We agree that the Triennial graph is a frequency distribution which shows that 26% of people who are in their first month of AA attendance will remain after a year. (5% / 19% x 100 = 26%). You, however, have stated that 81% of newcomers will leave after their first/second meeting, and that the surveys used to compiled the Triennial data will have missed those newcomers and therefore they won't be represented in the 19% in their first month. You don't state how your figure of 81% was derived, or provide any references for it.
My response to your points that: A) 81% of newcomers leave after their first meetings; and B) The surveys don't count newcomers who leave after a meeting or two; and C) Those newcomers will have left before the surveys are undertaken. Are as follows:
A) If it were true that 81% of new arrivals at AA left straight away it would mean (converting % into people) that an average meeting would be comprised of 81 + (and from the graph) 19+13+10+9+8+7+7+6+6+6+6+5 in their first year. That's 183 people in their first year, and additionally a few people with more than a year of meeting time (remember, you Orange, have claimed that only 5% or less people make it out of their first year, so not many). That would mean almost half the meeting are new people who will never return and the vast majority of the rest are in their first year — is this the make-up of a typical AA meeting? I don't think so... but if it were...
B) The surveys are taken in thousands of typical meetings. If almost half the people there are at their first/second meeting, why did they not put their hands up when asked "who here is in their first month?" Why does the survey data only show 19% for those in their first month if so many newcomers are present? The answer is that the vast numbers of people arriving and leaving are not real and are just made up by you Orange, where is your proof?
C) Those newcomers left before the survey guy arrived? I don't think so. Newcomers arrive in a steady stream, which means an average meeting would have the same proportion of newcomers to non-newcomers as the whole AA population. They would show up if they were real, they don't because you've made them up.
What say you?
Hello again, Green,
When you claim that 183 people are in their first month, your mathematics are faulty.
Adding 81 to 102 is meaningless number-fumbling.
The chain of 12 numbers that you added together — "19+13+10+9+8+7+7+6+6+6+6+5"
— is the percentages of the first-year membership that are in each month, not counts of people.
Those percentages should add up to 100, and they would have, except for round-off error where they rounded
up a couple of more times than they rounded down, so they total 102.
Previously, you suggested that 1000 newcomers per month come to a large A.A. meeting or set of meetings in an area, and
80% of them drop out after just a few meetings, leaving 200 to become new A.A. members in their first month,
present to be counted in a triennial survey. They become the 19% of the membership whom the survey counted as
in their first month of A.A. membership. That actually sounds very accurate.
I never said that 81% drop out before the survey. That number sounds about right, but I never said 81%.
You said 80%.
I said that the number was indeterminate.
[I said that] The surveys don't count newcomers who leave after a meeting or two.
Obviously, the survey cannot count people who are not there to be counted.
People who are not going to A.A. meetings will not get counted as members.
This point is so self-evident that you have to be really obtuse to refuse to see it.
If almost half the people there are at their first/second meeting, why did they
not put their hands up when asked "who here is in their first month?"
Where do you get the idea that almost half of the people present at meetings
are in their first or second month? I never said anything like that, and neither did the triennial survey.
The survey stated that 19% of the newcomers present were in their first month,
and 13% were in their second month. Those numbers add up to 32%, not 50%.
Obviously, those people did raise their hands and get counted.
So why are you claiming that they didn't raise their hands and get counted?
And those are official A.A. numbers. I didn't make them up.
My proof is the A.A. triennial survey.
Then you said,
That would mean almost half the meeting are new people who will never
return and the vast majority of the rest are in their first year
No, again, you are trying to project some generalization about the whole membership from a few
numbers that only describe the newcomers.
The triennial survey chart that we are arguing about was a survey of the people in their first year
of A.A. membership.
It did not say one word about the other people who had more than a year of A.A. membership, or how many of
them were present at meetings.
We shall have to look elsewhere to find some information about that.
If we look at the official A.A. web site, it says
that the average sobriety time of A.A. members is 8 years. That is of course absurd and impossible.
That would mean that there are almost no newcomers to A.A. at all.
There would have to be one 16-year oldtimer for every newcomer in order for
the two of them to average out to 8 years of sobriety.
Or, there would have to be two 12-year oldtimers present for each newcomer in order
for the three of them to average out to 8 years of sobriety.
Or, there would have to be three people with over 10 years — almost
11 years — of sobriety for each newcomer in order for the four of them to
average out to 8 years of sobriety.
Obviously, none of those situations is true. Just go to any A.A. meeting and look around.
You say,
Those newcomers left before the survey guy arrived? I don't think so.
What you like to think has no bearing on the mathematics.
Newcomers arrive in a steady stream, which means an average meeting would have the
same proportion of newcomers to non-newcomers as the whole AA population. They
would show up if they were real, they don't because you've made them up.
Your statement that
"an average meeting would have the same proportion of newcomers to non-newcomers as the whole AA population"
is a truism. The "average" A.A. meeting would of course be the same as
a slice of the whole A.A. population. An average of A.A. cannot be anything
else. But that is still a meaningless statement that says nothing about
the newcomers and their dropout rate.
If the newcomers were arriving in a steady stream and then staying in A.A.,
then the graph would have shown the same number of people in each month: 8.33%.
One twelfth of the newcomers would be in each month.
The triennial survey would have produced a flat horizontal line.
But that isn't what the Triennial Survey showed. It showed 19% of the 1st-year people were in their first month,
and only 5% in their 12th month. The triennial survey showed a steeply-declining exponential curve.
That shows a high dropout rate.
Again, this point is self-evident and undeniable.
Figure C-1 from page 12 of the Commentary on the Triennial Surveys
(from 1977 to 1989), A.A. internal document number 5M/12-90/TC
Also see:
Addiction, Change & Choice; The New View of Alcoholism,
Vince Fox, M.Ed. CRREd., page 66
And guess who else found that A.A. has a 95% dropout rate in the first year?
Dr. Ron Whitington, the Chairman of the General Service Board of A.A. in
Australia. He gave a speech on the subject that was reprinted in A.A. Around Australia,
which is the Australian equivalent of The Grapevine:
"A well conducted professional study," (page19) that showed "some 5% of
newcomers are still attending meetings after 12 months. This is a truly
terrible statistic. Again we must ask 'Where does the fault lie?'" (page 2)
— Dr. Ron Whitington, Chairman General Service Board, AA Around Australia, Spring Edition, No 90, October 1994
Now if you wish to accuse Dr. Ron Whitington, the Chairman of the General Service
Board of Alcoholics Anonymous in Australia, of lying and just making up numbers,
go right ahead. But you should have some solid facts to back up your accusations.
You could also claim that alcoholics in Australia are totally different from alcoholics in America, and
maybe A.A. is no good for Australians. But again, you should have some facts to support your allegations.
Or you could claim that A.A. in Australia is somehow lacking and incompetent, and not like "the real A.A." in
America. But again, based on what evidence? Should A.A. in Australia just shut down because they have
a 95% dropout rate in the first year, and fail to help the alcoholics?
Have a good day now.
== Orange
* orange@orange-papers.info *
* AA and Recovery Cult Debunking *
* http://www.Orange-Papers.org/ *
** "There were alcoholics in the hospitals of whom A.A. could
** touch and help only about five percent. The doctors started
** giving them a dose of LSD, so that the resistance would be
** broken down. And they had about fifteen percent recoveries."
** === Nell Wing — PASS IT ON, page 370.
** (Nell Wing was an early secretary of A.A. and Bill Wilson.)
** Apparently, for treating alcoholics, LSD works three times
** better than cult religion.
May 23, 2009, Saturday, back to Carmen's time:
The Family of 5, wowing the children while begging at boats.
The Family of 5, begging at another boat.
The previous boat didn't offer any munchies, so the geese quickly moved on to other prospects.
The Family of 5
Well, those boats were unproductive, so this family of geese is coming back to me.
A History of Agnostic Groups in Alcoholics Anonymous: Part 1
By Roger C
Excommunicated
Two agnostic groups — We Agnostics and Beyond Belief — were kicked off the official
list of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) group meetings in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA)
on May 30, 2011. It made the front page of Canada's largest daily newspaper, the
Toronto Star: "Fight over 'God' splits Toronto AA groups."
The GTA Intergroup passed a motion at its regular monthly meeting that the two
groups "be removed from the meeting books directory, the GTA AA website, and the
list of meetings given over the phone by Intergroup to newcomers." The motion passed
24 to 15 with 9 abstentions.
Beyond Belief had been around for more than a year and a half. Twelve people
attended its first meeting on September 24, 2009. We Agnostics had its first meeting
almost a year later, on September 7, 2010. And both meetings were growing. To give
more people an opportunity to share, Beyond Belief had added another room to its
Thursday meeting, and it had recently added a closed weekly meeting on Saturdays.
The action taken by the GTA Intergroup was extreme. But there has always been
tension between agnostics and the Christian members of Alcoholics Anonymous. What
happened at the Intergroup meeting in that church basement in Toronto merely exposed
a long-festering wound in AA.
Bill and Jim
The "God" part in the 12 Steps comes from Bill Wilson. The rest of it, "as we
understood Him," was Jim Burwell's contribution. But let's start at the beginning.
The first meeting of AA took place when its soon-to-be co-founders met on Mother's
Day in 1935, with Bill trying to help Dr. Bob sober up in Akron, Ohio.
In January of 1938, Jim Burwell joined the fellowship. AA consisted of a group in
Akron and another one in New York. The latter group held one meeting a week, at
Bill's home in Brooklyn, which was attended by six or eight men. Only three men in
that group, including Bill, had been sober more than a year. AA was a fledgling
organization, to say the least.
Bill and Bob were both members of a Christian revivalist movement, the Oxford Group.
"The early meetings were quite religious, in both New York and Akron. There was
always a Bible on hand, and the concept of God was all biblical," Jim reported.
Into that mix came Jim, "their self-proclaimed atheist, completely against all
religion."
Jim presented quite a challenge to the group, as he later wrote in Sober for Thirty
Years. "I started fighting nearly all the things Bill and the others stood for,
especially religion, the 'God bit.' But I did want to stay sober, and I did love the
understanding Fellowship."
At one point, his group held a prayer meeting to decide what to do with him. "The
consensus seems to have been that they hoped I would either leave town or get
drunk."
At around this time Bill finished Chapter Five of a book about the fellowship. This
chapter included the all-important 12 Steps, AA's program of recovery.
It sparked a lengthy and heated debate about some of the wording of what was to
become known as the Big Book, and especially of the 12 Steps.
There were two camps in the fellowship. One was a pro-religion camp that felt the
book should incorporate the teachings of the church. In fact, much of the 12 Steps
are based on the Oxford Group's Four Spiritual Practices. At the other end of the
spectrum were a few atheistic and agnostic members, including Jim.
In Bill's original draft of the Steps, the word "God" appeared six times. In the
final version, Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have
Recovered from Alcoholism (the name of the 1939 edition), the number of specific
references to God was reduced to four, and in two of the Steps, courtesy of an
insistent Jim B, "God" was qualified with "as we understood Him."
It was the best compromise that could be achieved by those men in that epoch.
Twenty years later, Bill would look back and acknowledge that his early Christian
evangelicism had been a serious problem. In an article in the AA Grapevine in 1961,
"The Dilemma of No Faith," he makes a startling admission:
In AA's first years I all but ruined the whole undertaking ... 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.
Bill would also say that the atheists and agnostics of the day "had widened our
gateway so that all who suffer might pass through, regardless of their belief" or
lack of belief.
But was the gateway widened enough? Looking back 75 years after the humble
beginnings of Alcoholics Anonymous, the question has to be asked. Many of the
nonbelievers in this century are not at all comfortable with the language of the Big
Book or of the 12 Steps, language which pre-dates World War II.
And so it is asked, today: What about the "God bit"?
Jim Burwell went on to start AA groups in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and San Diego.
Among the first ten members of the fellowship on the East Coast, he is often
considered the third founder of AA. Jim is the first agnostic AA member to die
sober: His sobriety date was June 15, 1938, and he died on September 8, 1974.
New York City
The very first agnostic group in New York City was called 'We Atheists' and its
first meeting was held on September 10, 1986. The group had three founders. They
were Ada H, David L and John Y. How they came together to do this is a remarkable
story, all on its own.
The three — all unknown to each other — answered an ad in the spring 1986 issue of
Free Inquiry. The ad was from Harry, a Californian, and was addressed to atheists
and agnostic members of AA who were having trouble with the religious nature of most
meetings.
Over the next several weeks, Harry wrote to the three Easterners and provided
encouragement and reassurance that they were not alone as agnostics trying to work
the AA program to the best of their ability. He told them how it worked in Los
Angeles and sent them a copy of the materials read at the agnostic group meeting he
was involved with, We Agnostics of Pasadena.
Ada made the necessary arrangements with AA offices in New York and offered her
apartment, on the upper east side of Manhattan, as a meeting site. Ada was a very
passionate woman, a socialist and a very wealthy New Yorker (her foundation
continues to give to charities across the U.S.). She put together a meeting script,
which is still used by the group today. It contains an extensive excerpt from Dr.
Bob's last talk, delivered at the First International AA Conference on July 30th,
1950, in Cleveland. In Ada's script, the meetings end with the group standing in a
circle, holding hands, and chanting: "Live and let live."
Regular meetings of the We Agnostics of New York City AA group were soon in full
swing with John Y and David L in attendance. Later the ever-growing group moved to
its present location at the Jan Hus Church, where it still meets. The church found
the word "Atheist" a bit harsh, and so the name of the group was changed to "We
Humanists."
Much of the history in the preceding paragraphs is excerpted from Sampler, the
group's 1989 newsletter. The article was called, "Now It Can Be Told: A Bi-Coastal
Tale of Two Cities."
Ada H died in August, 2005, at the age of 83. She had more than 30 years of
sobriety. Joan F, who is currently a member of We Humanists of New York City and
will have 27 years of sobriety this November, visited Ada's grave site recently. She
reports that, at Ada's request, her tombstone states that she started an Alcoholics
Anonymous meeting for Atheists and Agnostics.
John Y died on March 10, 2003. He was a co-founder of the Secular Humanist Society
of New York City, a life-long resident of the Bronx and a veteran of World War II.
Born in 1921, he got sober in 1962. He was the kind of guy who makes a point of
shaking hands with everyone in the room prior to an AA meeting. In November, 2002,
John celebrated his 40th anniversary of sobriety and told those present that "I
never said a prayer in my life."
David L, now in Pittsburgh, is still a regular in the rooms of AA. He is 74 and got
sober in 1980. He remembers as a child trying to figure out what people meant when
they talked about God. "It didn't make any sense to me and I just couldn't do it.
That lasted the rest of my life, pretty much." He said that when he got to AA, he
had to "hang on to everything else," except the God part, to make it work.
Chicago
It all began, ironically enough, in a church, the Unitarian Universalist Church.
Don W was a member and had been for a number of years. He had first joined the
Unitarian Church in his mid-teens, in his home town of Omaha, Nebraska. "I joined
this church free of dogma or creed, and have ever since shared in the music-making
and the Sunday services of one or another Unitarian-Universalist congregation." He
was also an alcoholic and a member of AA.
It hadn't always been easy for Don. In the early sixties he had tried AA and had
attended meetings for six months but left, put off by the all the religiosity. "I
was unable to work it, because of the religious language in which the 12 steps are
couched," he said.
He came back a decade later. His drinking had almost killed him. This time he
decided he had to tough it out, no matter how hard.
After about four years of sobriety, in the autumn of 1974, he gave a talk at the
Second Unitarian Church on Barry Street on the topic, "An Agnostic in AA: How it
Works for Me."
The talk was well received by the congregation, and he ended up delivering it in
several Unitarian churches. In fact, one of the ministers encouraged him to start an
AA meeting especially for atheists and agnostics.
The first ever meeting in AA explicitly for nonbelievers was held on January 7,
1975. In Chicago. In a church.
And thus was born Quad A: Alcoholics Anonymous for Atheists and Agnostics (AAAA).
As Don explained in an article in the Chicago Tribune in 1995:
The first two As, for Alcoholics Anonymous, are far more important than the last
two in AAAA, because a 12-step program will work for anybody who works it,
regardless of religious belief, understanding or refusal to understand.
More than 30 years after Don W had founded the first ever AA meeting for
nonbelievers, a Quad A Unity Conference was held on September 13, 2009, in Chicago.
More than a hundred people attended. By their very presence, they were able "bear
witness to the reality that there are hundreds of atheists and agnostics who are
working the program and staying sober," Chuck K, principal organizer of the event,
told those in attendance in his welcoming remarks.
The keynote address was delivered by Lisa D, and it was called, "How a Humanist
Works the AA Program." Lisa described how she had come to understand that human
values — "empathy, compassion, integrity, mindfulness, honesty, open-mindedness,
diligence, excellence, serenity, courage, wisdom, and of course intimacy" — were the
"greater power" to which she must strive to align herself.
Her talk was about how she worked the 12 Steps. Humanists, atheists, agnostics,
secularists work the 12 Steps and, like everybody else following the suggested AA
program of recovery, each does it according to their own belief or lack of belief.
Especially lately, a plethora of resources have become available to those in AA of a
non-Christian persuasion. This includes, for example: Darren Littlejohn's The
12-Step Buddhist, Phillip Z's work A Skeptic's Guide to the Twelve Steps and Marya
Hornbacher very recent book, Waiting: A Nonbeliever's Higher Power.
Early in her talk, Lisa expresses her gratitude that "the very first meetings I ever
attended were Quad A." Otherwise, if she had heard the God bit in the early going
might have "run out the door screaming" and picked up again.
Los Angeles, Austin and Beyond
"I am the daddy of all the 'We Agnostic' groups."
Charlie P now lives in Austin, Texas. He is 97 years old and on September 9th, 2011
he received a medallion for having 41 years of continuous sobriety.
And Charlie may indeed well own the We Agnostic brand in Alcoholics Anonymous.
In 1978 he started the very first We Agnostic group in Los Angeles. And as far as
anyone knows it was the very first nonbeliever's group to use precisely that
moniker. Of course the name "We Agnostics" is also a chapter in the Big Book.
He was 56 years old when he got sober. He waited eight years before starting the
group when he decided he could wait no longer. "I was a nonbeliever and I felt that
it was only fitting and proper to have a meeting which was friendly to
nonbelievers."
Charlie moved to Austin in 2000 to be closer to his sons. On August 21, 2001 he
achieved another first by launching the We Agnostic group of Austin, Texas.
Charlie started something in that city.
Today, there are four meetings for agnostics, atheists and freethinkers in Austin.
One of the advantages of being 97 is that the party comes to you. To celebrate his
41 years of sobriety, Charlie's family and friends brought the anniversary
celebration to his assisted living home. Charlie attended a lot of meetings in
Austin, and medallions were brought from different groups in the city to honour the
father of the We Agnostic meetings in AA.
Charlie was not the only founder of an agnostic AA group, although he certainly
deserves credit and thanks for being the first among the first.
As does Don W.
And Ada H, and John Y and David L.
Agnostic AAs Today
Today there are agnostic groups in AA in virtually every major city in North America
with 48 active groups listed by the AA General Service Office.
But that's hardly an official count: There is no requirement for an AA group to
register with any organization, including the GSO.
The Agnostics AA NYC website lists approximately 87 groups in North America. That's
no doubt more accurate than the GSO list, but again nothing is guaranteed.
What is certain from a quick scan of AA groups over the years is that there is an
explosion of these groups in recent years. Of the 48 agnostic groups listed as still
active with the GSO, 30 of them — almost two thirds — held their first meetings
after the millennium.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of "A History of Agnostic Groups in Alcoholics Anonymous" in
the November 9 issue of Humanist Network News.
Roger C. is currently a government writer and a member of Beyond Belief, an agnostic
group which was booted off of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings list in Toronto,
Ontario, Canada. Perhaps ironically, he has a Masters degree in Religious Studies.
He was known as the "resident atheist" at university where, he says, he was treated
with respect. "In AA, not so much," he reports. Nevertheless, he is convinced that
the inclusivity that was a core value of AA's cofounder Bill W and is central to the
meaning and mission of the fellowship will ultimately prevail in Alcoholics
Anonymous. He can be reached at aatorontoagnostics@gmail.com
The problem that I have with this story is that it still perpetuates the myth that A.A. is a wonderful
helpful organization that was founded by a wise, saintly spirit who wanted to be very ecumenical.
The truth is that Bill Wilson just wanted everybody to join his cult and support him in luxury, regardless
of their religious beliefs.
Bill Wilson learned that "inclusiveness" trick from Dr. Frank Buchman, who also wanted everybody in the
world to be his slave, regardless of their race, creed, color, religion, sex, or country of national origin.
Frank Buchman's organizations, the "Oxford Group" and "Moral Re-Armament",
had plenty of token Negroes and token Indians and token foreigners.
But the ruling council was still almost entirely white men who spoke English —
there was just one white woman that I recall,
Eleanor Forde.
I also have a problem with this line:
In fact, much of the 12 Steps are based on the Oxford Group's Four Spiritual Practices.
There were no "Four Spiritual Practices". There were the "Four Absolutes": Absolute Honesty, Absolute Love,
Absolute Unselfishness, and Absolute Purity. But that grandiose slogan has nothing to do with the Twelve Steps.
Then there were Frank Buchman's cult religion practices like
the "Six Practices of the Sane",
including conducting a séance and "listening to God", and admitting that you are "defeated
by sin" and "insane", and confessing all of your sins, and "making amends", and
"surrendering to God", and becoming a little puppet who is "Guided By God",
and then going recruiting.
The 12 Steps incorporate those practices. Of course, that has nothing to do with quitting drinking.
Those practices are a working program for establishing a cult religion.
And again, we get some of Bill Wilson's grandiose self-importance:
Sometimes my aggression was subtle and sometimes it
was crude. But either way it was damaging — perhaps fatally so — to numbers of
non-believers.
Yes, those poor helpless atheistic alcoholics will just die if Bill Wilson doesn't save them properly.
Nobody in the whole world knows how to quit drinking except Bill Wilson.
Not!
Bill Wilson actually imagined
that all of the alcoholics in the world would die if Bill didn't save them. That is
Delusions of Grandeur,
genuine mental illness. Bill Wilson was a legend in his own mind.
Then, the religious bigotry of kicking the atheists out is just frosting on the cake.
Now this line is true:
At one point, his group held a prayer meeting to decide what to do with him.
"The consensus seems to have been that they hoped I would either leave town
or get drunk."
Much later I discovered the elders held many prayer meetings hoping to find a way
to give me the heave-ho but at the same time stay tolerant and spiritual.
Jim Burwell's story "The Vicious Cycle", in the Big Book, 3rd Edition, page 247.
And when Burwell did finally relapse, they abandoned him to die drunk, alone, without help or friends.
Their behavior was not "spiritual" at all.
In those days, we'd go anywhere on a Twelfth Step job, no matter how unpromising.
But this time nobody stirred. "Leave him alone! Let him try it by himself for
once; maybe he'll learn a lesson!"
William G. Wilson, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pages 143 to 145.
This line is also misleading:
But there has always been tension between agnostics and the Christian members of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Alcoholics Anonymous is not a Christian religion.
It isn't a matter of be an atheist or be a Christian.
Most believers in A.A. worship
something like "My Higher Power Who Grants Wishes For Me" — some vague ghost who has
magical abilities and grants wishes for alcoholics, but not for starving children in Biafra.
Anybody who talks too much about Jesus is usually told to
"Take it to church. If I wanted to
hear that garbage, I'd go to church."
Or,
as Robert so eloquently said
in the Internet newsgroup "alt.recovery.addiction.alcoholism":
You are in the wrong group if you are looking for Jesus. I make no claim
about healing the blind. Relative to these facts, you are one blind fuckwit.
This is also wrong:
In Bill's original draft of the Steps, the word "God" appeared six times.
In the final version, Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred
Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism (the name of the 1939 edition), the number of
specific references to God was reduced to four, and in two of the Steps, courtesy
of an insistent Jim B, "God" was qualified with "as we understood Him."
No.
Six of the Twelve Steps
still refer to "God" or "Him", or a
"Higher Power". Changing the wording a little bit does not change the meaning.
Bill Wilson did not remove God from a single Step. Bill just renamed "God"
to a vague "Higher Power" in one single step — Step 2 — and then added two of those
"as we understood Him" qualifiers to disguise the fundamentalist religion
a tiny bit.
Thanks again for the article, and have a good day now.
== Orange
* orange@orange-papers.info *
* AA and Recovery Cult Debunking *
* http://www.Orange-Papers.org/ *
** "Christian Fundamentalism: The doctrine that there is an absolutely
** powerful, infinitely knowledgeable, universe-spanning entity that is
** deeply and personally concerned about my sex life."
** == Andrew Lias, author and atheist
May 23, 2009, Saturday, Downtown Portland, Waterfront Park:
[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters274.html#Anonymous ]
Date: Fri, November 18, 2011 9:56 pm (answered 20 November 2011)
From: "Anonymous"
Subject: horror stories
Orange,
I wrote this story in response to your call to action for the magazine
article. Please do not forward or post it in connection with my user name.
Thanks
In 1984 I went through a hospital program called New Beginnings in Century
City, Ca. I didn't have quite enough insurance so the admitting office said
that they would waive the difference. I stayed sober for just under a year
after treatment. During that year I was contacted by the hospitals
collection office for the balance that the insurance would not pay, I had
to hire a lawyer I met in AA to get them off my back. I was just barely
getting by and needed every penny for food and shelter. The treatment that
the hospital provided other than one evening of unnecessary tranquilizers
was sandwiches, a room, afternoons sleeping in the park, and
counseling. The counselor tried hard to get in my girlfriend's pants and
recommended I leave her, his name was Chuck. The "treatment" they gave us
was the issuance of a Big Book and meetings. I was pretty pissed that I was
talked into the whole situation through an intervention. I was never
offered another alternative or the opportunity to quit on my own with or
without AA. I was told by my employer that I could leave the job or do the
program. I knew that if I wanted to get sober and keep my job that I could
do their program on my own but was never given the opportunity. It was
obviously a waste; even an idiot could see it.
The program was loosely supervised. During my stay there I was threatened
by a fellow patient with a knife and exposed to several others who had
drugs smuggled in. I had sex daily in the hospital room with my girlfriend
who came by every day to eat. I met quite a few celebrities there which was
fun and even made friends with a couple of them. In 20/20 hindsight the
entire debacle was purely comical.
As a child I had a chronic learning disability which got me sentenced to a
short buss school where I would mingle with severely retarded kids. My
father left and started another family because he couldn't handle it. My
Mom was just trying to help but I couldn't cope with the reality of my
situation so I didn't go to the school. I was high functioning in certain
areas and non-functioning in others. The entire reason I would drink was to
escape the pain of rejection and marginalization I received from society.
The hospital and AA completely missed it, my diagnosis was always alcoholic
and the cure always Alcoholics Anonymous. Today I manage on my own without
AA. I like the HAMS program and and feel it is much more sustainable than
AA for me. Today its the simple
cost/benefit analysis
that helps me stay in line.
Hello Anonymous,
Thank you for the story. I'm sorry to hear about the rotten state of affairs in the
"treatment industry", but glad to hear that you have escaped from the madhouse and
found your own path to happier living.
This line particularly resonates with me:
The hospital and AA completely missed it, my diagnosis was always alcoholic
and the cure always Alcoholics Anonymous.
I've heard that so many times. So many simple-minded so-called "therapists" cannot see that over-use
of drugs and alcohol can be a sign of a deeper problem, rather than the cause of all problems.
And to try to cure such problems with the Alcoholics Anonymous cult religion is insanity.
And then that A.A. slogan occurs to me:
Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.
Continuing to promote the A.A. cure in spite of its massive failure is insanity.
I'll forward this story to the journalist.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
* orange@orange-papers.info *
* AA and Recovery Cult Debunking *
* http://www.Orange-Papers.org/ *
** Deceivers are the most dangerous members of society. —
** They trifle with the best affections of our nature, and
** violate the most sacred obligations.
** == George Crabbe (1754—1832)
[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters274.html#Connie_M ]
Date: Mon, November 21, 2011 8:26 am (answered 28 November 2011)
From: "Connie McN."
Subject:
WE ARE ONLY POWERLESS IF WE PICK IT UP. STEP ONE — DON'T PICK UP.
Hi Connie,
Thanks for the note. I totally agree with the first statement, but not the second.
I am not at all powerless over alcohol, until I get half a dozen drinks in me.
Then all bets are off.
But Step One does not say that we shouldn't pick up. It says that we are powerless over alcohol,
or "powerless over our addiction" in Narcotics Anonymous.
And then it says that our lives are unmanageable.
But it doesn't say that we should not pick up.
In fact, none of the 12 Steps tell us to quit drinking or quit doping.
And that is one of the big problems with them.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
* orange@orange-papers.info *
* AA and Recovery Cult Debunking *
* http://www.Orange-Papers.org/ *
** Being surrounded by a group of people who keep
** telling you that you are powerless over alcohol,
** and that your will power is useless, is not
** getting "support". It is getting sabotaged.
** With friends like them, you don't need any enemies.
[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters274.html#Stacy_O ]
Date: Mon, November 21, 2011 5:54 am (answered 28 November 2011)
From: "Stacy O."
Subject: UK Guardian thread
Hi Orange
I hope you're well and that the geese are thriving!
I thought you might be amused by some of these comments by someone called Milopotas
on this thread in the UK Guardian comments:
I sometimes post under the name of BluebellWood and in the course of an online
conversation about AA recommended that people visit your website for more info. This
person (who I suspect is actually Agent Green) immediately leaped in and accused me
of being in your cult! S/he then went on to make several gratuitous ad hom attacks
on you — I guess you're used to that. I do think this person's rantings about the
"Orange cult" are very funny. This is obviously a reaction to your calling AA a
cult, but it must have been completely bemusing to any passing readers. I hope it
intrigued some of them enough for them to have visited your site (if they search for
"orange papers cult" they'd get some interesting stuff about AA) but unfortunately
the thread was buried by that time and comments are now closed.
What was even funnier was that I only mentioned this site for the third time in
order to deliberately annoy him/her, and he/she absolutely didn't get it!
Anyway, keep up the good work.
Stacy
Hi Stacy,
Yes, I am well, and so are the geese.
Thanks for the tip. I wanted to post my own comment, but alas, the comments were already closed.
Yes, I've heard that jabber about "the Orange cult" before.
Way back, even when there was just me, one person, writing web pages,
Steppers were still trying to accuse me of having a cult. Which is of course absurd.
It's really hard to have a cult with only one member.
Apparently, when someone points out that
A.A. is a cult that strongly resembles other cults like Scientology or the Moonies or Jim Jones' People's Temple,
the only answer that they have is, "Well, you have a cult too."
And this is of course contradictory:
Milopotas
19 November 2011 12:27PM
Oh dear. BluebellWood is one of those unfortunate members of the Orange Papers cult.
It's one uneducated man-with-a-grudge's unqualified opinion on AA.
In the first sentence, the Orange Papers is a cult. In the second sentence, it's just one man's opinion.
Oh well, have a good day.
== Orange
* orange@orange-papers.info *
* AA and Recovery Cult Debunking *
* http://www.Orange-Papers.org/ *
** Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent
** a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves.
** == Eric Hoffer
[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters274.html#Bob O. ]
Date: Sun, November 20, 2011 5:09 am (answered 28 November 2011)
From: Bob O.
Subject: The Inter-Orange Building
Mister T,
I have only one question. Where is the Inter-Orange building? Is it next to the AA
Inter-Church building in Manhattan? I would love to take pictures of the building
and offices. I will be pleased to see my donation going to such a fine building.
Thank you,
Long Island Bob O.
Hi Bob,
Thanks for the laugh. Yes, that would be amusing, to have an Orange building next to the A.A. building.
But alas, I'd have to live in New York City, which is definitely not my style. I prefer the forest and
the trees and wetlands and open spaces.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
* orange@orange-papers.info *
* AA and Recovery Cult Debunking *
* http://www.Orange-Papers.org/ *
** The finest structure can house the worst evil.
[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters274.html#Peter_F ]
Date: Sun, November 20, 2011 5:45 am (answered 28 November 2011)
From: "Peter F."
Subject: the world really needs changing
Peter Ferentzy, PhD
Author of Dealing With Addiction — why the 20th century was wrong
http://www.peterferentzy.com
Yep. Thanks for the link. And have a good day.
== Orange
* orange@orange-papers.info *
* AA and Recovery Cult Debunking *
* http://www.Orange-Papers.org/ *
** Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot
** change their minds cannot change anything.
** == Ralph Waldo Emerson
[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters274.html#Mona_Lisa ]
Date: Sun, November 20, 2011 7:20 am (answered 28 November 2011)
From: "Mona Lisa S."
Subject: More parallel universe stuff
"There was an article posted in the Toronto Star earlier this month titled
"Does religion belong at AA? Fight over 'God' splits Toronto AA groups."
The article covers a conflict between some local A.A. groups and the intergroup
office. There was a lot to get excited about in the article and it is easy to see
how members on both sides of the controversy got worked up but the real damage
being done has nothing to do with issue being discussed. The problem, as I see it,
is that members are publicly taking sides on a controversial issue and doing so
as members of A.A. This is the very thing that destroyed the Washingtonian movement.
The issue is one that each side is passionate about and I understand their emotion.
We have seen similar emotion on opposite sides of an issue in our own group conscience,
this is common. But when we hold to our position, make it sacred and close our
minds then we have lost sight of our principles, our singleness of purpose is gone.
I believe that this kind of public controversy is a real risk to the survival of A.A."
Isn't this priceless???? The problem isn't that a program that claims to welcome
atheists with open arms, is refusing to allow atheist meetings to appear on meeting
lists so that they can be found. No, the problem is the damage that could result to
AA's reputation due to the exposure of the truth, which is, of course, that atheists
are NOT welcomed with open arms. It seems that AA's claims of being a program of
rigorous honesty stand on very shaky ground indeed.
And I love it that whoever came up with this stunning bit of twisted logic bases his
argument on the traditions when, a few lines later, we learn that:
"The [Public Information] Committee is beginning an outreach program to television,
radio, press, cooperate America, films, schools, snail mail and telephone."
Doesn't the 11th tradition say that: "Our public relations policy is based on
attraction rather than promotion...."
I guess they are going to tell us that it isn't promotion, it's an "outreach
program".
The hypocrisy is absolutely stunning. How do they get away with it?
Hi again, Mona Lisa,
Thanks for the letter. I couldn't agree more.
I don't know how they get away with it. My guess is that if you yammer about God a lot,
people will mistakenly think that you must be really good, so they will leave you alone.
Then pile on a lot of claims that you have saved millions of lives, and hey presto!
You are a living saint.
You quite correctly nailed the funny logic style of A.A. promoters:
"Good" is whatever makes A.A. look good,
and "bad" is whatever hurts the A.A. reputation.
Coincidentally, or maybe not so coincidentally,
Scientology does the same thing too.
To Scientologists, "truth" is any statement that is beneficial to Scientology,
and "a lie" is any information that hurts Scientology.
Oh well, have a good day anyway.
== Orange
* orange@orange-papers.info *
* AA and Recovery Cult Debunking *
* http://www.Orange-Papers.org/ *
** "... Ye outwardly appear righteous unto men, but
** within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity..."
** == Matthew 23:28
