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Date: Sep 8 (answered 17 September 2013) It was stated here that AA says to "Dump your wife and marry AA." That could not be further from the truth! Sounds like someone has a major resentment towards AA. Get the facts right before you go spewing bullshit. Hope you enjoy a miracle filled day.
Hello Jennifer,
Thanks for the good wishes. Yes, I do occasionally have a miracle-filled day. Not every day, just once in
a blue moon, but it's nice when it happens.
About A.A. breaking up marriages, A.A. is notorious for that.
That happens much oftener than miracle-filled days.
And then here are a bunch of relevant horror stories:
Congratulations. You made
the list of Steppers who have jabbered about me having a resentment.
That is just such a common line. And a cheap and easy put-down. But it doesn't really mean a thing.
So I have a resentment. So what? What does it matter?
Does my head explode? Do I instantly relapse and start drinking again? That can't be true, because I
have 12, almost 13, years of sobriety now.
And yes, I have my facts right. Now you have some reading to do to get your facts right.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Sep 8 (answered 17 September 2013) It seems ur site is speaking of contemporary aa which is watered down aa these days and not what the program/ bb says. Ur speaking of what the watered down fellowship says. No where Does it say take what u want and leave the rest at the door. That's what spiritually sick contemporaries say but certainly not the bb. I see a lot of stuff that call aa on ur site that maybe ppl these days say is aa but goes against the actual program. Gnight Jonathan Sent from my iPhone
Hello Jonathan,
Thanks for the note. Alas, the idea that A.A. was better in the Good Old Days is just fairy-tale stuff.
In fairy tales, the ancient times were always better:
But that is just fairy tale stuff. No truth to it.
And there was no Golden Age of Alcoholics Anonymous. There was no really strong powerful spirituality
in the early days of Alcoholics Anonymous.
The really pure Nazi spirituality
that Bill Wilson got straight from Dr. Frank Buchman didn't work to make alcoholics quit drinking.
Not at all.
In fact, when Bill Wilson stopped lying about how great A.A. was, and told the truth, just for a change,
he switched to bragging about how hard he and Dr. Bob had to work to get A.A. established,
because everybody relapsed.
(Bill was making himself out to be a long-suffering hero, working tirelessly to promote Alcoholics
Anonymous.) Bill described the early days of A.A. this way:
If you have to cull hundreds of drunks to get a few success stories, then
that sounds like only a one or two percent success rate.
But wait! That was only the ones who were gullible enough to
"take the bait", as Bill Wilson called it.
That was just the recruiting success rate.
How many of those new recruits stayed sober for a good long time,
like several years? Even less, for sure.
But that was far less than the usual five percent rate
of spontaneous remission that we get with a bunch of alcoholics if
we just do nothing with them.
There was no Golden Age of A.A. You can read more about the real
success rate of early A.A.
here.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters368.html#Jonathan ]
Date: Wed, September 18, 2013 9:03 pm (answered 23 September 2013) You can't count 1 of 100 as a 1 percent success rate. The success rAte is determined by the people who actually do the steps. It's the success rate of the steps working not of ppl u call to try to get sober. Most of those ppl don't Ben want it and even if they do it doesn't matter unless hey actually follow the program of action. Not contemporary watered down message stuff U hear in aa in every city. Thank you. Sent from my iPhone
Hello Jonathan,
Thanks for the letter, but sorry, but that just isn't true.
Bill Wilson clearly declared that you don't have to do the 12 Steps. They are only suggested
as a "program of recovery". Page 59 of the Big Book says:
And actually, those are not the steps that they took.
Fully half of the early members of
A.A. chose to not do the 12 Steps, and they wanted nothing to do with Bill Wilson's
favorite cult religion. In fact, the Twelve Steps did not even exist when
"The First 100"
(who really numbered between 40 and 70) got sober.
Claiming that you will only count the people who "worked the Steps" to your satisfaction is
the propaganda and debating trick of
Moving The Goalposts.
The question was "What is the sobriety rate of people who go to A.A.?",
not "What is the sobriety rate of people who practice the cult religion
to the satisfaction of the oldtimers?"
Claiming that you will only count the people who "worked the Steps" to your satisfaction is
also several bait-and-switch tricks:
Lastly, the 12 Steps are not "the program of action." The 12 Steps are the recruiting and
indoctrination practices of
Dr. Frank Nathan Daniel Buchman's
"Oxford Group" cult religion.
The Steps have nothing to do with quitting drinking, and they do not even say
that you should quit drinking. And they certainly don't tell you how to quit drinking.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Sep 4 (answered 17 September 2013) ...but the paypal link didn't seem to work. Is it just me? I'm 'in recovery', as the saying goes (C&S 7 years, first serious cleantime was 12 years ago) and spent a couple of years in the rooms, AA, NA and CA. Starting with multiple meetings a day (I did 90 in 26 days), tailing off to once a week or fortnight. I felt that I did get quite a bit out of them (I have a 2 year keyfob) but never did the steps and never had a serious sponsor. No matter how I tried, just couldn't get the higher power stuff. One night at the end of my first relapse and in the throes of a hideous cluck I manicly wrote down a diagramme of how I'd managed to square the circle, managed to make the higher power thing work for me. However, when the sun came up it was obviously gibberish and I went back to quietly ignoring that part from then on. I'd always felt that the rooms had helped me, even though I was 'constitutionally incapable' of believing in a higher power. When asked, I fudged with the 'group of druggies' definition but justified to myself by categorising groupthink and mutual support as my higher power. Not really getting it, was I? I certainly considered it cult-ish but, at the start, I was bloody desperate and needed to do something, anything, to change — even if it meant a spell in a cult. We (my wife, non 12 step friends and I) called it 'Lodge'. As in, 'John has to go to his Lodge now'. Reading your site has made me rethink my semi-positive attitude to this. My wife has said that both of my serious lapses happened after periods of really intense, earnest meeting attendance. I'd half-heartedly argued against her but I suppose I knew she had a point. I was powerless, so WTF — Once I'd started, I couldn't stop so what might have been a slip became a full bore, several month long relapse into some of the worst times. I stopped going because I just didn't want to talk about all the shit anymore. It wasn't me anymore. I couldn't see how dredging this stuff up again and again (which is sort of expected for the benefit of newcomers) was helping me. I never was the sort to share about my everyday longer term recovery personal issues as I remembered how boring and trivial it seemed when OCM's did this when I was a newcomer myself. Christ, I thought — You have 20 years of sobriety and your'e still moaning about how crazy/hard done by you are? In fact, the last year of my attendance was largely in order to give back to the newcomer, as the saying goes. Apart from the occasional times of good fellowship at coffee shops afterwards, I wasn't getting any benefit. (Of course, this must have been because I wasn't 'doing the steps', and didn't have a sponsor — my natural inclination to critical thinking overruled this sort of doubletalk, almost as soon as I had my own mind back after about 6-9 months C-T). I also realised that those who was still in the rooms after more than a year or two of clean time tended to be damaged lunatics or bureaucracy loving, meddling, control freaks. Thanks for your site. Apart from a couple of close friends who have been through the same thing it's nice to know there are more out there. I always felt it crazy that everyone assumed those who left had relapsed, particularly when I'd met people who had great lives and were still abstinent, or mostly abstinent. Anyway, I've blithered on enough now. I'd like to make a small donation in memory of the thousands of one and two pound/dollar contributions I made over the years to AA, NA and CA. Oh, one more thing. I did find the fellowship a lot more fascistic/god bothering in the US than I did in Europe or Australia. Most of the meetings I went to in London or Brisbane or Sydney tended to gloss over the higher power thing and even the third step. I suspect Americans take their 'spirituality' a lot more seriously than the decadent Europeans and practical Australians. :-). Saying that, AA tended to be worse in this regard than NA or CA. This may just be my experience, of course. I'm aware it's anecdotal. cheers, John E
P.S.: JE
Hello JE,
Thanks for the letter and the experiences and the compliments. And congratulations on your sobriety.
About this line:
Yes. Something that A.A. will never talk about is the fact that it is mentally unhealthy to dwell on the
past forever. After a while, you have to say, "Enough is enough. Let's live today."
As the brilliant mind Aldous Huxley said,
And your sentence, "It wasn't me anymore." reminds me of the song by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young:
Remember what we've said, and done and felt about each other, oh babe, have mercy. Yes. A.A. members spend entirely too much time talking about who or what they used to be. But real life is here and now. I'm not surprised that your worst relapses happened after your most intense periods of 12-Step indoctrination. The 12 Steps are harmful. Making you wallow in guilt is bad for your mind. Imagining that a ghost or spirit will solve your problems for you is insanity. (Step Two does not restore people to sanity; it makes them insane.) Teaching you that you are powerless over alcohol is bound to produce some bad results. I'm very happy to say that I am not powerless over alcohol. Even in spite of the fact that it was killing me, I'm still not powerless over it. I only needed to take control. About getting some moral support and help from a group, I can see that. That is why I hope that SMART and SOS and Lifering and WFS can spread and grow. They can offer the same kind of emotional support without the cult religion nonsense. Maybe you can start a meeting in Australia. That usually works correctly, as far as I know. And so does just orange@orange-papers.info. Google Wallet has never worked. I don't know what is going on there. Have a good day now. == Orange
Date: Sep 5 (answered 18 September 2013) It is hard to understand why a person will spend so much time writing something so negative about an organization that made no harm at him. The explanation has to be one of the following: 1). You are a drunk and you don't want to stop drinking. 2). You have never abuse alcohol and you don't know what are you taking about. You do not understand the problem. AA un not sacred and doesn't solve all the problems, but it is a good tool to use in early recovery, specially after a rehab treatment. The advantage is that is is free and it is everywhere, so I can always find a meeting to go and remember that if drink, eventually I will end up doing things that I don't want. To me it does that, it help me remember and I go from time to time. I also go to remember that I don't want to be like any of those guys! I shared many of your opinions once but after trying psycologisy, psychiatrists, priests, wiches, fortune tellers and doctors to help with my problem, I went back to AA and I finally got it. Now I go to AA just to remember. You should't be so negative about it. Your article might give some people the excuse to stop going to meetings and start drinking again. AA is hard because you cannot drink, not even a little, if you don't like it, don't go, but live the rest of the world alone. Live and let live. I don't like some religions, but it is not my problem. Regards Gonzalo M. A. Sent from my iPad
Hello Gonzalo,
Thanks for the letter. Alas, both of your opening assumptions are false.
RE:
Sorry, but A.A. is not a tool, and A.A. does not improve the sobriety rate of alcoholics.
A.A. is not useful, and A.A. is not good. You can read about the actual A.A. cure rate here:
The Effectiveness of the Twelve-Step Treatment.
The fact that you can always find an A.A. meeting to go to is not a great thing. You can also
always find a Scientology meeting to go to. Or the Moonies, or other cults.
You need a meeting to remind you not to drink alcohol? Is your memory broken? I can clearly remember
why I don't want to drink any more alcohol. Like I don't want any more of that pain and sickness
and suffering.
This is typical cult jabber:
"Oh, yes, I was an unbeliever until I saw the Light. Now we don't need any of those effete intellectuals
like doctors or psychologists or psychiatrists... because we have Faith. We have the Magik Answer."
RE:
Yes, I do need to be so negative about a hoax and a fraud that is hurting people. And people do not go
back to drinking just because they learn the truth about Alcoholics Anonymous.
More people recover and live without A.A.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
The end of summer today. Well, it was fun while it lasted.
Welcome to autumn. It's raining here.
Date: Sep 13 (answered 23 September 2013)
Terrance Hodgins.
Author Unknown indeed!!!
Date: Sep 14
Very funny. It only took you super-sharp Steppers 10 years to figure out that
domain name registrations were public knowledge....
Date: Sep 14 (answered 23 September 2013) I have been sober for nearly ten years and I was wondering what your motivation was for creating your web page did you have a bad experience in AA?
Hello again, Michael,
Congratulations on your nearly 10 years of sobriety. Coincidentally, I have nearly 13 years of sobriety —
just one more month and I'm there. Also 13 years off of cigarettes and drugs.
And I happily did it without A.A. or any cult religion.
I've explained my motivation for doing the Orange Papers web site many times, in several
different ways. Look here:
I can sum it all up by saying that I saw that A.A. did not actually work as a
cure for "alcoholism" or addictions, but it was being sold as the
standard cure by most of the so-called "treatment programs"
in the USA. So somebody had to say something. Somebody has to tell the truth.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
P.S.: Please don't send letters to the Gmail address. I never use it for correspondence
because Google reads all of our email to determine which targeted advertisements to send
us. They have no respect for privacy. None whatsover.
(Are you now getting advertisements for rehab centers or alcoholic things when you read web pages? I do.)
Date: Thu, September 19, 2013 2:36 pm (answered 23 September 2013) AA does not kill anyone, alcohol and drinking too much of it does.
Hello again, Michael,
Actually, A.A. most assuredly does kill people when A.A. "sponsors" tell their sponsees
not to take their medications, and the sick people die, and the mentally-ill patients
commit suicide or binge drink themselves to death.
I just got another letter describing that problem, and the disastrous results, here:
You can read a bunch more of those tragic A.A. "No Meds" stories here:
the list of A.A. "No Meds" horror stories.
A.A. also kills people by driving them into depression and suicide. Telling people
that they are disgusting incurable unspiritual selfish manipulative sinners who
cannot ever recover and be normal pushes some people over the edge, and they kill
themselves. You can read many such stories here:
A.A. Suicides.
And then there are the people who give up on recovery. People think that if they
cannot ever recover and be normal, what's the use? Why try if you are doomed to
fail? Might as well just get stoned and forget the whole thing. Previous letters
have described that problem too, including the first letter that I just pointed you to:
http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters369.html#Matt
If you tell alcoholics that they are powerless over alcohol, then they just might
believe you and act that way.
Dr. Jeffrey Brandsma verified that effect in a controlled study.
After several months of indoctrination in A.A., the A.A. members were doing five
times as much binge drinking as a group that got no such "help", and
nine times as much binge drinking as other alcoholics who got Rational Behavioral
Therapy. Now I'm sure that you are smart enough to figure out that if alcoholics
are doing far more binge drinking, that they just might kill themselves.
Lastly, you should read the A.A. Horror Stories
to see many other ways in which A.A. kills.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Mon, September 16, 2013 10:28 am (answered 16 September 2013) Dear Agent Orange I am an Indian and was shocked at the De addiction centers operating in india based on 12 steps, and most of these centers are worse than Alzatraz or Guatemala. I have personal experience and wish to share
Okay, RK, all that you have to do is register. See the box in the
upper-left-hand
corner of the forum pages? Just register there, and make up any user name
that you like (that isn't already taken by someone else). Then email me
and tell me what
name you registered, and I'll approve it. (That last step is to stop the
spammers, who actually won't bother.)
Have a good day now.
[ Link here =
http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters368.html#Keith_G ]
Date: Wed, September 18, 2013 8:24 am (answered 23 September 2013) You failed to answer a specific question; Because to do so would show your true colors IF you had a loved one that was drinking to a dangerous degree and they had tried everything you would never suggest going to AA ? Is that correct? If not what would you tell them?
Hello again, Keith,
I did not fail to answer a specific question. I answered plainly:
I would also read this letter to him:
How did you get to where you are?
So there you are: SMART and SOS and Lifering.
And I will add, I'd throw in a dose of Harm Reduction and Moderation Management, just for good measure.
Also, read the part of the letter
"How did you get to where you are?"
where I talk about about will power and determination and refusal to die.
What part of that do you not understand?
By the way, nobody has "tried everything". That is a common Stepper slogan,
Baloney.
Prof. William Miller lists 48 different methods and treatments, and nobody has tried them all.
Here is the list of methods of recovery where Prof. William Miller and his crew
at the Center for Alcohol, Substance Abuse and Addictions at the University of New Mexico
rated those 48 various methods of recovery:
http://www.behaviortherapy.com/ResearchDiv/whatworks.aspx
Note that A.A. and "twelve-step facilitation" are so far down the list
that you have to look for them, at numbers 37 and 38 in effectiveness. Also, they
have a very negative rating.
(You can read more discussion of that list here:
What usually happens is: Somebody tries a few methods, like two or three,
for a few weeks or months, but doesn't try very hard, and soon goes back to drinking.
But then he finally really quits drinking because he is sick and tired of being
so sick and tired all of the time.
Then, a few of those successful quitters go to some A.A. meetings and
start bragging about how they "tried everything" before they came to A.A. and
nothing worked.
Nonsense. But the cult really loves the performance art. The speaker gets approval and
Brownie Points for delivering such a popular false speech.
Lastly, yes, you are correct in assuming that I would never send people to A.A. Just read
the A.A. Horror Stories
to get many reasons for that.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Wed, September 25, 2013 11:11 am (answered 26 September 2013) You are right I have finally seen the truth...the fellowship will begin to close up shop. Thanks for your service. Keith
Hello again, Keith,
Now that is good news. That will save a lot of lives.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Wed, September 18, 2013 1:15 pm (answered 23 September 2013) Orange, I've been studying your website for a month now and I'm still at the tip of the iceberg. I want to commend you on the construction of such a well-informed and insightful library on AA and the Twelve Steps. I'm currently still attending AA meetings and have done so for nine-months. I've abstained from drinking during this time, but have not followed any of the twelve steps and regularly question the dogma and "suggestions" of the program. I've made it clear that my sobriety is of no thanks to anyone but myself and the support of people I care about. At twenty-eight my drinking days have simply run their course. I had made two other attempts at quitting two and three years before this but never maintained any lengthy span without the occasional drink here and there, but once I decided it wasn't enjoyable it was only a matter of time before I felt it completely unnecessary. I found, ironically, that I drank more when I worked AA's program after I went through a thirty day rehab. I had built up eight months without a drink, but once I started finding holes in a program that defines itself as the only cure I relapsed and drank as if nothing mattered because I couldn't accept their philosophy. I suppose the social aspect of the groups keeps me coming back occasionally (maybe one or two a month), but a large part of me wants to continue to be the voice of reason and logic in the rooms. Needless to say, I've been labeled dangerous, that I would cause people to relapse (and potentially die), and ostracized which I find vaguely insulting but mostly just amusing. I believe in no higher power contributing to my sobriety. I do not believe alcoholism a disease and I make no attempt to hide those key beliefs. I have had some people who will come up to me after the meeting and ask me how I do it, and some seem to genuinely be curious about other ways besides the higher power belief AA imposes. So that in itself is worth it. I don't know if you've had any experiences like that; trying to convert people back to sanity within the belly of the beast! I was told by someone in the program that "It's easy to find the holes in things." If it's so easy to find the holes in AA than why are they claiming it is the only successful option available to people? Clearly they mistake their monopoly on the treatment industry as successful. I'll continue to use the resources you've made available. I especially enjoy the sections uncovering AA's conversion techniques and faulty debating strategies. Keep fighting the good fight. Josh
Hello Josh,
Thanks for the letter. Congratulations for your sobriety and for keeping your head screwed on straight.
Of course I agree with much of what you are saying.
The one thing that rang an alarm bell was the news that you drank when you found out that you had been
deceived and lied to by A.A. Please, you don't have to do that. The reasons for not drinking are that
alcohol ruins your health and rots your brain. And it messes up your life. That has nothing
to do with A.A. Now A.A. also says that stuff, and that is one of the few things that they
tell the truth about. The rest of the A.A. rap is of course a bunch of baloney.
I know it's disillusioning to discover how much they are lying to you. They start off
saying that they will give you unconditional love, but in the end they won't even
tell you the truth. That isn't much love. Nevertheless, please don't let it get you down.
My sobriety has nothing to do with A.A., and everything to do with the fact that I don't want to
ever be that sick again. And even if I were to get that sick from some other cause, I wouldn't go
back to drinking alcohol because that would still make things worse.
Thank you for being a member of
the Newcomer Rescue League.
Now that is good. It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. You may well save a few lives.
You will certainly benefit somebody.
Yes, I can believe that people are coming to you and asking how you are staying
sober without believing in A.A. and it's "higher power". Many people
can sense that there is something wrong with the A.A. program, that it is goofy
and illogical. And they want some answers.
And A.A. refuses to answer questions, and does not conduct rational discussions
about alcohol abuse and recovery, and how A.A. methods work or don't work, and
what is the real A.A. success rate anyway?
And that line about, "It's easy to poke holes in anything" is just a propaganda trick to deflect
criticism. Or rather, two of them:
Deflect Criticism and Blame By Delegitimizing It, and
Escape via Relativism.
That isn't answering the question, that's dodging the question. It is not easy to poke holes in
true things like
Einstein's theory of relativity, or Newton's calculus, or the theory of gravity.
Or modern medicine's treatment of cancer. If it's easy to poke holes in the A.A.
Big Book and their ideas of "alcoholism", then there is something
wrong with their ideas.
Speaking of answers, these two pages are the first things that I point people to when they
ask how I stay sober:
So have a good day now, and a good life.
== Orange
A few days ago, the national news programs were running a story about a veteran who died
of an overdose. He was apparently very overmedicated and he sat on his couch and gobbled
pills until he died. The implication of the news stories was that the Veterans' Administration
is just overmedicating veterans — just dope them out and forget about them.
In defense of the VA, I'd like to say that that has not been my experience.
I'm also a veteran, and I'm also on medications. I get a variety of things, ranging from
aspirin (for blood thinning and headaches) to Ranitidine (for acid reflux disease),
to baclofen (for muscle tremors), to calcium plus
vitamin D (for osteoporosis). And now, just recently, I'm also getting genuine narcotics:
Oxycodone, for the pain of sciatica. The x-rays tell the doctor that I have degeneration
of the bones in the lower spine and sacro-illiac and right hip, and the nerve trunk that
runs to the right leg is getting pinched or stretched, and it screams and induces an
incredible amount of pain. Welcome to old age.
The doctor was not eager to give me narcotics and just dope me out and forget about me. In fact,
it took two months to finally get genuine narcotics. He wanted to try non-narcotics like Tramadol
first, which did not help in the slightest — it just made me nauseous.
But, finally, I got genuine painkillers. Still, the prescription is non-refillable, and the doctor
has to represcribe it each month. They will only give me a month's supply at a time.
Of course overdosing is always a danger.
I'm very careful about that. Being a senior, it's easy to forget whether you have already taken
your pills. Worse, when you are taking medications that cloud your mind, like tranquilizers or
narcotics, it's very easy to forget that you already took your pills. So you take them again.
Which makes you even more forgetful and cloudy-headed. So you think that you forgot to take
your pills, so you take them again. And again... And again... You can die that way.
My solution is I bought one of those pill boxes that have compartments for your doses. The box
has a drawer for each day of the week, and each drawer has four compartments, which you can use
for Morning, Noon, Evening, and Night. I fill the thing up at the beginning of the week and
use it to dole out the pills. It's really a great invention, and it prevents overdosing accidents.
I occasionally have "senior moments" where I'm asking, "Did I remember
to take my pills this morning?"
I seem to vaguely remember that I did, but that might be yesterday morning that I'm remembering.
Did I take them today?
I go to the box, and see that the compartment for this morning is already empty.
"Ah, I did take them. Okay, I don't need to take them again."
Problem solved. No overdose.
I recommend that the VA give those boxes away to all of the Veterans. Heck, I guess I've got to
write another letter. You can too.
 This is the pill box. The brand name is "med sun". The CD gives a size gauge so that you can see how big the box is. The pill box needs to be that size. Anything smaller won't hold all of the pills, and if it won't hold all of the pills, then it will be inconvenient to use, and if it's inconvenient to use, then people won't use it.
Last updated 17 October 2013. |
