AA message and damaged its reputation. It was never going to be a panacea for peoples' myriad problems, and indeed, I believe that it really only served well those who were absolutely candidates for moral conversion and, to put it bluntly, would eventually be accepting of the Christian Faith.

My own story is as one who came in pain, who awakened to the idea of a loving and available Force willing to work with me to change my thinking and improve my life, leading finally to a deep conviction that Jesus Christ is Who He claimed to be according to the Bible. My life is my only hard evidence. Of course, I appreciate that the Steps gave me the freedom to come to these understandings gradually, in good time.

I truly loved Al-Anon, and made several life-long friends there. In recent years there has been a movement to establish top-down control in the program, effectively creating an "organization" which I believe is contrary to the Traditions and harmful to the message. I protested these changes and found myself at odds with many friends, and experienced more of the cultish single-mindedness and curious ideological apathy or even fixation than I had seen in all the previous years of my involvement. I no longer involve myself in those issues, and only attend meetings occasionally.

I hope you find what you are looking for, and please know that I am one of the many who will be forever grateful that I found my way to the Program.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Vince P.
Covina, California

Hello Vincent,

Thank you for the letter.

This sentence really says it all:

"AA erupted from an era of true suffering for many many people, turning men back from their myopia to gaze inwards and unto the heavens."

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     Society is now one polished horde, formed of two mighty tribes,
**     the bores and the bored.
**         ==  George Gordon Noel Byron, 6th Baron (1788—1824), English poet

Date: Sun, December 27, 2009 10:15 am     (answered 28 December 2009)
From: "Marcos J."
Subject: interesting dialogue???

http://no12steps.wordpress.com/2009/12/27/intherooms-com-says-so-what-if-a-a-doesnt-work/

Hi Marcos,

Thanks for the links. Yes, that is very interesting. That is incredible rationalization and minimization: "So what if A.A. does not work to make alcoholics quit drinking? I still like the cult religion. I'm still having fun."

Oh well, have a good day anyway, and Happy Holidays.

Have a good day and a happy new year.