Date: Fri, February 15, 2013 10:02 pm (Answered 18 February 2013) Hello Orange. I have written you some time ago. I read all your letters, and you have helped me immensely break away from the cult, and group like thinking of the 12 step religion. Breaking away from the cult as a social function has seemed to be harder then I thought. A year ago I became fully aware that the 12 steps are fake. Due to relationships I have made as well as the habit of going to meetings, has made it much harder for me break away from. I was going thru this phase of trying to enlighten people to how much nonsense AA is. I tell many people to check out the orange-papers. The bottom line is they just tell me, "This is a 12 step fellowship" and they don't want to hear anything requiring critical thinking. In March I will be celebrating 9 years. I intend to quit AA Cold turkey at the end of March after I celebrate. I intend on staying completely sober, as I have for almost 9 years, completely on my own will power. The problem with leaving AA is the years of propaganda telling me that I was powerless has conditioned me to live with constant fear. I do not wish anyone to feel the emptiness that drinking and drugs has caused, nor the sense of self loathing that AA subjects on its members. I just want to live a Happy and normal life again. Thanks for giving me a little bit of hope Orange.!!! Over the last year I have been visiting a psychologist, because even though it is irrational, I am so full of fear that if I stop going I might drink, or die or go insane. Most of the time that I spend with him I go off on a big rant against AA. I did have a moment of clarity just last week. I was so bored, as work is slow this time of year, I went to a noon meeting. The format was a reading from "As Bill Sees It" The title of the paragraph was "No one has ever thought themselves sober" I might be paraphrasing, but it was the worst war on self bullshit I have ever read. Reading that one paragraph has opened my eyes to what a total manipulative jerk Bill Wilson was. It was designed for the entire purpose of building up a sense of self hatred, and low self esteem. What also gets me is that there are a lot of otherwise good people there who are being taken totally advatage of. The literature makes people nuts, and it destroys self esteem. I hope that I can recover from recovery. LOL!! Anyway, As a person who reads your site a lot, I have noticed in past letters a lot of discussion on Jung and his collaborations with the Nazis. Do you feel that Jung has not contributed anything in the field of Psychology despite his ties, and Pro-Nazi sentiment? In college Jung was required reading alongside Freud. (Freud himself was not immune to scandal) Do you think that Jung was over-rated, or that his contributions to psychology had any merit despite of his scandals? Rational S PS please withold my real name and email address. People in the cult are so nuts I don't want a Rabbit's head on my lawn!!!
Hello Rational,
Thanks for the letter and the compliments.
I'm glad to hear that you are free and doing better. Congratulations.
Yes, breaking away from the social circle
is hard. (See the signature below.)
Refuting bad ideas is much easier than feeling all alone and isolated.
The best fix for that that I can think of is to go find another group, or several groups,
to hang out with.
It could be anything — a sports team, or a chess club, or a political club, or a university
night class in music, art, or basket-weaving,
or anything. The point is to just find some groups of people that do things that you
enjoy doing. Then you won't be so alone.
You are quite right about the self-hatred thing. Bill Wilson just ranted and raved hatred
of alcoholics non-stop. I think it was really projection. Bill hated his own weakness and
addictive behavior, so he argued, "Look at that disgusting alcohol! We are all like that."
I have a whole file full of that stuff:
The "Us Stupid Drunks" Conspiracy.
On top of that, the constant put-downs are good for making newcomers become
weak, subservient, obedient, self-doubting members of the cult.
Carl Jung is a mixed bag.
I can't help but feel that he is over-rated. When I was reading
biographies of him,
I learned some things like: In the morning, Jung's assistant Jolande Jacobi
would interview the patients and discuss things with them, and suggest things, and
plant ideas and images in their minds. Then in the afternoon, Carl Jung would interview the
same patients, and find "universal archetypes" in the minds of his patients. No, they weren't
universal archetypes, they were just the ideas that Jolande planted a few hours earlier.
That blows away a lot of Jung's "research" and "discoveries".
Now does it totally discredit Jung's ideas? No, I don't think so.
I have very mixed feelings on that subject, because twice, I had some stunning experiences
of getting mystical images that I had no rational or explainable reason to get.
The first time I got
tripping-and-passing-out high on marijuana, I saw a circular mandala that was the wheel of life.
All of birth and life and death was in this big wheel that slowly rotated.
But I wasn't into Eastern religions or mysticism yet. So where did that image come from?
And then, the first time that I died and left my body on acid, I saw an angel with four faces
that faced 90 degrees apart (like one faced north, and one south, and one east, and one west).
I had never seen anything like it.
Thirty-four years later, I found a stone sculpture of that angel in a shop on
6th Avenue in Portland, Oregon, that had been taken (stolen?) from a temple
somewhere in India or Southeast Asia. I could see from the broken base that the head and neck
had been snapped off of the body of a larger sculpture.
Unfortunately, it was already sold to someone else and I didn't have any money anyway.
Again, where did those images come from? Are there really universal archetypes?
I suspect that Carl Jung may have been onto something,
but there are immense problems with him making too many false assumptions
and arbitary judgements, including his endorsement of Nazi psychology
and condemnation of Jewish (Freudian) psychology.
Those people who wish to follow the whole debate about Carl Jung can find it at these
links:
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Thu, February 14, 2013 6:56 am (Answered 20 February 2013) I have had problems with alcohol since I was legally able to drink. Had DUIs. Sentenced to programs to take AA. Everything you say here is so true. People have no idea what is really going on in AA. Most believe it it a professional recovery program. The "counselors" who work at these DUI schools are just AA cult recruiters. It's evil to watch them prey on people who are in a helpless position. A guy is in a DUI class because he got caught at a check point. He's technically over the limit but he did not get stopped for bad driving. Now he is being confronted by some former gang member who fancies himself a "drug counselor" because he has an Associates Degree from a community college. An Associates means he was able to squeeze by basic math and english courses. He understands nothing of the statistics he quotes. He's barely literate. But he's going to lecture this person on the "relationship with alcohol."
Illiterate Pseudo-Counselor: When did you first drink? I honestly think these people are evil. Evil bullies. This former gangbanger gets off on being able to have some power over the middle class people he thinks screwed him. This Tuesday was 32 weeks with no alcohol. 100% No AA. Longer than anytime I was in AA. I'm not a "dry drunk" and I am confronting my issues and not blaming myself for everything. Thank you for this resource whoever you are. You do know the truth. The stuff here was written by someone who was obviously involved in these groups.
Hello Erik,
Thank you for the letter and all of the compliments, and I couldn't agree more.
And congratulations on your sobriety. That's really good, and it will improve your life so much.
Now I don't want to brag, but I have 12 years of sobriety now, and I don't go to A.A. meetings
at all, either. I only went to them for about 3 months because I was required to.
Then, when I learned that I could go to
SMART meetings instead,
I switched over to them because they were such a breath of fresh air, and you could tell
the truth, and nobody jabbered crazy cult religion dogma at you.
But I haven't gone to any kind of meetings in 9 or 10 years now. I just live.
By the way, you might like
SMART, or SOS.
You can learn some useful things there. They will give you some real tools.
I know that A.A. likes to brag that
they will give you "the tools you need to stay sober", but that's a bunch of bull.
As one wit said, "When A.A. says that they are going to give you
the tools you will need to maintain sobriety, what they mean is:
'Here is a pocket knife, toenail clippers, and a lighter. Now you have
all of the tools you need to change a flat tire.'"
Speaking of tools, there is one web page that I recommend above all others for staying
sober, especially in the first year:
The Lizard-Brain Addiction Monster.
Please read that, just for giggles and grins. It can't hurt.
And here is a catch-all of other discussions about what helps and how to do it:
How did you get to where you are?
I also went through a voluntary outpatient rehab "treatment program"
for "alcoholism" (in trade for housing in a homeless shelter),
and my experiences were similar to yours. Actually,
our particular class was more older people and we didn't have the vulnerable
teenager in our class, but I met some of them, particularly the ones who got
shoved into rehab by "drug court" and "drunk driving court".
But we had the rest of the horror story.
My particular 12-Step "counselor", if you want to call him that, at the
"treatment center" posted A.A. slogans all over the walls of the meeting
room. "Just For Today" "Easy Does It" And then he jabbered nonsense
at us like
"I'm teachable today. I don't know if I will relapse tomorrow. Your
disease wants to kill you.
You need a Higher Power in your recovery program.
Go to at least three meetings a week and get a sponsor."
Then he went home at night, and snorted cocaine, and looked at child porn on his
computer, and then raped his step-children. They arrested and convicted him for
it after I "graduated", and shipped him off to the state penitentiary
for several years. That's quite some "counselor". Glad I didn't follow
his advice.
You can read the rest of the story here:
Yes, I got quite an education, although it wasn't the one that I had signed up for.
And actually, that child-molesting Stepper was a big part of the inspiration to do this web site.
When I saw what a total fraud "drug and alcohol treatment" really was,
I said, "Somebody should do something about that."
Speaking of which, you wondered who was doing the web site. My birth name is
Terrance Hodgins, and I live in a small town in rural Oregon, west of Portland.
You can get all of the autobiographical information here:
Have a good day and a good life now.
== Orange
Date: Mon, February 18, 2013 2:14 am (Answered 20 February 2013) O, Your papers really meant a lot to me when I needed them most. I was at a point where I needed reassurance that I was, in fact, not the delusional one, even though I knew it deep down. I would love to join the conversation on the forum if possible. Thank you so much. Grateful for your hard work, Alex
Hello Alex,
Thanks for the letter and the compliments. I'm glad to hear that you get something good
out of the Orange Papers. And yes, you aren't alone, or delusional. In fact,
there are millions of us. It's the A.A. true believers who are a deluded minority.
Joining the forum is easy. Go to the first page of the forum,
Then email me and tell me what user name you registered. That is important, so that
I know who to unblock. I'm still getting several times as many spammers' registrations
as real people signing up, so I keep all of the new registrants blocked until
people email me and ask me to approve them. Almost none of the spammers will go to
that effort.
Things with the spammers are much, much, better now that I have
a couple of anti-spam modules installed that stop most of them.
The situation got so bad that I had 35,000 fake registrations
to wade through, trying to find the real people. The spammers, especially the creeps
in Russia, run computer programs — "spambots" —
day and night, just hammering forums, creating millions of fake user accounts,
trying to get the ability to post advertisements
for everything from fake Canadian pharmacies selling fake Viagra to London call girls.
Or Russian girls for sale.
Or roofing services on the Oregon coast. Or diet drugs and diet foods.
Or knock-off women's shoes and handbags and watches.
Or schemes to hack your phone.
The variety is amazing. Well anyway, I'm keeping the spammers out.
But they are determined and fight back.
When I put up a CAPTCHA puzzle — that little box with letters and numbers
in it that people have to type — something that is very easy for a human to do but very
hard for a computer program to figure out — they responded by employing long tables of
poorly-paid employees in third-world countries where labor is cheap, and those wage-slaves
sit in front of computers and
type in
the fake registrations all day and all night.
So you still get hundreds or thousands of spam registrations per day.
So then I put in a module that checks the IP number of the registrant and compares it to
tables of IP numbers of the most outrageous spammers. And rejects the bad guys. Now things
have calmed down and I'm only getting a dozen or two bad registrations per day, instead of
hundreds or thousands.
And it took a while, but I finally cleared out all 35,000 of the fake registrations.
And for everybody else: Anybody who registered more than a week
ago, and still hasn't been approved, please try reregistering with the same user name as before. If you
can do it without an error message that the name is already taken, then that means that
your registration got erased along with the 35,000 fake ones. Sorry about that. So
reregister, and respond to the verification email. And then, no matter whether you had
to reregister or not, email me and tell me your user name.
The user name is important, because that's the only way I can find somebody in
the system. Unfortunately, the Drupal forum software that I'm using only looks people up
by user name, and I can't search by email address.
So please remember to tell me your user name.
And have a good day.
== Orange
Date: Sun, February 17, 2013 10:49 am (Answered 20 February 2013)
Hi Dmitry,
Thanks for the links.
Wow. The Moonies are still at it. Some people just never learn.
So now the minister at the mass marriages is Hak Ja-han — the widow of Sun Myung Moon —
also known as "The Perfect Mother".
I wonder how long that insanity will continue? Proving, once again, that fully 50% of the human
race has below-average intelligence.
By the way, I don't want to leave the impression that they are crazy just because they
have mass marriages. No, it's much more vicious stuff than that.
Steve Hassan
has written some books about his experiences during several years in the Moonies,
and it was the whole cult religion routine from
deceptive recruiting,
to years of
abuse and exploitation
in the cult, to cold rejection when he
was badly injured in a car accident and could no longer serve Rev. Moon.
Date: Mon, February 18, 2013 12:21 pm (Answered 20 February 2013)
Yes, thanks for that. That's a fair article that asks a few good questions, like why
does "Celebrity Rehab" have such a high death rate?
And the comments are especially good, with some of them very pointedly asking why cult religion
is being used as treatment for addictions or mental illness.
What is becoming increasingly obvious is the fact that an old confessional cult religion
from the nineteen-thirties is not a good treatment program for addiction or mental illness.
Oh well, have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Mon, February 18, 2013 8:38 am (Answered 20 February 2013) Hey Orange. I was saddened to hear about Mindy McCready's suicide, but the Dr. Drew connection really saddens (and angers me) even more: http://news.yahoo.com/singer-mindy-mccready-dies-apparent-suicide-042201275.html
McCready is the fifth celebrity to pass away since appearing on Pinsky's show and the third from Season 3. Alice in Chains bassist Mike Starr and "Real World" participant Joey Kovar both died of overdoses.
At the time, Pinsky thought the relationship was on the right track: "She's an easy person to like and to care about and we hope she does well," Pinsky said. "So far so good as far as I can tell." McCready said her main goal in 2010 was to pull her family back together: "I would like my son back with me and for my brothers and I and he to be able to go and do this (TV reality show), and I think after that I will be a pretty happy girl. Will the general public ever WAKE UP and see that these "experts" are not helping these people???? I would bet my bottom dollar that Dr. Drew Pinsky will be all over CNN and other media over the next few days blaming anything and everything but himself, including her ability to work an "honest program". No, he didn't pull the trigger but he failed to help all of these sad cases. Dennis M.
Hello again, Dennis,
Thank you for the letter and the link. I can only agree. I find Dr. Drew's show despicable.
I must confess that I've never seen it, but I've heard enough to get a pretty good idea
of what's going on there. Here are a few of the previous stories:
It's crazy to imagine that an old guilt-inducing cult religion from 1935 is supposed to be the best
cure for drug and alcohol problems. The constant confessions in Steps 4, 5, 8, and 9 are
so depressing that they drive people to suicide.
When people really believe that they are spiritually defective and powerless and diseased and
cannot ever recover, suicide starts to look good.
Also, trying to treat what are obviously cases of mental illness with cult religion is the worst
kind of quackery.
It's appalling that the network allows the show to continue foisting quack medicine on sick people.
But I guess they will do anything for ratings.
Readers also found a couple of other links that describe the same story. Some of the comments are good:
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Tue, February 19, 2013 6:53 am (Answered 20 February 2013) I'm German and I try to give you a short introduction from myself: How I was — what happened — and whats now; the same procedure with another direction. I considered myself für more than 3 (three) decades as a member of AA. During this time I attend AA-Meetings for around 12 Years on regular basis. I've never worked the Steps as it was requested, so I never attended a 12-Step-Meeting regulary. This was not necessary for me, because I believed ONE God when I arrived at Alcoholic Anonymous, so I never need to rely on a Doorknop or as we say here in Germany on the AA-Table. I physically left AA around 10 years ago, relapsed after being sober for nearly 2 decades. I was back drinking for 2 or 2,5 half years, I'm not sure about it. Than I decided to stop drinking and I did. I stayed sober on my own on a 24h basis and did'nt see any need to attend a meeting of AA. This was in 2006 and I'm still without Alcohol. Last October I learned from the teachings of a so-called spiritual teacher, that 12-Step-Program would be good tool to experience spirtual growth! hmmm — I thought, okay — this might be right, I must have been wrong in some way, otherwise I would not have relapsed and so I decided to attend Online-Meetings of AA. From the very beginning I felt miserable. It seems to me like one put his fingers on an app and a program is running. I found myself miserable more and more and I decided that it is important now to find out what's going on with me. So I stayed; was asked strange questions about my sobriety, was doubted to be sober, attacked in many ways and I had to fight myself all the day long. And I did! I felt like the that last Mohician — no allied people around — pfui Teufel — who the devis is the devil? I don't know why, but I googled Wilson to be an mason! What I found out, convinced me, this will never work, never, never!!!!! It took me more than 3 Month and some different meetings to find out, that it was the system and not the people who are insane. On the beginning with AA I had to figure out was an Agnostic is and in which way this term is used in the chapter "We Agnostics" and I came to the conclusion, that the Oldtimers did not all belong to this root of philosophy called Agnosticism, but they found themself in a attitude of that state of mind. This agnostic attitude means to be a person, denying and believing there is nothing to know at the end and which will not allow to face realty. After all it turned out for me, that it is my job to get another attitude, another state of mind to face Alcoholism as well as life. I started getting rid of the agnostic state of mind! I hope, you'll understand what I mean, I'm out of training in english. Let me give you an example:
If you'll ask an Agnostic if AA is a cult, he will answer:
If you'll ask an Gnostic if AA is a cult, he will answer: Yes it is! Because the difference between both is that the Agnostic is a blind believer in some wishful thinking! The Gnostic is a non-believer, is one who needs to know and wants to know, checking out, going deeper and look from all sides to one subject; and he is the one who knows at the end. To believe is at the very end when nothing is to be known. Knowing means end of discussion; I know what it is! This brings peace of mind!!! Isn't that funny; Mr. Wilson's BB caused me to find out what an Agnostic is and a Gnostic? Isn't it terrible, how long Mr. Wilson made me believe AA — made me blind and made me use an agnostic look to see AA? Because Alcoholics Anonymus put it on my Agenda, I believed in AA. The enemy of my enemy turned out to be my enemy! How about spiritual growth I asked for while starting to go back to the meetings? :-) :-) :-) :-) In Germany AA calls the Big Book the Blue Book! I moved in a very short time from the Blue Book to Orange Papers — seem to me like spiritual growth! So what you are doing with Orange-Papers is Gnostic, is information, is helping people to became aware of things happening to them, while they are in aa cult, is bringing light to darkness, is helping people to get "Gnosis — Knowing — Understanding" for their life. AA is exposing itself by a gnostic attitude of mind!
That's spiritual growth, isn't it?
With warmest regards
Hello, "Chris"
Guten Tag and danke für deine Briefe. Und danke für die Komplimente.
Deine English is gut genug; ich kann es verstehen.
Und ja, ich spreche ein Bischen Deutsch. Ich wohnte in Wiesbaden als Student, 1962 bis 1965,
und liebte es.
(For the Americans, I said, "Good day, and thank you for the letter.
And thank you for the compliments. Your English is good enough,
I can understand it. And yes, I speak a bit of German. I lived in Wiesbaden (Germany) as a student
1962 to 1965, and loved it.)
And yes, you are quite right. Their ideas do not make sense (Wahnsinnig).
And their ideas contradict each other. They say so many contradictory things, like that
you don't have to believe anything,
and then you have to believe everything that they say.
And yes, you already saw how they will attack you if you say one thing that is a little different
from their standardized dogma.
They will not tolerate free thinkers at all.
Oh well, I'm happy to hear that you are sober without A.A. Congratulations, and have a good life now.
And have a good day.
== Orange
Date: Sun, February 17, 2013 7:08 am (Answered 20 February 2013) Hi Orange, and thank you for your site and all the stories you're collecting. Just a brief plea — if you are going to publish this on your site, please feel free to do so if you think it will be helpful, but please do call me Jemima or Sophia or something equally silly :-) I have coming up for ten years sobriety — all of them in AA — but am coming to the point now where I can't help but feel at meetings like I'm in some sort of cult. This feeling started a couple of years ago, mostly because I had decided to stop censoring what I read. I always loved science writing, and had been told by my sponsor to stop reading it as it would keep me 'in ignorance' of 'my higher power' (always been an atheist before AA). Instead, I had to read 'spiritual books' and 'be careful' of all the reading I was doing for my Political Science degree. I could be 'too clever' to get AA. She actually said to me, 'You know that slogan, think think think? That's not for you, honey.' Ugh. Well, I didn't read the books for 7 years of 'faking it to make it' — and just feeling like I was faking it. And after 7 years, I took a decision that I simply had to be true to myself and my beliefs and admit that I had not had a spiritual experience — at least not a religious one. I felt an awful lot better for not drinking and not being an arse to people I loved, but I just couldn't get hold of God having done this and not me. So, I read those books I'd been banned from, the ones I'd been reading all my life, and in fear and trembling, let go of my 'search' for faith. I honestly believed I would be 'struck drunk' the second I did it, that God who had been keeping me sober would suddely stop, but he didn't — I'm still here 3 years later. I don't share at meetings that I'm an atheist any more, because when I do, an 'old timer' invariably tries to indoctrinate me at the end of the meeting. I'm a fairly attractive woman in my 30s, and that 'indoctrination' tends to be fairly touchy-feely — makes me want to have a shower. Ugh again. A few things that have knocked me sick in AA:
Listen, I've gone on a rant here, but I just feel so relieved looking at your site. When I've shared about all the difficulties I've had with sponsors, people have told me 'have you considered that you might be the common element, the problem might be with you?' Now, I'm a scientist and if I have two hypotheses, the one which fits most of the facts is the correct one.
I'm pretty stable, haven't had a drink for nearly 10 years, know that I won't drink again (because it's not an option — 1 day at a time, bollocks, one day at a time, in a row, for the rest of my life more like). My kids and my wife light up when I come home, my house is happy and full of love, my job is challenging at times, but I love it, and most days I muddle through. When I go to an AA meeting, I feel sometimes uplifted (to hear about the good changes somebody is making in their life) but mostly just 'who *are* these people, and what planet are they on? And most of all, 'I feel so sorry for your families.' What's prompting me to try SMART this weekend (after years of being told that I'd drink if I went there, I've decided to risk it!) is that somebody told me that I needed a sponsor (after 3 years without one). THey said, 'pick somebody where you want what they have got.' Looking round the rooms of broken, damaged people, making themselves sicker by clinging to this odd, American cult, I couldn't see a single person. Made me think that, maybe, I'm in the wrong place. The only thing stopping me leaving entirely is that I've told my wife and family that if I ever tell them that I've decided to stop going to meetings, to be aware that I'm probably going to drink, because I need to go to AA for the rest of my life, and it's the only thing that keeps alcoholics like me sober. AA's indoctrinated me, and I've indoctrinated people who love me. I also said 'if I give you reasons for it, even if they sound reasonable, please don't accept them. You'd be better off without me than with me without AA.' So, quite what you do with that I don't know. I've been going to meetings and getting nothing from them for years — wasting time I could be spending wtih my family. Any suggestions welcome! I must sign off now — I really must. Just to say, thanks for the site, thanks for sharing these stories and taking the time to put it together, and thanks for being the voice of reason. If everybody seems mad and you seem sane, sometimes it's because you're mad. But sometimes it's because everybody else really is crazy. Very best wishes to you and yours, "Jemima or Sophia or something equally silly"
Hello "Jemima or Sophia or something equally silly",
Thank you for the letter and the compliments. I'm glad to hear that you are doing well, and
your mind has survived the madness. And no, it isn't you who is crazy.
You give a really good description of a lot of the A.A. madness. I don't want to just repeat
it all, so I won't.
About,
All that I can suggest is that you tell them you got misinformed by A.A., and that if
they have any doubts about that, they can start reading the Orange Papers. That will keep
them busy long enough to notice that you still aren't drinking.
Oh, and while I don't want to hold myself up as any kind of Sterling Example, you could
mention that I have 12 years of sobriety now and haven't been to an A.A. meeting in over 10 years.
And I only went to two A.A. meetings in the previous year and a half before those 10 years,
so I have only gone to 2 A.A. meetings in 11 1/2
years — and I only went to those meetings to pick up my 6-month and 1-year sobriety medallions.
Nevertheless, I'm still sober. So A.A. meetings are totally unnecessary.
What really counts is your decision to not kill yourself on alcohol, and
your commitment to sticking to that decision.
After that you can go play tiddly-winks, or join the Ladies' Home Garden Club,
or go watch a football game, or stay home and play with your children, or whatever.
About SMART: Yes, I think you will like it. I went for a while, and learned some good things.
You could also check out SOS. They have some good things too. The list of addresses is here:
Have a good day now, and a good life.
== Orange
Last updated 5 June 2013. |