|
Date: Mon, January 24, 2011 6:30 pm (answered 28 January 2011) Well the numbers are interesting. I can't even say I think they are wrong. There are many problems with using this as a metric for the success of AA (as Im sure you know !).. How many newcomers are there ordered by law, to get court cards signed ? Go to any meeting and watch about a quarter of the people in the room are getting a court slips signed after the meeting. While they may take chips while attending, clearly, the majority are not there to get sober and stay sober, they have to be accounted for don't you agree ? Now, how many of the people in the rooms of AA decide the either don't want to do the work or don't stay around long enough to begin the work etc..thus "dropping out"..? A true measure of the success of the program is not in coin sales, that's ridiculous. It's in the number of people who actually work through ALL TWELVE STEPS.. Those are the people that are working the program as designed and the only true measure of if the PROGRAM is successful. You wouldn't determine a low success rate of medical school based on how many kids wanted to be doctors when they grow up but in turn decided to do something else would you ? Maybe next time take a poll of all the AA people you can find who have completed the 12 Steps, then ask how many have relapsed and how long they have had continuous sobriety. Like I said before, irresponsible.. This website takes the info that helps prove your point and uses that but fails to use any data that is relevant. Why do you even insist on disproving AA ? Greg
Hello again, Greg,
You are quibbling and using qualifiers. Whether A.A. helps or hurts people does not
depend on whether people did all Twelve Steps to your satisfaction.
You are simply trying to disavow all bad results by claiming that most people didn't work the
Steps the way that you wish they did.
There is much more to A.A. than just doing the 12 Steps, like going to meetings and getting told
that you are powerless over alcohol, and cannot save your own life through self-reliance and
will power. And that your thinking is defective and you cannot trust your own mind, so you
should turn control of your life over to
the sexual predator next to you
who will be your sponsor and tell you what to do.
Then there is the indoctrination in grossly unrealistic medieval dogma, and
the anti-intellectual
attitude of A.A., and
the constant put-downs,
and
telling sick people not to take their medications
Then there are all of the things listed in
the Cult Test.
There is a lot to A.A., and most of it is bad.
I have a lot more evidence of the A.A. dropout rate and failure rate than just the numbers of coins
given away.
For a spreadsheet that was prepared by the Foxhall A.A. Group in Omaha Nebraska that purported to
show that A.A. was a great success,
look here.
They tried to make A.A. look successful, but their own numbers showed that A.A. is a failure.
Each year they take in 400 or 420 newcomers, and only keep 10 of them.
That has been happening for many years.
And the last full year for which they gave numbers, 2007, they also lost 14 oldtimers, for a net loss of
four members. Four hundred and twenty-one newcomers in, and four fewer members at the end of the year.
So much for keeping them in, and keeping them sober.
See the file on
The Effectiveness of the Twelve-Step Treatment
for much more evidence of the A.A. failure rate. It even contains
statements from Bill Wilson and
his secretary Nell Wing
about the A.A. failure rate. And Lois Wilson's secretary, too.
Date: Mon, January 24, 2011 6:39 pm (answered 28 January 2011) By the way, I see the ad for "Passages" on your site. I have been interested in this philosophy, are you one of the founders ? I don't know what you are looking at. I do not have any ad for Passages on my web site. I don't have any advertising at all. I consider Passages of Malibu to be just another overpriced luxury resort for drunk and stoned movie stars, one that also indoctrinates people with cult religion.
Date: Mon, January 24, 2011 6:48 pm (answered 28 January 2011) Hi Pax Please back up the following with factual, empirical data..thank you
A.A. does not work. It is a complete and total failure that just
I did back it up with factual, empirical data. Didn't you see all of the links?
When you see one of those statements in the link color, click on it if you want to learn
more about it.
[UPDATE: Evidence of the divorce rate is
here.]
Have a good day.
== Orange
[More gosling photos below, here.]
Date: Mon, January 24, 2011 6:54 pm (answered 28 January 2011) Dear Orange, Actually you hit it on the nail on your first answer. My addiction to alcohol was 'mild' if there is such a thing in the opinions of unfortunately too many people until my flare up in October of 2009. What has ostrasized me and what influenced me to start drinking to get drunk was actually bitterness about my smoking. When no coffee shops were available to do my work ... I started actually studying and writing in bars of all things about 12 years ago When after working long hours and feeling lonely I visited friends they would nag about my smoking to a degree that I just started withdrawing and enjoying my boozing in bars instead ... cringe ... at the memory of it. Everytime I got insulted by strangers about my smoking ... again a wonderful excuse to drink. In fact when the bars stopped allowing cigarettes this is when I started drinking alone at home... For about 12 years every time I have tried to quit smoking and failed I drank over it more heavily. And in 2010 when I commited to quit drinking lapses folowed my attempts to quit the cigs. My last attempt to quit was in July of 2010. This time with Chantix and I wound up in the worst horrific depression of my life. The good thing though is that while I discontinued both the medication and my attempt to quit cigarettes I learned and stuck to priority 1 which was and will remain no matter what never to drink again. Popular mainstream US culture might try to make me feel like a menace to society when I smoke outdoors twenty feet away from people but I DO KNOW better. Being a high functioning, bi-monthly drink till I drop just for a night closet lush made me a real menace. Why I want to do this: To live freely and not be ruled anymore by any injested substance ever again. Knowing that I had disarmed the booze beast permanently even through a major depression actually has given me a deep strong desire to cherish and care for the remaining years I have on this planet so ... I want to do this again and do it right for good WITH NO MORE DRAMA thank you. And I live in a place I will not be made to feel I am garbage for smoking ... yet ... But this does not matter to me anymore. Thanks Again Orange Pura Vida PS I will be using RR for this but I would very much like your comments on how you found quitting cigarettes similar and different from your quitting drinking.
Hello again, Pura Vida,
What was just the same between quitting drinking and quitting smoking was having the
little lizard brain yammering his lines about "just one will be okay", "we have it under
control now, we can do just one."
It was the same voice, and the same bad logic, and the same desire to consume
something to feel better.
By the way, there is a great deal of similarity between what Rational Recovery is teaching,
and what is in the web page on
The Lizard-Brain Addiction Monster.
When I was reading
Rational Recovery,
I noticed that what Jack Trimpey calls "The Beast" was
the same thing as what I had been calling "The Addiction Monster", just some stupid
voice that will lie to you and tempt you to drink or smoke.
I strongly recommend that you learn about that stuff. It is a real life-saver.
Where I always got into trouble was with the mind games. There are two parts to quitting smoking, or
drinking.
First, you go through the physical withdrawal, and then, when it should get easier, it doesn't.
The mind games start, and little old Lizard Brain starts yammering about how it's really
time to just have one now. And he's got a zillion excuses for why it's okay.
What was different between quitting drinking and quitting smoking
was that quitting smoking was actually harder. Nicotine is a very strange
drug and it really wraps its tentacles around the channels in your brain.
I craved tobacco a lot more than alcohol. Because I quit both alcohol and tobacco at the same
time, I experienced cravings for both, but I'd crave tobacco like 55 minutes out of the hour,
and only crave a beer for like 5 minutes, and then it was back to another 55 minutes of
wanting a cigarette. (Oh, by the way, primitive old Lizard Brain is so stupid that he cannot
crave two things at once. It was always one or the other, but never both at the same time.
It's like somebody who is too stupid to both chew bubble gum and walk at the same time.)
I didn't take or use anything to quit alcohol, but I used nicotine patches to get off of cigarettes.
I recommend that people give them a try. They really made it easier for me.
Usually, I'd be flipping out when I quit smoking. The insanity was what got to me.
I'd end up having a cigarette just to keep from flipping out. But I didn't
have that problem when I used the patches.
Now I have heard complaints that the patches didn't
"make" people quit smoking. That is an unfair criticism — that isn't what the patches do.
You still have to be 100% convinced and determined to quit cigarettes.
The patches just split the withdrawal into two phases, which makes the withdrawal much more
manageable, because you can handle the withdrawal a half at a time.
During the first phase, you detox from all of the other poisonous,
addictive things in cigarette smoke, and there are literally
hundreds of them, while continuing to get a dose of nicotine.
Then during the second phase, you cut down on the dose of nicotine, by
using progressively weaker patches, until you aren't using them at all.
I was practically tripping for the first few days on the patches,
as I detoxed from the poisons of cigarettes. I sat and stared at a brick wall, and marveled at
how vivid the color of the old bricks was, and how the brick wall was just vibrating
with "brickness". Unfortunately, such fun stuff doesn't last very long.
Then I started to feel like I was overdosing on nicotine. I was getting an unpleasant metallic
bitter taste in my mouth, so I switched to weaker patches. I only used them for about two weeks
altogether. The doctors had expected me to be on them for about two months, but I wanted to
get done with it as soon as possible. And it was possible in two weeks.
But the patches really helped when they helped. I remember one morning when I started going into
weird head trips and off on angry, frustrated mental tangents, and then I just happened to notice
the clock on the wall, and see what time it was. Then I suddenly remembered that I was
overdue to change the patch and put a fresh one on. I was going into nicotine withdrawal
because the patch was exhausted. The new patch fixed things, and I calmed down.
Still, I was only on the patches for about two weeks. I quickly switched down
to weaker and weaker patches. And then one morning I wondered what would
happen if I just didn't put another patch on. I could always put another
patch on if things got bad, but I wanted to see where things were at now.
It was okay. I didn't flip out. I still got cravings occasionally, but
they were manageable. That's all I ever asked for — manageable.
And that was that. And I haven't had a patch or a cigarette since, and
that was 10 years ago.
Good luck on your quitting. It really is worth it. It's like a whole new life.
You are so much healthier, and you can smell and taste things. And you smell better to other
people too. And you don't have chronic headaches.
And you don't have to spend money on cigarettes. And you don't have to be constantly getting
another smoke break. (Oh, and for more incentives, you could read my web page on
Tobacco.)
I found that after I quit, I just could not sit around and do nothing physically any more. I just had to
get out and about. So I went for long walks up and down the river, and that's when I discovered the
Canada Geese and fell in love with them. So I ended up sitting down at the river and watching the
geese, and working on my suntan, and drinking ginger ale, and playing the guitar.
The geese are tone-deaf and don't care about music at all, but they love bread.
And their children really flip over sweet sticky cinnamon rolls.
If bread is mana from Heaven, sweet sticky cinnamon rolls are the food of the Gods.
Have a good day now, and a good life.
== Orange
Date: Mon, January 24, 2011 7:42 pm (answered 29 January 2011) Hello again Orange, Since I last emailed you I found a link to a group which Tom Powers and his son may have had a part in founding, namely All Addicts Anonymous http://www.alladdictsanonymous.org/ Take it for what it is worth, but it gives a little more info on what happened to Powers after the split with Wilson. I would like to know a little more about its early days, so I'll keep digging. They say chasing the Deity can drive one to insanity and apart from the apocryphal demise of Mr. Powers senior, I find his "First Questions..." book to be quite well written and his instructions on how to get started in the spiritual life relevant to my own situation. By the way I misinformed you of his second book. I think it was called "Invitation to a Great Experiment". And a job well done on preventing Agent Orange from being disposed of in the USA. Who would have known? Symptoms of poisoning took about 30+ years to show up in my case and the VA hospitals seem to be doing the right thing.
Regards,
Hi again, Bill,
Starting at the bottom, I'm glad to hear that the VA hospitals are taking good care of you.
Me too. That's my "socialized medicine", and I love it.
That All Addicts Anonymous sounds interesting. I'll have to check it out.
It seems like some people will never quit milking that cash cow.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
[The next letter from Bill_P is here.]
Subject: A little laugh One day, in line at the company cafeteria, Bob says to Mike behind him, " My elbow hurts like the dickens!! I guess I'd better see a doctor." "Listen, you don't have to spend that kind of money," Mike replies. "There's a diagnostic computer down at Wal-Mart. Just give it a urine sample and the computer will tell you what's wrong and what to do about it. It takes ten seconds and costs $10 — A lot cheaper than a doctor." So, Bob deposits a urine sample in a small jar and takes it to Wal-Mart. He deposits $10, and the computer lights up and asks for the urine sample. He pours the sample into the slot and waits. 10 seconds later, the computer ejects a printout:
You have tennis elbow. That evening, while thinking how amazing this new technology was, Bob began wondering if the computer could be fooled. He mixed some tap water, a stool sample from his dog, urine samples from his wife and daughter, and a sp*rm sample for good measure. Bob hurries back to Wal-Mart, eager to check the results. He deposits $10, pours in his concoction, and awaits the results. The computer prints the following:
1. Your tap water is too hard. "... in order to discover things, one must be ignorant. It is better to know nothing than to have certain fixed ideas in one's mind, which are based on theories which one constantly tries to confirm.s" — Claude Bernard
Hi Frankie,
Thanks for the laugh. Isn't modern medicine wonderful? And oddly enough, your joke is
relevant to the next letter that came in
(here).
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Jamie wrote: "Hi orange hope you are well. I had a random thought: the 12 steppers love to parrot on about how addiction is a brain based disease. If that were the case and we did have a disease of the brain, surely we would have to have routine tests carried out on us and have scans to determine this?? Just a thought would love your feedback on this. I once said to somebody who believes the disease nonsense that "would you feel comfortable saying to somebody with cancer how you know what its like to have a terminal illness an incurable disease that compells a person to drink?" He just looked at me with a blank expression that to me answered the question. Keep up the great work orange and thanks for taking your time to answer my letters on OP.....
All the best
Hi again Jamie,
Thanks for the note, and the thought. And that brings up a similar question:
"Why isn't there a medical test for alcoholism?"
I mean a real test, where they analyze your blood or your urine or your genes, and determine
whether you are "a real alcoholic". Why not? They can test for just about every disease and
genetic abnormality imagineable now, but no test for alcoholism other than stupid questionaires that ask
if you drink too much alcohol?
One hundred thousand U.S. citizens die from alcohol consumption every year,
and another 10,000 or 13,000 die from fatal automobile accidents involving alcohol.
That makes "alcoholism" one of the deadlier "diseases"
in America, and yet, there is no actual medical test to determine if somebody has the "disease"?
Of course the truth is that there is no medical test for
"alcoholism" because there is no such "disease"
as "alcoholism".
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Mon, January 24, 2011 9:52 pm (answered 29 January 2011) Hi Orange. This is funny and typical. So my girl friend's daughter I wrote you about who needed to go outside of Toronto to get rehab because she said she couldn't do it here. The guy who runs the joint took her in and said, "she pulled at his heart strings." Then my girlfriend had to call him and tell him she would be a little late in sending him the first $3000.00. The guy freaked and said, "What do you mean, this is a good damn business not a charity case. I'll be sending her home on a plane tonight. I wouldn't even do this for my own kids." So my girlfriend called him back and said, "If you kick her out I will have the T.V. stations on your facility, the ombudsman etc." He backed down and didn't make the daughter leave. But now the daughter is saying "I don't think I am ready to leave, I'm scared" So her boyfriend is trying to get a $10,000.00 loan to keep her in there longer. Now this place has a sauna, spa, 52 inch T.Vs in every room. Who would want to come home and face responsibility? Plus she is saying this is my recovery and all the A.A. jargon. You gotta love it, if it wasn't so sad and such a scam.
Date: Mon, January 24, 2011 9:55 pm (answered 29 January 2011) Hi I sent you another email about the continuing story of the rehab below. My friend said her daughter would think she was too high class to go to A.A. so I mentioned smart recovery, and suggestions from your website but she said she didn't know what I was talking about and it was her daughter's own journey to take from this point on. Good idea if only her mom would stick to it. Her daughter is 30 years old and can manipulate her like a wet noodle. Oh well. I guess it is her journey. Cindy R.
Hi Cindy,
Thanks for the letters.
This line is classic:
"What do you mean, this is a good damn business not a charity case."
That really says it all.
After all of the Stepper jabber about
"Freely giving away what was freely given to us", and
"Unselfishly serving others", and
"Putting the welfare of others ahead of your own",
it all comes down to
"Pay me $30,000, or else."
Wow. That's really a "spiritual" cure for a "spiritual disease", isn't it?
The girl's fear of leaving the facility might not be just enjoying the luxury.
A.A. induces phobias
and fear of relapse.
"If you don't work the Steps to the best of your ability, you will die drunk in a gutter."
They may well have put so much garbage in her head that she is genuinely afraid of what
will happen when she is out of the facility and on her own.
Convincing people that they can't make it on their own also convinces people that they got
their money's worth in the "treatment center".
Oh well, have a good day anyway.
== Orange
[The next letter from Cindy is here.]
Dear Agent Orange, Some additional sources that I hope you will find useful. I found the Dawson study particularly interesting. It asserts that there is a stable natural remission rate of approximately 20% of people who are diagnosed with alcohol dependence. That is aproximately 20% of all people who decide I don't want to drink out of control any more. About 2 out of 10 of them will successfully do it for at least 5 years. This rate is broken up into two types of recovery Abstinate Recovery and Non-Abstinate Recovery. The stable natural Abstinate recovery rate is about 8% (Table 2 stable recovery rate * (1-% treated)), while the treated recovery rate is about 6% (Table 2 stable recovery rate * % treated). If this information is helpful please include the references to your studies in the effectiveness of AA section of your website. If not than don't.
Very Respectfully,
Hello No one,
Thank you for all of the links. These are great. It's going to take me some time to go
through all of them.
Says AA is ineffective
Concludes that AA is ineffective, but does not demonstrate it well
Washington Post Article: Not particularly informative, in fact I think it is
quoting from the first abstract on this e-mail, also refers to the much vanted
AA triennial survey. Also quotes a study by Dawson. Cites Project Match as a
Failure. Bankole A. Johnson is chairman of the department of psychiatry and
neurobehavioral sciences at the University of Virginia and has served as a paid
consultant to pharmaceutical companies developing medications to treat
alcoholism. His book "The Rehab Myth: New Medications That Conquer Alcoholism"
will be published in January.
Dawson Study
Previous Studies by Dawson
Different Study Spontaneous Remission happens
P.S. Though I love your work in about AA/NA, but I cannot help but notice you
have a free tibet logo on your website. It's kind of a minor thing, but as it
turns out the Dali Lama is not the holier than though soothsayer he would have
you to believe. Like many false gurus (i.e. Bill W), the Dali Lama demands and
aura of self sacrifise and dedication from his followers that he does not follow
himself. Until the Chinese invaded Tibet, the Dali Lama and the Lama ruling
class goverened Tibet with and iron fist. The Lamas lived in palatial mansions
while the peasants lived in squalor and were torture was common. I'm not saying
Communist China is a walk in the park, but at least they introduced secular
education and some basic social reforms, which is more than the Dali Lama can
say. Ultimately the Dali Lama just wants his slaves back. Again I realize this
is a minor issue in comparison to the rest of your website. Any way I
included a link to a Penn and Teller Bullshit Episode that sums it up quite
nicely. It's a 3 part episode, containing information on Mother Teresa, Ghandi,
and the Dali Lama.
I have to answer this without having seen the video, because ever since I upgraded Firefox,
videos won't play. I think it's a plugin problem. And I'm running Linux, which is the last
system that they ever fix their stuff for. Now Linux is just fine, and the creators and
maintainers of Linux are very quick about fixing bugs. But the people who supply things like
Flash or web browsers fix their stuff for Windows first, and the Mac next, and Linux last.
So I still can't see any videos.
In general, I am suspicious of negative publicity about the Dalai Lama, because most of it actually
comes from agents for the Chinese Communist leadership in Peking (Beijing?). They are constantly
slandering him.
They are really embarrassed by all of the negative publicity, and wish that the Lamas would all
just disappear.
I really like Penn and Teller, and they are often spot on. But they can be mistaken. And there is
plenty of misinformation and slander and libel about the Dalai Lama for them to find.
First off, the Dalai Lama never ruled Tibet with an iron fist. In fact, he
never ruled Tibet at all, not for one single day. He was only a boy, and a regent
ruled in his place. Then, before the Dalai Lama reached the age of majority, the
Chinese Army invaded, and from that day on, the Chinese Generals ruled Tibet with an
iron fist. The Tibetan society may well have had its faults, and poverty, but that
was not the fault of a boy who controlled nothing.
If the Dalai Lama was keeping all of his followers in slavery, why do they want him to come back?
The Dalai Lama is so popular in Tibet that the Chinese have outlawed even wearing a T-shirt
with the face of the Dalai Lama on it.
I judge the Dalai Lama mostly from his books that I have read. I don't see a tyrant there; rather,
a gentle soul. Personally, I wonder how he can handle the situation without hating the Chinese.
I would, if I were in his shoes. He must have the patience of a saint.
What I do know is that the Chinese army has killed about a million Tibetans and destroyed
six thousand temples. And then they put a nuclear waste dump in Tibet.
What the Chinese are doing to Tibet is cultural genocide.
Speaking of which, that is why the Chinese have opened "secular education". That is part of the
process of destroying the Tibetan culture. We all know what Communist "education" is like:
"The nasty former rulers kept all of the poor people in slavery until the wonderful Communist
People's Liberation Army came and liberated them, and now everybody will live happily ever after."
Then the Chinese have kidnapped large numbers of Tibetan children and taken them to China,
where they are being taught how to be Chinese. That is exactly the same process as what was
done to Indian children here in the USA in the late eighteen-hundreds and early nineteen-hundreds.
Indian children were taken away from their parents and sent to "Indian Schools" where they were
taught to be little White Men, and they were beaten if they spoke their native language, and their
hair was cut and they were dressed as little white men, and taught how to be "Christians"...
The Chinese are doing the same things to the Tibetans, to get rid of the Tibetan culture.
Except that Chinese Communist education is viciously atheistic, so no Buddhism or Christianity
or any other religion is allowed there.
Have you read or seen "Seven Years in Tibet"? That was written
by a German mountain climber, Heinrich Harrer, who got captured by the
British in India during World War II, and escaped from the prisoner-of-war
camp, and fled to Tibet, where he ended up being a close friend of the
Dalai Lama, who was at that time just a boy. In fact, Harrer had a big
part in educating the young Dalai Lama about the outside world, and
science, and all things Western. He portrays the Chinese invasion as a
disaster, not a liberation. "Liberation" is the word that the
Communists use.
Back in New Mexico, some friends of friends were followers of the Dalai Lama.
When the Dalai Lama visited them there about 20 years ago (before he became popular),
he refused to even take their cash donation (that they had worked so hard to scrounge up),
telling them to keep it and use it locally.
The Dalai Lama could see that they were not rich — they were actually living in poverty, by
the usual American standards — so he wouldn't take their money.
That just does not come across as being a greedy tyrant who lives in luxury at the expense of others.
Additionally I have included the link to the Penn and Teller Bullshit episode
about alcoholics anonymous. It's mostly a repeat of the information you already
have, but I thought you might find it interesting.
Now this video I have seen before, many times, and love it.
Thanks again for the links, and have a good day now.
== Orange
I had written a much more scathing article but no one will publically criticize AA/NA here because the industry of addiction treatment is very well liked. Even if it's not helping anyone they like that they make so much money from the Medicaid system by basically raping it that anyone who says anything against it, well they end up like I did... kicked out of a court-ordered program and facing new charges because of it. Here is one article I wrote that got me into a hell of a lot of trouble. And thanks for replying.
Every word of this is absolutely true for the services here in Watertown,
and I don't intend to let it stay that way. Thanks for taking the time and I
reference your "Orange Papers" all the time and in fact your papers are on
my website as a page. Check it out:
Hi again, Joey,
Thanks for the input.
The so-called "treatment program"
that I went through
did the same thing — they kept me in an outpatient treatment program,
getting lectures from a cocaine-snorting pedophile, until the charges
had eaten up all of the money that the Oregon Health Plan would pay,
and then they "graduated" me. That is just standard operating
procedure.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
[The story of Carmen continues here.]
Hi Orange Thank you so much for setting Jeffrey H. straight about Christians and AA. There is no way someone who has read the Bible and actually believes what it says could continue to attend AA. The points you made are correct. It is false prophets, false gods, and false religion. Also part of it (the twelve steps) were founded on a sesssion with a Ouija board and a dead monk. That is witch craft at the very least. Witch craft and sorcerers are spoken of in the Bible as well. As far as I am concerned the Christains in AA are spinning Christianity in to what they want to believe it is. Not for what the Bible says it is. Now I've noticed Jesus Christ twelve step programs coming out the woodwork. Celebrate Recovery comes to mind. I emailed them to ask them how they could adopt something that came from a bella donna hullucination and a ouija board. No response yet. Celebrate Recovery is just as bad, if not worse, as AA. It is AA masquerading as Jesus Christ. Keep on preaching the truth!
Sincerely,
Hello again, Lisa,
Thank you for the good wishes. The most disturbing part of the situation that you described is
the "no response". Jeffrey refused to read my answer too. I get the distinct feeling that
they don't really want to know the truth, and they don't want to talk about the truth.
They just want to hear their favorite superstitions repeated.
One of my favorite lines from Jesus is, "Learn the truth, and the truth shall set you free."
I am a little bit amazed and appalled at how some people can rave about how they love Jesus,
and they are real Christians,
and then they stubbornly refuse to even go near looking at the truth.
Like
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard taught his Scientologists,
"If criticism cannot be silenced, the Scientologist should should
cease all communication with the critic, and 'disconnect'."
Oh well, have a good day anyway.
== Orange
Date: Tue, January 25, 2011 11:43 am (answered 30 January 2011) Hi again Orange! I was going through some letters to you yesterday, when I happened upon Sarah's recent letter to you.... her statement...
My sponsor found out I was on medication and told me to stop taking it... she then in an open meeting addressed me being on medication and the meeting proceeded to be a SHIT ON SARAH FEST for being stupid to allow myself to be medicated!!!! disturbed me greatly. I am going to make an assumption here that poor Sarah fell victim to the "cult within a cult" movement started by Clancy Imislund from the Pacific Group... This (movement) group has tendrils all over the U.S., from the Foxhall groups in Minnesota, Nebraska and Wisconsin... to the D.C. group headed up by the now deceased Mike Q. (a Clancy protege... sponsee).... and finally to the groups I got myself mixed up in out here in Chicago.... One of them was the rigid and ridiculous "Lemont Oaks" group, along with "Oak Lawn Big Book" (women were not allowed to wear pants to meetings, men had to wear ties).... and last but not least the "Between the Covers" and "It's in the Book" groups.... ALL of these meetings/groups got started by men and women who were connected to that dirty rotten bastard Clancy Imislund through sponsorship..... There is no one that this man will not sponsor..... He breaks the rules and sponsors women.... Montana Carleen is one of the women he has sponsored and SHE is responsible for the spread of this nighmarish behavior of teaching her sponsees to play doctor out here in the Midwest ...... Foxhall is FULL of Carleen/Clancy sponsees, along with the other groups I previously mentioned.... We literally paid homage to this weirdo Carleen once a year. All of her little sheep traveled to Montana to hear her speak. IT WAS MANDATORY..... WE HAD TO GO!! ... If we wanted to stay in this elite line of sponsorship.... Sound culty enough for you?? You want to hear something really really sick?? I went to this Montana "gathering" the weekend my husband and I were moving to a new house. Yep, I was more afraid of disobeying orders from on high than I was of leaving my husband and kids to move everything out all on their own! I still can't believe I did that! The crap these people taught about medication was reprehensible. I stopped taking medication after MY sponsor called me out on my Prozac.... I was shamed into stopping it. I was informed by her, and several other pseudo-aa doctors, that I would never get the "message" if my mind was clouded with anti-depressants. Fortunately I had not been on it for too long.... so I really did not have any serious problems..... oh yeah... I forgot.... I drank about a week after I stopped the meds. Of course I was told that the relapse was ALL MY fault because I wasn't working the "program". It had NOTHING to do with the cessation of my DOCTOR PRESCRIBED MEDICATION. This all happened to me back in the mid nineties.... I know this is when the infestation of Clancy clones began its spread across the country. I am very disturbed to see it is still going strong. I left AA completely about four years ago, but unfortunately had to endure many years of bullshit and suffering before I escaped. Believe it or not... even though I had left the cult I could not shake the feeling that maybe, just maybe they were right about all of this stuff. Maybe I had failed to work the program.... Then, when I was recently diagnosed with Adult ADD, my life-long struggles with LIFE made more sense!!... Now it makes complete sense that the Prozac had been helping me...... Today I have to take ADD meds and anti-depressants.... Had I stayed in AA I never would have discovered this. Looks like Clancy is still out there shouting from the rooftops to all of his little clones that medication is wrong.... bad bad bad..... I watched people die because of the anti-med propaganda being thrown at people like Sarah and myself. This evil web of Clancy clones is very very dangerous. I am happy to see that Sarah got out..... Still, the most disturbing thing for me is this...... Our Government.... the courts.... the media.... ordinary people, really believe this shit works..... The whole world has been hoodwinked by the AA machine. Clancy I. is crazy.... crazy like a fox. He has built a huge network of AA Nazis... and no one questions him or these groups and the damage they have done over the years. The courts still keep ordering folks into treatment..... and the sad thing is once they are branded with the scarlet "A".... it is very difficult to get any doctor or psychiatrist to take someone who has been branded an alcoholic seriously..... We are always under scrutiny, and are most often accused of being in "denial"..... SO many Doctors believe... "Oh, you are just another lying sack of shit alcoholic out here drug seeking".... Those in the medical establishment have been brainwashed and corrupted by the AA logic... Many won't look any further than the initial alcoholism diagnosis..... They don't seem to find it necessary to screen for an underlying condition that might be causing someone to abuse alcohol. Fortunately, I found a physician who believed in me.... but I know there are millions out there just like me, who are being herded into the rooms by doctors who have been corrupted by the AA/ Treatment Center mantra .... AA IS the only way .... Yep that good old "spirituality" will cure EVERYTHING!!! Oh well.... keep up the good work.... and Sarah.... good luck! Come check us out at x-steppers! Renee.... aka Millie!!
Hello again, Renee,
Thank you for the letter.
That story is appalling, and yet, I'm sure that it's true. I've been hearing a lot about
Clancy's cult over the years.
I'm glad to hear that you are free and feeling better now. Congratulations on your escape
from the looney bin.
Coincidentally, I got a spreadsheet from the Foxhall Group in Omaha, Nebraska,
that purported to show that it
was a great success, sobering up hundreds and keeping them sober for years. But what the
numbers really showed was that the Foxhall Group was a total failure with nearly a 100%
dropout rate. You can see it
here.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
[The next letter from Renee_C is here.]
Last updated 1 July 2014. |
