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Date: Sun, June 23, 2013 2:22 pm (answered 26 June 2013) Hi Orange: I have spent 30+ years of my life in and out of AA, am 57 years old, and could and plan to write a book on my experiences with AA. I feel like I an awakening from a bad dream, that is my life, and a wasted life devoted to idiots and people who do not give two shits about me!!! Yes, I am very angry right now, when I look back at what I could have done with my life. There is so much I wish to share with you. It is bittersweet to see people's stories online, similar to what I've experienced. I've been thru it all, and have witnessed horrific things in AA. I look forward to sharing more with you and reading for validation, your blogs and site information. Thanks, please forward me a password so I can get on. renee
Hello Renee,
I just found your registration and approved it, so you are in. Welcome.
You can use whatever password you entered when you registered.
Sorry to hear about your bad experiences. There seems to be a lot of that.
Well, I'm happy that you are out of there now.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Mon, June 24, 2013 10:23 am (answered 28 June 2013) Hi, http://www.propublica.org/article/how-alcoholics-anonymous-can-be-a-playground-for-violence Karla Brada murder and critical review of AA is on HOME page of hard news paper by Gabrielle Glaser. PLease post everywhere and comment too if you like.
Thanks
Hello Monica,
Thank you for that. That is quite a story. And grim. And frightening. Go to A.A. and get murdered
by a psychopath that the judge sentenced to A.A. meetings.
I also found that somebody started a thread about this on the forum:
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Thu, June 27, 2013 7:36 pm (answered 30 June 2013) Hello Orange, I hope things are going well for you. It's been quite some time since I've done much reading in the main sections of your site, but I always try to keep up with the letters. I really enjoyed your recent thoughts on Frank Buchman and "The Five C's". You may be onto something with your thoughts on just how much he actually influenced the Chinese. I really don't know, but it's interesting to consider. I enjoyed reading about "The Five C's" because it brings back memories of when I first left AA, and also when I first discovered your site. I still remember how I felt when I ran across your observation that chapter seven of the Big Book could be thought of as a recruiting manual. That hit me like a ton of bricks. I remember going back and trying to read it again and seeing just how right you were. It made me angry too because I realized how I had been subjected to elements of those "Five C's" during my early indoctrination into the program. That simple, yet brilliant observation changed the way I looked at all of Bill Wilson's writings from then on. That particular chapter may be one of the more obvious examples of his con-artistry, but once you see it there, it makes it easier to see everywhere else. I'm not sure how or if it relates to "The Five C's" exactly, but another powerful part of AA's indoctrination process comes to mind as I write this, and that's service work. Steve Hassan did a brilliant job of describing just how important that is in his book, "Combatting Cult Mind Control." He described how The Moonies recognized that he was a pretty sharp guy and immediately put him on a fast track to leadership. He didn't have to stand in the airports selling flowers, but they gave him a van and let him oversee the ones who were. That fed his ego immediately and deepened his sense of obligation to the organization. The concept of service work in AA may not be as deliberately planned, but I believe the psychological effect is the same. I was named treasurer of my first home group while I was still fairly new. The group elders had several reasons to believe that I was a safe bet. That affected me in the same way that Steve Hassan described in his book. His observations about service work meant as much to me as your observations about that "recruiting manual", so I guess that's why it came to mind.
Anyway, thanks for all of the great work you do here, Rick.
Hello Rick,
Thanks for the letter and the compliments, and I'm glad to hear that you are awake.
About Frank Buchman and Chinese Communist brainwashing: That would make a great Ph.D. research
project for some historian who speaks Chinese, and who can sift through old Chinese records and
documents.
It would be fascinating to track the connections of who was in Dr. Frank Buchman's religious cult
in China in the nineteen-teens and -twenties,
and who then went on to join the Communists, and took the conversion techniques with him.
Of course, the historical documents may have all been destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.
The Communists would not want to advertize the fact that they learned coercive thought reform from a
pro-Nazi American Lutheran minister.
I do believe that it has to be more than a coincidence.
As one writer on the forum commented,
Just what did Frank Buchman really do in China?
RE:
Yes, once the light bulb goes on in your head and you really see, it's all over.
About
"service work": Yes, Steve Hassan has some good ideas there.
"Service work" is actually a powerful technique for changing people's minds.
It doesn't seem like it should be so powerful, but it is. When a newcomer works for the cult,
they take pride in their work and feel that they are contributing, so it makes them feel
useful and worthwhile.
They feel like they have an investment in the cult.
Some will actually stay in the cult just because they make the coffee and sweep the floor and
set up the chairs, and take them down afterwards. They have a place; they belong.
Many cults send newcomers out recruiting very soon, because it will bind them to
the cult. As the new members try to convince the
prospects of the truth of the guru's teachings, they will also convince themselves.
They will answer doubts in their own minds as they answer the critics' questions.
That is called
Actionizing, and Self-Sell.
And such service work also has a nice touch of
Cognitive Dissonance.
Cognitive Dissonance is the desire of people to keep their actions
and feelings and beliefs in harmony. Masters of manipulation discovered long ago that the best way to change
people's thoughts was to change their actions. Make them do something unusual, anything. As they
and their fellow members do it day after day, they will start to believe that what they are doing
is perfectly normal. "Don't all reasonable people do this?"
That way they subconsciously avoid the feeling that they are doing something stupid or silly.
Then, they can be induced to do or believe something else that is equally silly or stupid.
Then, when they have become accustomed to doing that,
lead them on to
something else, and then to something else, and then something else.
Eventually, they will be ready to obediently drink cyanide koolaid.
A related trick is "sharing". We all know how newcomers are expected to start sharing pretty soon,
and what they share must be "approved jabber" if they want to get approval from the crowd. They are
expected to say that A.A. is helping them and The Program is so wonderful and it really works.
Soon, the newcomers
will start to believe what they are saying, so that they don't have to feel like a lying fake.
They will change their beliefs so that they don't feel cognitive dissonance.
I saw the very same thing happening at Nichiren Shoshu meetings in Colorado back in 1971.
At each Sunday meeting or "church service",
new members were encouraged to stand up
and start listing all of the wonderful things that they
had gotten from chanting "Nam-myoho-renge-kyo" to a printed scroll.
(Surely, you must have gotten something, right?)
And I suppose, if you testify long enough about all of the good things that chanting to the
scroll has gotten you, you will start to believe it.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Thu, June 27, 2013 3:48 am (answered 7 July 2013) I think its about time the British and other nations became more organised against the cult of steppism than they are at present. I also think there needs to be more cooperation between the US Anti Steppers and those of the UK and other nations....... any person interested in contacting me can do so at noaau@yahoo.co.uk
Hello, NoAAuk,
Thanks for the activism. Good luck in all of your activities.
And have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Mon, July 1, 2013 11:24 am (answered 7 July 2013) I've read through some of your material and found it very supportive of many of my own thoughts. A truth of the matter for me is that I wish I had read your material prior to going down the rabbit hole, but some things can't be helped. I'm where I am in life and have made the best of those opportunities that have come my way all the while making many mistakes and contrary to the "Big Book" with regrets. My time while being the good little soldier may best be described in just that manner. Some of us humans are naturally pleasers... we so want to be accepted by those for whom we have an affinity with that we are willing to sacrifice "self" in order to gain their acceptance. Whether it's because I'm the third child (Birth order psycho babble) or that part of nature -vs- nurture that has predisposed me to this desire to please is unknown. Nonetheless, it could be viewed simply as a "character defect"... yea, right or its simply part of everyone's nature, some more than others. I'm enjoying reading your material and have found myself using a great deal of your logic as I proselytize those AA friends that I still possess. I can't imagine the time you've invested in the gathering of the plethora of data that your website has to offer but I can say thank you. And your ability to categorize in a meaningful manner also has me tipping my hat, one of my other short comings is that of staying focused or on track and you've done that well in the few readings that I've been exposed to thus far. I've been sober... or drink free now, for 3 1/2 years and while I'm happy for that I hope never to come across like those A-holes at the AA meetings that I used to attend that were snobbish and really thought their crap didn't stink because they had a few years under their belts. I personally don't partake because I seriously do believe that I have an allergic reaction in so far as I want to continually pouring it in to keep getting the feel good. Those physical attributes of alcohol or other drugs to produce those feelings are no doubt in my mind true, where I do draw the line though with the AA community is what it takes to "re-map" the brain so that I don't fall back into that same behavior. I've tried unsuccessfully in the past to drink socially and have always failed miserably. This last time that I "swore" off alcohol I was seriously okay with never drinking again. It doesn't bother me to have others partake from the fruit of the vine and in no way am I jealous of their ability to do so without any cost (that I know of anyways) to themselves or their loved ones. The diabetic cannot partake of sugar laden meals without paying a price and I feel that is very much the way I'm built. I didn't ask to be built this way any more than the diabetic asked for their physical traits...but the truth is they exist. The only thing I have to do is decide what behavior is going to best benefit myself and those with whom I live. To remain drink free is a choice that I make each day to ensure that continued success of my relationships with my wife as well as my children. Suffice it to say though that I simply like "me" better as well. For were I to lose my loved ones in some freak accident I don't think that at this point in my life I would go back to drinking because I didn't have to answer to them anymore. It's just that I really don't want to drink anymore. The cost of the pain associated with getting "sober" again is just way too much for me to ever consider "trying" again. I'm seriously not trying to convince you of anything concerning me... just sharing those things about who I am. So, keep up the good work... I really do wish that there could be a great "Debate" as to the pulling off the scales of societies eyes about AA and other 12 step programs with your work spearheading the event. I suppose that best that can be done right now is to spread the truths that you've shared with each of the few people that we as individuals know and hope that their eyes will be open. It took many years of the "Big Lie" told over and over again countless times to the masses for our society to accept the AA speak as the only way to go and it will take even more time to undo the damage that these men have "spearheaded" over the years. Well I'm outta here Agent Orange.... I do support your efforts and will continue to draw from your writings for inspiration and will help to fight against the lies being proposed by those "AA" leaders of my local area.
Best Regards,
Hello Robert,
Thank you for the letter, and I'm glad to hear that you are doing well. Congratulations for both
your years of sobriety and your new freedom.
I think that most people are just "naturally pleasers". It is in our nature as tribal animals to want
to fit in with the group. And that is a fact that cults take advantage of. So please don't feel like
there was something wrong with you that made you want to conform and fit in with A.A.
I am also one of those people who cannot drink in moderation. It never worked. It never stayed moderate.
But total abstinence has been relatively easy, since I got it through my head that I would never drink
alcohol again. My favorite slogan is,
Just don't take that first drink, not ever, no matter what.That is the answer to all questions about drinking, or "just having one". (More about that here: How did you get to where you are?) I don't feel deprived when I don't drink. My attitude is that I have already had my lifetime quota of that kind of pain and suffering. You already are part of the Great Debate. Your letter is appearing on the Internet, and you can participate in the forum. And you can keep up the flow of letters to other organizations. Please feel free to tell your story to every and any forum and newspaper and publication that will listen. The Steppers routinely plant their stories in those things, and so should you. And don't overlook letters to your Senators and Congressman — both Federal and state — and your city counselors. It's the local politicians who control a lot of the funding for detox and treatment, and they should know what a fraud 12-Step treatment is. Have a good day now. == Orange
Date: Wed, July 3, 2013 7:06 pm Hi Terrence, Bill N. here. I've written to you a few times over the years and have thoroughly enjoyed The Orange Papers. Could you please approve my forum request? Thanks! Hope you're enjoying the summer. I've taken up birding and bird photography. It's amazing what you can do when you're not plopped in a chair in a musty church hall listening to people parrot the AA cliches. You actually have time to LIVE your life :-)
all the best,
Hello again, Bill,
Of course I remember you. It's good to hear from you.
I'll be glad to approve you for the forum. The only gotcha is that
you didn't tell me what user name you registered. I need to know that.
I'm glad to hear that you have taken up bird photograpy. It's a fun hobby.
What gets especially interesting is when you form relationships with
them, which will happen if you feed them regularly. Rolled oats and
sunflower seeds are especially good food. And for the little guys, I
get a wild birdseed mix. I get the stuff in bulk,
in 40 or 50 pound bags from the local farm feed store. When you feed
them day after day, they learn who you are and see you coming.
Have a good day now.
Date: Tue, July 2, 2013 4:44 am (answered 7 July 2013)
What's in a Word, and Who is the Addict?
Peter Ferentzy, PhD
Hello again, Peter,
I'm glad to see that you are still at it.
Oh yes, what's in a word.
One of my big gripes about A.A. is how
they have multiple definitions of "an alcoholic"
that are totally different — definitions that range from just drinking too
much to being a disgusting moral reprobate, and then they mix up the definitions,
and use whichever one is to their advantage at the moment.
In addition to the four definitions described at that link:
...another one just occurred to me:
I sure am glad that isn't true.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters359.html#Peter_F2 ]
Date: Sat, July 6, 2013 11:54 am (answered 10 July 2013) http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-peter-ferentzy/who-is-the-addict-part-2_b_3546785.html
Peter Ferentzy, PhD
Oh yes, That is quite good Peter. That just nails it.
I especially related to this line:
Yes, there is just something about the experience of seeing your own death approaching, and then
deciding to live, and pulling yourself up out of your own grave by an act of sheer will power
and determination,
that changes you in some way.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Tue, July 2, 2013 11:33 am (answered 8 July 2013) Hello Mr. or Ms. Orange, I am not debating the facts about the effectiveness of the 12 step program nor the numbers in totals (unqualified) of the spontaneous remissions rate in your article http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-effectiveness.html. However, recent numbers show that the recovery rate is greater for those who receive treatment than those who do not. And the numbers show that multiple simultaneous approaches for treatment work better together than only one type of treatment alone. Your article does not address these facts and perhaps should. You will find these numbers in publications from http://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/treatment-research. I would point out in particularly "Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment: A Research-Based Guide (Third Edition)". I do not dispute that, mostly because of their own desire to quit, the addict seeks treatment. However, it is an illness and treatment has been proven effective the same as it is with cancer, diabetes and other diseases. In view of the 50 percent spontaneous remissions, one might consider of that within that 50 percent, a high majority of them were in treatment of some type (12 step or not). The challenges for those who are addicted is difficult because so many who do need treatment and may want to quit do not have treatment resources available to them. Another way of viewing the 50 percent who do enter remissions, for those who decide they want to quit, the odds are better for those who seek and receive treatment. The facts support this view.
Kind regards,
Hello John,
Thank you for the letter.
Alas, the link that you sent didn't go to any specific report that showed that treatment works.
And what I really did not see anywhere was the words
Randomized Longitudinal Controlled Studies,
or "Control Group", which would allow figuring out how much a "treatment" works.
Just because a Stepper gets a propaganda paper published by a government agency does not
prove that treatment suddenly started working.
(You do know that the A.A. promoters are constantly cranking out a stream of propaganda for that purpose,
don't you? Look here.)
Now, about your comments:
First off, my numbers for spontaneous remission from alcohol abuse are not "unqualified".
(That is a typical Stepper trick: just claim that numbers that they don't like are invalid,
or "unqualified", or "not substantiated", or "not supported by medical tests".)
I research carefully, and those number are very much supported by evidence.
Start with Dr. Sheldon Zimberg's analysis of the spontaneous remission rate,
here.
He drew upon numerous other studies of the spontaneous remission rate that were done by other doctors.
About the so-called "studies" that show that treatment works,
The people doing those "studies" and collecting the numbers have a huge
vested interest — a conflict of interest — because they are selling the treatment (and
for high prices, too).
They never do valid Randomized Longitudinal Controlled Studies
to fairly prove what the real success rate of the treatment method actually is.
They just collect anecdotal evidence in an unsupervised manner,
and infer statistical relationships between unrelated things, and try to claim that
they have evidence that treatment works.
In my case, I got "treatment", and then never drank again. My
"treatment program" consisted of going to an outpatient
program at the Portland Alternative Addiction Center (PAAC) where I got acupuncture
and "group therapy" where a Stepper slogan-slinger parotted slogans about,
"I am teachable today. I don't know if I will relapse tomorrow. Your addiction 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."
And then he went home and snorted cocaine
and then looked at child pornography pictures on his computer
and then raped his step-children.
They busted him
for it and shipped him off to the state penitentiary.
Nevertheless, the state authorities got a bill from PAAC for the "treatment" that we got,
and the "treatment provider" counted me as one of their success stories
in their reports to the state. They forgot to mention the fact that I actually
quit drinking two weeks before the treatment program started.
— Which brings up the obvious issue that people who seek treatment are the people who have decided to
quit drinking or drugging, like you mentioned.
They are more highly motivated to quit. They want to quit. That is why
it appears that treatment works. They decide to quit drinking and save their own lives,
so they quit drinking and go check out A.A. meetings and 12-Step-based treatment programs, and
then the Steppers claim the credit for the sobriety.
And the logic is terrible: Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc
—
"It happened after something, so it was caused by that something."
That's as bad as saying that Joe Blow ate vanilla ice cream and then quit drinking, so vanilla ice
cream cures alcoholism.
Or,
Joe Blow joined an old cult religion from the nineteen-thirties and then quit drinking, so cult religion
is the cure for alcoholism.
Again, they — the treatment centers, or the A.A.-promoters, or the U.S. Government, like
the www.drugabuse.gov web site —
need to do a valid Randomized Longitudinal Controlled Study
to see what effect the treatment method really has.
Treatment providers NEVER do that because that would reveal that the treatment program
does not work.
What do you mean by "It is an illness"? What is an illness? Food poisoning is an illness, and
so is alcohol poisoning. However, it does not usually require treatment.
Just stop consuming the poison and most cases cure themselves.
On the other hand, if you mean that compulsive excessive drinking of alcohol is a mental illness,
then yes, some kind of treatment might help. Obviously, the 12-Step treatment that is really just
the practices of Dr. Frank Buchman's cult religion in the nineteen-thirties is totally inappropriate for
treatment of mental illnesses.
That is so barbaric and medieval that it is right down there with the snake pit and electro-shock therapy.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
P.S.: 2013.07.25:
I went to the library and put in an inter-library loan request for
"Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment: A
Research-Based Guide (Second Edition)", and I finally received it.
That booklet provides no evidence that 12-Step treatment actually works. There is only half a page
of unsubstantiated statements about 12-Step treatment, and here they are:
Twelve-step facilitation therapy is an active engagement strategy designed to increase the
likelihood of a substance abuser becoming affiliated with and actively involved in 12-step self-help
groups and, thus, promote abstinence.
Further Reading:
Carroll, K.M.; Nich, C.; Ball, S.A.; McCance, E.; Frankforter, T.L.; and Rounsaville, B.J.
One-year follow-up of disulfiram and psychotherapy for cocaine-alcohol users: Sustained
effects of treatment. Addiction 95(9):1335-1349, 2000.
Donovan, D.M., and Wells E.A. "Tweaking 12-Step": The potential role of 12-Step self-help
group involvement in methamphetamine recovery. Addiction 102(Suppl. 1):121-129, 2007.
Project MATCH Research Group. Matching Alcoholism treatments to client heterogeneity: Project
MATCH posttreatment drinking outcomes. Journal of Studies on Alcohol 58(1)7-29, 1997.
The first sentence is a lie:
So-called "Twelve-step facilitation" is merely cult religion recruiting. The goal is to get more people
to join Alcoholics Anonymous. A.A. was not "designed" to help alcoholics or addicts.
Dr. Frank Buchman designed his Oxford Group cult religion to support him in
the luxurious lifestyles of
the rich and famous, and it did that very well.
Bill Wilson, who was a member of Frank Buchman's cult, decided that he wanted a
lifestyle of luxury and leisure too. To get A.A., Bill Wilson merely stole and
renamed a branch of Dr. Frank Buchman's cult religion.
Then he never worked a straight job again either, and he died a millionaire too.
The second sentence contains multiple lies, deceptions, and falsehoods:
That sentence teaches that people should believe in the crazy
heretical tenets
of
Dr. Frank Buchman's religion,
where he declared that you have been defeated by sin, and are powerless over it, and
only surrender to God (really, surrender to Frank's cult) will save you.
And then, of course, you have to go to lots and lots of their cult meetings.
Bill Wilson just reworded it by saying that you are powerless over alcohol, your life is
unmanageable, and only "Higher Power" can restore you to sanity, so you have to go to lots and lots
of A.A. meetings or else you will die.
The third sentence is another lie. It is a blatant, bare-faced lie, not a slight error or misinterpretation
of the facts:
The efficacy of 12-Step treatment has never been established. Quite the opposite. 12-Step
treatment is a proven failure.
Every time A.A. was put to the test in a valid clinical test or
controlled study, A.A. failed to sober up the alcoholics,
and just caused a lot of bad side
effects, like raising the rates of binge drinking and death.
But the criminals who are selling expensive 12-step quackery will never tell you that.
Then the unnamed author listed three items of "further reading", none of which provided any evidence that 12-Step treatment actually works to make people quit drinking or drugging. The first item talks about using disulphiram to treat alcohol abuse. That is using medications, something that A.A. is very opposed to. The second item talks about "The potential role of 12-Step self-help group involvement in methamphetamine recovery." Excuse me, but somebody's goofy idea that maybe the 12-Step cult might make speed freaks consume less methamphetamine is not evidence that 12-Step treatment works to cure alcohol abuse or anything else. The third item again pushes the failed Project MATCH as if it had accomplished something good, which it did not. I already wrote about Project MATCH here: http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters359.html#MATCH .
Have a good day now.
Date: Sun, June 30, 2013 1:18 am (answered 8 July 2013) Will C. posted in Anti — 12 step programs look what i found in my in box over in linkedin for challenging some AAers a gel Richards
Hello Will,
Thank you for the message. That is interesting.
All of a sudden, I've gotten several references to Steppers using quotes from
www.drugabuse.gov
to "prove" that A.A. works.
Some Steppers planted some fraudulent, deceptive essays there, and then somebody else
must have put the links
on the unofficial A.A. "talking points" list.
Now they will all parrot the same misinformation and fraud and convince themselves that a cult religion from
the nineteen-thirties really works great as a cure for what they call a "disease".
In the case of the second link listed at the top of this letter, it goes to a list of publications
about Project MATCH. That is total fraud. Project MATCH was a government fiasco that wasted $27
million dollars paying alcoholics to come to meetings and listen to bastardized versions of 12-Step
religion, or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or something called "motivational therapy".
There was no control group, so there is no way to determine whether any treatment actually sobered
up any alcoholics.
Nevertheless, the bozos who ran the "test" crowed that "treatment works!", without being able to
say how much it works. Fraud. Deception. Incompetence. A waste of $27 million.
There is
much more about Project MATCH here.
At the top, Glenn Richardson wrote:
That is gibberish and nonsense. He began by parrotting yet another old A.A. slogan about "it doesn't work
if you don't work it", which is really a demand that you quit drinking and then give the credit for
your sobriety to the A.A. program, while pretending that doing the practices of an old cult religion is
really helpful.
After that, it's almost incomprehensible nonsense: "It works too well."
Oh really? I never heard of A.A. or 12-Step treatment programs having that problem before.
Later on, he parrots,
That has been proven to be untrue. It is not the "Addiction Medicine definition", it's the ASAM
definition. That is the definition that Steppers made up to support their crazy religious dogma that says
that we are powerless over alcohol, and only "Higher Power" can save us.
Look here.
Then Glenn finished with a classic Stepper line that says that "a resentment"
makes us tell the truth about A.A.:
What people for whom "it will work"? Work to do what?
Why should anybody "give it a try"?
What will doing
the practices of an old fascist cult religion
really accomplish?
Certainly not make people quit drinking. What A.A. and 12-Step treatment really
do is increase the
death rate in alcoholics,
and increase the
binge drinking rate,
and increase the
divorce rate,
and increase the
suicide rate...
and on and on.
Oh well, have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Sun, July 7, 2013 1:47 pm (answered 10 July 2013) If people only get sober when they are sick and tired of being sick and tired, and we have a natural remission rate of 5%, then NONE of the groups or programs for alcoholism work at all. If there were a psychologist or any other kind of health professional that had a cure rate of even 10% they would have a line a mile long of people signing up. All of the groups and addiction guru's try to boast and downright lie of their "success rates" to make money. Maybe someday there will be a medication that can cure this malady, but as long as the public doesn't want to invest money into something that people do to themselves by "choice" then the body count will continue. I hate AA with a passion, but they do have a slogan that I agree with and it's: " You're not done until you're done."
Hello again, Tom,
Right on. I also maintain that A.A. and 12-Step treatment don't work at all.
They simply steal the credit from
the few people who were going to quit their bad habits and addictions anyway.
They steal the credit from the people who are ready, eager, and willing to improve their lives.
And you are quite right about the results of a cure rate of 10%.
In fact, the more I think about it, I don't think that TSF ("12-Step facilitation",
or 12-Step treatment) even has a 5% success rate.
I am reminded of the mathematical analysis of A.A. membership growth in the file
The_Mathematics_of_Alcoholics_Anonymous_-_Part_1.pdf — Analysis of the mathematics of Alcoholics Anonymous, using A.A.'s own published documents.
There, the author established that if A.A. had even a 5% retention rate, that it would be growing a lot.
Indeed, a 5% per year growth rate will cause the organization to double in size every 12 1/2 years.
Obviously, that is not happening. A.A. has not grown since the nineteen-nineties, and it is now shrinking.
Likewise, if A.A. or 12-Step treatment centers had even a 5% cure rate, we should have a huge population
of happy recovered clean and sober Steppers. But we don't.
The real numbers are so bad that A.A. won't publish them.
Oh well, have a good day anyway.
== Orange
Date: Mon, July 8, 2013 1:37 pm (answered 10 July 2013) Hello again! Richard B. here. About William James and Bill Wilson ... Have you ever wondered just how well Wilson really knew the former's "Varieties of Religious Experience," which he claimed to have read before, during, or after — the record doesn't seem to be clear — his epoch-making stay at Towns Hospital? VRE is a substantial piece of writing, coming to some 477 pages in the 1987 Library of America edition. And not only that, its contents were addressed to an academic audience that presumably had no problems with occasional untranslated passages in Latin and German. The answer, I'd say, is hardly at all. We can be sure that Wilson knew that it was a drop-dead classy name to drop, conferring immediate intellectual prestige on the party who mentions it. Or so he hoped, the poor dear. Strange, that when you combine (1) Wilson's insecurities about social status with (2) the kind of intellectual dishonesty that overlaps with probable brain damage — i.e., confabulation — what you come up with is ... the Big Book. Let's allow WJ to speak for himself. The following extracts are from the pair of William James volumes in the Library of America series:
" ... the Binnenleben [buried life] is the unuttered inner atmosphere in which [the patient's] consciousness dwells alone with the secrets of his prison-house. This inner personal tone is what we can't communicate or describe articulately to others; but the wraith and ghost of it, so to speak, are often what our friends and intimates feel as our most characteristic quality.
"In the unhealthy-minded, apart from all sorts of old regrets, ambitions checked by shames and aspirations obstructed by timidities, it consists mainly of bodily discomforts not distinctly localized by the sufferer, but breeding a general self-mistrust and sense that things are not as they should be with him. Half the thirst for alcohol that exists in the world exists simply because alcohol acts as a temporary anaesthetic and effacer to all these morbid feelings that never ought to be in a human being at all. In the healthy-minded, on the contrary, there are no fears or shames to discover; and the sensations that pour in from the organism only help to swell the general vital sense of security for anything that may turn up."
" ... The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour. Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes. It is in fact the great exciter of the Yes function in man. It brings its votary from the chill periphery of things to the radiant core. It makes him for the moment one with truth. To the poor and the unlettered it stands in the place of symphony concerts and of literature; and it is part of the deeper mystery and tragedy of life that whiffs and gleams of something that we immediately recognize as excellent should be vouchsafed to so many of us only in the fleeting earlier phases of what in its totality is so degrading a poisoning." And: "Why William James Matters," from his best biographer, Robert Richardson: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/08/25/william-james-centennial-celebration.html Class dismissed! Best, Richard B. P.S. If you'd like to know in detail how alcoholism affected the James family, I suggest you read Richardson's marvelous page-turner. Dry as dust it is not.
Hello Richard,
Thanks for the quotes and links. Very interesting. I'll have to check out that book.
The story that I got was that either Ebby Thacher or Rowland Hazard brought a copy of William
James' Varieties of Religious Experience to Bill Wilson while he was detoxing in
Charlie Towns' hospital — and getting dosed out of his mind with
belladonna, henbane, and morphine.
That would have been some time between Dec. 13 and 16, 1934.
Apparently, Wilson had never seen the book before, and he just read through it quickly, while stoned
out of his gourd and hallucinating and seeing God.
Later, Wilson bragged that he understood the whole book.
One of his biographies claims that the book was tough going, but Bill Wilson's sharp legal mind
absorbed all of the key ideas in two days.
Wilson goofed and could not remember that the famous line about Have a good day now. == Orange
Last updated 6 August 2013. |
