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Hi Orange, "Thanks Terrance for accepting my friend request. I cannot thank you enough for the personal empowerment your dissertation has provided me thus far. For too long I had let the "recovery"vernacular undermine my efforts at sobriety and I was convinced that my recovery had less merit than someone in the 12 step program. Thanks to the information I gleaned from your website I now realise my "recovery" is healthy and productive and not dependant upon suspended rationale and blindly following the misguided dogma of a deluded criminal. Thank you ever so much. Regards Jeremy."
Hi Jeremy,
Thanks for the note, and thanks for the compliments.
I'm really glad to hear that you are feeling better.
So have a good day and a good life now.
== Orange
Hello, I saw a freeminds video on the Watchtower & mind control. I am leaving the JW and wanted to know where I could find literature on this subject? Thank you for your time. Freedom
--
Hello Freedom,
Thanks for the question. I wish you well. Alas, I don't have much information on
the Jehovah's Witnesses. What comes to mind is:
Have a good day and a good life now.
== Orange
http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-sheen-aa-20110302,0,1684470.story They seem to bury the idea of 5 percent (and don't even mention the 15 percent rate of binge drinking). Even if we take their " 8% to 12%" success rate, that means an 88-92 percent failure rate. I don't know of a drug or treatment that would be approved by the FDA with that rate. John M
Hi John,
Yes. What more can I add?
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Hi Orange, I'm not sure if I've heard of this man or not but I like his willingness to try a different approach: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/us/22marlatt.html?ref=health I particularly liked this sentence:
"His data demonstrated that reducing an addict's level of alcohol use can lead directly to reduced troubles at home and at work..." Duh ~ It's really that simple: If you stop getting wasted, things can get better. But AA loves to glom the credit for these transformations. Oh well, keep on truckin, Orange. Bill
Hi again, Bill,
Thanks for the note. Yes, that line is almost as good as something from Yogi Berra.
Maybe something like, "If you quit drinking, you won't get drunk as much."
Marlatt just passed away. I was sorry to see that. He was one of the saner voices
in the "recovery community".
Have a good day.
== Orange
[The previous letter from Taylor_W is here.]
Date: Tue, March 22, 2011 10:40 am (answered 28 April 2011) Orange, Thanks again for taking the time to reply to my e-mails. I think some wires might have gotten crossed somehow on this one though. I was referring to Dr. Drew Pinsky, not Dr. Phil. Dr. Pinsky (who is an actual medical doctor) started off on Lovelines, a show where callers seek answers for various, generally embarrassing, sexual issues. I hadn't heard anything about him for years until Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew came out, which ended up with spinoffs like "Celebrity Rehab Presents: Sober House" and "Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew". As I said in the prior email, that statement made by Dr. Drew Pinsky directly to the camera/audience was incredibly creepy. On the one hand, all of these television shows are vehicles to promote 12 step programs and 12 step based rehab facilities. On the other hand, it allows people to see what goes on in those facilities without signing their lives and bank accounts over to one. The silliness is on display for all to see, should they choose to see it. And as I mentioned, this is them putting their best foot forward with a freshly shined shoe on it, and it's still absurd.
Hi again, Taylor,
Yes, some wire got crossed there. It seems that I've been getting letters and complaints
about both of those "doctors" lately. But that's alright. We'll get it sorted out.
There's one thing I think you'd like about Dr. Drew though, he seems to be telling the truth, at least in one capacity: "My whole thing is bait and switch. Whatever motivates them to come in, that's fine. Then we can get them involved with the process." — Dr. Drew Pinsky Here's a link to the article in the NY Times that contains that quote. The whole thing is disgusting/enlightening, both you and your readers may find it interesting: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/magazine/03Pinsky-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=4 This man is a public menace. Worse than Dr. Phil even, because as you rightly pointed out, Dr. Phil is not a doctor. Dr. Drew is a board certified MD and "addiction specialist", which
— Taylor "You've got to know your limitations. I don't know what your limitations are. I found out what mine were when I was twelve. I found out that there weren't too many limitations, if I did it my way." — Johnny Cash
Thanks for the input, and I couldn't agree more.
The big question in my mind is, how do doctors — real M.D.'s — get away with
selling such quackery and keep their license to practice medicine?
There is also the issue of "informed consent". Doctors are
legally obligated to fully explain the treatment to the patient,
including its success rate, so that the patient can give informed consent
to the treatment. Dr. Drew declared that he violated that law,
and practiced bait-and-switch tricks to lure the patients in.
Have a good day.
== Orange
Hi Mr. Orange, I visited a We Agnostics meeting in Los Angeles. It was very refreshing. They do not pray before or after the meeting and there was a great discussion without giving God credit for recovery. Check the directory. There are also meetings in Chicago and New York. I have started a meeting in Columbus, Ohio and we are having about 10 people attend so far. Please see attached format. It may be a new trend and I hope it continues to grow. If you are in Columbus, please stop in Tuesday at 7:00 PM. It is a great meeting for non-believers and others. Have a great day! "Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." ~ Albert Einstein
Ed S.
*Attachments:*
Hi again, Ed,
Honest to God, why bother? To be a good atheist in the 12-Step cult is an oxymoron.
Why bother? Why not just dump that old pro-Nazi cult religion and start over with
a blank sheet of paper and design your own program? It would be very difficult to
do worse than Bill Wilson did.
HINT: Other people have already created alternative methods.
Check out
SMART or Lifering
or SOS or WFS or HAMS...
Have a good day and a good life now.
== Orange
Hi Orange, A few more files for you: One is a Public Information presentation from AA in New York. Nothing mind blowing but it includes the definition of alcoholism as "a spiritual illness" and stresses that AA is not religious. Awesome propaganda! The second is an email interaction between two local AA members that was forwarded to me during my time inside AA. It shows what AA can do to a reasonably normal functioning brain. Enjoy! Iamnotastatistic
*Attachments:*
Hello Iamnotastatistic,
Thanks for the input. Yep, more propaganda.
I love the endless double-talk in the first one:
What relative success?
There is no "relative success". What does that even mean? I understand success.
I understand "increased success rate", and "decreased success rate".
But what is "relative success"? Relative to what?
That is Bill Wilson's writing style — vague grandiose euphemistic
Glittering Generalities
that don't actually mean what they sound like.
Also notice that the whole sentence is an example of the propaganda trick of
Sly Suggestions.
The author did not say that the A.A. program really works — it
just "seems" to have "relative success".
So it's an optical illusion?
And the statement that ex-alcoholics have
"exceptional faculties" for reaching others is
another grandiose
unsupported allegation, backed up by no actual facts.
Like what is the real A.A. success rate?
How "exceptional" are those old ex-alcoholics at getting other drinkers to quit?
Unable to work the Steps? You pathetic loser. What, is your leg broken?
Or are you "constitutionally incapable of being honest with yourself"?
(By the way, "there" is the wrong "their".)
But now the "suggested" Steps are "needed". Nice use of slipping and
sliding
progressive commitments.
The Steps do not "suggest" actions.
Bill Wilson said that the 12 Steps were "suggested"
as a program of recovery, but the actual Steps themselves are instructions to do
specific occult activities.
They do not suggest.
And where was it ever established that doing the 12 Steps increases the sobriety rate
and produces happy results? Or produces healthy minds and healthy emotions? Never happened.
So that is the propaganda trick of Assuming Facts Not In Evidence.
What has been established is that the Steps raise the death rate, and raise the rates of
binge drinking and rearrests, and the costs of hospitalization...
The second document is outrageous. Don't you dare use the word "recovered".
You cannot recover. Do not ever say that you have recovered.
You are never done. You cannot ever leave the cult.
Oh well, have a good day now.
== Orange
I have just read your AA articles. I loved it. Thank you for writing this. I run a group called Booze Free Buddies. I couldn't stomach AA and it's brainwashing and was shocked at the lack of support for people in need of help with alcohol addiction who didn't want to go to AA. http://www.boozefreebuddies.com Once again, thank you for such a brilliant piece. sincerely Beckie G. CPT "Creating Healthy Bodies and Healthy Minds"
Hello Beckie,
Thank you for the compliments, and I wish you luck with your project.
Thanks for helping out with the cause.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
[More gosling photos below, here.]
Date: Sat, April 23, 2011 2:02 pm (answered 29 April 2011) All I have is my experience,I have been sober 18 years .I can tell you at 10 years sober I was so worried about everybody else I almost got drunk.But I also believe as the B.B. Says AA isn't the only way to get sober.My neighbor next store says God has kept him from drinking many years and when the Jehovah witness knock on my door he tells them all they are going straight to Hell. I don't want what he has and I wave hi to him and let him be who he is. Most days In AA I am glad the highest I ever have to get is SOBER.AA has worked just fine for me so far so I keep doing it one day at a time.Congrats on 10 years.The best kept secret in AA is the B.B. And the steps are in the Big Book.By the way I learned detachment in Al-non. Sent from my iPad
Hello again, Mark,
When you say, all you have is your experience, what that means is that you
have years of casual one-sided observations. You only see the people who
keep coming back. You don't see those who leave in disgust, or relapse and
die drunk. You also don't see those who dump the Big Book in the trash
can and go out and successfully quit on their own, without Alcoholics Anonymous.
So you are
counting the hits and forgetting the misses.
Since people who go back to drinking usually soon quit A.A. because
they don't want to be embarrassed by having to reveal that they lost all of
their sober time again, that creates the optical illusion that A.A. must be
keeping the remaining people sober. But that is just an optical illusion caused
by only looking at the rare few success stories.
The facts are that A.A. has no better of a success rate than doing nothing,
and it has
a much worse death rate.
And
a worse binge drinking rate...
You cannot assume that A.A. is making people get sober just because they quit drinking
after going to a few A.A. meetings. That is
the same bad logic
as,
"Sally went to church and prayed a lot, and then she got pregnant. So going to church
and praying made her get pregnant."
The real reason why people quit drinking is the same reason as why
they go to some A.A. meetings: Because they want to quit drinking.
First, they finally decide, after much suffering, that they really want to quit
drinking, and then they do. They sometimes also go to a few A.A. meetings because
somebody told them that A.A. is "helpful" or "necessary",
which turns out to be untrue.
If you are enjoying A.A., then okay, have fun. But recommending A.A. to others leads
to too many unnecessary deaths.
And lying to sick people about the real A.A. success rate,
and telling them "RARELY have we seen a person fail..." is inexcusable.
Have a good day.
== Orange
Also see this comment about "the steps are in the Big Book." That is "Clancyspeak"...
Date: Sat, April 23, 2011 5:51 pm (answered 30 April 2011) Here's the deal. See a mental health therapist. You are VERY angry. Not logical, rational, or whatever. Just pissed off at the world. Not happy. Before you dismiss my response, just look at how much time you've spent on this website. Why? Because you are really angry at Bill Wilson or something. Look if you are already seeing a shrink, great. Just trust me on this one. Just consider the fact that I might know what I'm talking about. Take care
Hello again, Max,
What you don't seem to realize is that it does not matter how angry I am.
That will not change the A.A. failure rate by one single percentage point.
A.A. would still be a failure and a crazy cult religion
no matter whether I was grumpy as Scrooge or giddy as Pollyanna.
But A.A. members have been fooled into believing that someone is
"axiomatically spiritually wrong"
if he is "angry" or "has a resentment". See
the list of previous accusations here.
Telling people that they cannot be angry is just a standard way that cults cripple their members:
The Cult Test question for that is here:
68. Don't Feel Your Own Feelings..
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Sat, April 23, 2011 7:39 pm (answered 30 April 2011) It's a program of attraction. After two decades I am grateful that have been able to help and encourage many other fellow alcoholics to attain sobriety. I hope you have been to receive that gift of sharing. It was given freely to me and I have done the same. A gift indeed.It's not what's in for me but what can I do to help. Happy Easter .
Ted,
There are literally millions of people who have been sentenced to A.A.
meetings by a judge or parole officer or "therapist" or
"counselor" who will tell you that A.A. is a program
of steel-fisted coercion, not "attraction".
Every time you see somebody putting a piece of paper into the
collection basket, that is another person who is not there by
"attraction". They are there to get a signature on that piece
of paper, or else.
See this file:
Sentenced to A.A. for just one short
list from one small town for a short period of time.
And while you enjoy sharing the A.A. religion with converts, it does not increase the
sobriety rate of alcoholics at all.
(Look here.)
Have a good day.
== Orange
Date: Mon, May 9, 2011 2:51 pm Have a good life, I'm on my way to a meeting.
Date: Sun, April 24, 2011 5:14 pm (answered 30 April 2011) Hi Orange Just thought I'd write and express my gratitude to you. I think the real genius behind what you've done is to have identified something visceral and then rigorously subjected it to thorough, objective and undistorted analysis. It is evident you have been passionately dispassionate in your critique of a disgusting, duplicitous, self serving cult masquerading as a benevolent institution. Given your experience with them that must have been hard. I know that I couldn't have done it, and it appals me when I see the sort of abuse you get for simply publishing conclusions arrived at from the evidence. Wouldn't the proper way to discredit work such as yours be to come up with some counter, evidentially based research rather mindless abuse? Of course, that will never happen due to the anti-intellectual arrogance of AA and their own fear of being subject to scrutiny. After all what would happen if it finally got out in to the public domain that their own commissioned research showed an apple tree, a motorcycle, an abusive sponsor, or Bill Wilson's coffee pot, etc can't keep people off the drink? After the laughter at their hocus-pocus subsided I suspect they realise that there would be an awful lot of angry people around; and ones who wouldn't have been brainwashed in to believing they are not allowed to feel that anger to boot. Be great, wouldn't it? Another reason I wrote to you were for your thoughts on how AA has managed to manipulate the public's perception as it being the place where people have a responsibility almost, to go if they have a drink problem? In terms of marketing and corporate identity AA must be regarded as an unparalleled success, mustn't it? Especially as a supposedly non profit organisation that is based on attraction rather than promotion? (Though how any organisation can attract people to it without promoting its existence is beyond me.) I mean nearly every member of the public has heard of AA and nearly all of them will blindly, though in well meaning good conscience, advise a close friend or relative with a problem to go there. How has an organisation with such unattractive dogma and appalling track record managed it? And for so long? Do you think, as I do, that their ability to collectively brainwash is actually more frightening than their ability to individually brainwash ? After all, if they can continue their grip on the public's imagination then that will surely mean more and more vulnerable individuals being sent as cannon fodder to them, won't it? Why do you think that AA, unlike any other organisation I know of, can shirk itself of a legal duty of care? If a school, college, employer, church, etc dealing with vulnerable people told them self worth and self esteem was evil; told them to stop taking prescribed psychiatric medications; knowingly placed them in close proximity to dangerous people; told them they had a part to play in experiences such as child abuse or rape and forced religion on them, they'd all be liable under civil and, in many cases, criminal law. Notwithstanding some prosecutions of individual members, why do you think AA as an organisation has been able to exempt itself from liability whereas many other organisations dealing with the vulnerable have not? Thanks for reading, Orange. Also thanks to all of those contribute constructively to your site. In a way it's good too that the steppers do write in with their abuse. It serves hopefully as a deterrent to any thinking of joining or returning to them, and exposes their "spirituality" as just another lie. You're the best, Orange. Many thanks, AnythingbutAA
Hello AnythingbutAA,
Thank you for the letter and the compliments.
About this question:
Yes, A.A. is a phenomenal success at marketing and advertising. No other cult or cult religion
even comes close. Somebody could write a book about it, and it should be required reading for
all would-be Madison Avenue executives, like the students in Harvard and Yale business schools.
(Not that I want to improve their mind-bending techniques...)
A.A. has been very clever. The policy of "every group is independent" allows the
A.A. headquarters to dodge a lot of lawsuits. They claim that they didn't do it, some guys in
Illinois did, and the A.A. Headquarters has no control over the matter.
(Of course the groups are not really independent, but it's hard to establish that in a court of law.)
But then the guys in Illinois are anonymous, and they insist that they
didn't do anything wrong either. Maybe her sponsor did tell her not to
take her psychiatric medications before she committed suicide, but can
you prove that in a court of law? (There are no tape recordings, and
there are no witnesses.)
A.A. also benefits from the Bible Bias. They put on lots of airs of
religiosity and make a big deal of reciting the Lord's Prayer and talking
about how God will save them, so people are reluctant to attack a
religion that is supposedly doing such good work and getting the drunks
to pray. Then A.A. claims that it isn't really a religion so that it
is okay to force people to join it.
And then they claim that A.A. is completely compatible with Christianity,
so that mollifies a lot of people — people who don't know
the actual crazy theology of A.A.
Yes, A.A. is one of a kind. Scientology and the Moonies can only watch
and drool in envy.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
[The next letter from AnythingbutAA is here.]
Date: Mon, April 25, 2011 6:01 am (answered 30 April 2011) Talk about a spin Dr, you twist everything I say. Let me slow it down so even you can understand it. Are you a drunk? If you said no then it is a fact. A fact is the truth about something. Look it up. Now if you have not fallen too far behind we will move on. Fact #2 I used the tools of A.A. to get sober and since you don't know me you do not have the facts on me. Not other peoples statistics because I've not been divorced, and I'm still alive. These are both facts by the way. NO, no. no spinning. This is the truth, a fact Are you staying with me? Probably not but we'll move on. Fact # 3 One of the tools in AA is the word HALT it stands for hungry, angry, lonely and tired. Sometimes people like me mistake these feelings as a desire to drink I did, fact. When I recognized this I was able to eat or sleep and not drink. These are facts spin Dr! Oh don't bother writing back I won't read your crap anymore! Ok pumkin.
Hello again, Steve,
Congratulations on quitting drinking. You don't get any congratulations for believing the nonsense
that A.A. members taught you.
The statistics of A.A. really do matter, and prove that A.A. is a failure at getting alcoholics
to quit drinking.
Of course that has nothing to do with the 12 Steps or any of the rest
of the A.A. misinformation and occult practices, and it does not prove
or even hint that A.A. actually works to make people quit drinking.
Have a good day.
== Orange
Date: Mon, April 25, 2011 10:21 am (answered 30 April 2011) Thanks for the reply. I guess those people I know that found sobriety, sanity, and serenity in AA are just making it all up... The bigger question for you is what is the anger all about? What other people are doing really seems to bother you. (self imposed prison of sorts) Oh well. If it helps you (somehow) to bash solutions that are clearly working for a lot of people, go right ahead. I will not lose any sleep over your opinions. What you are doing does not bother me at all. I am free Good luck T
Hello again, T.,
A.A. members do not "find sanity" in A.A. either.
(It isn't like it's hiding in the A.A. clubhouse
over in the corner, underneath that folding chair.)
When some psychiatrists examined the sanity of abstinent A.A. members,
they found that the membership was very mentally ill, ranging from
neurotic all the way up to full-blown psychotic.
Very few were really sane. See this Cult Test item for the details:
Have a good day.
== Orange
Hey Orange: http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/local/central/safe-ride-sees-more-funding
I don't recall if you've talked about MADD in the past but with stories
like these and others (such as the one where MADD had no problem with
ticketing a couple for public intoxication while they were waiting for a
DD ride home:
John M
Hello again John,
Thanks for the links. That really is crazy, isn't it? It certainly looks like MADD's real
desire is to stop all drinking, and to punish all drinking, which is quite a departure from
the avowed goal of stopping drunk driving. Carrie Nation, get out your ax.
What is especially stupid is that MADD disapproves of more funding for Safe Ride in Albuquerque.
I used to live there, and I know that championship drinking is practically the state sport.
New Mexico has a sky-high rate of alcohol abuse. It has to be one of the highest in the nation.
Of all the places to object to Safe Ride getting more funding, it shouldn't be New Mexico...
And I love this illogic:
Well yeh, duh... It isn't the sober people or the tipplers who need a ride home.
Yes, MADD looks like another organization that got taken over by the fanatics. There sure is a
lot of that going around lately.
Oh well, have a good day anyway.
== Orange
Date: Mon, May 9, 2011 7:06 pm (answered 11 May 2011) Of course not Orange, everybody knows that no large organization can be taken over by a rabid minority of extremists. I mean, if that happened, you'd have the Speaker of the House threatening to shut down the government cause he thought the Tea Partiers would kick him out of office for. . . ah, nevermind.
Thanks for the laugh, and you have a good day too.
== Orange
[The story of Carmen continues here.]
The Canada Geese are flying north again. I just looked out the window this morning,
and saw a 'V' of them going north. And yesterday, the same thing happened. They've been
going north for a few weeks now. That's a sure sign of spring, besides the fact that
all of the trees and flowers are in bloom.
It's rainy today, but it was beautiful yesterday, which was very convenient for
going shopping. It has been alternating rain or dry
lately. We just finished a month that was one of the rainiest on record, like a month
of rain every day without a break. They say that Wednesday will be dry
again. That's a good time to go to the Wetlands.
...I don't want you to think I'm starting you out with a 100% pro-AA story, I'm not. I find your writings quite informative in a certain respect, but it is the tone of your writing I am concerned with. That being said, I am certainly not here to argue that AA isn't a cult. But I'd like to clarify for you, or ask you to clarify for me, a few things. Years and years ago, I was a young man who was consumed with a disorder known as OCD. It was ruining my life, and although I took medications and saw psychiatrists, nothing seemed to work. I could barely start my car, let alone get out of my room without driving myself crazy with obsessive compulsive rituals that I felt I had to do, or else bad things would occur. Call it doing things for good luck, taken to the extreme. So life went on, and at the time, I was attending a community college, and had to do a history report that involved research, I had to take out many books from the library, one of those books, (now don't get all angry and stop reading) but one of those books was a King James Version of the Bible. I had heard the name King James Version mentioned here and there, as such, I did not know what it meant, and although my mom had brought me to a catholic church as a little kid, I never quite understood anything going on there, the place seemed empty and boring, I could never wait to get out of the place and enjoy what was left of the weekend. So there I was with this Bible, that for may years I was quite against, I had been known at times to go to a youth group and attempt to break it up raising questions to stir up unbelief in others. I hated sitting in that boring catholic church, I didn't see why anyone should. But anyway, here I was with this book, and I began reading it. And do you know, I found it wasn't half bad. I had never sat down and read the Bible before, but I heard a well know techno producer I was a fan of, Richard M. Hall, known by the name Moby, say that he too had been against christianity, and one day someone said, you know, if you're going to argue against it, you may as well know something about it, here, here is a Bible, why don't you read up, so you can argue against it better. He began reading it and found through his reading that it wasn't so bad after all. I guess that's somewhat where my story began. Somehow the words in that book made sense to me and I believed them, they felt good, I don't know why (you probably want to stop reading, but hold on a bit, I read some of your writings, you have a link to your E-Mail attached to your name, I assume you want people to contact you with their opinions so bear with me, I'll get there in due time) Immediately that summer, I felt the need to make a deal with God to stop all drugs of any kind, this was short lived as, the time came when I had to return the library book to the library, and due to hard summer work, pressures of life, I forgot about that deal. I wanted to smoke weed. And so, I continued to do so again. Weed and alcohol was an on and off pattern that had occured throughout my life. I went from job to job until I found a somewhat permanent hole at a local sign shop. Among the co-workers, whom I began to befriend, there was a man who was known as a religious nut. One of these blind followers. I knew I'd have to get this guy and question him, drill him, and see what I could get out of him. One day at lunch, I made my approach. I said, "So, you believe in Jesus do you, real religious are you?" "Yeah." he answered. I said, "So, what, do you speak in tongues, you have the Holy Spirit? What's the deal? I don't know why I asked questions like that, I guess I had heard about biblical happenings of that nature from the Bible, but never seen anyone in church speak in tongues. Having received confirmation in the catholic church as a kid, I never had that experience, and found the whole thing disappointing as a result, they talked about the apostles of Jesus receiving the Holy Spirit with cloven tongues of fire resting upon them but no such thing had ever happened to me. So I guess I felt the whole thing was fake. I drilled him on this to see what I'd get out of him. He responded, "I was praying for my sister, who was having a schitzophrenic episode, all of a sudden I was knocked to the ground by an unseen force. When I came to, my sister was cured, and I had been baptised by the Holy Spirit." I was stunned by his response. Jaw dropped, I asked him to tell me more. This was what I had been looking for, someone with some evidence. Sick of hearing bout God but never seeing anything about Him, I was captivated by this guy's story. Keep in mind, the guy was an extremely nice man, very friendly, I could never see any meanness in him, he was clean, not that he was perfect, but there was something about him that made him seem really clean and welcoming. Crazy lying folks that tell BS stories I had met in my life before, I had been manipulated or simply annoyed or amused by liars in my lifetime. Usually a BS artist would at some time down the road reveal his or her true nature, they would eventually slip up, and you would realize they were BSing you. It was not the case with this guy. He was walking the walk, and talking the talk. I kept talking to him, and I wanted what he had, and one day I had him bring me to a local church that was of similar denomination to the one he went to, his was further away from where I lived. It was a Church of God in Christ, all black, I was the only white one, but whatever. My OCD went away on the reading of one line from the Bible I stopped doing the rituals. Not to say that I didn't still have an imbalance that caused my brain to want to create a trap for me, but somehow as time went on, I was able to forget about OCD habits and rituals. Skip ahead to the now, to keep things short, I always struggled with pot smoking, while God could help me and did at times cast it out of me, I still went and made the decision to return to drugs again and again. It finally took an arrest, and my wife taking off with my daughter to another country, that I went to court mandated help to have a legal record of recovery, and get my regular driver's license back. And so I was forced to go to AA. I was not opposed to nor did I care for AA entirely. I felt it did not opposed my beliefs, but it didn't reinforce them either. I had been to meetings before in the past, but hadn't really got anywhere, now I had to go or else, so I went. One thing I will tell you that is true about AA, there are people there I can identify with in terms of their behavior. People that keep screwing up again and again and again though matter how bad their life continues to get. I've been in car accidents, hospitalization from kidney failure, then arrested, and finally my wife and daughter left, and i was still smoking pot in what was now my parent's house, I was right back where I started. But you know what, the people I have met in AA are the same way. That much I can Identify with. I am not here to debate the validity of the 12 steps, I know I have a problem and any person with common sense can see that. After the many mishaps I have brought upon myself as a result of my own behavior I would be a moron to not adimt I had a problem with drug abuse, I knew that long before I entered AA. And I believed in God long before I entered AA. But I can't talk about my mishaps in church, it is not acceptable to share my stories with the other members there. Not that I don;t enjoy church, I now attend n assembly of God on Sundays and a brasillian church on saturdays, but I go to meetings because I can talk about my problems and issues with other people who have the same problems and issues. So I guess what I'm getting at, is, what in the heck is wrong with that? A place where substance abusers can get sober together, 12 steps or not, who cares, have you seen what alcoholics and drug addicts do to themselves and the people around them? Would you prefer they continue to do so? Nobody is trying to lie to these people when they tell them they are going to die if they don't stop, the fact is, I walked across a golf course in the middle of the night after a drunk car accident, got sober and then went back and after that suffered kidney failure, and that still did not stop me from going back again, so if AA can get me to stop drugging, and I have stopped again, well, what is so bad about that? Would you rather I continue to hurt myself and others? Would you argue that I wasn't hurting myself, or that I could do it myself? Remember, I already believed in God, I didn't want to be an addict, I wanted to be a christian but I was messing that up pretty badly. I'm hoping to pick up some tools to staying sober in AA because honestly if I don;t I probably will end up dead at some point, and may people say that and can still end up dead. So my question to you is, why do you have a problem with that? You seem to dislike AA because you find it has dishonest roots, but if it keeps people sober, who cares what its roots are? There are places where addicts who injure themselves and others are not excepted, the only places addicts are accepted to publically and socially be addicts, is at a party where bending and abuse can ensue, or at AA where you can stop. Is that bad?
Hello Ted,
Thank you for the letter. I'm glad to hear that you are feeling better.
What is wrong with Alcoholics Anonymous?
Just that A.A. kills more people than it helps. It is all fine and well
that you like A.A. because you feel that it gives you someplace to talk.
(And you do realize, don't you, that A.A. does not officially claim to have a cure or
treatment for OCD? —Although some fanatics will tell you that the 12 Steps can cure anything.)
But A.A. does not keep people sober. A.A. does not restore people to sanity. A.A. does not give
people wonderful new lives. The A.A. story is a Big Lie, just a lie that has been repeated for
so long that a lot of people believe it.
Once again, the real results of A.A. are very bad. A.A. has been studied and tested by doctors,
and what A.A. really did was:
increase the rate of binge drinking,
and
increase the rate of rearrests,
and
increase the costs of hospitalization,
and even
increase
the death rate in alcoholics.
Yes, even the death rate. And that comes from one of the Trustees of Alcoholics Anonymous,
Prof. and Dr. George E. Vaillant, who found that Alcoholics Anonymous produced a zero-percent
improvement in sobriety, along with the worst death rate of any way of treating alcoholism
that he studied.
He spent nearly 20 years shoving A.A. treatment on sick alcoholics, and in the end, the best
that he could say for Alcoholics Anonymous was,
"No better than the natural history of the disease" means
"no better than no treatment or help at all."
In addition, there is plenty of evidence that A.A. also
raises the divorce rate
and
raises the suicide rate
in alcoholics.
Lastly, what is wrong with A.A. is that they start every meeting by telling lies about
how well A.A. works: "RARELY have we seen a person fail..."
Do you really approve of people telling lies in the name of God?
There are many other better ways to treat alcohol abuse and drug addiction besides a lying old cult
religion from the nineteen-thirties.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
[The next letter from Ted_D is here.]
Last updated 7 August 2014. |
