[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters291.html#Christopher_M ]

Date: Mon, February 27, 2012 10:16 am     (answered Tue, February 28, 2012 1:04 pm)
From: "Christopher M."
Subject: Thank you!!!!

Hello,

I woke up this morning and accidentally stumbled across your page. It's great to know SOMEONE out there see's NA/AA the same way I do. I've been to rehab, I've done the NA thing.... none of it worked. I didn't quit heroin until I wanted to quit. And, by that time I didn't need any 12 step none sense to save me from myself.

Do you write all of the articles, or do you accept user submitted articles?

Hello Christopher,

Thanks for all of the compliments. And I'm glad to hear that you quit your bad habits. Welcome to health.

I have written almost all of the articles, but I'm open to contributions by others. Feel free to send something.

And in a way, lots of the letters that I've posted are articles by others.

Have a good day now.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     "Now I know what it's like to be high on life.
**     It isn't as good, but my driving has improved."
**     == Nina, on "Just Shoot Me", 13 Jan 2006.

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters291.html#Al_C ]

Date: Mon, February 27, 2012 7:24 pm     (answered 2 March 2012)
From: al c.
Subject: Alcoholics Anonymous as a "Nazi Cult Religion"

Dear Orange,

"Burn the idea into the consciousness of every man that he can get well regardless of anyone. The only condition is that he trust in God and clean house." (Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, Working With Others, pg. 98)

At a closed meeting of AA, I was asked what my topic would be and I suggested what YOU have labelled our fellowship...."Nazi Cult Religion". Everyone laughed and then we proceeded to discuss more important issues, such as our primary purpose....to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety!!

God Bless....

Al

Hello Al,

Thanks for the letter. That's a neat way to go into denial and dodge the question. And it also has a nice touch of the propaganda trick called "Condescension, and Patronizing Attitudes" Oh, and Laugh It Off is another standard propaganda and debating trick.

Have a good day now.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**
**     The Wizard's First Rule:
**     People will believe a lie because they want it to be true,
**     or because they are afraid it might be true.
**
**     The Wizards Second Rule:
**     The greatest harm can result from the best intentions.
**
**       ==  The Legend of the Seeker

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters291.html#Monica_R ]

Date: Sun, February 26, 2012 11:57 am     (answered 2 March 2012)
From: "Monica R."
Subject: First Amendment rights regarding AA and its traditions and what's really going on there...

Hi blogging friends,

sorry for the long email but...

In quiet thought ...meditation... today it dawned on me that when AA sends their letter asking all media outlets to not print the truth about AA members stories, using its 12 traditions as its weapon, it is actually against the First Amendment (freedom of Speech.) Yes? ...it's also not fraud ... how they represent AA on their website... and negligence to not warn the public at large and the AA membership as a whole about 3rd level sex offenders and violent criminals are being sentenced to AA unknown to most of the 12 step population and certainly not known to the general public... right?

Board Members have a legal liability and responsibility to its members. I recently learned this at the Screen Actors Guild forum where members just sued the Guild itself for not including a "minority report" to its members.

I believe we must have a strategy in how we effect the change we are all looking for. I know that Isle and Mark are really not activists like some of us are and that Carolyn needs a break from it all, but I know that you have emails from other bloggers who are still working underground.

What Isle and Mark did with ST was the beginning of a huge movement and personally really helped me leave AA. OP opened my eyes but with the live blogging on ST it was
...
well... really powerful!! Carolyn brought me the first story of a large scale with harassment "inside " the meeting. And she was the first in AA to really take them all on legally ie her church. Her passion and fierceness made me drive 6 hours to meet and interview her.

Although I knew many other women personally, harassed in the rooms, none of them were really ready to sue AA Headquarters and leave AA.

So Any thoughts on this? I am finally moved in and only have 2 boxes of mine to empty in my new house with a friggen office !!! I have SPACE!!!! :)

I am now ready to get back to making my film. Just like a few other Docs I have seen, this work, my Documentary and the activism go hand and hand.

EVEN though I myself am willing to sue AA in NY on any ground legally possible, I have been guided to make my film first by the guy who worked on "DELIVER US FROM EVIL " a film about the Catholic Church Sex scandal.

To sue AA and make my film would be too hard. I agree...I can see their point and I agree for now.

But someone else can do it. And if no one does it by the time my film is done...I can do it. Richardson vs Alcoholics Anonymous has a nice ring to it. :)

There is a lawyer up in Washington State who is handling the case where the women got stabbed in the Anger Management class. That story Anti D posted on www.nadaytona.com site. I contacted him and he said he was willing to help.

Isle and Mark... there were many super intelligent bloggers on ST and I hope if you know any that might want to be in direct contact with me please have them call and/or email me.

I think one is a lawyer. Mona Lisa? But I don't remember her real name.

Again I want to thank each and every one of you that has helped me leave AA and in turn you have helped me and my son age 21, from going down the path of the cult.

Thats all for now. Have a lovely Sunday!
peace

monica

Hello Monica,

Thanks for the letter and all that you do. Making the movie sounds like a very good thing to do. Our society is so visually-oriented that ideas just don't penetrate the skulls of a lot of people if they don't see it on TV or in a movie.

(I am reminded of the movie Dogma. I was just watching that again for amusement. In it, "The Metatron" complained that people were oblivious to all kinds of religious concepts, and all that he got was blank stares when he talked about such things, but as soon as somebody puts it in a Charlton Heston movie, everybody becomes a theologian.)

I'm not a lawyer, so I can't sue. At times, I wish I was. I know that at least one or two readers are lawyers. Perhaps they will connect with a good test case. Getting just the right case that is really worth pursuing is a challenge. Like you say, a lot of people are not ready to sue. I've heard the same thing. People who have a great case of coerced religion say that they just want to get through it and put it behind them. Such a precedent-setting case requires both an iron-clad case and a plaintiff who is totally committed and ready to fight to the death, and a lawyer or somebody who is willing to gamble a lot of money. Oh, and we need a lawyer who does that kind of lawsuits. The one lawyer that I remember writing in is Claire, who is an estate attorney who deals with wills and inheritances.

Still, I can hope.

By the way, did anyone hear what happened with Baldwin Research? They were suing A.A. for defamation of character. (And just to really complicate matters, later, I heard that Baldwin Research is a Scientology front. I'm not sure, but that's what I hear. It seems that they share an 800 phone number with other Scientology fronts. Nevertheless, watching Scientology and A.A. sue each other could be very entertaining in a primitive sort of way, kind of like putting a scorpion and a black widow spider in a jar and watching them fight it out.)

Have a good day now.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     Alcoholics Anonymous materials and the testimony of the witness established
**     beyond a doubt that religious activities, as defined in constitutional law,
**     were a part of the treatment program.  The distinction between religion and
**     spirituality is meaningless, and serves merely to confuse the issue.
**       — Wisconsin's District Judge John Shabaz,
**        ruling in the case of Grandberg v. Ashland County, a 1984 Federal
**        7th Circuit Court concerning judicially-mandated A.A. attendance.

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters291.html#Friendlyofella ]

Date: Fri, February 24, 2012 8:01 pm     (answered 2 March 2012)
From: Friendlyofella
Subject: (no subject)

the knoledge i received in AA and the practice of the princples does bring about the much disered result freedom from drink and ease and comfort in sober liveing.. theirs no debate just facts

Hello Friendlyofella,

Thanks for the letter. Yes, facts. That is what it's all about.

Like the fact that when Dr. George Vaillant, who loves A.A. so much that he became a member of the Board of Trustees of Alcoholics Anonymous, shoved A.A. on his patients for many, many years, the result was the A.A. didn't work at all, and just raised the death rate. (Look here.) Now that wasn't a debate, that was just the doctor issuing a report declaring what happened.

Yes, facts. Here are many more facts: Results of doctors' clinical tests of A.A.

Yes, facts. Heaven knows, we don't want to bet our lives on the ravings of some nutcases who just ignore the facts and yammer about how wonderful their religious beliefs are.

Good luck, and have a good day now.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**
**     "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the
**      same level of thinking we were at when we created them."
**         — Albert Einstein (1879—1955)

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters291.html#Tom_H ]

Date: Fri, February 24, 2012 7:38 pm     (answered 2 March 2012)
From: "Tom H."
Subject: The most difficult Aspect of the AA Program

The real question is whether A.A. does more harm than good. There sure does seem to be a lot of us long time sobriety people around that claim it took many of us ten times or more at treatment or A.A. to "get the program." The higher power in AA must place special favors on the average 48-52 year old alcoholic when this higher power grants them sobriety. (That's the average age of getting sober)

I have come to my own personal conclusions that a person like myself came into AA a serious problem drinker and got sober 13 years later as a full blown low bottom alcoholic. I could be out of my gourd but I think AA keeps people drinking until they literally cannot drink anymore. Then they take the credit. Why don't we have large groups of late twenty year old sobriety members sitting around the tables ?

We quit when we cannot any longer drink or we will die. Some choose to drink to death and that in itself is another whole subject.

Tom

Hello Tom,

Thanks for the letter, and I have to agree with every one of your points.

I also drank until I just could not drink any more. The doctor said, "Quit drinking or die. Choose one." And he meant it. And I was so sick that I believed him. After thinking about it for a while, and drinking on it some more, and thinking some more, I finally decided to quit. And I did.

My quitting had nothing to do with A.A. or treatment or anything like that. It had everything to do with being very, very sick.

Doctors and professionals like to use the phrase "maturing out of addictive behavior". That often strikes me as a fancy way of saying, "Burning out." When you just can't do it any more, you can't do it any more, and you either quit drinking or die.

I'm glad that we both chose to live. Have a good day now.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     Out, you imposters; quack-salving, cheating mountebanks;
**     your skill is to make sound men sick, and sick men to kill.
**       ==  Philip Massinger (1583—1640), English dramatist, playwright, poet

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters291.html#Hugh_G ]

Date: Wed, February 15, 2012 12:25 pm     (answered 2 March 2012)
From: "HUGH G."
Subject:

Hello,

A.A. Cultwatch here in the U.K. is disputing A.A. membership which is put at 34000. It thinks that ex-members should be included in the current membership.

By this thinking I ought to be counted as a drinker although I am 17 years sober.

What is the name for this type of thinking?

Hugh G

Hello Hugh,

Wow. Thanks for the letter. That kind of thinking strikes me as desperation. They must really be desperate to make A.A. look bigger and better than it is.

I'm not sure about the proper name for such thinking. These labels come to mind: Crazy, wishful thinking, non sequitur, deluded, demented, irrational, nuts...

And I would guess that they are imagining that everybody who left A.A. is not only wonderfully sober, but sober because of A.A. practices that they learned while they were in A.A. (So of course all of those ex-members should be counted as A.A. success stories.) That is outrageously unrealistic and delusional. And there is a word for that kind of thinking: presumptuous. They presume that ex-members are sober, and that A.A. is due the credit for that imagined sobriety.

Such an attitude also directly contradicts the idea that you cannot ever leave A.A., and you can't ever graduate, and you must remain in A.A. forever, faithfully attending the meetings and teaching the young and being an inspiration to the beginners, or else you will relapse.

I am also surprised at the number. Is that it? Only 34,000 A.A. members in all of the U.K.? That is really tiny. No wonder they want to inflate the number.

If the U.K. version of "AAcultwatch" is the same as the USA version, then they are a bunch of A.A. true believers who want to get rid of the cultish "improper behavior" in A.A. that is "not following the Traditions" and making A.A. "look bad". They imagine that all of the bad things about A.A. are just the result of "a few bad apples", and that A.A. will be wonderful if people just follow the rules and Traditions properly, "like they did in Good Old Days".

I find them to be a very interesting bunch, and occasionally, I learn about some really scandalous things in A.A. from them. Still, I think they are really confused about what constitutes honesty and spirituality.

Have a good day now.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     Wouldn't it be terrible if I quoted some reliable statistics
**     which prove that more people are driven insane through
**     religious hysteria than by drinking alcohol?
**        ==  W. C. Fields

BLOG NOTE: 1 March 2012: We got some more snow, so of course I'm out there feeding the birds. Snow on trees Snowy trees Tell-tale Raccoon Footprints Once again, it becomes obvious that I have a raccoon living in the back yard. Welcome to the country. I had not seen his footprints since the previous winter when he left his footprints in the snow then. I wasn't sure if he was still around. He is. He has been helping himself to any remaining oatmeal or bread or other birdfood that is left laying around after dark, but I didn't know it until I saw these footprints. [More gosling photos below, here.]

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters291.html#Peter_F ]

Date: Fri, March 2, 2012 6:17 am     (answered 3 March 2012)
From: "Peter F."
Subject: FW: Dr. Peter Ferentzy published a new article on The Huffington Post

Dr. Peter Ferentzy published a new article on The Huffington Post

Dr. Peter Ferentzy wrote a new post: Vancouver's Insite: Not Just Addicts Who Benefit

Dr. Peter Ferentzy
March 2, 2012 at 8:48am

I am a huge fan of Insite, Vancouver's famous safe injection clinic. It provides a model that soon — very soon — others will follow. So it was with great satisfaction that I spoke at Simon Fraser...

To comment on this post, follow the link below:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/dr-peter-ferentzy/insite-vancouver_b_1301740.html?utm_source=Alert-blogger&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Email%2BNotifications

Thanks again, Peter.

Have a good day now.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     Imagine how people will interact with each other when they know they
**     cannot harm another person, place, condition or thing without harming
**     themselves.  Imagine the difference when people, everywhere, accept
**     the divine truth:  as they give, so shall they receive.
**       —  (Mayan) Don Alejandro Cirilo Perez Oxlaj

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters291.html#MC_Greenlight ]

Date: Sat, February 18, 2012 10:11 am     (answered 3 March 2012)
From: "MC Greenlight"
Subject: A Thanks Beyond Words

Dear Orange —

You have no idea how grateful I am that you did the recon for this. Please read my story — the rehab to which I refer uses A.A. maliciously and only now, retrospectively, do I understand what it was all about. I had to figure it out on my own because only years after the fact, did I stumble across your article; but I had to really look for it using specific key words. This problem is so under covered it's virtually never been covered at all. It scares the shit out of me. Below you may find the icing to your cake. The irony is that the answers and evidence have always been there, but it's erased by the media with Whitney Houston/Amy Whinehouse stories that twist celebrity overdoses to propagate the political agenda. The rabbit hole goes so far down that it feels impossible to overcome the adamance of a conditioned society.

All the best,
MC Greenlight

"They tried to make me go to rehab & I said 'No, no, no!'"
<http://blog.project-greenlight.com/2012/02/16/they-tried-to-make-me-go-to-rehab--i-said-no-no-no.aspx>

*Remembering Amy Whinehouse in the memory she gave us. That's what Amy
would've wanted for themselves. The media often reports political
correctness, but less frequently conveys it with political respect.*

Hello MC Greenlight,

Thank you for the story. I'll add that one to the list of horror stories.

Have a good day now.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     My enemies I can handle, but Lord save me from
**      those who would do unto me for my own good.
**        —  Orange as a young hippie, 1968

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters291.html#Mary_M ]

Date: Tue, February 28, 2012 1:17 pm     (answered 3 March 2012)
From: "Mary M."
Subject: 12 step recovery

Are you crazy? Maybe AA does not help everyone but it does help some. I am a member of NA so I guess you probably come to the same conclusion about us. I have a life NA taught me to look at myself I am not dependent on NA. I came to NA out of prison, a high school drop out and divorced after being married at age 15. Today I hold a Masters Degree, I have a career and a beautiful family. Before I became clean I tried psychiatry, many treatment centers, and other programs. I have been clean 19 years, I have a career, I have a family and I am clean because of a relationship with God and good friends in NA who supported me. NA is not my life it is a tool. I agree 12 step programs are not for everyone but I am ok with whatever it takes to get clean. I wonder how many people died because of this article? Mary

Hello Mary,

Thank you for the letter, and congratulations for getting a grip and quitting your bad habits. And congratulations for making something of your life after you quit doping and got out of prison.

You try to imply that somehow Narcotics Anonymous got you your Master's Degree. I doubt that. Did they take your exams for you?

You also try to imply that N.A. "worked" when other things like psychiatry did not work. (I have no doubts that the treatment centers did not work. They are just 12-Step cult indoctrination centers.) You are overlooking the fact that maturing out of addictive behavior takes time, and people tend to give the credit to whatever they were doing when they finally quit drinking or doping. The essence of finally quitting forever is just learning that you cannot indulge even a little bit or you will go back down that slippery slope again. (I know, I speak from experience.) Whether you go to some meetings at the time that you learn that is irrelevant.

What you call "helping some" isn't good enough. I'm sure that A.A. and N.A. do "help some". That is, they give a little moral support and encouragement to some people who are wavering. And they give some companionship. BUT both A.A. and N.A. kill more people than they help. The false teachings like that you are "powerless over alcohol", and "powerless over our addiction" hurt more people than they help. Then there is the guilt-inducing confession routine that is passed off as spirituality. Just foisting an old cult religion from the nineteen-thirties on sick people is not "helping them". Nor does such a cult religion cause good things.

That has been verified again and again.

1. Dr. George E. Vaillant, who loves A.A. so much that he became a member of the A.A. Board of Trustees, shoved A.A. treatment on alcoholics for many many years, and he tracked his first 100 patients for eight years. At the end of the eight years, the score was 5 continuously sober, 29 dead, and 66 still drinking. Five "helped" and 29 dead. I don't call that help. (Then consider that 5 out of a hundred is the normal rate of spontaneous remission in alcoholics — that is how many will quit each year all on their own, without any A.A. "help" or treatment.)

2. Dr. Diana C. Walsh found that A.A. treatment made alcoholics require more expensive hospitalization.

3. Dr. Jeffrey Brandsma found that A.A. caused alcoholics to go on much worse binges.

4. Dr. Ditman found that A.A. increased the rate of rearrests.

5. Doctors Orford and Edwards found that just having a doctor talk to an alcoholic and his wife for one hour, telling him that he must quit drinking or he will die, was just as effective as a whole year of A.A.-based treatment.

6. Then my own experience at N.A. meetings was: At the start of every meeting, the group secretary asks, "Can we see a show of hands of people who have a year or more clean and sober to show that this program works?" And about 3 hands out of 50 go up. On a good night, they might get 5 out of 75. (That was the Burnside Blues meeting in downtown Portland, OR.)

   Note that the group secretary never asked, "Can we see a show of hands of people who have a year or more clean and sober without doing the 12-Step routine to show that heretical cult religion is completely unnecessary for clean and sober living?"

   That's when I would have raised my hand.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     If you've sold your soul to the devil, in effect, it's
**     profoundly human to talk yourself into believing that
**     what you got in exchange was worth the price.
**       ==  The Archdruid Report
**        tyranny-of-temporary.html

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters291.html#David_M ]

Date: Mon, February 27, 2012 4:32 pm     (answered 3 March 2012)
From: "David M."
Subject: curious

I am curious as to why you have put so much energy into this work. What is that about?

Hello David,

Thanks for the question. It's very simple: People are getting hurt by quackery and fraud, and somebody has to speak out.

For more information, you can see:

1. The people hurt — the list of horror stories.

2. Who are you?

3. How did you get to where you are?

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     "To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men."
**       ==  Abraham Lincoln

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters291.html#Hetu-Ahin ]

Date: Tue, February 28, 2012 3:44 pm     (answered 3 March 2012)
From: "Hetu-Ahin"
Subject: fyi

Thanks for your reply.
Attached is something for you to look at.
Cheers,
Hetu-Ahin

*Attachments:*
How_Do_People_Recover_from_Alc_Dep--Systematic_Review_of_Mechanisms_of_Change_for_AA__ART_2009.pdf
Size: 252 k
Type: application/pdf

Hello again, Hetu-Ahin,

That document is a good example of Pseudo-intellectual Bull. That style of propaganda appears to be very scholarly, but it is really a mess of confusing language, misleading statements, and citations of other untrue propaganda articles.

Take these lines from the first page, for example:

Millions of individuals are current members in more than 180 countries, and more than 28 million AA "Big Books" (the main AA text) have sold making it one of the highest selling non-fiction books of all time (Humphreys 2004; AA 2008; Kelly and Yeterian 2008).

And again, all of this jabber about "change" is based on the mistaken assumption that A.A. makes some good changes, which the authors get from fraudulent papers that declare that A.A. is a success when it isn't.

Date: Tue, February 28, 2012 4:06 pm     (answered 3 March 2012)
From: "Hetu-Ahin"
Subject: A little discussion

Something about that old Vaillant study is that the cohorts weren't matched.
It's not unreasonable to suppose a lot of the people going into aa are those that have tried to quit by themselves first, and/or had their consultation with a doctor, and/or of had other forms of intervention.
Given that, having roughly comparable abstinence/social drinking outcomes looks very good for aa.
What percentage of serious hardcore chronic alcoholics spontaneously recover? Zero?

No, no, no. You have been listening to A.A. propaganda — their story that you will die without the cult. What the doctors and medical schools say is that about 50% of all alcoholics and addicts finally quit their self-destructive behavior, and most of the successful quitters do it alone, on their own. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the National Institutes of Health says that 75% of the successful quitters do it alone. The Harvard Medical School says that 80% of the alcoholics who successfully quit drinking for a year or more do it alone, on their own. Look here for the rest of the story.

I don't follow your logic about the Vaillant study. No matter what the treatment is, or what the recovery group is, a lot of the patients will have had previous experiences with quitting and relapsing, or trying to quit, and failing. That is just normal, and doesn't say anything about any particular treatment modality.

Dr. Vaillant synthesized his control group from a random sampling of untreated alcoholics. I'm sure that many of them also had plenty of experience with previous treatment, or A.A., and relapses. So what cohort was "unmatched"?

I also do think that there is a vast difference between being a member of aa — which means desiring to stop drinking and saying you're a member of aa, and working the program. The latter involves a lot — daily prayer, meditation, inventory, gratitude list — and really you're supposed to be doing step 10 all day as well.

So what percentage of those who work the program get better? Well, maybe a lot more than 30-40.

This gives a very different picture from the one you offer.

Do you have any documentation or studies or tests to support that, or are you just guessing?

The fact remains that exposure to A.A. teachings and practices has a negative influence, and makes sick people worse, and even raises the death rate.

The argument that the drunk people did not "work The Program right" is a standard A.A. dodge, to avoid admitting that "The Program" has a high failure rate.

1. If someone quits drinking, claim that he worked The Program right, even if he didn't.
   
2. If someone does not quit drinking, claim that he didn't work The Program right, even if he did.

There is still zero evidence that "working The Program right" makes people quit drinking. The evidence is that The Program is better at making people binge and die.

Feel free to post any of our correspondence, but please keep me anonymous. You can call me 'Hetu-Ahin'.

Cheers,
Hetu-Ahin

Date: Tue, February 28, 2012 5:21 pm     (answered 3 March 2012)
From: "Hetu-Ahin"
Subject: and a little more

I don't know to what extent you are right about the founders and the cult element of aa at certain times and places. I just have no view.

In London, England, right now it isn't like that.

Here is what I found

Meetings: (i) Regular reminder of risk and gravity of relapse (ii) Learning from experience of many other alcoholics (iii) Somewhere to go for company instead of drinking (iv) Unconditional acceptance and friendship (lots of hugs).

Steps (i) Recognition of one's inability to control drinking (ii) Acceptance of the need for help (iii) Encouragement of honesty and good behaviour, mandate to make amends to those we have harmed to deal with guilt, practice dealing with fear. (iii) Encouragement to develop a realistic view of oneself, avoiding the stress of a false image, allowing gratitude for desirable qualities (iv) Emotion processing: bring feelings to consciousness, recognize them share them with others: they dissipate, or, if not, we accept them as parts of our psyche, learn to live with them, become their friends (v) Mandate to provide service to others bolstering self-worth, alleviating low self-esteem. (vi) Meditation to alleviate stress. (v) Prayer (for theists), good for health.

Fellowship: a support network to call in case upon in case of crisis.

Sponsor: with whom to share, from whom to get advice, to call in upon in case of crisis.

Serenity: to accept the things we cannot change, so that we don't get wound up.

Courage: to change the things we can so we gain fulfillment from action instead of a feeling of uselessness as the fruit of procrastination.

There is negligible pressure on anyone to do or believe anything. I am an atheist, so is my sponsor. I did the steps having removed the word 'God' from them. At one meeting there was a sign up saying 'who are you to say there is no God?'. I asked that this be taken down. After two meetings and a vote, it was taken down.
Nobody goes around trying to recruit drunks.
Nobody makes any money. Nobody has any status or any opportunity to be revered or anything like that. Nobody has any means, in the program, to exploit anyone else. Basically we are just trying to help each other.

Does anything very different go on the States? I am just asking, out of curiosity, because I don't know.

Cheers,

Hetu-Ahin

Your rewrite of the 12 Steps is interesting. You have made them into something very different from the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Removing God from the 12 Steps makes them into an exercise in lunacy. I don't mean to be insulting, but it is flat-out crazy to imagine that somebody who isn't there will restore you to sanity in Step 2, and take care of your will and your life for you in Step 3, and remove your defects in Step 7, and talk to you in a séance in Step 11 and give you work orders and power, and then give you a "spiritual experience" or "spiritual awakening" in Step 12. That is a lot for somebody who doesn't exist to do.

Now your rewrite of the Steps removes many of those problems by making it sound more like a secular group therapy session. You should then recognize that you are not a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and you are not practicing the A.A. program. You belong to a different organization, one of your own creation. You have just appropriated the name "Alcoholics Anonymous".

By the way, yes, A.A. is very crazy in the USA. In spite of their jabber about Freedom of Religion, you would start a civil war with your secular talk if you did it in American A.A. meetings. Remove God from the Program? No way in Hell.

A.A. in the USA is like this:

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble.
**      It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."
**        ==  Mark Twain (American Humorist, Writer and Lecturer. 1835—1910)

[The next letter from Hetu-Ahin is here.]

May 27, 2009, Wednesday, Downtown Portland, Waterfront Park: Goslings of the Family of 9 Goslings of the Family of 9 Goslings of the Family of 9 [The story of Carmen continues here.]

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Last updated 20 December 2014.
The most recent version of this file can be found at http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters291.html