[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters314.html#Justin_V ]

Date: Wed, June 27, 2012 11:53 am     (answered 29 June 2012)
From: "Justin V."
Subject: Addiction Disease

Addicition is a disease according to the American Medical Association, has been for fifty years plus. There's a fact for you. Bag on AA, but the authority on disease definition has spoken, and people still ignore it. Thought you might want to reconcile that part at the least.

Hello Justin,

Thanks for the letter. Alas, we've been over this before, many times.

The AMA did not declare "alcoholism" a "disease" 50 years ago, they only said that it was an "illness". That was at the same time as they declared that cigarettes are okay for you. Really. In both cases, that was just politics and money. They did no medical research to discover that "alcoholism is an illness", or that "cigarettes are okay for your health". They just bowed to political pressure, and saw which way the money went, and made some unfounded statements to please some noisy pressure groups.

Then, in 1992, the AMA let a joint committee of two A.A. front groups write up a totally goofy definition of "alcoholism". The "definition" is so twisted and illogical that it does not even say that alcoholism is caused by drinking alcohol. No, it doesn't. They never say what actually causes alcoholism. They just made the odd statement that "alcoholism is characterized by drinking alcohol." So they left the door open for someone else to declare that alcoholism has "spiritual" causes.

By the way, do you know what the AMA actually is? It is just a private club for doctors, whose goal is to make more money for doctors. About half of the doctors in the USA are members. Other doctors are strongly opposed to what the AMA does. The AMA is not the final authority on medical issues or diseases. Check out the CDC and the NIH and the FDA for that.

The AMA has a very corrupt history. The president who built is up into what it is today, Morris Fishbein, was convicted of racketeering for blackmailing pharmaceutical companies into forking over lots of money to him (for full-page ads in JAMA), or else his AMA would not approve of their medicines.

Follow the money. It's all about the money. There is plenty of good money — billions of dollars — to be made by foisting quack medicine on alcoholics and addicts. Best of all, the treatment won't work, so those sick patients will Keep Coming Back for more "treatment", again and again, as they repeatedly relapse. Foisting 12-Step treatment on sick alcoholics and addicts is a cash cow that never goes dry.

Here are some of the previous letters and answers about the AMA declaring that "alcoholism is a disease":

1. Two A.A. front groups wrote the AMA definition of "alcoholism".

2. More on that goofy AMA definition of "alcoholism"

3. More on the AMA and "alcoholism".

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
*
**   "We AA's have never called alcoholism a disease because,
**   technically speaking it is not a disease entity."
**     ==  William G. Wilson,
**      speaking to the National Catholic Clergy Conference On Alcoholism,
**      April 21, 1960, in New York

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters314.html#Donita_T ]

Date: Thu, June 26, 2012     (answered 28 June 2012)
From: "Donita T."
Subject: Re: OP forum

Hi Orange!

OMG, you're my hero. You & Massive, Ragge & Hank Hayes, Steele, and too many others to name gave me the courage to finally leave AA for good. I KNEW they were a cult.

Anyway, I've been trying to register on your OP Forum. Still can't get on it.

<The e-mail address donitaxxxxx@xxx.xxx is already registered. Have you forgotten your password?>

so then I click on 'Have You Forgotten Your Password' and it says

<Sorry, donitaxxxxx@xxx.xxx is not recognized as a user name or an e-mail address.>

Can you delete me so I can start over? I dunno what to do.

Thanks so much,
Donita

Hi Donita,

Thanks for all of the praise and compliments.

Alas, I cannot look up registrations by email address. It's just a limitation of the Drupal forum software that I'm using. I can only look up registrations by the user name that you used. And the message that the system gave you about not recognizing the email address as a login name is not accurate — you can't log in by email address, only by user name.

I checked for "Donita", or anything like it, and there is no registration by that user name, so obviously you used something else.

If you can tell me what user name you registered, I can fix it.

Have a good day now.
== Orange

*          orange@orange-papers.info       *
*      AA and Recovery Cult Debunking     *
*      http://www.orange-papers.info/      *
*    http://www.orange-papers.info/forum   *
** "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.

Date: Thu, June 28, 2012 4:52 pm     (answered 14 November 2011)
From: "Donita T."
Subject: Re: OP forum

Hi Orange!

Jeez, I got all giddy for a moment — you are one of my hugest heroes/icons lately. Between you & many others, I feel like I am in the presence of giants. No, really, I mean that as a compliment. Had it not been for y'all, I dunno where I'd be. I'm just so glad I came across your sites and have been validated. I'm making LOTS of new really cool friends! From all over the earth! ...and best of all, I am rediscovering the real me that has been kind of lost for a while. :)

I can't remember what logon name I used before, maybe NoAA4Rainbow (?) or NonStompRainbow (?) — but no action is need to hunt it down now. This past month or so my mind has been through a lot of changes & I'm spacing things at times. It's okay. I'm good.

I decided to try another email address of mine <xxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxx.com> to make a logon. Where there's MY will, there's a way! So, on your forum I am Rainbow. For now I'm just reading people's posts. I'm learning a lot about deprogramming.

Peace :)

Hi again, Donita,

Okay, whatever works. Have a good day now. And welcome to the forum.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     To err is human, but to really screw things up requires a computer.

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters314.html#Mark_B ]

Date: Thu, June 28, 2012 7:19 pm     (answered 30 June 2012)
From: "Mark B."
Subject: That "Dalai Lama" quote

Hi again Orange,

I saw that "Dalai Lama" quote on your Letters313 page.

http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters313.html#ctmjon

While I agree with the sentiment, something about it didn't ring true for me. Perhaps this explains it:

http://ntweblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/that-dalai-lama-quotation-and.html

Peace,
Mark in Dallas

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the tip. Ain't the Internet something else? You even get nice hoaxes.

On that web page, "The Damien Zone" reported:

"This quote, printed over a photograph of the Dalai Lama, is floating around on Facebook. It is inspiring millions of simple-minded Facebookers — but there's a problem. HE NEVER SAID IT! There is no record of the Dalai Lama ever saying this and on his website there is no mention of it. Devout followers of the Dalai Lama say it is not true, but we live in the day where all one needs to do is put something up on Facebook and it becomes the law of the land — at least where idiots are concerned."

Now I think that the Damien Zone is far too harsh in his criticism of people who believe reasonable-sounding quotes. You don't have to be an idiot to believe that the Dalai Lama might have said that.

The rest of the page, and the following comments, make good points though, about how misattributions can become so widely believed that, later, you will have a heck of a time trying to sort out what some historical person really said or didn't say. In fact, the problem eventually becomes impossible, like trying to sort out what Jesus really said, and what was added on later, or edited out, by legend and hear-say, and pious frauds "correcting" things.

Right here, we've had a debate going on for years about Sir Herbert Spencer and the A.A. misquote that had him supposedly saying,

"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance — that principle is contempt prior to investigation." HERBERT SPENCER

Nice quote, but Sir Herbert Spencer never said it. Michael thoroughly demolished that one, in his paper, Survival_of_a_Fitting_Quotation.pdf.

But it's believable. Sir Herbert Spencer said things that sounded similar:

The belief which we find thus questionable, both as being a primitive belief and as being a belief belonging to an almost-extinct family, is a belief that is not countenanced by a single fact. Herbert Spencer, Principles of Biology, Volume 1, page 336, published 1864 to 1867.

We also had a big debate about whether President Abraham Lincoln ever told a joke about wanting to send a barrel of General Grant's favorite whiskey to some other generals who had yet to win a victory. (Here.) And that quote is only 150 years old, not 2000.

It's almost enough to drive historians to drink.

Have a good day now.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**    By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.
**      ==  Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803—1882]
**          Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters314.html#Katherine_S ]

Date: Thu, June 28, 2012 10:36 pm     (answered 30 June 2012)
From: "Katherine S."
Subject:

Wow. So, I just skimmed through your page about AA and NA. I am so relieved that I am not the only one who has noticed this about these strange, cult-like groups. I have been attending nar anon for about two weeks now and have had a lot of doubts about their "program" and ideas. Everyone *who* I have talked to however seems to have nothing but positive things to say.

Thanks so much for sharing a new perspective. Really opened my eyes to the truth behind a strange and confusing situation.

Hello Katherine,

Thanks for the thanks. And you are certainly not the only one. There are more and more of us who are noticing that cult religion and quackery are unfortunately all too commonplace, and commonly accepted, in the "treatment" of drug and alcohol problems.

Also check out You will find lots more kindred spirits there.

About all of those people who have nothing but positive things to say about Nar-Anon (or A.A. or N.A. or Al-Anon), yes, alas, the committed members are pretty thoroughly brainwashed. That is why they stay members. And dissent is strongly discouraged.

It's like a filtration process. The people who still have a working brain and some remaining common sense walk out, leaving only the deluded true believers at the meetings to tell you that Nar-Anon or N.A. or A.A. or whatever is really great.

But fortunately we have the Internet as another meeting place.

Have a good day now.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
*
**     "...AA certainly functions as a cult and systematically
**     indoctrinates its members in ways common to cults the
**     world over.  ...in the absence of proven scientific
**     efficacy, critics are legitimate in suggesting that
**     mandated AA attendance may be criticized as a failure
**     of proper separation between church and state."
**     == A.A. Trustee Prof. Dr. George E. Vaillant,
**     The Natural History Of Alcoholism Revisited, page 266.

May 07, 2012, Monday: The Fernhill Wetlands Three goslings of the Family of 6 The new little one is in front. May 08, 2012, Tuesday: The Fernhill Wetlands The New Mother plus her 3 goslings The New Family of 3 They are very timid at this point, and the parents are very wary when their babies are this young. They won't come near me, not even to get bread. They are just extremely protective of those new babies. The New Family of 3 [More gosling photos below, here.]

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters314.html#Paul_P ]

Date: Sat, June 30, 2012 2:01 am     (answered 1 July 2012)
From: "Paul P."
Subject: Your name is very appropriate.

It says in the reading that rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Key word.... Thoroughly. Most can not be honest enough to thoroughly follow that path. Instead, they look for easier softer ways such as you advise. 95% do fail because they listen to people like you who condone being locked in a closet while detoxing. If people die after reading your words, I hope you have a conscience that can suffer.

Hello Paul,

Thanks for the letter. What you are describing there is called Lying With Qualifiers. Bill Wilson had a habit of telling tall tales, and making completely untrue statements, and then inserting a little qualifier in there as an escape hatch for when people discovered that what he said was untrue. In this case "thoroughly followed our path" is the escape from the lie that Bill Wilson rarely saw people fail in A.A. The truth is that Bill Wilson saw great numbers of people not get sober in A.A.

Another example of lying with qualifiers is Bill Wilson's completely untrue report of a great A.A. success rate:

Of alcoholics who came to A.A. and really tried, 50% got sober at once and remained that way; 25% sobered up after some relapses, and among the remainder, those who stayed on with A.A. showed improvement.
Bill Wilson, in 1955, in the Foreword to the Second Edition of the Big Book, page XX.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
*
**     Bill Wilson on alcoholics:
**     "They are not at fault. They seem to have been born that way.
**     They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a
**     manner of living which demands rigorous honesty."
**       ==  William G. Wilson, Alcoholics Anonymous, page 58.

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters314.html#MKathleen ]

Date: Sat, June 30, 2012 8:45 am     (answered 1 July 2012)
From: "MKathleen"
Subject: Aa is a cult

Hopefully, you will receive this email.

My partner and i stopped going to 12 step programs because we were sick and tired of the members acting out on us. Proof to me that this is a cult is when we left and the members started following us around. It has been very isolating and i wonder if you could put me in touch with a support source or someone i could call. I am really concerned about my partner.

Thank you,
MKathleen

Hello MKathleen,

Thanks for the letter, and I hope you are doing well. Congratulations on seeing the truth and getting out of there.

I have a good list of better support groups. You have a wide range of choices. I put it together as a separate file that can be easily printed. Here it is:
The list of non-cult organizations and methods.

There are a bunch of good people to be found there, and you can contact them in a variety of ways, ranging from online chat groups to face-to-face meetings in many cities. You also have a choice of philosophies and strategies and flavors, ranging from complete abstinence to moderation management and harm reduction.

Please do not hesitate to write back if you have any more questions.

And have a good day now.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     I do not believe in people telling others of their faith, especially
**     with a view to conversion.  Faith does not admit of telling. It has to
**     be lived and then it becomes self-propagating.
**       ==  Mahatma Gandhi, October 20, 1927.
**         All Men Are Brothers, Mahatma Gandhi, page 55.

[The previous letter from Jon_G is here.]

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters314.html#Jon_G ]

Date: Sat, June 30, 2012 9:25 pm     (answered 3 July 2012)
From: "Jon G."
Subject: Re: you did it

hell man that lens is sharp and the price is right , never heard of it. I used to pay a couple of thousand for a lens but that was because they were f 2.8 which meant you could shoot much faster in lower light. but who needs it when now you can just adjust your asa and get faster. i'm a nikon man myself but many of my friends are in love with canon and I can see why , full frame sensor for one. hey keep shooting can't wait to see whats next. jon

Hi again, Jon,

Yes, Panagor was an obscure brand that never got advertised much, and wasn't well-known. In fact, nobody ever heard of it. I didn't know about it until I read a Wikipedia page about Kiron and Kino Precision Optical. Nevertheless, Kino seems to have put as much care into it as they did their other more famous lenses, like the legendary Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm zoom lens.

And yes, I much prefer paying $120 rather than $2000 for a lens. That's why I like to try out old legacy lenses.

The speed of the lens is not great. The aperture is fixed at F/8. So it isn't exactly the same thing as a $2000 giant white tube 500mm lens from Canon or Nikon. But a lot cheaper. And in the summer sun, it does okay, as you can see.

One of the things that I hear about mirror lenses if that if they aren't really great, they are really terrible. There are a bunch of cheap no-name mirror lenses for sale on ebay, and from what I hear, they are trash.

Nikon makes a full-frame camera too, the D3 I think, but it's very expensive, and you won't find a cheap one on ebay.

Nikon is nice. I have a couple of N8008 film cameras that are real jewels, and some old Nikon lenses that I reuse on digital cameras with adapters. Super-tough, high-quality construction (unlike the advertised "Olympus build quality"), and the feel in my hands is a dream. Those cameras really make me wish I could insert a new "digital film" module into an old film camera like the N8008. That would be fun.

I was considering buying a new Nikon D90 as my next camera until I learned that Nikon had crippled the camera by making it turn off if you mount a legacy lens on the camera. I couldn't believe it, and had to double-check to make sure it was true. Nikon used to have world-class backwards compatibility. Nobody was better. You could mount almost any old Nikon or third-party NAI-mount lens from the 'sixties or 'seventies on any new Nikon camera and it would work perfectly, no problem. (The only notable exception being the famous fish-eye lens that stuck too far inside of the camera body.) Great backwards compatibility. But not any more. If you mount an old Nikon lens on a new Nikon digital camera, the camera turns off and gives you a red error message of "No lens recognized." Now, only the most expensive Nikon cameras will allow you to use old lenses. So I sadly scratched Nikon off of my shopping list, and went and bought a used Canon 5D full-frame camera instead, for about the same money. Nikon just shot itself in the foot by pulling an Olympus stunt.

Yes, Olympus pulled a couple of dirty tricks like that on me, too. Deceptive advertising to the max. I bought a new Olympus E-510 digital camera because they were advertising "in-body image stabilization works with any existing lens". But then I learned that they turned off the image stabilization if you mounted an old lens on the camera with an adapter. Even an old Olympus lens. (And of course I didn't figure that out until after the 2-week return period was expired.) I had to post embarrassing messages all over the Internet for six months to get Olympus to turn it back on. On dpreview.com I'm "terrance13":

1. http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1022&message;=25765524
2. http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1022&message;=25765581

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     There's nothing worse than a brilliant image of a fuzzy concept.
**       ==  Ansel Adams

[The previous letter from Meatbag is here.]

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters314.html#Meatbag ]

Date: Thu, June 28, 2012 8:51 pm     (answered 3 July 2012)
From: "Meatbag"
Subject: Re: Orange Papers as ebook

By the way, here's the cult member career I built for my Sims 2 game. It won't do any good to attach the actual package file, so here's a text file with job descriptions and chance cards, instead. Chance cards are pop-ups that give you two options, which can either succeed or fail, and have a chance of appearing while your sim is at work. You can ignore the chance cards, but what fun is that? Also, job level 0 is unemployment, so if any of the chance cards bring a sim to that level, they're fired.

Attached file = gods_army_spoilers.txt

Hi again, Meatbag,

Now that is funny. That file is an interesting read, even if I can't figure out how to plug it into my SIMS game right now.

Date: Sun, July 1, 2012 12:08 am     (answered 3 July 2012)
From: "Meatbag"
Subject: Re: Orange Papers as ebook

Man, that game sounds like it would be a lot of fun. Pity I don't have much in the way of programming skills. At least not yet.

I must say, I put that career in my game, and combined with the already-existing cult leader job, it's a lot of fun. Cult leader gets to live in a ginormous, obscenely expensive mansion, while the cult members live in tiny little houses with no room to expand. Not that they can afford to, anyway. I'm working on the second in-game week, and I already have stuff that could fit in your horror stories section if it happened in real life. For instance, I had two toddlers in two different families that grew up without meeting a single milestone out of three, because the parents were too busy being in the cult to teach their children anything. It's a good thing that has no repercussions in the game, other than one of the toddlers growing up completely miserable.

I also had my first suicide in the cult. A bachelor moved to the cult island, in the hopes of leaving his past as a home-wrecker behind and reforming. However, the 15-hour work days proved to be too much for him. He could not keep a good cultish attitude, and as a result, he was kicked out of the cult. He called and begged the cult leader to let him back in, but he would not allow it. To add insult to injury, he was about to be kicked out of his home. He ended up ordering an incendiary bomb and detonated it inside his house. It was a final act of defiance from somebody who never realized he was fighting the system.

As for the cats, I can understand why you find those cats spooky. It is sad that they live off of ducklings, even though carnivores need to eat. Nature can be brutal at times. A lot of rural feral cats seem to be like that. That fits the feral cats around my mother's house pretty well. One of my cats accidentally got left outside at night a couple of weeks ago, and ended up in a fight with one of the ferals. She still has a scab on her butt. She also no longer tries to get outside at night.

Of course, there are exceptions. One time, when I lived on a farm, this little cat showed up on the back porch. Every time she saw a person, she would come up to them and rub up against them. She purred all the time. She would beg to be let in the house. Eventually, we let her in. She became one of the cats I have today. Incidentally, when we took her in to get spayed, we got denied the feral cat discount because she was too friendly. And she's still a friendly kitten-at-heart.

So, what sort of personalities have you noticed with geese?

Hi again, Meatbag,

Now that cult game really sounds like it has it's possibilities. I still have Sims 1, so I'm not sure what I can do with it. I have played with it very little. I need to erase all of it and re-install it, because they have a goofy system of you must install the game and expansion packs in the correct order, and only use one CD as the key disk when trying to run the game. (Notice that I said, "Trying to run the game.")

Yes, Sim-Cult could be a real laugh.

Speaking of which, are you hearing about Katie Holmes divorcing Tom Cruise, apparently because she is afraid that Scientology is going to kidnap and brainwash her child? I was wondering how long that marriage would last. I wasn't expecting it to last very long. When you marry Tom Cruise, you are marrying Scientology.

Foisting Lafayette Ronald Hubbard's insanity on innocent children is a crime. I'm glad to hear that Katie Holmes is going to save her child from that.

About those feral cats: It sounds like your friendly one had previous contact with humans, and was maybe even somebody's pet that strayed, and was looking for a comfortable home again. The feral cat that I saw along the shore of the Willamette River was totally wild, born in the wild from a wild mother, and it had never had anything to do with humans, and it feared humans and wouldn't get near them. It just hissed and glared at me. It reminded me of a vampire that I saw in a horror movie.

Canada Geese have as many different personalities as people. And what is amazing is that they are born that way. They come out of the eggshell with distinct personalities. Blondie, for instance, was the friendliest gosling I ever knew. Ever, of any year, of any family (other than the goslings that I was raising, who considered me their foster mother). He would look me in the eye and chirp "hello" when he saw me, and come on over to see what munchies I had for him. And he did that from the first day that we knew each other.

Blondie, flapping

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**    "All our geese are swans."
**    Robert Burton (1577—1640)
**    The Anatomy of Melancholy, pt. I, sec. 2, member 3, subsec. 14

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters314.html#Dave_W ]

Date: Sun, July 1, 2012 8:47 pm     (answered 3 July 2012)
From: "Dave W."
Subject: [Orange Papers] (Don't get me wrong, AA/NA are total religious...

Dave Wood posted in Orange Papers

(Don't get me wrong, AA/NA are total religious programs.)
Positive things I got from 12-step meetings:

• 1) Made some great friends that accept me and my willpower-based abstinence. If I was in a bind they were just a phone call away (they are few in number, but they know better than to preach stepwork to me when I was struggling).
• 2) Reinforced my self-reliance.
• 3) Had fun counting slogans and other 'Step-Speak' (For instance: Counting how many times in one meeting — or one share — people say, "These Rooms.")
• 4) Umm...oh yeah, one time a guy I hardly knew gave me a free Red Bull.
• 5) .......hmmmm......
• 6) ..............................................

Thanks for the laugh.

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters314.html#Chris_C ]

Date: Sun, July 1, 2012 9:55 pm     (answered 3 July 2012)
From: "Chris C."
Subject: Sensational

Orange,

I have thoroughly enjoyed the site and plan to spend even more time in the future. I was VERY close to swallowing the Kool-Aid in AA, but could not explain one thing... What in the hell did I have a stronger craving for alcohol AFTER a meeting than before? Every time without fail.

I actually did a 4th step and half of a fifth step before sanity prevailed. I was sitting in a room off of the main hall with my sponsor and another member going through my lists of "sins", when it hit me. I'm telling a guy who spent 8 years in prison and another guy who basically abandoned two children to the state my deepest, darkest secrets that were nowhere near the level these guys stooped. Insanity of the highest order. I excused myself and promptly left the building. I won't be back.

Ever since I have stopped, the cravings for alcohol have decreased as well as a general feeling of despair and dread that hung over me constantly while attending up to two meetings a day. Dark, very dark is the only way I can describe my AA experience. In fact, I believe that if you have any moral or religious beliefs at all, every fiber of your being sounds alarm as you are sucked into the morass of AA.

Anecdotal? Sure, but it is my experience. Thanks for your hard work proving that I am NOT crazy. Sober now for over a year by use of my own faculties.

Chris

Hello Chris,

Thank you for the letter, and of course I couldn't agree more. Congratulations on your escape from the madhouse. And I'm glad that you stopped your Fifth Step before they got too much blackmail material. And congratulations for your year of sobriety.

I also experienced A.A. meetings making me want to drink, and N.A. meetings making me want to get high on drugs. That's one of the reasons that I don't go any more. I'd be fine before I went to the meeting, but boy was I thinking about it when I got out of the meeting. Funny how that works. That is just the opposite of what is supposed to happen. I don't know if it's osmosis, soaking up other people's desires, or just the power of suggestion, spending an hour going down memory lane, but there is no doubt that those 12-Step meetings were reawakening the old desires, making the vampire rise up from his grave.

Other people have reported the same thing too. Life is just easier without that.

So have a good life now, and a good day.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
*
**     The Hungry Ghost
**     Hungry ghost: that dwells in consciousness, torments our desire
**     Sexy ghost, a performer, a demon, a gadfly
**     To never have enough be enough get enough
**     Dancing on coals
**     In a state of mind, bewitched, unsettled over what
**      he thinks or she thinks, what they think
**     What the "I" thinks: hieroglyph for the hungry ghost
**     Unsatisfied — dancing on nails!
**        —  Anne Waldman, "Sleeping with the Hungry Ghost"
**         http://www.tricycle.com/feature/sleeping-hungry-ghost

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters314.html#John_L ]

Date: Sun, July 1, 2012 10:02 pm     (answered 3 July 2012)
From: "John L."
Subject: A.A. and mind control

Hello, I came across the orange paper and found it to be quite intriguing. Unfortunately you take so much out of context and leave out any personal experience which is where true wisdom comes from. If you have an alternative method of treatment for the 'medical condition' called alcoholism you surely did not reveal it. Which makes your page just a rant. Go to a doctor and tell him your symptoms (drinking is a symptom) and he will tell you that you 'may ne'er an alcoholic and to try an AA meeting and call him in the morning.

Hello John,

Thanks for the letter.

• First off, no I do not "take things out of context", or "quote out of context." Just quoting things is not "taking things out of context." We've been over that so many times. We just covered that again in a recent letter, here:
  http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters312.html#Walter_S.

• I actually include a lot of autobiographical information in my web site. At times I worry whether it is too much. My personal experiences do not really have much to do with the A.A. failure rate. Personal stories are often little more than Proof by Anecdote. My personal history does not increase or decrease the A.A. sobriety rate by a single percentage point. The A.A. failure rate will be just the same, no matter whether I was in the Honor Society or lived on a hippie commune. My personal experiences are pretty irrelevant when we are talking about how A.A. fails to help alcoholics.

  Nevertheless, you can find a bunch of autobiographical information here:

  • How did you get to where you are?
  • Autobiography for SOS

• And it is not a question of whether I have "wisdom". I get the feeling that you want each rap to begin with, "Hi my name is Terry, and I'm an alcoholic. By the grace of God and some wonderful cult or other I have not had a drink or a hit of dope in over 11 years." Would that really make my facts any truer?

• I most assuredly do tell people about what works. I've said it so many times that I fear that some people may think that I'm a salesman for other programs or organizations. Here is the list of non-cult organizations and methods.

• My doctor, and he was a good one, never told me to go to an A.A. meeting. What he said was, "Quit drinking or die. Choose one. Now you know what the truth is, and I'm not going to waste my breath repeating myself. So you go do whatever you are going to do. But it would be a shame to see a nice guy like you die when you have so much love to give."

  I thought it over for a month, and drank on it some more, and thought about it some more, and finally decided to live, and accepted the fact that my drinking career was over. That was almost 12 years ago, now, and I haven't had a drink in all that time.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**  "Dogma is the sacrifice of wisdom to consistency."
**      ==  Lewis Perelman

May 08, 2012, Tuesday: The Fernhill Wetlands The New Family of 3 The New Family of 3, with the babies protectively sandwiched between the parents One of the Family of 6 The Small One of the Family of 6 [The story of the goslings continues here.]

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Last updated 9 March 2013.
The most recent version of this file can be found at http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters314.html