[The previous letter from AnythingbutAA is here.]

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters252.html#AnythingbutAA ]

Date: Wed, July 27, 2011 5:11 am     (answered 29 July 2011)
From: AnythingbutAA
Subject:

Hi Orange

Thanks for answering my last e-mail. Really glad I could contribute that phrase (better off pretending you're an alcoholic in here, than out there pretending you're not). I'm writing again to you so soon because I've let them (the AAs, steppers-whatever) get under my skin and I'm a bit upset about it.

A couple of days after having written to you I bumped in to someone else I used to see at AA. Apart from being a bit superior on the AA stuff he always seemed a nice guy. He could speak on a range of subjects and seemed genuinely interested in other people. He is also about my age (44) and we had a relatively similar upbringing. So initially I was quite glad to see him. After a few pleasantries, inevitably, he asked if I was drinking. Being none of his business I lied and said no. By the way, I don't drink anything like I used to and to drink to the point of inebriation, let alone blackout, just doesn't seem to happen any more.

As I said to you in my last letter I haven't been to a meeting in over a year. He asked me to go to one with him which I said I'd think about and left it at that. I didn't go to the one he suggested. I just couldn't face it. About two days' later I got a text message that said he was going to a meeting and felt "wonky" — could he meet me there half an hour before the meeting so we could have a chat? To be honest, I'm not the greatest socialiser in the world and do get a bit lonely so I thought I'd go just for some company. Besides, I've done a lot of reading up on your site as well as some others (some great cartoons on Youtube, eh?) and thought I was pretty much invulnerable to any nonsense.

When I got there half an hour before the meeting was due to start he wasn't there. I decided to wait outside as it was a beautiful day. I was standing out there alongside the "greeter" who seemed happy and pleasant enough, albeit in a mechanical, almost robotic, kind of way. He was making pleasant, inconsequential conversation, to which I was happy to respond. Then I asked how long he'd "been in". He looked at me, his whole persona menacingly transformed, as though I'd just asked if I could sleep with his mother for money or something. It was very odd and unnerved me. Then with his mouth twisted with rage he asked me why that was "so important?!!".

I summoned the courage to tell him I wasn't really interested and that I was only making conversation, as assertively as I could. Again in an instant his persona changed back and he told me eight years and enquired how long it was for me. Wierdo!

Fortunately, or so I thought, twenty minutes late my "friend" arrived so I turned to him and ignored the wierdo and said hello. The wierdo interjected to say hello very aggressively. The chemistry between them was such that I knew in an instant not to share anything of what had just happened. The conversation then at my "friend's" instigation turned to bankers and how he'd like to create a concentration camp for them all. Ah, some sanity! Agreeing with him in a jocular fashion I added a couple of my targets too; such as estate agents (I'm trying to sell my house at the moment) and tabloid journalists (I'm sure you've seen the news on the newspapers here hacking in to the phone of a murdered teenager). He then said to me;

"What are we going to do with you? You have so many resentments. Why hate?"

I just thought... well it begins witha c. He hadn't even told me why he was so "wonky". I began to think that he wasn't "wonky" at all and that he'd used the incident bumping into each other as some sort of 12 step opportunity. Inexplicably, I followed him in to the actual meeting. Immediately, I was faced with a woman whose advances I'd rejected in the past. I thought I'd just say hello and she looked me up and down and then blanked me. This was turning in to a nightmare. Excrutiating!

I took my seat and the guy who'd invited me didn't even sit next to me, preferring the company of the wierdo of all people. The meeting was delayed as the "chair" didn't turn up. I speculated out loud that he was probably on the piss. Yet another mistake. The deafening and hostile silence made me sweat with both fear and anger. What was I doing there? Somehow, I just felt too awkward to leave though. Horrible!

Anyway, someone at the meeting volunteered to do the "chair", saying how "honoured" she was to be asked. Step 11. Oh no! She then launched in to a bitter, hateful rant about her neighbours, her father, and everything else wrong with her life. She then added right at the end at least "God" had got her through it. The secretary did much the same thing and then opened up for "sharing". The first one was just bitching about her washing machine! The second one was just horrible. He told how he'd been in for 21 years (you get less for murder here) and started to cry uncontrollably as his mother had just died; that he'd chaired a meeting two weeks ago and that people had walked out, and that he'd never come so close to suicide. I don't mean to sound callous, but after 21 years you'd have thought he might have forged a friendship with someone he could have shared his grief with in dignified privacy. I'd had enough and got up and left.

I texted my "friend" and told him about how disturbed I was at what I'd experienced and seen and that I didn't really want to go any more, but thanks. It was his text back to me that really annoyed me:

"I've felt the same way as you. I hated just about everybody when I cane to AA. Now I just don't care because it works. End of story. Some people say that we hate others because we really hate ourselves. There will be a time when you run out of options. Take care"

So I now hate myself and everybody else because I don't like 12 step "treatment". Who does he think he is?

Sorry to have gone on so long. I feel a bit better now.

All the best,

AnythingbutAA

Hello again, AnythingbutAA,

Thanks for the letter. That says a lot. All that I can say is, "Oh well, you have gotten your dose of A.A. for the year, now."

Have a good day, and a good life.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**    A flawed idea that AA is built upon:  The idea that a deeply flawed person
**    will cure another deeply flawed person.  A dynamic fraught with peril.
**      == Anonymous

[The next letter from AnythingbutAA is here.]

May 23, 2009, Saturday: Day 23. continued: North Waterfront Park, just a few feet north of the Saturday Market, Portland, Oregon [More gosling photos below, here.]

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters252.html#Anon3 ]

Date: Wed, July 27, 2011 5:31 am     (answered 29 July 2011)
From: "Anon3"
Subject: A new thought...

Actually I COULD have made a mistake in the books publishing dates — between "How to quit worrying and start living" and "How to win friends and influence people"....

I actually could have fucked that up...

Simple mistake.

But if I did — I am not telling.

Because the Quit Worrying book and the AA basic text ARE almost identical.....

AND I do recall that Carnegie had lecture notes or manuscripts, that were printed in 1937 — that he used as the basis for the book published in 1948...

Absolutely certain of that...

But it was a long time ago and much of my recovery resource material has been buried across time and hard drives etc. The internet evolves with obscure material vanishing never to be found again — or it's buried under 10,000,000 more new results in the last 5 years.

So I might have gotten the two books mixed up...

But I will just keep that quiet as I don't have the inclination top do lots of deep searching for Carnegie's manuscripts and using his book as a jumping off point or a diversion for many others out of and away from AA — with some creditable emotional self health material is a good thing.

It's an excellent read — and the examples are SANE and practical.

Hope your well Anon3.

Hello again, Anon3,

Thanks for the letter. Yes, I've been following the debate over on the forum, at:

I agree that there was other stuff that Dale Carnegie published before 1948. Way before.

The dead give-away, the undeniable evidence, is what JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) said about Bill Wilson's book Alcoholics Anonymous when they reviewed it. On October 14, 1939, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a review of "Alcoholics Anonymous: How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism", that declared:

The book contains instructions as to how to intrigue the alcoholic addict into the acceptance of divine guidance in place of alcohol in terms strongly reminiscent of Dale Carnegie and the adherents of the Buchman ("Oxford") movement. The one valid thing in the book is the recognition of the seriousness of addiction to alcohol. Other than this, the book has no scientific merit or interest.
Full text here

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates.
**     I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus.
**     And I put them in a book.
**     If you don't like their rules, whose would you use?
**         == Dale Carnegie

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters252.html#William_N ]

Date: Wed, July 27, 2011 7:30 am     (answered 29 July 2011)
From: "william N."
Subject: Amy Winehouse article by Hazelden Doctor

Hi Terrance,

I hope this email finds you well. Well, here we go — the articles re: the disease model of drug and alcohol addiction are being rolled out right after Amy Winehouses' death. This one is by Marvin Seppala MD — chief medical officer of Hazelden (see following link:)

http://www.news4jax.com/health/28673563/detail.html

Now, if I was a cynic I might say to myself that the treatment industry is exploiting her death in order to say to everyone "See? We told you it was a disease...!" the funny thing is we don't even know the exact course of death at this time. In the weeks and months ahead we will learn more. I hope you're having a good summer — talk to you later ~

Bill

Hello again, Bill,

Thanks for the link. That is disgusting, isn't it? Those Hazelden salesmen don't miss an opportunity to sell their quack medicine. They sure were quick to decide that Amy Weinhouse died of "the disease of addiction", before the autopsy was even done.

The evening after I got your letter, I heard on one of the celebrity gossip shows that her tox screen came back negative — that she did not die from a drug or alcohol overdose. There was conjecture that maybe she died of a seizure. Somebody commented that she had suffered from seizures before. They also made some suggestions that she might have had a heart attack. A few comments that maybe she was in very poor health from a lot of drug and alcohol use, and that might have contributed to a seizure or a heart attack.

But now that the tox screen came back negative, watch the Stepper salesmen suddenly shut up about "her addiction", and how her death proves that you should give your money to a treatment center. Suddenly nobody will have anything more to say. They will suddenly just forget all about it, as if it never happened.

Oh well, have a good day now. And yes, I'm having a good summer, and I hope you do too.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     If someone has cancer or diabetes or coronary disease,
**     we don't use a quack doctor to treat those sick people —
**     a quack whose only qualification is that he used to drink
**     too much alcohol or take too many drugs, and who is now
**     a member of a cult religion. But with the so-called
**     "disease" of addiction, the standard treatment is
**     to have former alcoholics or dopers dispensing their
**     platitudes and slogans, and insisting that "spirituality"
**     is the cure.
**
**     The fact that it is difficult to break established bad habits
**     does not mean that those bad habits are diseases.

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters252.html#Seamus_B ]

Date: Tue, July 26, 2011 10:34 pm
From: "Seamus B."
Subject: You....

...are a sad man.

Sent from my iPad

[The previous letter from TBL is here.]

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters252.html#TBL ]

Date: Wed, July 27, 2011 8:11 am     (answered 29 July 2011)
From: TBLight
Subject: Reply to Mr Angry Orange

I have read your response and have decided to reply. The following is my actual response in red. Enjoy.

If you have gone about the way of attempting to shut down Scientology and the Moonies as you have done in regards to shutting down AA then it's very clear why there's failure in shutting down Scientology or the Moonies. People usually don't respond well to uninformed jackasses such as yourself.

Who's protecting AA? According to you Mr Orange the judicial system, churches, police, pharmacutical companies, rehabilitation centers, hell, you even threw the Nazis in there for giggles (I guess it looks really evil if you have a bunch of monocle-wearing bald Colonel Klinks running the show), all are protecting AA in some elaborate scheme to keep AA afloat. You have spent pages upon pages screaming about it.

No, the "judicial system" is not "protecting" Alcoholics Anonymous. Misguided judges are illegally sentencing people to the A.A. religion, but that is not protecting Alcoholics Anonymous.

Rehab centers do most assuredly sell the A.A. 12-Step religion as a quack cure for addictions.

The pharmaceutical industry is not in love with A.A., because A.A. routinely tells sick people not to take medications.

I did not gratuitously throw Nazis in there. A.A. founder Bill Wilson derived all of the A.A. theology from the pro-Nazi Oxford Group religious cult whose leader Dr. Frank Buchman went to Nurember Nazi Party rallies and Sieg-Heil-ed Adolf Hitler year after year.

So, I have to be in a group in order to come up with an observation? I am a free thinker. I need not be in a group to witness a jackass such as yourself. Same applies when operating a computer with an e-mail application. I have yet to advance to the the IPhone yet but once they are not so trendy I will probably purchase one so I can fiddle-fart around at Starbucks with the rest of snoots.

A free thinker? I have not yet met a "free thinker" who responded to criticism of a cult religion so angrily. The free thinkers that I know laugh, and talk about the insanity of Happy Hookers For Jesus and other cult nonsense when I start talking about crazy cults like Scientology and Alcoholics Anonymous.

Come on Steve, admit it. You are really an angry Stepper with a resentment, aren't you?

Either that, or you are on some very strange drug.

Ordinary, sane, well-balanced people do not react to my criticism of A.A. with such anger.

Laughable at best. You do it all the time. All anyone has to do is read your replies to see that you have some serious anger issues in regards to people who don't agree with you. But when you receive some letter that is filled with AA horrors you giggle around and tell the crowd "see, I told you so." To the best of my knowledge you do post all your e-mails so I can't say that you are not letting other opinions at least be heard (then angerily replied to) which is admirable (well, except for your angry replies).

No, actually, Steve, you are giving the world a far better example of anger in response to criticism than what I write.

You right that I publish nearly ALL letters that I receive. The only exceptions are when people start off by asking me not to publish the letter, and a rare few items of hate mail that are just more repetitions of what the correspondent had already sent in, and that had already been published. And then there were a few letters from obviously mentally deranged people that I felt were better left unpublished. But otherwise, I publish everything.

Some things get delayed for a while when I have to do more research, but I try hard to publish everything in a timely manner.

No problem here, big man. Not in a bad mood either. And did I say anything about presenting a cure for an addiction? Think not. But apparently your cure is to get a page on the web and pound away for hours presenting a so-called 'paper' that 'exposes' AA as the evil monster it is. All you've done is give me a good laugh and a quick way to waste 15 minutes by replying to your response.

No, I don't approve of criminals or con artists but what usually happens when I encounter such individuals/groups is that I contact the authorities. But since AA is being protected by law enforcement and the judicial system (according to you) I guess that won't work or you knew that you'd be laughed right out on your ass if you did report them. True, there may be some bad apples in AA but you claim that anyone that has succeeded in AA is at best a puppet and more than likely some ghoul that is waiting to pounce on anything that crawls into an AA meeting. Your misery is obvious.

ps; you wouldn't happen to be Keith Olberman would you?

No, Steve, I am not Keith Olberman.

Right, you didn't say anything about what will help alcoholics. So what is your problem? You go non-linear over somebody criticizing quack medicine and cult religion that doesn't cure alcoholics, but you have nothing to say about what will actually help the alcoholics. Why not? You don't even claim that A.A. works? So what is your point? Do you just get angry when people criticize quackery and cult religions? Why?

You have said that you are not a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. So why do you get so angry when someone criticizes A.A.?

And why are you incapable of responding in any manner other than ad hominem?

Again, you are twisting my words when you claim that I said that "AA is being protected by law enforcement and the judicial system." I didn't say that. I said that A.A. is being PROMOTED by some misguided judges and parole officers and wardens.

However, other judges — wiser higher-ranking appeals judges — have declared that A.A. is just a religion, and that it is illegal and unConstitutional to force anybody to go to an A.A. meeting.

But the lower-ranking judges who are in love with A.A. ignore the law and what is right, and continue to do whatever they want to do anyway. (Doesn't that sound just like a stereotypical alcoholic? Are those judges really secret drunkards?)

Have a good day.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     "In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
**       ==  George Orwell

Date: Sun, August 7, 2011 6:06 pm     (answered 8 2011)
From: TBLight
Subject: Re: Reply to Mr Angry Orange

zzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, bonk.

Yes, typical. That's one way to avoid learning anything.

Oh well, have a good day anyway.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**      That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history
**     is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.
**         ==  Aldous Huxley, Collected Essays (1959)

[The previous letter from Rhonda_R is here.]

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters252.html#Rhonda_R ]

Date: Wed, July 27, 2011 1:14 pm     (answered 30 June 2011)
From: "Rhonda R."
Subject: Re: Your anti-AA doctrine

Well, I guess I have been lucky because I have met people who led me to other books like the Four Agreements and other spiritual stuff that help make me a better person. I also see the Big Book as just a method to be a better person. It is my own God I create, so I just chose Love to be that Higher Power. It isn't religious, confessing and so on, just facing reality, really. Just accepting that I need to change.

I guess I am also lucky that a doctor has not made it mandatory for me. I hope you are in good health again after being on the brink of death.

I guess if you look at AA members, that might explain a lot of the failure. I don't think most of them choose to go there. I think a lot of people there use it for other reasons than it was intended too. It is mostly a bad crowd and the success rate for those people in anything would not likely be high.

But I recall reading that AA had about a 5% success rate. That sounds about right. It depends on what you define success as. I think that was long-term sobriety. But I have seen with my own eyes many people get a year with AA's help when they never have been able to get a week before. Sure, there are lots who lie about it too but I think it does help people to go and try it. If it is not for you, that's OK. Hey, everyone is different. But why condemn it?

Hello again, Rhonda,

Thanks for the letter. This line really stood out: "It is my own God I create..." Wow. Now that is an interesting religion. Most religions claim that God created us, but in A.A., you create God. Amazing. (To then claim that A.A. isn't religious is absurd.)

But how does a home-made "God" perform miracles for you and save your life, and take care of your will and your life in Step 3?
Or take away all of your defects in Step 7?
Or talk to you in a séance and give you work orders and the power to carry them out in Step 11?
Or make you quit drinking in Step ???...
(Now where exactly did the 12 Steps tell us to quit drinking?)

You see, Rhonda, A.A. is pulling a bait-and-switch trick there. First, your "God" can be anything you wish. But then your "God" must be the A.A. version of God Who delivers miracles on demand.

If you have actually made yourself into a better person by your own efforts, then my sincere congratulations to you. There is however no reason to believe that such improvements were caused by the Big Book or the 12 Steps, or anything in Alcoholics Anonymous. (The Big Book and the 12 Steps are just Bill Wilson's copy of Dr. Frank Buchman's fascist cult religion.)

The fact that you agreed with me that A.A. has at best a 5% success rate proves that. Five percent is the same success rate as alcoholics get from doing no program and getting no help. Those alcoholics who go it alone, and quit on their own, get the same success rate. So Alcoholics Anonymous does not actually cause any improvement at all. In fact, A.A. often makes things worse.

That is why I criticize Alcoholics Anonymous. A.A. is a hoax and a fraud that kills more alcoholics than it saves.

Then, when the fundamentalist A.A. members tell newcomers not to take their medications, A.A. turns into a really harmful cult. And then, when the A.A. oldtimers prey on the young girls, A.A. turns into a criminal organization.

Have a good day.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     You can fool some of the people some of the time,
**     And that's enough to make a decent living.
**        ==  W. C. Fields

[The previous letter from James_B is here.]

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters252.html#James_B ]

Date: Wed, July 27, 2011 1:17 pm     (answered 30 July 2011)
From: "James B."
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re:

HEY BUD , HOWS IT GOIN? WOW YOU GOT A LOT OF DISSECTING TO DO. I NEVER DID SAY ANYTHING ABOUT DRUNKS FOR JESUS YOURE THE ONE THAT KEEPS ON BRINGIN EM UP. I JUST LIKE HOLDIN A DIALOGUE WITH YA. YOU SURE GOT SOME SPIRIT. NOW SINCE YOU TOLD ME EARLIER THAT MY FIRST TWO QUESTIONS WERE NOT QUESTIONS BUT TRICKS I GUESS THAT MEANS I HAVE TO GO BACK TO MY THIRD QUESTION(IF IT IS ONE, IM SURE YOULL LET ME KNOW IF IT AINT) WHY DO YOU DO IT? WHAT DRIVES YOU? YOUR MOTIVATION, MAN. WHAT MAKES YOU TICK? CUZ I AINT GOOD AT DISSECTING I WAS JUST HOPING YOU'D TELL ME, CUZ YOU SURE GOT SOME GUMPTION. I WISH I HAD YOUR KIND OF COURAGE. I JUST GO TO WORK AND PRETTY MUCH NOTHIN ELSE ALL DAY, BORING RIGHT? THE HUMAN WILL IS QUITE A AMAZING THING THING ISNT IT? I ENVY YOU WITH YOUR OWN WEBSITE ALL THESE FOLKS TO CHAT WITH AND ALL THE INTELECTUAL STIMULUS ANYONE COULD ASK FOR. WELL, NICE TO HEAR FROM YA,GOOD LUCK AND I HOPE TO HEAR FROM YOU SOON. HAVE A GOOD DAY NOW BUDDY

== JEB

Hello again, James,

Thanks for the compliments.

I never mentioned "Drunks for Jesus"; you did, in your previous letter.

Or, were you doing a tongue-in-cheek reference to Alcoholics Anonymous members and their strange religious jabber? Well, they don't really like Jesus. If you talk about Jesus too much, they will tell you to "Take it to church! If I wanted to listen to that bullshit I'd go to church."

Or, as Robert so eloquently put it: "You are in the wrong group if you are looking for Jesus. ... you are one blind fuckwit."

Why do I do this Orange Papers project? Simple: It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. I kind of got stuck with the job.

I was involved in the anti-war movement back in the 'sixties. If someone spoke up at a meeting and said, "Somebody should do something about this...", then the meeting chairman would immediately answer, "Right. You are now the head of the committee to do it. Recruit whatever helpers you need, and get it done. Next issue."

People quickly learned that saying "Somebody should do something" was a sure-fire way to get stuck with the job.

Well, when I saw the hoax that is called "drug and alcohol treatment", I said, "Somebody should do something about that..."

Have a good day.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     "The power of accurate observation is frequently
**      called cynicism by those who don't have it."
**        == George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)

[The previous letter from Andrew_M is here.]

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters252.html#Andrew_M ]

Date: Thu, July 28, 2011 6:55 am     (answered 30 July 2011)
From: "Andrew M."
Subject:

Hi Orange

I'm taking a short holiday and having a break from thinking about the whole 12 step fiasco, but I'll finish on this, as they say. The following clip is dedicated to true believer "sex addict" steppers everywhere:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nkqfa-kaRFM#at=173

Regards to the geese
Andy M

Date: Thu, July 28, 2011 5:15 pm     (answered 30 July 2011)
From: "Andrew M."
Subject:

Hi Orange.

Thanks for being discreet when you posted my letter. I can be a trifle rash at times. Just thought you might enjoy this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWI3hDkxlGs&feature=player_embedded#at=10

Best regards to the geese
Andy M. (aka Toby Twirl)

Hi again, Andy,

Thanks for the links.

Have a good day now.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     "Some cause happiness wherever they go;
**      others, whenever they go."
**         ==  Oscar Wilde (1854—1900)

May 23, 2009, Saturday: Day 23, continued: North Waterfront Park, just a few feet north of the Saturday Market, Portland, Oregon [The story of Carmen continues here.]

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters252.html#William_M ]

Date: Thu, July 28, 2011 11:54 am     (answered 30 July 2011)
From: "William M."
Subject: Amy Winehouse

Hi Terry,

Like you I didn't know who Amy Winehouse was until she died. Seems the 12 step vultures never sleep. And her death hasn't even been ruled an overdose yet!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/jul/24/russell-brand-amy-winehouse-woman

William

Hi again, William,

Thanks for the tip. Yes, the 12-Step vultures and ghouls are really feeding on that corpse. There is another article doing the same thing, here:
http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters252.html#William_N

But they aren't going to like the taste of it. The tox screens just came back negative, so Amy Winehouse did not die from a drug or alcohol overdose. So all of the vultures' crowing about how you have to buy their 12-Step "treatment" or you will die like Amy Winehouse is now officially just profiteering B.S.

Oh well, have a good day anyway.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**
**     Henry David Thoreau on his deathbed, when his aunt
**     asked him if he had made peace with God:
**     "Why, I did not know we had quarreled."
**
**     Voltaire (1694-1778) on his deathbed, in response
**     to a priest asking that he renounce Satan:
**     "Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies."

[The previous letter from Rodney_R is here.]

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters252.html#Rodney_R ]

Date: Thu, July 28, 2011 4:43 pm     (answered 31 July 2011)
From: "Rodney R."
Subject: Re: stuiped is as stuiped does

What OTHER help is out their Orange--U still took the easy road out disputing the wrongs you see,,Thats to easy!!!!! O, WELL ORANGE NOT A GOOD DEBATE AT ALL,, What if i told you I'm not a member of A.A. Just trying to get a good debate!!! I guess i will look up Mark Twain thats who speaks for you,, I will look him up,, Thats not a slogan ,,or is it?

Hello again Rodney,

Yes, A.A. members have made that line from Mark Twain into a slogan.

There is lots of other help out there for alcoholics. And better help, too. For starters, there is SMART, SOS, Lifering, WFS, HAMS, and MM. Here is the list, with web addresses: http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters250.html#alt_list

When Dr. Brandsma and associates tested A.A. versus Cogitive Behavioral Therapy (which is like SMART) versus Alcoholics Anonymous, he found that A.A. was a disaster. Most of the A.A. group dropped out and did binge drinking. Look here, and see below:
http://www.orange-papers.info/effectiveness.html#Brandsma

Alcoholics Anonymous is one of the worst ways to treat alcoholism, and it produces one of the highest death rates of any way of treating alcohol abuse. That death rate was proven by a doctor who went on to become a member of the Board of Trustees of Alcoholics Anonymous. Look here:
http://www.orange-papers.info/effectiveness.html#Vaillant
Also see below.

Professors Reid K. Hester and William R. Miller (UNM, Albuquerque — Center for Alcohol, Substance Abuse and Addictions, Dept. of Psychology, University of New Mexico), rated treatment modalities by success rate. Here are the results:
http://www.behaviortherapy.com/ResearchDiv/whatworks.aspx

• Also see:
  http://www.addictioninfo.org/articles/53/1/What-works-A-summary-of-alcohol-treatment-research/Page1.html
  == The same statistics in a different format

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**    Drunkenness is nothing but voluntary madness.
**    ATTRIBUTION: Seneca (c. 5-65), Roman writer, philosopher,
**    statesman. Epistulae ad Lucilium, epistle 83, sct. 18.

[The next letter from Rodney_R is here.]

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters252.html#Tim_S ]

Date: Fri, July 29, 2011 12:26 pm     (answered 31 July 2011)
From: Tim.S
Subject: RE: AA

Agent Orange,

I have a question .

If 100 people contract a disease that will kill 50 of that 100 and I give them a magic pill to all 100.
And then only 25 die instead of the 50.
Are you saying (given a controlled experiment) that the pill had no effect?

If that is what you are saying then you argument wrong, it is not logical or scientific and therefore it brings into question the rest of your augments against AA.

I detect a note of anti — religion to go along with your unfounded premises.

Tim S.

Hello Tim,

Thanks for the question. If the numbers were what you stated, then the pill would be saving a lot of lives. But that is not what A.A. does. The "A.A. pill" INCREASES the death rate. So it's more like 60 out of a hundred die when they get the A.A. pill.

The most damning evidence of the death rate of Alcoholics Anonymous came from Dr. George E. Vaillant, who just loves A.A. and was trying hard to prove that A.A. works. Vaillant loves A.A. so much that he is about the biggest proselytizer for A.A. in the world, and he went on to become a member of the Board of Trustees of Alcoholics Anonymous. Vaillant was a Class A non-alcoholic trustee.

Well, Dr. Vaillant helped to run the Cambridge-Sommerville [Massachusetts] Program for Alcohol Rehabilitation (CASPAR). He treated 1000 new patients per year, did 2500 detoxifications per year, and had 20,000 outpatient visits per year. He used A.A. as the core of his treatment program.

Dr. Vaillant tracked his first 100 alcoholic patients for 8 years. At the end of 8 years, the score was: 5 sober, 29 dead, and 66 still drinking. No other method of treating alcoholics that Dr. Vaillant studied had more deaths.

Dr. Vaillant declared that A.A. was a complete failure that didn't cure the alcoholics at all:

After initial discharge, only five patients in the Clinic sample never relapsed to alcoholic drinking, and there is compelling evidence that the results of our treatment were no better than the natural history of the disease.
...

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

Once again, our results were no better than the natural history of the disorder.
The Natural History of Alcoholism: Causes, Patterns, and Paths to Recovery, George E. Vaillant, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1983, pages 283-286.
The same text was reprinted in Vaillant's later book, The Natural History of Alcoholism Revisited, George E. Vaillant, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1995, pages 349-352.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**
**    AA's followers inevitably ask "But why do all the top doctors support
**    the disease concept if it isn't true?" Well... back in the 50s, the
**    American Medical Association endorsed cigarettes. Whenever something
**    is endorsed by doctors on the surface but lacks hard evidence, be very
**    very suspicious. The same goes for psychiatry and the "chemical
**    imbalance theory".
**       == sdp026  http://youtube.com/watch?v=MW799LJHhZU

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters252.html#Vicki_W ]

Date: Sat, July 30, 2011 7:10 pm     (answered 2 August 2011)
From: "Facebook"
Subject: Vicki W. posted on your Wall.

Hi Orange,

Vicki wrote:
"do u think aa uses covert hypnosis"

Hello Vicki,

Thanks for the question. I think the answer depends on your definition of hypnosis. By a strict definition of "hypnosis", A.A. doesn't hypnotize people, but A.A. definitely uses elements of the technique. Ken Ragge was the first one that I saw mention it:

Like a skilled hypnotherapist, a skilled AA speaker presents statements in a certain order. A statement which otherwise would be rejected has a much better chance of slipping into the subconscious if it is immediately preceded by two or three unchallengeable statements. For example, a hypnotherapist, while inducing trance, may say, "You can feel the weight of your body pressing down against the chair. Take notice of your hands, whether they feel warm or cold. Now notice how your breathing is becoming deeper and slower." The first two statements are unchallengeable and the mind is expecting another unchallengeable statement. In the third statement, the instruction to "notice how your breathing is becoming deeper and slower . . ." normally slips by the critical faculty and the subconscious will act on it. The client will notice how his breathing is becoming deeper and slower.
The Real AA, Ken Ragge, Chapter 9, "Meetings,".

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people
**      will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained
**      only for such time as the State can shield the people from
**      the political, economic and/or military consequences of the
**      lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use
**      all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the
**      mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is
**      the greatest enemy of the State."
**         ==  Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda

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