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Date: Wed, 14 May 2014 22:10:41 (answered 21 May 2014) Before I launch into it. I want you to know this is entirely in reference to your cluster fucked, mindless 20 page ramble called Why AA is Not Good. Also beforehand I want you to know that I have worked the steps without God or any mysticism and am sober. Its clear to me from your essay that you are one resentful asshole. I couldn't figure out if you're an atheist or a drunk. Doesn't matter, you're so dumb you ought to drink yourself to death. Here is a copy of the 12 steps, with they're philosophical messages intact, but reinterpreted without any anthropomorphic tendency, that is, no sky wizards. These steps adhere to modern understanding of emotions and their role in substance abuse and the latest about humans not having free will, which we now know from neurology. Read Sam Harris, he has a PhD in neurology. A simple way to understand this is we are not free to choose that which doesn't occur to us. For brevity I'll just list the steps changed that invoke a "god".
All the other steps are fine and do not offend rational senses. The steps are an awesome guide to psychoanalysis for atheists if we remove all god problems. The essay you wrote had a lot of error, arrogance and was too long. Here are my grievances with it. I only agree with you that AA is too religious. It was wrtitten onlya few. Decades after they bit.
Date: Wed, 14 May 2014 22:42:07 (answered 21 May 2014) They wrote AA a few decades after they stopped burning witches in mexico so what do you expect? Success rate? Nothing has worked for centuries including todays secular medicine so any success world wide is good. You have a huge resentment or emotional problem you need to address before it kills you or gets you beat up. AAs dont claim aa is the proven tested method nor do they insist a bottom must be reached! They also dont evangelize aa, its voluntarily reccomended by judges (you know the people we elect to judge stuff idiot) and it doesn't improve their legal case at all. Placebos work, plain and simple. I guess placebos are worse than death or an Alcoholic life to you? What the fuck is your solution, you rant like they've got it all wrong but offer no solution. People fail, yes, because they haven't thoroughly worked the steps with rigorous honesty or with an atheist sponsor. They go back out bc they think they can control it, if they're real alcoholics then they can't, that's what alcoholism is smart guy. Its not bad religion or a cult, its not religious enough to be a religion and not secular enough to be a club. Scientologists are cultists. They want $ and power. AA doesn't want that shit. Their primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety without $ ! Its called humility and helping others. Also if its a cult, where's the sacrifices and objectives and power plays? They arent allied churches and do not ru. The nations treatment places..lol you're dumb. They are also not allied with the gov or take any money from gov. You're fucking insane. Your sponsors better than a therapist because a therapist is PAID. Sponsoring doesn't involve salary or a 9-5 job! You miss the mark like crazy. You take obvious figurative or metaphor filled writing as literal when even a Down Syndrome person can see the reference like: cunning, baffling, powerful or the doctors tissue thing. Surrendering your will to god is analogous to accepting you have no freewill (proven in the lab). Dis-ease is also analogous to a behavioral problem. What's your solution again? Oh yeah, nurse your resentment and whine like a whiny bitch. Religiosity, admitted, does drive newcomers away and the books and staps could be rewritten to be less misleading but....
Date: Wed, 14 May 2014 23:04:27 (answered 21 May 2014) ...the religiosity is misleading but the revolving door effect means when people go out, the often come back at some point not say fuck the whole thing. They try controlled drinking get their ass kicked again, die or find a solution whether at AA or not. You're Insensitive as shit! Prescribed meds for invented illnesses from the 90's or 00's ARE a good thing to stop taking especially if you're a malingering pussy who is addicted to drugs and alcohol. Plus, drug companies and therapists stand to make a shit ton of money. They convince you you need something they sell a cure for an illness they invented. Funny how their weren't ADHD people for the last 200,000 years or antidepressants but now we need em all the sudden. You are wrong again lol. One drink does lead to a spree if you an alcoholic so wrong there too. AA isnt antiintellectual! Its like a riddle enclosing a sound principle. Misleading at times, sure but it was intellectually stimulating enough to keep your smart ass mouth ranting. Many AAs finsh master degrees or help others and do service work, some are conmen or theives or sexual predators. How is that any different from anywhere else in the world or america? Why single out aa? There's a bit of bad in the best of us and some good in the worst. I guess your resenting judgmental ass doesn't see that. Aa doesn't sterotype alcoholics. Its pretty obvious to everyone cept you that drunks are selfish and in denial. We also DO have a hand in our misery. No one can make or allow your to be angry except for you. You wouldn't know seeing as you have no humility AA won't look at social causes? WTF do you think a moral inventory is for? Its a god damn list of resentments whether were right to have em or not. No body in AA is apologizing for being angry about being beaten or malested. You're one sick confused person. AA was written by religious people 80 years ago..... so what ? Welcome to america, Im atheist, intelligent and well read, ask me how I feel. Get over your shit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-epOgih5PI
Date: Wed, 14 May 2014 23:28:52 (answered 21 May 2014) If people hate AA then maybe they'll quit drinking or find a solution elsewhere so judges will stop fucking with them so AA I guess is good in a sense. You know some people who have lived through hell think a harmless and imperfect meeting 1 hour a day is better than dying, prison or living day to day an insufferable active drunk. Can you blame them? You're an Asshole 6 million dollars isn't a lot of money idiot. There's 250 million americans. A few peoples retirement income could surpass that amount. And your calling a global club greedy? You are a fucking dunce bro. AA isn't full of fanatics, America is so welcome to the world. You're mad that nonbelivers don't have something as strong as AA in america? Lol pussy! I'm an atheist, get over your little pity parade., go drink lol ignorant dumbfuck. Aa doesn't victimize. People malinger and act like pussys. If you ain't alcoholic then go drink, what's the problem? So what if AA has religious parallels? Great excuse to deny your alcoholism, avoid recovery or working the steps with an atheist. Lol is that what you did? No worries me too, then I got honest. Public peoples anonymity is kept. So what if one persons secret got out. Have humility. Don't share with shitty people, were not saints! Ol timers and newcomers are smug sometimes, doesn't make one better than the other. Same road even if two miles ahead, ditch is still one arm length away. People committ suicide everywhere, even non addicts/alcoholics....how is AA to blame? You're dumb. Were not perfect, when our defects come back, were not surprised and we openly face them with humility, of course "god doesn't take em lol AA is free, Budweiser is $1 a can and you think aa is a scam. LMFAO Aa offers suggested program, we could care less how or where you get sober, we just hope you do. Its not voodoo masquerading as medicine, its free psychoanalysis shrouded with a little mystcism. Not everyones smart enough to be atheist so the need god. Trying to convince em otherwise is futile. Let em get sober. When they lose faith, let em drink then Work the steps as atheist. Without anthropomorphic delusio isn't a cult!
Hello Gamin,
Wow. Thanks for all of the letters and opinions. Now where to start?
Prof. Dr. George E. Vaillant (the future A.A. Trustee)
was also hoping that the placebo effect would heal alcoholics.
In his famous book, The Natural History of Alcoholism: Causes, Patterns, and Paths
to Recovery (1983),
he stated that his goal was:
Well, it sounded good, but it didn't work at all. After 8 years of using A.A. on his
alcoholic patients, and testing A.A. and trying to make it work,
Dr. Vaillant had to report
that A.A. produced a zero-percent improvement in the sobriety of alcoholics.
What the A.A. program really accomplished was
raising the death rate in alcoholics.
There just isn't any "12-Step Program" without "God".
Now your rewrite of 5 of the Steps just glosses over the real issues. Most all alcoholics have
underlying issues that cannot be fixed by a little yammering about "defects of character" and some
meditation. Alcoholics have problems like mental illness, bipolar disorder, PTSD, borderline
personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, anxiety disorders,
permanent scars from childhood abuse, chronic depression and more things like that.
Those problems do not just go away because you say that you are going to recognize your
"defects of character".
Your version of "Step 7" is not a cure for those problems:
But A.A. does not have a success rate. Not even a little one.
A.A. has an elevated death rate. The A.A. Trustee Dr. George E. Vaillant proved that.
And you know, you sure sound like you have a resentment.
Speaking of which, this line is totally untrue:
"Resentments" are not the social cause of alcohol abuse and alcohol addiction.
Things like mental illness and child abuse and poverty and wars and pain and physical illness are the causes.
Now that is a good reason to discard A.A. treatment of alcoholism. It isn't any more modern than
witchcraft. Or any more effective.
A.A. constantly claims to be the "proven, traditional" treatment for "alcoholism", and A.A. clearly
declares that alcoholics must "hit bottom". Why are you denying the core tenets of A.A.?
"Traditional treatment
of alcoholism" is supposed to mean A.A. 12-Step treatment.
Bill Wilson's declaration that alcoholics
cannot recover from alcoholism until they "hit bottom"
is a really bad fallacy.
Bill Wilson found that ordinary, relatively-sane people wouldn't
join his cult religion or believe in his brain-damaged superstitious nonsense.
Only the really sick, frightened, dying people who were desperately
grabbing at anything that might save their lives would swallow Wilson's insane
delusions.
So Wilson made up a story about how alcoholics can't really quit
drinking and start to recover until they hit bottom and
"the lash of alcoholism drives them to A.A.":
A.A. members have been spreading that little piece of misinformation
for the last 60 years, and now, everybody who thinks he knows something
about alcoholism repeats it. But it is still untrue.
And that misinformation causes a lot of harm.
Encouraging people to become so totally wrecked that they are willing
to join a cult religion causes maximum damage to the body. That is another
way in which A.A. kills people.
Of course they evangelize A.A. What do you think 12th-Step work is?
And it is still illegal and unConstitutional for judges to sentence anyone to a religion. Any
religion, no matter whether it is
Scientology or the Moonies or Hari Krishnas or the Catholic Church or Baptists or Alcoholics Anonymous.
We have discussed what works better than A.A. many, many times.
Obviously, you have not read much of the web site before criticizing it:
Wrong. People don't fail because they didn't "work the Steps". The Steps have nothing to do with
quitting drinking. They are about religious conversion and brainwashing.
I know that some people cannot control their drinking, because I'm one of them. And I have 13 years
of sobriety now without ever once doing the 12 Steps, or getting a sponsor, or even attending very many
A.A. meetings. I haven't been to A.A. meetings in 13 years now, so they sure aren't necessary for sobriety.
Of course it's a religion. You already noticed that 6 of the 12 Steps refer to God, and you had
to change those Steps. A.A. is a goofy confessional faith-healing religion that says that if you confess all
of your sins to God, and beg God to remove all of your defects, and conduct daily séances to
"seek and do the Will of God", that God will be so pleased that He will save you from the deadly
"disease of alcoholism" (but only for one day at a time). That is a religion.
And yes, it's a cult religion.
Read the Cult Test.
We have been through all of that many times before.
What sacrifices? Your mind, your soul, your time, your loyalty, and your life.
Power plays? You are powerless over alcohol, and they are superior to you because they have been
sober longer. You should just do what your sponsor says, and quit trying to think for yourself.
A.A. does not need to be allied to a church. A.A. is its own church.
Of course they take money from the government, millions of dollars, for running 12-Step treatment
centers.
Now I know you will object and say that Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. does not own
any treatment centers. No, the "two-hatter" A.A. members do.
You actually imagine that some drunkard or dope addict who isn't paid is better than a professional
therapist? That's the A.A. cult all right.
A.A. imagines that any degenerate crazy who believes in A.A. is a qualified healer. That is nuts.
I just take things as they are written. Bill Wilson wrote some really crazy stuff.
If you have no free will, how can you choose to "surrender to God"?
By the way, your stunt of redefining all of the words is also typical cult behavior.
It's called "Loading the Language", and it's described in the Cult Test here:
5. Cult-speak.
"Disease" is not "analogous to a behavioral problem". If it's
really a behavioral problem, then it isn't a disease, it's a behavioral problem.
Drinking too much alcohol is a behavioral problem, not a disease.
And again, we have discussed what works at great length, often:
No, you can't do that. Remember that Bill Wilson did not have any treatment program for alcoholism,
so he just repackaged Dr. Frank Buchman's cult religion and sold it as a quack cure for "the disease
of alcoholism".
The A.A. true believers will not tolerate you rewriting the Big Book to take
Frank Buchman's cult religion
out of it.
Besides, there would be nothing left after the Buchmanism is removed.
Show me the numbers. Really. Where are you getting that?
Show us the numbers.
Bill Wilson made the same evasive claim:
Bill Wilson was, of course, lying with qualifiers: He only counted those people who, in his opinion,
"really tried".
Then we get the nonsense about
the people who left A.A. "began to return".
Began to return? Either they returned, or they didn't.
If you begin to return, doesn't that mean that you don't really return? You just put your shoes and socks
and jacket on, and go out on the streets and head for the A.A. clubhouse, and then stop halfways there and turn around and go back home. That is "beginning to return".
I know all about drinking yourself to death. I nearly died from it. What is really insensitive is
foisting an old cult religion from the nineteen-thirties on sick people as a cure for "alcoholism"
and lying to them about how well it works. Now that is downright evil.
Such sweeping stereotypes: "invented illnesses from the 90's", and
"a malingering pussy who is addicted to drugs and alcohol". Wow.
You hate alcoholics and addicts, don't you?
You really regard them with total contempt. "Malingering pussy".
A.A. has no respect for alcoholics at all.
Once again, you are revealing
the anti-medications bias of A.A.
They have killed a lot of people with
that insanity.
You are not a doctor, so you have no business telling people not to take medications.
Your opinion of diseases and medications doesn't count.
That is a generalization that is not always true. Sometimes an alcoholic can learn to drink moderately.
Some can, and some can't. And some can drink moderately for a while and then go off the rails.
It all depends on the individual.
Way back in the nineteen-seventies, the famous government think tank called The Rand Corporation
did a study of alcoholism
that found that half of the alcoholics who successfully stopped self-destructive drinking did it by
total abstinence, and the other half did it by tapering off into moderate controlled drinking.
The point there is just "Different Strokes for Different Folks".
"Alcoholics", or excessive drinkers, or whatever you want to call them,
are not all alike. And they sure don't fit
the stereotype of "The Alcoholic" that A.A. pushes.
Many people do just "mature out" of excessive drinking, and become moderate, controlled drinkers.
Each of us excessive drinkers has the problem of figuring out which half we are in.
I learned the hard way that I'm in the "total abstinence" half.
Oh brother! Talk about somebody being in denial. Denial isn't just a river in Egypt.
A.A. is immensely anti-intellectual.
A.A. slogans say it all:
The fact that a few people manage to finish degrees does not change the fact that many A.A. sponsors
tell people not to finish that degree.
The rest of the paragraph is standard Minimization and Denial.
That is more cultish nonsense.
It's part of the standard cult doctrine that You are always wrong.
No one can make you angry? Try getting beaten and robbed and raped and see whether that makes you angry.
A moral inventory is not a list of social causes. Please learn what the words mean.
The social causes of alcoholism are things like poverty, wars, unemployment, scars from child abuse,
PTSD, and such things. A list of resentments is irrelevant.
You keep talking about resentments as if they are the cause of all problems. You
really drank the koolaid, didn't you?
No body in AA is apologizing for being angry about being beaten or malested. You're one sick confused person.
Wrong. You can't prove a negative, and I've gotten stories where it happened.
It's routine for a girl who has been raped by an A.A. member to be told to find her part in it.
Check out these stories:
That is more minimization and denial. A.A. is 100-year old cult religion. Remember that
Frank Buchman started it
as "First Century Christian Fellowship" in the late nineteen-teens.
Then Bill Wilson copied it and sold it as a cure for "the disease of alcoholism" in the
nineteen-thirties.
A.A. is way obsolete.
If people hate AA then maybe they'll quit drinking or find a solution elsewhere so judges will stop fucking with them so AA I guess is good in a sense. You know some people who have lived through hell think a harmless and imperfect meeting 1 hour a day is better than dying, prison or living day to day an insufferable active drunk. Can you blame them? You're an Asshole
You think A.A. is good for torturing alcoholics? That is illegal, you know.
One meeting per day does not fix alcohol addiction.
It is not a matter of "go to A.A. or drink".
A.A. does not work.
No, 6 million isn't a lot of money for a big corporation. The real money is a level down in the
pyramid, in the 12-Step treatment centers, who rake in about $15 billion per year.
(That is calculated by:
the total income for treatment centers in the USA is $20 billion per year, and
about 75% of the treatment centers use 12-Step theology as their treatment program.)
That is more minimization and denial. And Ad Hominem.
A.A. is notorious for victimizing people. Try reading
the horror stories that A.A. victims have sent in.
And again, you have no respect for alcoholics. You call them "malingerers" and "pussys".
I pity the newcomer who meets you.
A.A. does not just have religious parallels, A.A. is a religion.
The fact that you are a confused atheist doesn't change the fact that A.A. is a religion.
And your claim that you work the steps as an atheist is ridiculous.
The "Higher Power" who does not
exist will save you? And restore you to sanity? And remove your defects?
The God who does not exist will talk to you in Step 11 and tell you what to do?
Oh right, you rewrote the Steps. You aren't doing the A.A. Steps. You are doing your own Steps.
In your Steps, you meditate in Step 11 and nobody tells you nuthin'.
What's funny is that you are doing your own Steps which are nothing like what Bill Wilson
copied from Dr. Frank Buchman, and yet you claim that the A.A. 12 Steps work.
But you have never done them.
Nonsense. A.A. members blow other people's anonymity all of the time.
And Hollywood celebrities are notorious for bragging about their A.A. memberships.
That is just more minimization and denial.
What do you do about smug and arrogant oldtimers lording it over the newcomers?
What policy do you have for fixing the problem?
That is more denial. A.A. causes lot of deaths by telling people not to take their anti-psychotic
medications, and then the people flip out and commit suicide. A.A. also drives people into
depression by telling them that they are powerless over alcohol, and cannot ever recover,
and they must spend the rest of their lives confessing how bad they are.
Some people find that so depressing that they decide that they would rather die.
Here is
the list of A.A. suicide stories.
Nonsense. That is just slogan-slinging and fluffy talk. The sexual predators and megalomaniacs
do not "openly face them with humility".
A.A. is not free. They want your life, your mind, and your soul.
That's very expensive.
Wrong. I've gotten too many
horror stories
to believe that. The A.A. members immediately dropped
and shunned and socially isolated people who decided to get sober without A.A. or the 12 Steps.
For example, I got this letter:
So, I shared that I will never ever get a sponsor, and that I thought AA is
a cult. This was before I googled AA Cult on the internet. Hahahaha.... This
message is not what people want to hear in AA rooms. At all. I've noticed
over the years that if you "stay on message" the cult-members will love you
for it. At one point I was trying the get down on my knees and pray
scenario, and of course the members lapped this up when I shared about it.
This never sat well with me because I DO NOT believe in GOD. It goes against
everything that I believe in.
If you DO NOT tell AA members what they want to hear, they will all grumble
behind your back, call you a dry drunk, and tell you to work the program,
etc, etc, as you've pointed out.
Obviously, A.A. members care very much just how you get sober, and they resent someone
getting sober without kissing Bill Wilson's ass, and "working The Program".
A.A. members have repeatedly said that I am not really sober because I have not worked the 12 Steps.
Never mind the fact that I haven't had a drink of alcohol in 13 years, according to A.A. I am still
not sober. Maybe a "dry drunk", but not sober. And that is just cult bullshit.
Yes, voodoo masquerading as medicine is exactly what A.A. is. A.A. sells Dr. Frank Buchman's
religion as a cure for "alcoholism".
A.A. is not psychoanalysis, it is brainwashing.
Look at Dr. Robert Jay Lifton's Eight Conditions for Thought Reform, that is, for Red Chinese brainwashing, and notice that the A.A.
program does all of those things.
And what is really wild is that it was Dr. Frank Buchman who taught that guilt-inducing method
of group conversion to the Chinese back in the late nineteen-teens and early nineteen-twenties.
And some people need God because they are stupid?
And this is nonsense:
"Without anthropomorphic delusio isn't a cult!"
Have a good day now.
== Orange
[The next letter from Gamine_H is here.] 
[ Link here =
http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters401.html#Eva ]
Date: Sun, 18 May 2014 14:40:58 (answered 21 May 2014) Don't know where you got the idea I want the holocaust to be a hoax. Rather disappointed by that remark. Still, it is a very common reaction and you're nothing exceptional. All the best, Eva Sent from my iPad
Hello again, Eva,
You don't want the Holocaust to be a hoax? Then why do you reject all evidence that it ever happened?
You dismiss the Canadian trials of Holocaust deniers as "emotional" with "thin evidence".
You dismiss the evidence from the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials for some odd reason.
It seems like, no matter what evidence I bring up, you reject it with some excuse or other.
So what do you consider valid, reliable evidence that the Holocaust really happened?
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Mon, 19 May 2014 06:19:14 -0700 (answered 21 April 2014) Re: http://orange-papers.info/orange-letters32.html#Ryan_E BRAVO! WONDERFULLY COURAGEOUS STIMULATING nudges for brain cells of everyone concerned!! With deep appreciation & due regards to you both (sorry not able also to contact Ryan E.)...hoping you're both still ok ~ ~
New Reader (just found you on Google)
Hello Jackie,
Thanks for the letter and the compliments. Ah yes, what a blast from the past.
I had not looked at that letter in years.
I don't know about Ryan E., but I'm still okay, and I hope you are too.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Mon, 19 May 2014 15:08:20 (answered 23 May 2014) Hi Orange, First off thank you for what you do. From the beginning I thought their was something a little off about AA but decided to give it a shot anyway. One of the first AA slogans I heard was utilize don't analyze. Not easy for someone who analyzes just about everything, its just who I am and I'm fine with that. I thought the whole higher power thing was nonsense. So you can pick any higher power you choose and some how it's going to keep you sober i don't think so. Then there are the 12 steps that will help you have a spiritual awakening. Ya so. And how dare you question anything in the big book or anything else AA related. I remember the first time I did you would have thought I killed someone by the looks on the true believers faces. I always hated how AA took all the credit when someone stayed sober and gave all the blame to the individual when they didn't. It's crazy all the things I have heard and seen over the last year and a half. One question I have is "Do all the old timers really believe all the crap that is coming out of their mouths?" If so they are crazier now than before they entered AA. I thought step 2 was supposed to return you to sanity. I guess I must have misunderstood that step. On to steps 4 and 5: the only relief I got from doing these 2 steps was the relief they were done and over with nothing else and the only reason I did the stupid steps in the first place was just so I could say I did, a complete waste of time and I think and yes I do think unlike the true believers they are potentially dangerous for those who have bigger issues. The only thing good about reading the big book for me was the more I read it the more I disagreed with what it contained. I don't know about you, but reading a book once is usually good enough for me. I thought there was something off when I was told to read the book over and over again. Sounds a little cult like to me. I am so glad I never let myself get sucked in like so may others have. I am still baffled how anyone with half a brain could buy what AA is selling. Leap of faith my ass. I think I gave AA a fare shake I sat in meetings day after day for a year and a half faking it the whole time. It was suggested that I fake it til I make it. Make what a fool of myself sticking around any longer then I already have. No thank you. The last straw for me was finding out that all AA was, was a knock off of the Oxford group cult and that old Frank B's crazy ideas got passed on to Bill W. I also love how they base all of AA's so-called treatment on the opinion of one doctor. It sounds a little crazy to me. allergy funny. And last but not least remember its a thinking problem not a drinking problem. once again my ass. My best thinking got me the hell out of AA. thank goodness and the only one keeping me sober for the past year and a half was me. I guess I can give a little credit to the trusty old door knob or was it the group of drunks or the tables once again my ass. Thanks.
Hello Oscar,
Thanks for the letter, and of course I couldn't agree more.
Congratulations on your sobriety, too.
And yes, it was also my best thinking that got me out of A.A.
And another laugh is that when you voice such opinions, they say that "You have a resentment,"
as if that is the answer to everything.
A previous letter
just said that repeatedly. Funny how happy I am, and how well I am doing,
considering that I seem to be just a mass of resentments. :-)
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Last updated 26 May 2014. |
