|
Mister T,
After three decades without a drink or drug in AA and a few years of NA I have
reached the end. Your work has done a great deal to show me that what I thought was
harmless is not. I will continue to read your work and send financial support when
I can. I now volunteer at "New Beginnings Community Center for brain injury
rehabilitation"
www.NBLI.org
on Long Island. As I close the stepper doors I borrow
some words from THE DOORS: "This is the end, I'll never look into your eyes again. The end. Thank you for all you do. I hope I live to see the end of the 12-step disease. Long Island Bob O.
Hello Bob,
Thanks for the letter, and congratulations on your new freedom. And volunteering at that
recovery center sounds really good. The world needs more sane, realistic people talking
to the sick people.
So have a good day, and a good life now.
== Orange
[More gosling photos below, here.]
I'm intriqued by your research into the success of AA. I've been going to meetings for 8 months and have been sober for that long. I'm interested in finding alternatives to AA. What non 12 step program do you follow? Tim
Hello Tim,
I don't follow any program. I just don't drink alcohol, or smoke, or consume drugs, any more.
I decided that I wasn't going to die that way.
I live by this simple slogan,
Just don't take that first drink, not ever, no matter what.And this slogan: Just don't smoke that first cigarette, not ever, no matter what.The idea that you must have a "program" to stay sober is another one of the myths that Alcoholics Anonymous teaches. The truth is, most of the alcoholics who successfully quit drinking do it alone, without any program or "support group". The NIAAA (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism) found that 75% of the successful quitters did it alone, without any program. The Harvard Medical School published an analysis of addiction and recovery that found that 80% of the people who successfully quit drinking for a year or more did it alone.
The NIAAA's 2001-2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions interviewed over 43,000 people. Using the criteria for alcohol dependence found in the DSM-IV, they found: Nevertheless, there are a bunch of good self-help and support groups available to you, if you wish. I just printed the list again, here. Personally, I went to SMART for a while. I can recommend them as teaching some good stuff. I haven't been to any of the meetings of the others, but I hear good things about them. But understand that none of them have a panacea. You still have to hold your own hand every Saturday night and do the work yourself. By the way, SMART means "Self-Management and Recovery Training". Self-management is the key. A.A., on the other hand, teaches that you are incompetent and powerless over temptation, and self-reliance is a very bad thing, and you must have a sponsor or "higher power" running your life. That didn't work out at all well. We have discussed what other people found helpful many times. The list of lists starts here: How did you get to where you are?. Good luck, and have a good day. == Orange
----- Forwarded Message ---- Smart recovery Update April 2011 SMART Recovery Stepping Forwards This week, we will announce which organisations have signed up under the SMART Recovery UK Partnership scheme. This is an important milestone and very exciting for SMART Recovery. With this model in place, we would also like to go public with our goal for there to be over 400 SMART Recovery meetings per week in the UK within three years. These meetings will be high quality and peer led. Based on the history of SMART Recovery in this country (or indeed in any other country) there is no reason to believe that this kind of growth could be achieved purely from the "organic" growth of people moving from participating in one meetings to starting another. This will always be something we value and support, but it is hard to replicate across the country and has not worked well outside of the north-west.
The break-through for SMART Recovery was the Alcohol Concern pilot scheme where
we found that just six partnership sites blossomed into twenty five
free-standing peer led meetings over a two year period. Far from undermining
peer led mutual aid, the partnership model encouraged it to flourish.
Amazingly, most of the current SMART Recovery meetings in the UK owe their
"ancestry" to this small number of sites in the Alcohol Concern pilot. We must not ignore that kind of success! If that is what can happen from just six sites, what about forty sites? That is how many sites SMART Recovery UK has now agreed with a number of treatment providers. We are aiming for 100 partner sites within the next six months and more beyond that. If the scheme is only a fraction as successful as the Alcohol Concern pilot we will easily achieve the 400 weekly meetings within three years. Under the Partnership model there will also be SMART Recovery within treatment services that may not always be peer led, but this enhances rather than detracts from the wider network of meetings. "SMART Recovery Champions" — professionals who have done the facilitators course will introduce literally thousands of people to SMART Recovery who would otherwise never come across it and encourage many dozens of these to become facilitators and start their own meetings. The other benefit of the Partnership approach is that it brings in some revenue — and SMART Recovery UK has no other source of income. We have now turned the corner on our precarious finances and are confident that the organisation is here to stay. Although the Partnership scheme has taken a lot of work to put in place, having a bit of stability and being able to pay a few bills will directly benefit our growing network of peer facilitators. Work is already underway to review and improve the manuals and handbooks; we should be able to print posters and the other materials that will help local meetings and hopefully run more training, events and conferences to support facilitators. SMART Recovery is an unusual animal in the Recovery movement as it has always been a partnership between people in Recovery and treatment professionals. To some, this collaborative approach might seem to be a threat to the "purity" of the recovery movement. Certainly we have had to put safeguards in place to make sure SMART Recovery cannot be misused by others, but with these safeguards in place we should be truly grateful that Commissioners and provider organisations want to see SMART Recovery spread and are prepared to step up and do things to help make this happen. This is truly a "win-win" approach that benefits both peer led mutual aid and the providers and users of treatment and an exciting day for SMART Recovery.
Richard Phillips
SMART Recovery UK Copyright (C) 2011 SMART Recovery UK All rights reserved.
Hello Laurence,
Thanks for the notice. I'm glad to hear that SMART is getting established in the UK.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
[The next letter from Laurence_C is here.]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaLT1GFNYOc — "smile til it hurts" — opening and preview of selected scenes http://smiletilithurts.blogspot.com/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7IxGGfpSWk — "jonestown: the life and death of peoples temple" — pt. 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHIL4yP0q6Q&feature=fvwrel — "jonestown cult survivor: vc2" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP5JDz34cac&feature=related
Hi Michael,
Thanks for the links.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Dear Agent Orange, I am a big fan of your site and actually sent my first letter a little while ago ( thanks for posting it). My beef was with Al-Anon and the like, which I stopped going to in favor of SMART meetings, where I am welcome and feel I learn much more. I'm following up to hear your two bits on this interesting scenario. My partner has just passed 5 months in a highly restrictive 12 step based treatment center. (She has the "option" of staying up to a year, which has been "suggested".) I do truly believe in her desire for sobriety, and we have been through much together. I would not call myself co-dependent. On the contrary, I'm happy to see her become stronger, more confident,and independent. I have always tried to encourage this. I am neither an addict (except for nicotine) nor an alcoholic. Having lived together for two years and through two brief but non disastrous relapses, I do realize that moving in together again may be risky, and don't see the point in rushing to do so. I think living sober on her own for awhile would boost her confidence and give her the space to focus on her recovery. Anyway, enough back story. Here's the meat of it. After complying with all the rules, regulations, mountains of meetings, etc., and just looking forward to finally going to second stage (" upstairs"), there's one catch. It is being strongly "suggested" that she cut all ties with me. Really? Even she can't make sense of this one. I can, because it smacks of 12 step indoctrination. Why would you cut someone out of your life you know you can count on? I've lasted through 4 months of painful separation, brief supervised 10 minute phone calls spaced out over a two week period, "suggestions" about ending the relationship and staying friends (which we were to begin with for a long time), but apparently that's not enough. I would love to hear your opinion on this matter. Any thoughts, similar stories?
Hello Alex,
Thank you for the letter. Get her out of there NOW! That is the cult at its worst.
They are trying to convert her into a true-believer cult member whose whole life is the cult.
They don't want her associating with any non-members who might contradict A.A. nonsense.
They rationalize their behavior by arguing that non-members are a threat to her sobriety.
Scientology does the same thing too. At a certain point in a Scientologist's training, she
is informed that she must cut all ties with non-Scientologists, including parents, spouses,
siblings, old friends, everybody. Those other people must either join Scientology or else they get
black-listed and ostracized.
That is really very common cult behavior, and it's listed in the Cult Test.
Here are some relevant items, first the Cult Test questions, and then the answers for A.A.:
And the answers for A.A.:
I don't like the sound of this:
"I think living sober on her own for awhile would boost her
confidence and give her the space to focus on her recovery."
I cannot think of a single old friend who benefitted from such an approach, but I can think
of some who relapsed badly because they were alone and had no one to act as an anchor and
hold them back. At least one died.
Now that does not mean that you become her supervisor and control her. It just means that if
she were to feel tempted one evening, it would be so much easier to go out and get something
to get high on if she were alone. There is just nothing to hold her back.
And in fact loneliness is one of the prime causes of relapses. The old A.A. saying about "HALT"
is true. You are at your weakest when you are Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired.
Sitting around alone and bored is begging for trouble.
From the sounds of things, I don't see any benefits from leaving her alone, to do it on her own,
when you could be a good emotional support, and friend, and companion, and lover.
Her confidence will build up just from getting some sober time.
There is no need to make it harder.
And I see a huge downside to leaving her in the clutches of that evil cult that intends to
take her from you.
And you can bet money that some of those "sponsors" and
"counselors" are already thinking about getting her into bed.
Lastly, you asked for similar stories. I have several of them, real tragedies where
12-Step rehab programs destroyed marriages and relationships. And one of them is nearly
the same story as yours, ending like,
"her sponsor forbid her from seeing me for thirty days... and at the end of the 30 days
I was told by my now ex that I could never talk to her again".
And another says,
"...all the men had already started asking her out. 2 days she was
gone and they were already preying on her."
Here is the list of horror stories:
A.A. Horror Stories.
I suppose some of this was inevitable. What else could you expect when somebody takes a bunch
of creeps and low-lifes and criminals and alcoholics and drug addicts and tells them that they
are the Chosen Children of God, "Doing God's Work" by parrotting a lot of slogans and Steps and
making converts out of newcomers?
And telling them that they are better than the outsiders?
I am reminded of what a correspondent wrote to me a few years ago:
"The idea that one deeply flawed person can cure another deeply flawed person: a dynamic
fraught with peril."
Good luck, and don't hesitate to write back if you wish.
== Orange
Dear Orange, I am reading your website for the 1st time tonight. Been 'in' and around the 12 step program for 14 years. Most of those 14 years have been a mix of all kinds of feelings and a lot of it was confusion to say the least and lately just not feeling safe at all. I think I am ready to 'break up' with the program. It feels akin to when I've broken up with abusive people. i.e I'm afraid! When I realized that tonight I thought "holy freakin' cow!". If I were in a 'good' relationship — would I be afraid to leave it? don't think so... anyway, I've also (thankfully) been working with an extremely good counsellor who's not an AA'er. She has not criticized it but gently nudges me off the whole concept of viewing everything from an addictive model — which is starting to work well for me. I could go on and on. Now here's the funny part, I feel like I'm 'compulsively' reading yours site. lol! anyway, I haven't officially left yet. What happened today was, after being treated shabbily by one of the other 'trusted servants' in the group yet again, (this is after I'm doing tons of 'service'), I just said to myself WTF?
ok I'm about to go on and on. so I won't. best wishes, lj (please do not post my email address — thank you!)
Hello LJ,
Thanks for the letter and the compliments. That fear of leaving A.A. is normal. They deliberately
plant phobias in you to make you afraid to leave the cult. That is one of the stunts that they
pull to keep people in the cult.
We were just discussing that in several other letters recently:
Have a good day and a good life now.
== Orange
[The next letter from LJ is here.]
[The story of Carmen continues here.]
Date: Sat, April 23, 2011 (answered 23 April 2011) Hi Orange, Thank you ... so much for me to catch up with on your site. I glanced briefly and oh gosh how I love, "Blondie." And I thought Carmen was it, (I'm not fickle, no I'm not :) What a darling little cutie little boy Blondie is!
My best,
Hi Beth,
Oh, isn't he so cute? And he was the most friendly little gosling
of all. He would happily chirp hello as soon as he saw me,
and come on over to see me.
Carmen was kind of cool towards me — I think because she
was afraid I might grab her and take her home again, and she
didn't want me to do that after she got a new mother.
But Blondie showed no such fear or hesitation.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Mister T, Please read www.baldwinresearch.com/alcoholism.cfm if you have not read it.
Thank you for all you.
Hi again, Bob,
Thanks for the link. I've heard of
Baldwin Research
before, and have them listed on my links page, but had not seen that page.
That article is really good. And nails the situation precisely:
Wow. They don't leave me much to say, do they? I mean, they've already said it all.
But I notice that they did understate the fraud of Jellinek. Much further down, they said:
There is much more to it:
So one of the "leading authorities" on "alcoholism",
the guy who was big on promoting the disease theory of alcoholism,
the guy who spent his career advancing A.A. ideas of alcoholism like that alcoholics
are "powerless" over alcohol,
was a non-degreed fake "expert" who just conned Yale into putting him on
the faculty. And then the so-called "research" that Jellinek did
consisted of little more than handing out questionaires to 60
Alcoholics Anonymous members, and generalizing from their answers, and declaring
that he knew all about alcoholism, and writing an authoritive book on the subject.
That's like giving questionaires to 60 Scientologists and then declaring that you
are the world's leading authority on psychiatry, based on what you learned from the
Scientologists. (Like Tom Cruise says, "Scientology knows more about the human mind than
all of the psychiatrists in the world.")
It just goes on and on. The level of deceit and quackery in the
"recovery industry" is unbelievable.
The following quote again understates the situation:
The truth is,
the AMA had two A.A.
front groups write up a very twisted definition of alcoholism.
(Click on that link.)
A Joint Committee of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug
Dependence and the American Society of Addiction Medicine created a
definition of "alcoholism" that is so crazy that it does not even say
that "alcoholism" is caused by drinking alcohol.
They leave the door open for a vague, nebulous "spiritual"
cause for alcoholism.
About this:
Yes, the lessons that alcoholics are powerless over "the disease"
and helpless is very harmful. I nearly died
from believing that the situation was hopeless and that I would always relapse. Might as well just
stay stoned and kill the pain until the bitter end. But then, somehow, for some reason that I still don't
understand, I changed my mind at the last minute and decided that I just was not going to die that
way. A.A. teachings be damned. And that saved my life.
Baldwin Research challenges the genetic theory of susceptibility to
alcohol addiction. Personally, I still tend to think that there is
something to it. My father was a really bad alcoholic before me, and his mother
was a nutty alcoholic before him. Either something is passed on in the genes, or miserable childhoods
make alcoholics out of the kids. Nature or nurtur. I can't say for sure which it is.
Oh God! Don't get me started on that one.
I just answered another letter
from someone whose girlfriend was in a "treatment center"
that was telling her to cut off all ties to her non-alcoholic
friends, including her significant other, and spend a year isolated in the center.
What a bunch of destructive quacks.
A great article. Thanks again for the link.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Hey that is not wacky what-so-ever. I think people have just lost their connection to nature. I saw a thing on PBS also and they were showing the parrots on, Telegraph Hill, in San Francisco and the guy who had studied them for years on his own time. He understood their lingo and stuff also. Then I also saw a thing on this guy who worked with monkeys and he knew when the monkeys were warning the others of danger, etc. So not wacky at all, I believe maybe somehow humans think they are superior to animals but if we are all here all of us count for one reason or another. I think you just eye-witnessed what many won't learn in a life time. Good for you.
One person's wacko, Cindy
Hi again Cindy,
Thanks for the note. Yes, some people think I'm a little whacked for my devotion to
the goslings, and the lengths I will go to to take care of them, but other people
understand.
And when a little creature can walk up to you, look you in the eye, and say, "I want
to cuddle and get warm", how can you not regard it as something more than just
a dumb animal?
Some people, after watching the goslings for a while, remark that they are just like
children. Actually, they aren't just like children, they are children.
The differences between them and human children are minimal. They all want the same
things: first off, Mommy. They want Mommy all of the time and cry if they are separated
from her for even a minute. (Or me, when I'm Mommy.) And they want food, of course,
lots of it. And they want to be warm and safe and clean and comfortable. (Okay, goslings
are much better at taking baths than human children are.)
They want attention. They love it when you pay attention to them and make a fuss over them.
And they want to be free to wander around and browse the grass, which means that they
spend most of their time in the park.
And then they want adventure. They are naturally curious and love to go exploring.
It's a chore to keep up with them and keep them from wandering into trouble when you
are caring for them and letting them roam around parks.
I love The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. Somebody recommended that to me several
months ago, and I got it out of the library (both book and DVD), and it's great.
Of course I could understand and sympathize with that guy's attitudes towards
the parrots.
And there, people remarked that the parrots were like little people too.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Tue, May 10, 2011 12:11 am (answered 11 May 2011) Yeah, when Connor the parrot with the blue on him, got caught by a hawk, that was sad. If it was Connor. But I like how Connor watched out for the others. Glad the guy found a girlfriend too, but I'd bet after a year with her he'd be wishing he had his parrots back. Humans, you know. So annoying. Haha Cindy R
Yes, I've been wondering about that myself. Why does it seem to be a lot
easier to put up with animals like geese or ducks or parrots than people?
And with animals, I often get the feeling of being connected to the life-stream, or eternity.
But I rarely get that feeling from people.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
On page 39 of the Big Book, in the chapter "More About Alcoholism," Bill Wilson says, "But the actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge." Let me guess. You couldn't possibly disagree more with that statement. I know I couldn't. As far as I'm concerned, I was able to stop drinking ENTIRELY on the basis of self-knowledge.
Hello again, Greg,
Yes, you understand. The self-knowledge that was most valuable to me was these two items:
Worse, what Bill Wilson described as "self-knowledge" was nothing but some quack
misinformation:
Bill's "self-knowledge" that his will was "amazingly weakened" was baloney.
The truth is, he had very strong will power, and he stubbornly wanted what he
wanted, no matter whether it was booze, cigarettes, money, women, or fame. When he wanted a drink,
he took a drink, the consequences be damned.
And then he took another and another.
And he did the same thing with cigarettes until it killed him.
But his "self-knowledge" wouldn't look at that fact.
Bill claimed that he wasn't in control, so it wasn't his fault.
A search of your site turns up one letter from several years ago that mentions the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). It was developed as a paper-and-pencil test in the 1940s based on some armchair theorizing done back in the 1920s by Carl Jung. It sorts people into 16 basic "personality types" based on four dimensions: Extraverted vs. Introverted, Sensing vs. Intuiting, Thinking vs. Feeling, and Judging vs. Perceiving. Each type is designated by a four-letter code like INTP for my type which is Introverted, iNtuiting, Thinking and Perceiving. I have made sort of a hobby of studying the MBTI. It's not exactly "hard science," but it's not just b.s. like astrology either. The "types" are really just descriptive, and the "theory" behind it is not exactly robust. I have found, however, that the objective descriptions alone provide useful insights both into ourselves and into others. I was curious to know whether you ever got around to typing yourself, e.g. by taking the free online test at http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp It's really difficult to typecast people that you have never even met in person, but based on your extensive writings my first guess for you would be ENFP. The combination of N (for iNtuiting) and P (for Perceiving) comes through in your writing loud and clear. The F (for Feeling) appears quite likely as well, but not quite as strong. The E (for Extraverted) is far less certain because I have nothing to go on but your writing. These pages: http://www.personalitypage.com/html/high-level.html http://www.personalitypage.com/html/personal.html contain links to other pages that provide interesting descriptions and discussions of the various types. Besides having a Narcissistic Personality Disorder, I feel quite sure that Bill Wilson was also a Myers-Briggs ENTJ. Jim Burwell was most likely an ESTP. The classic A.A. Nazi is typically either an ESTJ or ESFJ. I have noticed that in general the four ExxJ types, especially the ENTJ and ESTJ, are the ones that are most likely to actually get some real good out of working the Twelve Steps. The eight xxxP types almost never get any good at all out of the exercise; and the four xxTP (preferred "introverted thinking") types in particular (like myself) seldom bother even pretending to. The four IxFx types, and especially the two IxFP (dominant "introverted feeling") types, seem to be the most likely to be significantly harmed by even attempting to work the Steps because by nature they already tend to be excessively self-critical. An appropriate "program of recovery" for them might well be described as the "anti-Steps." — "Greg the Atheist"
Okay Greg, I took that test. The results are:
Kiersey.com described that personality type as:
I was surprised at those results.
Date: Sun, April 17, 2011 3:42 pm (answered 28 April 2011) You certainly are correct in characterizing A.A. co-founder Bill Wilson — at least at the point in his life when he was writing the Big Book and 12&12 — as a prevaricating jerk who suffered from a pronounced Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). In fact, as an active A.A. member myself for many years, I am constantly pointing out that the Twelve Steps do not actually constitute a "program of recovery" from alcoholism per se. They are actually a sometimes-effective treatment for NPD. That's why, as it says in chapter on Step Seven in the 12&12, "the attainment of greater humility is the foundation principle of each of A.A.'s Twelve Steps." It took a couple of decades, but it appears as if the Steps eventually even had a salubrious effect on Bill Wilson himself, as evidenced by an article he wrote for the official A.A. Grapevine magazine in 1961, available at the following link. http://silkworth.net/aahistory/print/billw_041961_2.html There he roundly criticized some sharing he had recently heard at meeting, saying,
"With perfect fidelity, both were repeating my performance of years before. Quite unspoken, yet implicit in everything they said, was the same idea—'Folks, listen to us. We have the only true brand of AA—and you'd better get it!' (Note that Bill Wilson was still claiming that he had the only cure, and that quitting his wonderful A.A. leads to death.) Bill also admitted in the same article that,
"In AA's first years I all but ruined the whole undertaking with this sort of unconscious arrogance. God as I understood Him had to be for everybody. Sometimes my aggression was subtle and sometimes it was crude. But either way it was damaging—perhaps fatally so—to numbers of non-believers." It turns out that there is no particular correlation between alcoholism and personality type. However, if an alcoholic by chance happens to also suffer from NPD, the end result is what is described in the Big Book as an alcoholic of the "hopeless variety." The narcissism effectively blocks recovery, and has to be gotten under at least a modicum of control before any progress at all can be made with the alcoholism. That was the case for Bill and apparently a majority of the A.A. pioneers. The basic A.A. program, including especially the Twelve Steps, was expressly designed for their use. The Big Book was written while Bill was still a very sick man, at only the beginning of a very long and gradual process of recovery from pathological narcissism. He had apparently made at least some progress by the time he wrote the 12&12 in the early 50s, but he still had a long way to go. Unfortunately, as you have taken pains to point out, at best the Steps provide a placebo effect for the vast majority alcoholics. More often than not, they are about as useful as the proverbial "screen door on a submarine." For a few, including some of my best friends in the rooms, even attempting to "work" them can have nothing short of disastrous results. Doing so can take someone who is inherently capable of enjoying a rapid recovery, and drive them instead directly into a life-threatening, even fatal relapse or nervous breakdown. There is no doubt in my mind that on balance the Twelve Steps do far more harm than good. As a sober member of A.A. since 2001, I have never "worked the Steps" myself, nor do I ever intend to. I also describe myself as a "nice, simple, plain-vanilla atheist," and do not even pretend to use anything at all as a so-called "Higher Power," not even my group or A.A. as a whole. I regard the entire concept as irrelevant to my recovery from alcoholism, and I openly say so even in the few mainstream A.A. meetings I attend. I wrote an article titled "Without a Higher Power" that was published in the January, 2010 issue of the Grapevine magazine. The Grapevine has also recently accepted for publication, but not yet printed, a second article in which I criticize as totally unjustifiable the common practice of describing A.A. as specifically a "Twelve Step program," on the grounds that neither the Preamble nor the Traditions even allude to the Steps. I also explicitly point out how inappropriate they are for the use of most alcoholics. (Grassroots A.A. is admittedly still extremely parochial in many areas, but "official" A.A. at the national level, as expressed in the Grapevine and in some of the more recent "Conference-Approved" literature, is surprisingly open-minded.) Fortunately, real-life A.A. today as I have experienced it bears scant resemblance to your characterization of it as a Buchmanist religious cult. In some areas it hasn't been that for over half a century, in spite of the fact that it certainly started out that way. In San Diego today, most A.A.s still pay lip service to what Bill wrote in the Big Book and 12&12; but in practice they actually pay about as much attention to it as most Christians pay to the Bible — which is to say, virtually none. They may or may not have mechanically plodded their way through "working the Steps" early in recovery, but for the most part they continue to participate in A.A. primarily for the fellowship. On the other hand, at least here in San Diego, the Twelve Traditions are in fact very much in force. No doubt much of the credit for that can be given to Rosa Burwell, Jim Burwell's alcoholic wife. She is locally reputed to have been what is jokingly called a "Traditions Nazi." In the short form, Tradition Three states that "The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking." In the long form it says,
"Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover. Nor ought A.A. membership ever depend upon money or conformity. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an A.A. group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation." Taking full advantage of that, a number of my A.A. friends and I have established three officially-registered A.A. groups, listed in the local meeting directory, with the names "Keep It Simple," "Different Strokes," and "Open Minds." At those meetings we make a point of being openly critical of the old-school A.A. culture and literature which promotes the Twelve Steps as if they were some sort of one-size-fits-all program of recovery from alcoholism. At the beginning of each meeting we read aloud the A.A. Preamble which states, "Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking." We pointedly do not even read the Twelve Steps aloud, let alone "suggest" them "as a program of recovery." Like it or not, A.A. is here to stay; and the courts and "rehab" programs are going to continue sending us lots of alcoholics who could use some help, especially encouragement, with their recovery, but who are simply not going to find the Twelve Steps or Bill Wilson's polemics in the Big Book and 12&12 any more useful than many of my A.A. friends and I have. Since Tradition Three provides us with that wonderful loophole, I believe it would be irresponsible for us not to use it as we do to provide *within* A.A. a clear alternative to the traditional Twelve Step culture, both for ourselves and for newcomers who are either required to attend A.A. meetings or who just don't know where else to turn for help. As long as we have no other affiliation, there is nothing anyone in A.A. can do to stop or silence us, although there are certainly a few who dearly wish they could. Our long-term goal is to kick the doors of A.A. wide open from the inside to gracefully accommodate alcoholics of every stripe, and we are actually making some progress. Two years ago we had just one meeting of our own. Today we have three. It's just possible that some day what is presently our minority "alternative" culture will become the majority "mainstream" culture, for the simple reason that the Twelve Steps plainly do not provide an effective program of recovery for the vast majority of alcoholics. Unlikely as that may seem, how likely is it that A.A. in its present form, with over two million members on any given day, would have arisen from its humble beginnings as an offshoot of the Buchmanist cult? I believe it's at least worth making a try. Perhaps some of your web site's fans will be able to work up the intestinal fortitude to join us in that effort. I believe this is especially important in areas where there are large A.A.-pushing "rehab" programs. Our motto can be, "A.A.—It's not just for low-bottom drunks of the hopeless variety anymore." —Greg the Atheist
Greg, I try hard to never stereotype all A.A. members as being this or that.
I even have
the Newcomer's Rescue League
of sane kind-hearted individuals who go to
A.A. meetings to inject a few notes of sanity and rescue newcomers from bad sponsors.
My descriptions of superstitious Buchmanites are not theoretical though.
I've sat through my fair share of meetings where people bragged about
how their "higher power" was doing such great things for them
and taking such good care of them, and looking out for them.
One of the most disturbing things about A.A. is how somebody can
"share" any insane superstitious nonsense and, as long as he
inserts a few "God" or "higher power" words into
his rap now and then, nobody will call him on it or ask him to get real.
Thanks for your work to spread some common sense.
But alas, you are in the minority.
Just 60 miles up the coast from you is the headquarters of Clancy's Clones, a.k.a.
"The Pacific Group",
led by Clancy Imusland,
which is notoriously fascistic and dogmatic.
They are agressive recruiters and have sent missionaries all over the country.
Clancy's Clones run groups from Los Angeles to Maine.
They take over groups by invading the groups in numbers and voting the leaders out and replacing
them with Clancy's Clones, and then changing the rules so that reasonable people can't
get elected to anything. (Like, to get elected, or even vote, you must be sponsored
by one of the "approved" sponsors, meaning Clancy's sponsees.)
In the Midwest they are known as "The Foxhall" group.
In Washington, DC, the grand-sponsee of Clancy,
Mike Quinones, took over the Midtown Group and turned it into a vicious sexual
exploitation society.
Now I hear that they have established groups in London and Plymouth, England.
They fully intend to take over A.A., and they are doing a good job of it.
So how many missionaries have you sent out?
Your little island of sanity in San Diego is isolated, outnumbered, and surrounded.
They are winning and you are losing.
By the way, about the Traditions, they aren't really anything to brag about either.
Tradition Three, that any person in need of help can join, is the only really good one.
But even that generous rule has a fatal flaw: it allows any pervert or
sexual predator or dangerous criminal to join (anonymously),
and gives him free rein, and there is no policy to get rid of him.
The other traditions declare things like that you must conform to the nonsense.
Both Traditions One and Twelve declare that the group is more important than the
individual.
Then Tradition Two says that God runs the meeting by talking through the old-timers. Yeh, right.
Tradition Nine says that A.A. should never be organized, after Bill Wilson organized
it into two corporations with a Board of Directors and a Board of Trustees, and
highly-paid executives and
a National Council that must approve the propaganda, and councils all over the place...
I analyzed all of the traditions here:
The Twelve Traditions Interpreted.
By the way, "the two million members" phrase is not true either. The real membership is
more like a few hundred thousand, and the rest is just churn: People forced, coerced,
cajoled, or shoved in, only to drop out a few weeks or months or years later.
Look here for the details.
And
here for the dropout rate.
Oh well, have a good day anyway.
== Orange
P.S.: Also note that A.A. in San Diego was started up by Jim Burwell, the resident atheist of Alcoholics
Anonymous. Apparently San Diego's A.A. is much more liberal than the fundamentalist A.A. found
in other places. Greg wrote about that here:
Also see
http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters274.html#Richard_B
for more about Jim Burwell.
And we discussed that further here: [The next letter from greg is here.]
Last updated 9 January 2015. |
