|
The ABC Evening News told me that the FDA has approved "Vivitrol" as a treatment for alcohol and drug
addiction. It is injected, and, for a period of time, blocks the pleasurable effects of drugs and
alcohol in the brain.
Thus, for a period of time, trying to get high is pointless and ineffective,
and the addict gradually loses interest in his favorite drug, and stops abusing it.
The powers that be seem to believe that it really works.
First the Sinclair Program, and now this. We may well be closing in on some big answers to the age-old
problems of alcohol abuse and drug addiction.
I guess that the 12-Steppers will hate this news. They will argue that it is invalid to use medicines
to cure "alcoholism" — that their "spiritual program" is the only cure.
I think they are fighting a losing battle. I hope, I really hope, that this is the beginning of the
end of their promoting cult religion as a quack cure for substance abuse problems.
More to follow, as soon as I learn more.
Hi Agent, Loved the analysis about chips. I think it would be interesting to see how many "24 hours" were given out, and then how many "one years" were given out a year later. Sadly, I think it would be low. I also noticed in mtgs you'll see people get 3 month, 6 month, etc up to about 2 years. Again only a few Then there is "nothing" until you get the old timers with 20 years. What happens from 1 year to 20 years?
Hi "Sally",
Thanks for the letters. Yes, that is a very interesting question. The best analysis of the numbers
that I could do is here:
We were also just talking about that in the previous letter,
here, and Rusty had
even worse numbers — the worst that I've ever heard:
1500 24-hour chips given out, and three made it a year.
Also loved the 6.2 billion figure given to rehab. Boy have I helped inflate that number, sadly! I just got another number from the New York Times a little while ago. Now the number is up to $20 billion per year. I almost spent another 6,900 (cheapest I could find) but read your site. I quit drinking because I wanted to! Yep, so did I. Congratulations. I met a guy in AA, obese, probably 350 pounds, who had been to 21 different 12 step rehabs. He died recently at 49 years old. So sad, bright newspaper reporter, never could "get" the program?? What I think he really had needed was a weight loss boot camp! and then he would have had some strength to recover on his own. Keep up the good work. "Sally" in Calif
ps please do not use my name or email. I still go to mtgs occasionally to
"socialize" Okay, "Sally". (Not her real name.)
Date: Sun, September 26, 2010 7:18 am (answered 12 October 2010) Hi Terry! If you save one person from losing their precious truck to pay for rehab.... I met someone in rehab who had forked over 25+ k (as had I) He had to sell his truck which was his living. He was losing his house as well. Yet paying 25k??? Sally
Yes, really. As far as I'm concerned, the leaders, managers and owners of most of the rehab
facilities in the USA should be put in prison for felony fraud, grand larceny,
selling cult religion as a quack cure, and practicing medicine without a license.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Mon, September 27, 2010 8:28 pm (answered 12 October 2010) When I came to AA, I eventually found a sponsor who everyone said is "wonderful." We chatted for ten minutes one evening and agreed to meet the next day after 4 pm. I was supposed to call her first at 4. I got very busy with contractors in my backyard and did not notice the time flying by. Frankly, I had also had a few glasses of wine as i was still fighting to get into sobriety. The contractor's girlfriend drove me to the store to get parts for the project. We came back (thank god she was driving) and there was a policeman in my driveway! Since I had not called the sponsor at 4 pm, she had assumed I was in trouble and called the police to do a "welfare check" Well, thank goodness my husband was home! Anyway, they could have hauled me off to "anywhere" if they had determined they needed to! She told me she has had two sponsees commit suicide--- so if someone does not call her at the right time, she calls the police. Thanks a lot! Now all my neighbors saw cops in the driveway! And for what??? Working in my back yard??? I was so angry. please put my name down as sally thanks, Sally in San Jose ps even the most devoted, AA freaks, thought this action was WRONG
Hello again, Sally,
Yes, that strikes me as way out of line, too. And also a bit creepy. I mean, if I
had been the sponsor, my first guess would have been that someone didn't show because she
was drinking and either distracted or passed out. Calling the cops on a sponsee sounds a little like
deliberately causing problems for a "disobedient" sponsee, like
"helping somebody to hit bottom".
As if the sponsor couldn't just come over and check for herself if she was so terribly concerned?
Oh well, have a good day now.
== Orange
[More gosling photos below, here.]
Wow. Thank you for this expose. I drank my last cocktail on Feb 4, 1982. Before that I had done years of metal chairs, chain smoking, watery or rancid coffee with dollar store cookies, and fearless self inventories in the "program." I basically agree with you it's a cult and a big business, and it is anonymous today (it's no longer shameful to be a drunk) precisely so that its failure can be concealed. I stopped drinking by:
"Misery loves company" or dispelling feelings of uniqueness did help me. However, it does work for some (yes, very few), and surely the bleak and dysfunctional AA landscape is preferable to the Bowery flophouse lifestyle or DWI all over the interstates. Thanks again, and I suppose you know if any AAs ever read what I have just written they would say, "why, he's not sober; he's probably on a slip — and if not he's on a dry drunk! (LOL). You simply can't win when dealing with those birds. Researcher1839
P.S.: You should consider tearing apart Alanon and Alateen. These cults have destroyed families as mercilessly as booze has. Researcher1839
Hello Researcher,
Thank you for the letter. I couldn't agree more.
The only line I disagree with is this one:
"However, it does work for some (yes, very few)..."
Heck, I've even had Steppers trying to claim that I am sober because of something that I learned
in an A.A. meeting. Not!
Have a good day now.
== Orange
[The next letter from Researcher1839 is here.
I only read a few paragraphs of your endless rant because, like the rest, it's just a rant which makes it irrelevant and meaningless. I cannot imagine what you would do if there were dues and fees for AA membership! I guess your entire rant would be in red instead of a sentence or a paragraph here and there. I know you would love for AA to charge for membership so you could really get on your high horse with your self righteous condemnation. I have often wondered what the purpose of your rants are since all AA purports to do is offer a way of life that has saved the lives of millions of people who otherwise would had died drunk. So what if only 1 in a 100 find freedom from alcohol. I sat in meetings for years listening to that 1 in 100 talk about what he/she finally got and I wanted it too. I finally got it and for that AA is worth it because, like my parents, I would have drank myself to death without AA. So to denigrate AA without a valid reason to do so is irrational. And there is some benefit to just sitting in a meeting because in it you will hear people talk about what it means for them to be sober. That is worth going to meetings even if nothing else is gained and even if you believe AA doesn?t work. Your rant makes it clear you would abolish AA if you had the power. But that is utterly irrational if in fact it helps some people, no matter how few, because it is the program most proven to help people stop their addiction to alcohol. You claim AA is a total failure because the 5% would come anyway from spontaneous remission. But you can't prove that. All you can do is speculate. You don't know how many of that 5% would die an alcoholic death and if you went to meetings and listened fairly and objectively to the people who have made the program work then you would understand that in AA not drinking is only the beginning. AA teaches people how to stop drinking but just as importantly it teaches people how to live sober. And you don't have a clue what that means. And AA is free. You don't have to put a dime in the basket. You can come and try it for awhile and if you don't like it we will be more than happy to refund you your misery. So what the hell is your point???? I don't know but I suspect that a lot of people like you rant and rave on the internet because they tried AA and couldn't, or more accurately will not, make it work. So now they (and maybe you) are bitter, disappointed and sitting in front of your computer with a drink in your hand while pounding out your rant. Tom W.
Hello Tom,
You only read a few paragraphs of "my rant", and you have it all figured out? But you can't
figure out what the point is?
My point is that A.A. is a fraud and a hoax that does not work and hurts more people than it helps.
And you have not supplied any evidence that A.A. does anything good.
Foisting cult religion on sick people and then bragging that one in a hundred "makes it" is
really almost unbelievable. Well, it would be unbelievable, but I've been watching that fraud for
too many years to be surprised any more.
About the five percent rate of spontaneous remission, yes I can prove it. No, it is not just speculation.
A lot of doctors have done a lot of research on the subject to find the truth.
Start here.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Hi Orange, I'm glad to see you're in good form. I just read the two Mike P. letters. Wow! I don't want to pile on, but he's knee deep in it, ain't he? I was worried about you for awhile. You seemed to disappear off the face of the earth for an extended period. Seemed like a couple of months or so, I saw no letters, I wrote and heard nothing. I even wrote others asking what happened to you. Then I got busy for some time (had total knee replacement surgery feb 22, and then may 24 had another operation on same knee) and stopped paying attention, and then one day I looked and there were letters again. I was relieved.
Hi Richard,
I was just moving to a new home. It took 10 times longer to get a new good place
to live than I expected, and during that time, my computers were in a storage
locker, so I didn't get much done on the web site. But yes, I'm back.
Next Thursday will be 11 months since I quit drinking, and probably 10 months since I last thought of myself as someone who quit drinking. Mike P. is delusional. All you have to do to quit is quit. The last time I quit smoking in 1989, I had just stopped in Costco on my way to work and picked up two cartons. I threw them in the trunk of my Mustang and headed out from the central valley (CA) to San Jose. On the way there, I said, "screw this" on a cigarette I was smoking, and never touched them again since then. I had the two cartons for about six months, and every time I ran into a friend of my wife, I would give her two packs since she smoked the same brand, until they were all gone. Congratulations. That is great. So now you are off of both alcohol and tobacco. That really improves your health in a big way, doesn't it? All that crap they teach you in AA is just that. crap. I had a good friend at the 3 week program I went through who questioned every aspect of it during open meetings. He had a small software company, a very bright guy, and he was a real thorn in their side. About 10 days into it, he said "screw this, I'm getting the hell out of here, I've seen enough." We were just getting ready to go to a meeting when he told me. He was at the phone booths, calling for a cab, and someone to meet him when he got back to his home town. Just then the phones went dead! They usually shut the phones off during meetings, but the Director of the program walked by and we called him, "hey Harold needs to use the phone, can he go inside where I called the pharmacy that day?" The Director turned to us and said, "No, he's not allowed inside." "Why not?" we asked. "Because once he aborts the program, we can't let him in the office anymore." We were incredulous. Harold looked at him in disgust and said, "Oh really, what Procedure Number is that?" to which the Director gave a sly crooked slimy smile and disappeared behind closed doors. Nice! That really pissed me off, and I had all I could do to finish out my last week there. Harold had to stand around for two hours waiting for the damn pay phones to come back on. How's that for "spirituality"? Anyway, take care of yourself and keep up the good work. I'll be checking back in on occasion. Richard D.
Ah yes, rehab facilities. The "spirituality" seems strangely like Satan-worship, doesn't it?
Have a good day now.
== Orange
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Hi Jack,
That sounds interesting. I'll have to check it out.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Here's a retaliation to being forced into 12 steppism by my state. I wrote this during a meeting when all the magpies were regaling us with bullshit. thanks for an honest and thorough and refreshing perspective. james n. Complacent Conformity
Hollow hearts and empty minds
Another road is often best,
So take the pill, the drink, the shot
Hi James,
Thank you. That's good.
I am reminded of a line that I heard many years ago: "You surrender to an enemy, not a friend."
Have a good day now.
== Orange
[The previous letter from Bobby G. is here.]
Date: Mon, September 27, 2010 5:44 pm (answered 12 October 2010) WOW! Sure took you long enough to answer. Did you have to study hard to document your resentment??? No, I just get a lot of email. Ha! That's okay. No biggy. AA Does NOT demand that you accept GOD, only that you find SOMETHING Bigger than your own ego. Tough job for a lot of people. Even the non alky. Something bigger, huh? Satan, Beelzebub, Golden Calf, Stone Idol, or a Parakeet. How broad-minded of you. But what no Stepper has ever explained is how worshipping one of those things as your God will make people quit drinking alcohol. And by the by. I noted in your writing that you measure success by the number of tokens ordered and handed out, with a crosscut study of the number of years for each token. IF you actually had done some hard looking, and I have, you obviously haven t, you would have found that a LOT of old timers don't always pick up a coin / token and some meetings don't even hand them out! Yep, that's a hard fact my friend. Sorry you missed that, but I'm sure you have a juicy ripe answer somewhere in your cookbook of hate for AA, and please don't tell me that you don't have a hate for it.
A few old-timers who do not pick up coins do not change the numbers that much.
And they are offset by those other people who are so proud of getting 10 or 20 years that they
go to many meetings all over town, picking up yet another coin, so that they can hear
the crowd cheering for them again and again.
The obvious undeniable fact is that A.A. has a horrendous drop-out rate and a sky-high failure rate.
Cult religion does not work as a cure for drug and alcohol problems.
As for people being ordered to AA, I state again, other than the failed court card system, NO ON if forced to go, and you know, sarcasm aside. Court cards are worthless chunks of paper that can easily be faked and no court can prove otherwise. Trust me on that one, I've seen it done first hand and they never had a clue, until the poor person finished and rewarded themselves with a second or third DUI. Wrong, totally wrong. You really think all parole officers are stupid, don't you? They are hip to that trick. They employ snitches who report who is attending or not attending. They also insist that the parolees get sponsors, and the parole officer calls the sponsor and hears exactly how many meetings the parolee is attending. Hey, just keep right on the way your going, seems like you have found a true purpose in life and that is a real joy! Get the most out of it that you can, and be as happy with this as possible, after all, that is what life is really all about, being happy! Bobby G. (GOSNEY THAT IS!)
Have a good day, Bobby.
== Orange
[The next letter from Robert G. is here.]
Agent Orange, *May I start by thanking you for helping me to open my eyes to the cult of AA.* I have finally won the battle with alcoholism through the use of medical science, not 12-stepping nonsense. Here is a description of how I did it (summarized, believe it or not). I spent decades as an alcoholic and years trying to quit. Initially I tried quitting on my own, then I got caught up in AA. While in AA, I had my worst drunken blackout experiences, during what they call relapses. I tried over a dozen times times to stop, but failed every time. I doubted their method from the very beginning. Eventually, I turned to a psychiatrist and tried a variety of medications over a year, none that were quite effective. My psychiatrist eventually prescribed me what he considered to be the least effective drug he had, Naltrexone. As usual, I studied the drug online and stumbled on a treatment method called "The Sinclair Method" which appeared to be used widely and successfully only in Finland. I thought: Oh great, another costly recovery program that ultimately does jack-squat. I kept looking for the catch, but I couldn't find one. You take an inexpensive, patent-expired generic drug (Naltrexone) that blocks opiate receptors (Naltrexone) one hour before your first drink, then drink as you normally would. That's it. Apparently, the learned behavior of alcohol abuse is "burned" into your brain via the endorphin reward system. This is not the same as the buzz that alcohol gives you; those are other receptors. The Naltrexone blocks the reward circuitry and the brain eventually "unlearns" the behavior over a long period of time. Dr. Sinclair and the Combine Study (published in JAMA Vol. 295 No. 17, May 3, 2006) claims it takes a few months for this "pharmaceutical extinction" to be effective. The result being that one starts drinking less and less as the behavior is unlearned. It should follow an exponential decay curve as the study and Dr. Sinclair have published. It boasts a 78% efficacy rate per the studies. By the way, I told my so-called AA buddies after finding out about this medical method telling them that Bill W himself had spoken of a day that medical science may one day have a cure. I went to a meeting to say this and I was immediately silenced and physically removed from their meeting (which I now know was illegal). Not one of them has spoken to me since. I then talked to my psychiatrist about The Sinclair Method (TSM) and he said he had no experience with it, but it made scientific sense to him. Plus Naltrexone is non-addictive and is relatively benign when not taken in large dosages. So he prescribed it and had me give him periodic progress reports. As with all the other methods and drugs I had taken, I did not believe or have much hope that this method would work at all. As I began this treatment, which was essentially living my normal life of go to work, drive home, take a Naltrexone, wait 1 hour, drink, and then pass out or go to sleep, I found an online forum that had just started. (You can edit the site name out if you need to). The website is www.thesinclairmethod.com. There is a similar sounding site that is a pay recovery website, but this one is not. No money is ever exchanged. There are no meetings. There isn't even a chat room. You just post your experiences or ask questions there only if you want. So, I registered and continued the TSM treatment, recording the number of drinks consumed per week and "conversing" via forum posts with others about their experiences. This started in early 2009, when few in the US had any experience with TSM and nobody on the website knew anyone that had done TSM treatment. Time seemed to go slowly; there seemed to be no significant decline in drinking levels. Finally, one of the first forum members that began earlier than the rest of us started drinking less and less and less and after 7 or so months of treatment was down to US NIAAA guidelines for moderate drinking. It worked for him. Soon others followed, one by one. Then to my astonishment, TSM worked for me. I really never believed it would happen. For me, moderate drinking took hold in 5 months, light drinking around 11 months, and then abstinence in month 17 — without ever trying to stop. Now that I have graphed it over 19 months, the curve is a classic exponential decay curve with a correlation coefficient of 0.825 (1.0 being perfect correlation, 0.0 being no correlation). Like the others at the forum that were "cured" (and we debate about using that word), we no longer wanted to drink or drink much at all. Almost all who were cured then left the forum, some never to return, because they had their lives back again. Some of them pop in occasionally to say hello to new ones, but it is rare. I stayed barely involved for a while since there was hardly any of the originals there anymore. I am waiting for the next person that is "cured" to take the reigns. I have become a little more involved recently since there are only a few dozen of us active on the forum. The site admin rarely says anything. He just keeps the spam off the forum and that's about it. I am just a member, not even a moderator there. The facts as we have experienced: The TSM treatment is *not *perfect. In our non-scientific test group on the forum, our efficacy rate appears to be less than 78%, by how much, we don't know. In most people it appears to work. In some people, TSM works partially and goes no further; these people are mostly very happy about their improved lives nevertheless. And then there are those for whom TSM seems to have no effect. Although they are a minority, they tend to actively hang around the forum longer. Fortunately, we had one of them become cured after well over a year (glad they stuck around). I thought I would give you all the above background information in order to tell you of an over-the-top publicity stunt I thought of performing. There are only a few hundred people that are engaged actively in TSM and we have tried various means to tell others. But people believe what they want to believe. AA or other 12-stepping cults remain the entrenched treatment of choice, even among physicians who should know better. The JAMA article cited above should have gotten their attention. It didn't. Newsweek just did an article on it. Who reads Newsweek anymore? So this stunt is one that goes against every fiber of my being. That stunt is to burn the AA big book and post it with a narrative on YouTube. Here is most of my first post about the proposed stunt on the forum in italics: *I was throwing out some ineffective treatment books this morning, when I came upon my AA big book. Yes, the divinely inspired tome to spiritual enlightenment brought to us by His prophet Bill Wilson (whose likeness may not be depicted in any form). Instead of throwing the book away and contaminating my local recycle center, I thought I would save the book so I could video it being destroyed by my shotgun and then post that video on YouTube with commentary, of course. Then came another wild thought! It occurred to me that with the recent Quran controversy and the ridiculous amount of media attention it received, that when a product/service gets notoriety with any publicity (good or bad) as many business owners know, it is almost invariably good for "business". The key, of course, is the media attention. It's free advertising. This shocking idea popped up in my head today. How about if all of us TSMer's go to several local AA meetings where we are not known and buy several AA big books over the course of a week or so. Then, contact our local media outlets that we will be having a book burning somewhere (everybody hates those), where we will legally burn the AA Big Book that has ruined and killed so many lives, when there are viable medical solutions with much higher efficacy rates available, such as TSM. The event could be held on July 25, the anniversary of Naltrexone's original US Patent #3332950 in 1967, or January 17, the US FDA's approval of Naltrexone as an alcoholism treatment in 1995. I personally prefer January 17, since it is sooner and it is when the US FDA legally recognized Naltrexone as a medical solution for alcoholism.* Since the above post, we have decided to do the stunt on YouTube first, with a special burning of Chapter 5's "cunning, baffling, powerful" drivel. And I will save the one page where Bill Wilson speaks of a day when medical science may find a cure. Well that's about it... I want people to know about the Naltrexone TSM treatment, even if it is a shocking stunt designed to make people ask "Why would these people hate AA so much that they burn their book, but save that one page?"
Hello Bob,
Thanks for the letter and the good news. And congratulations on your recovery. That is very encouraging.
Not entirely coincidentally, I've been getting a bunch of relevant information about the Sinclair
Method all of a sudden. Lewis S. has sent several letters about it,
here, and
here.
And then the evening news tonight just informed me that
the FDA has just approved Vivitrol
for drug and alcohol addictions, which sounds like the same thing.
This is all very encouraging. I really want to see the clinical trials.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
where are you getting your information from... Unhappy people....
Hello again, Kevin,
I get my information from a wide variety of sources. See
the bibliography, here.
(By the way, it doesn't matter whether sources of information are happy or unhappy. What matters is
whether they tell the truth.)
This line:
"please don't ask me how I come to that conclusion"
is an example of the propaganda trick of
Deligitimize Criticism and Rebuttal in Advance.
Since I'm not supposed to ask how you came to that conclusion, I can't very well examine
your logic or illogic in thinking that I am somehow like Rev. Sam Shoemaker Jr.
I know that I did not spend 20 years of my life promoting a cult religion like the Oxford Group.
I did not spend 20 years of my life as the number two man of a cult,
devoting my life to
telling lies for a
cult leader like Dr. Frank Buchman.
So I don't know what "same attacks" you are talking about.
Have a good day.
== Orange
[The next letter from Kevin is here.]
A. Orange, After reading a great deal of your material henceforth and forever I will refer to the program as 'The Stepper Cult,' and the steps themselves as 'The 12 Steps to the loony bin.' I knew a lot about the early members (I once met Marty Mann) but I never knew Wilson had a harem like an oriental potentate nor that he filched the rights to the BB----so much for "the promises" on page 83 and 84. I put this to you: Isn't the Step cult largely responsible for the all the public drunkeness, DUI/DWI, booze-fueled domestic disturbances, industrial accidents caused by booze, and absences from work caused by hangovers? Because the Step cult's disease concept has emancipated the problem drinker from moral and ethical consideration, he now gets a pass from the censure of society and family. Formerly a drunk was ostracized and considered either sinful or wanting in character; the typical alcoholic was consigned to a skid row or a hobo camp---cut off from job and family. But after Stepism took hold drunks were "coddled" as helpless victims of a baffling disease, and wide leeway and compassion was given to them to continue trying to live and work in society. Andy C.
Hi Andy,
Thank you for some interesting questions. I think that blaming the Step cult for
"all the public
drunkeness, DUI/DWI, booze-fueled domestic disturbances, industrial accidents caused
by booze, and absences from work caused by hangovers"
is too much.
Big alcohol abuse problems existed before A.A., and will still exist after it.
I don't think A.A. has even been all that successful in giving alcoholics an excuse.
I think that the average person on the street still largely blames alcoholics for doing it to themselves.
When they see a street drunk, they may sympathize and say that a bad wife
or the War in Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan caused it, or the economy, or something, but
most people still have the common sense to notice that there is a large
voluntary component to a life of alcohol abuse.
Theoretically, A.A. would seem to offer a great excuse for alcohol abuse —
"It's a disease; he can't help it."
But I don't think that deep down, people entirely believe that. People do notice that some alcohol abusers
just suddenly change their lives for the better, and don't seem to have "the disease" any more,
and they really can help it.
One of the big contradictions I noticed in
the "treatment program" that I was in was:
while the "counselors" spouted Stepper slogans and philosophy,
they were quick to blame anyone who broke the
rules and consumed drugs or alcohol. The punishment was generally that the offenders
were given a few hours to
pack up their belongings and get out of the building. Instant homelessness. If it's really a disease,
what were the counselors thinking when they did that to people?
They spouted the Stepper philosophy, but treated people as if drug and alcohol consumption
was a voluntary choice. (Which I know it is.)
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Fri, November 12, 2010 7:06 pm Hi. Thanks. Yes, I've read your reply. I'm still amazed at this odd coincidence re Emerald Lake. I'm slowly reading my way through the Orange Papers correspondence. It's really inspiring to read of so many people, learning to stand on their two feet, beating booze and carrying a message of hope and self renewal. You mention Dr Bob's coffee urn (LOL). That jogged my memory because I once saw a picture of this holy relic and immediately recognized it as the same type (late 1930s) my grandmother had. The picture was in a book about sects called, "Odd Man In."
Thanks again
just read about this in your work and I have a question: Do clutterers anonymous members have like 300 steps but they have to sift through them to find the 12 that actually work?
Hello Lemaman,
Thanks for the laugh, and good morning to you too.
So have a good day now.
== Orange
John McC. has sent you a news article. Personal message: Add this to your site (with appropriate analysis! ;) 12-step manuscript rare glimpse into early AA — Yahoo! News http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_fea_lifestyles_aa_s_big_book
Okay, John,
I'll add now and analyze later, when I'm online.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Chris wrote: "There is a new show called Mike and Molly that is produced by the same guy that does big bang theory and two and a half men. I watched the first episode and it looks pretty good. its just funny cause he is over weight and goes to Over eaters anonymous and that's were he meets his girlfriend. I was thinking how ridiculous, just "quit freaking eating so much" ha ha ha oh well. maybe those steps will make it impossible for him to stuff his face ha ha ha fat chance."
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the tip. I'll have to check that out.
It is a silly premise for a show, isn't it? Now personally, I've never been to an Overeaters Anonymous
meeting, but I would guess that "sharing" the message that everybody should just quit eating
so freaking much and get more exercise would go over like a lead balloon.
It might make for an entertaining episode, though.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Hi Bari,
I just noticed your last letter in my email boxes, and I was wondering
what's happening with the movie. I still haven't heard of any showing
in Portland. Do you have any idea when I might be able to see it?
Thanks, and have a happy New Year.
== Terry
Hi Terry, We are screening SMILE 'TIL IT HURTS in Bellingham, WA at the Pickford Center on October 23 at 2:30pm. I know it isn't Portland but maybe you'll find it worth the drive. Would love to get the word out to all the cult/recovery programs in the area. It's an eye-opener! Lee http://www.smiletilithurts.blogspot.com
Hello Lee,
Unfortunately, that's too far for me to walk, and I don't have a car, but I'll help to get
the word out.
Have a good day now.
== Terry
EVERYBODY: This movie, "Smile 'Till It Hurts", is about
the Up With People show, the Moral Re-Armament
sound and dance and propaganda show.
It's a blast from the past, and a slice of history. And it's indirectly A.A. history
and background information, too.
I haven't seen it myself yet, but I am eager to.
So if you are around Bellingham, Washington, you might want to check it out.
== Orange
[The story of Carmen continues here.]
Last updated 10 April 2014. |
Carmen and Vociferous Brothers
