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Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 12:02:16 (answered 24 June 2014) Orange, I get that you pick bones with AA for two main reasons (correct me if I'm wrong) Reason 1: AA just doesn't work for the problem it claims to solve . That its solution is not a solution and that it even makes the problem worse or fatal. That the "solution" itself causes a whole other separate problem. Reason 2: AA's real existence is to spread its dogma and it is a psychosocial trap. It is a "cult" (I would argue that that word is not applicable in its true sense) I will admit that it is a place where a contagious poisonous social meme exists. I can see with my own eyes that its the only room I know of where 'not knowing what the fuck you're talking' about becomes contagious, that its meant to convert, that its for the most part quack medicine riding atop an accurate description of alcoholism, that it really doesn't offer a viable solution to alcoholism and is straight up steps to conversion.
Hello again, Neal,
Thanks for the response. I agree with the two points that you listed,
but there is more:
I also admit that people quit on their own, and have spontaneous remission like I did. But the scientific reason for spontaneous remission is unclear and the word 'spontaneous' is about as vague and miraculous sounding as what AA offers, that God did it. Do you see what I'm talking about? Saying it was God or saying you spontaneously had remission is equivalent to saying 'I don't know". One is just a PC version. I personally quit because of the realization of certain death<----is that good enough to support spontaneous remission? It worked because I was a terrible alcoholic and haven't drank a drop in a year. I dont disagree with the phrase 'spontaneous remission', it exists but is still a fortunate event with unclear causes parallel with 'God healed me!' Both are wonderful because we're sober but the reason; perhaps the wrong side has monopolized the real source.
The word spontaneous is not vague at all. It's very simple:
Whenever anyone gets sick, there are only three possible outcomes:
Now why people spontaneously recover is wide open. It can be any cause.
Sometimes the patient changes his habits and improves his lifestyle,
and starts eating better, and stops bad habits like smoking and drinking and
drugging. That is what happened to me. The cause for that was because
I got sick and tired of being so sick and tired and I decided that I
didn't want to die that way. There was nothing mysterious about that.
Or the patient recovers because the immune system can easily beat that
disease. Like the common cold. Or simple skin infections that the
immune system wipes out. No doctor is needed. The body routinely
kills diseases and infections, and heals skinned knees,
without any help from a doctor.
And then sometimes nobody knows why the immune system suddenly rallied
and eliminated the disease. Sometimes it is mysterious, and the doctor
doesn't know what went right.
Those are your points right? More or less? I get it and frankly agree (this is true, I do agree with a lot of your grievances) though there are numerous counter points that you cant just wish away no matter how many people get raped in AA or drink themselves into death because they think they're powerless. But, as above, reasons 1 and 2 are why you've done what you've done---because it doesn't work and that its a cult. Right?
Like I said above, there are more points.
Counterpoints? What counterpoints?
Here is where I don't understand your whole thing. Catholics, Protestants and Mormons (as well as Many other religious bodies) have structures on every street corner in this country as well as influence over every scrap of dirt on this planet. Their influence is without bounds and its been this way for circa 2000 years.
Yes, but the only two churches in the USA that are trying to use the legal
system to force people do join their church are the Church of Scientology
and the 12-Step church — Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.
12-Step "rehab centers" and "treatment centers" make billions of dollars
by selling
Dr. Frank Buchman's old cult religion
as a quack cure for alcohol abuse and addiction.
Scientology sees the racket that the 12-Step cult is running, and they
want to get some of that money too, so they have been campaigning to have the
courts sentence alcoholics and drug addicts to Scientology
"treatment centers" where people
will be given "toxic rundowns" that are based on the ravings of the
paranoid schizophrenic Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, the founder of Scientology.
So far, none of the Catholics or Baptists or Methodists or Episcopalians
or any other mainstream religion has tried to coerce me into their church,
so there is a big difference there.
We know now, without a doubt! that Darwinian Evolution and Natural Selection shaped all life and even morality itself — FACT. That these mammoth religions are absolutely wrong about the nature of reality. They are not only wrong in their claims but they make whatever problems they purport to alleviate worse, even fatally worse on a regular basis. They are also cults in the most accurate meaning of the word and seek to convert and encompass and rule through memeplexes, group think, dogma---they prey on social and individual weaknesses. Yes, churches that deny science and tell Creationism fairy tales are wrong. But most of them do not qualify as cults — just a bunch of misguided people with erroneous unrealistic beliefs. It's a shades-of-gray thing. See The Cult Test for a long analysis of what is a cult. My point is that the reasons you give to defend all you work and tirade against AA; they fit immeasurably more with these global faiths. These faiths have killed, enslaved, and fooled trillions of more people and usurped beyond recognition a future of humanity that would be admirable for any outside entity studying us. From an outside, objective standpoint these religions have made us look especially insane, cruel, hopeless, helpless and pathetic.
I am quite aware of the slaughter that religions have done. My history
professor told me that the Christian Church burned 14 million girls as
witches in the middle ages. Grand Inquisitor Torquemada in Spain
marched into one Spanish city of 30,000 inhabitants one day, and
declared that every woman, girl, and baby girl in the city was a witch,
and three days later, there were only 15,000 inhabitants in the city,
all male. Torquemada slaughtered all of the females, even the babies.
The Pope refused to criticize Torquemada or stop him because the Pope
didn't want to weaken the power of the Church. And the current Popes
still have not apologized for that, or admitted any guilt on the part
of the Church.
And then there were the 20 Years War and the 40 Years War where
Catholics and Protestants murdered each other in countless numbers,
and thoroughly wrecked Europe.
But all of that happened several hundred years ago.
What Alcoholics Anonymous is doing is right now.
I cannot change the past, but I can change the present and the future.
Similarly, right now in foreign countries, the true believers are murdering
without restraint. In just the last week, the bunch of fanatics called
ISIS slaughtered 1500 captured soldiers in Iraq. And over in India
and Pakistan,
the war between the Moslems and Hindus continues. And over in Myanmar,
the Buddhists are killing the Moslems. Buddhists yet. They are supposed
to be pacifists.
Still, I have no control over those countries or populations, nor do I
have any influence there. But I have some influence here, so I shall
work on what needs changing here.
AA is only the 'idea' of a minnow next to a real, flesh and blood grinding great white shark. AA is like fresh oxygen and 70 degree poolside weather compared to finding oneself on Venus, burning alive in a boiling chemical soup and breathing methane. Why blame AA for its faults when the real murdering, giant lie is destroying the whole of humanity? One is responsible for a finite number of deaths, falsehoods and sexual assaults, the other threatens to extinct an entire species after thousands of years of the most horrendous torture. Who is worthy of our criticism, really?
Sorry, but I find those analogies to be grossly inaccurate. Given a choice
between A.A. or a mainstream standard-brand religion, I'll take the later
any day. They may have goofy ideas about evolution, but they don't go
around telling people that they are powerless over sin and cannot ever
recover and the only hope is to surrender to God and become a slave of
the Big Dictator in Heaven.
And they don't tell people not to take their medications.
And they don't drive people to suicide. Not usually, not like
how A.A. does.
As far as my AA attendance, I withdrew it (from attending daily for 10 months at a very nice LGBT group welcoming atheists *nothing like the cult you describe*) I only attend it once a week, and only that because I committed to chair a meeting in June which I always introduce a topic that isn't insane (one week I did prescription drugs and outside doctors---no one was saying don't use them and expect AA to miracle your brain into not needing drugs--you exaggerate. Everyone said something to the effect that outside help was vital. The next week I did a meeting about how AA is not allied with any politics etc...<----This is the real reason I stopped attending (including many of your reasons) because the group and especially my former sponsor was so far left wing it was an insult to my history as a former infantry Marine. I was continuously being fed copious amounts of the most bitter liberalism. I like the left just not the out of control kind that the homosexual crowd loves to indulge in.
No, I don't exaggerate the issue of "no medications". You are lucky
that you are going to a meeting where the people are not against medications.
I have plenty of horror stories where people were told by their sponsors
and other "elders" not to take their medications.
Look here:
A.A. "No Meds" Stories.
This study found that "only" 17% of the A.A. sponsors were against medications,
and told their sponsees not to take them.
[See the abstract of this paper, and futher discussion, here:
That means that newcomers have a one-in-six chance of getting a sponsor who might
kill them with bad medical advice. That really is Russian Roulette.
Note that only one-sixth of the sponsors were telling people not to take their medications,
but one-third of the newer members were counseled not to take their medications.
So apparently each fanatical sponsor was giving bad advice to two or more newcomers.
That makes sense. The crazies try to make as many converts as they can.
The official A.A. web site actually acknowledges that
A.A. members have pushed newcomers into suicide by telling them not to take
their medications.
Their conference-approved pamphlet, "The AA Member — Medications & Other
Drugs", on page 13 states
AA members and many of their physicians have described
situations in which depressed patients have been told by AAs to throw away the
pills, only to have the depression return with all of its difficulties, sometimes
resulting in suicide.
We have heard, too, from schizophrenics, manic
depressives, epileptics, and others requiring
medication that well-meaning A.A. friends often
discourage them from taking prescribed medication.
Unfortunately, by following a layman's
advice, the sufferers find that their conditions
can return with all their previous intensity. On
top of that, they feel guilty because they are
convinced that "A.A. is against pills."
Of course the above wishy-washy back-and-forth apologetic quote begs the question:
So who decides? Who has the knowledge and the power?
Which sponsors or old-timers are entitled to play doctor?
I'm a Veteran too, and I find it odd that you consider A.A.
to be "liberal". It is much more like Fascism:
So just do what your sponsor says, and stop your Stinkin' Thinkin'.
"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools
have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction
without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently,
all character training and religion must be derived from faith
... we need believing people."
"The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each
in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking
superficially of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and
not let God's word be desecrated. For God's will gave men their
form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys His
work is declaring war on the Lord's creation, the divine will."
"Today Christians ... stand at the head of [this country]...
I pledge that I never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy
Christianity .. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian
spirit ... We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments
in literature, in the theater, and in the press - in short, we want
to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our
whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during the
past ... (few) years."
I have to strongly disagree with your slurs that "the homosexual crowd loves to indulge in"
"copious amounts of the most bitter liberalism."
That is painting with a very broad brush, and stereotyping homosexuals.
One of my best friends is gay, and he doesn't "indulge in bitter liberalism".
He is quite sensible on most subjects. And very intelligent.
His knowledge is vast and encyclopedic, which is one of the reasons that
I like to hang out with him. He also has Asperger's Syndrome, which
makes him a lot like the guy on the TV show, "The Big Bang Theory".
He just doesn't even vaguely resemble your stereotype of homosexuals.
I have two more meetings in which Im 'supposed' to chair. Through listening to your shit and forming unbiased reasons of my own, I've ceased AA attendance. But I'm still considering attending We Agnostics, a small group comprised of 10 hardcore atheist, recovered alcoholics. We talk about non-AA approved literature the whole time! You seriously exaggerated the negative aspects man and getting to my main point above, you are attacking the wrong organization. What you're doing is accusing the friend of a friend of a bully. Go after the real problem, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. That's where humanity is hit hard. AA is a joke that will die out on its own. All the newcomers go back out anyway and people argue over all of its literature and constantly gossip about each other. In those three religions though, millions swallow the fatal bait, hook, line and sinker.
Sorry, but I have no intentions of trying to wipe out all of the religions
in the world.
Have you ever heard the advice to "Choose your battles carefully."?
I have zero chance of eliminating all religions, so it would be a futile
waste of my time to try. However, I can simply speak the truth and try
to inject some common sense and reasonable rational thinking into the
conversation. That can improve the situation.
Its like you're crying over getting splashed with water when whole cities are being sunk by tsunamis. Direct your efforts towards a more guilty institution or are you a fucking theist? I'd be extremely surprised and angry to hear that you were even Pantheist. making the wake you make, you had better be more Atheist than Chris Hitchens.
Again, the organized religions are not trying to get people sentenced to
their church services (not in the USA), and they are not trying to
push faith healing as a cure for deadly medical problems. A.A. is a
special kind of evil.
Now I know about the appalling religious fanatics in other countries.
We are hearing about the case of a Moslem woman in Sudan who was sentenced to
death for marrying a Christian and "abandoning Islam".
(Fortunately for her, she was pardoned and is apparently being allowed
to leave the country, although she isn't out yet, as of today.)
And other countries are plagued by religious fundamentalists. This decade,
the Islamic extremists seem to be the most obnoxious. (In other centuries,
it was Christian crusaders and missionaries killing brown- and
black-skinned people by the millions.) On the evening news, we are treated to
a never-ending series of horror stories of what they are doing, like shooting
a 12-year-old girl who goes to school. Alas, I cannot change those
countries or their people. But I can work against having such insanity
happen here. What I want to avoid is having Ayatollah Anonymous
enforcing a strict fundamentalist dogma here in the USA.
Anyway, thanks for reading, it truly is a pleasure arguing with you. Maybe you should think about giving up all attacks on these people (AA and believers) except when they're brought up in your conversational vicinity. I suggest this because you must spend all day on a computer doing this shit and its no way to live, no offense. Go duck hunting, just kidding. AA is not a worthy opponent of your true criticisms. The god damn xtians, jews and muslims are the real culprits.
Actually, I don't spend as much time in front of a computer as you think.
And I do go duck hunting, often. And goose hunting, too.
And I shoot them with a camera.
And then feed them. We get along great. And as a result, my suntan is
getting along fine too.
Lastly, I don't regard the Christians, Jews, and Moslems to be my mortal enemies.
I think that irrational thinking is more of the problem. It's another shades-of-gray
thing. Some believers are actually pretty sensible and some are nuts and
wallow in wishful thinking and imagine that Santa Claus will give them everything
that they want if they are good.
That gay friend of mine signs his letters with this signature. I'm sure that
you will like it:
Notice that the writer was a Muslim himself. But he was a sensible one.
He had brains. I think the same goes for all religious people. Some are very
sensible, thinking people and they are not our mortal enemies.
On the other hand, I worry about the ultra-Conservatives and Tea Party members
and Neo-Nazi nutcases and loud-mouthed religious Fundamentalists.
Many of them are even more irrational and radical and
hateful than any religous true believer.
With respect, Neal
You have a good day too, Neal.
== Orange
[The next letter from Gamine_H is here.] 
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 21:57:35 (answered 29 June 2014) Hello, I read your 10 + page of negative points which basically are saying that AA is a terrible, fanatical conspiracy agenda full of predators and criminals ready to pounce on the downtrodden. Couldn't get through ALL of that negative, but it would be wonderful of you to end your rant with a positive alternative. Then it wouldn't be a rant anymore but a useful article with a useful outcome. Where do you, in your wisdom, suggest that depressed people struggling with alcohol addiction go to get low cost help and real support? D
Hello Derek,
Thanks for the letter. I do provide a positive alternative, many of them
in fact. I have a list of such things. Apparently you didn't see it.
Here is the list of non-cult, sane, evidence-based methods and support
groups:
And here is the Top 10 reading list, which really numbers closer to 30
items, which can also give you much good information:
And here is my own description of what worked for me, with links
to many more lists of treatment programs and ratings of their effectiveness,
and also links to more discussions of what has worked for other people:
Then, it occurred to me that your question is asked enough times that I should put together a better
web page about "what works?", so I did:
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 09:29:15 (answered 29 June 2014) Who are you...? Sent From mobile
Hello Jamie,
Thanks for the compliment. Your question about who I am can be answered in many different ways, like:
We've discussed this before, in a variety of letters:
Have a good day now.
== Orange
From: Dr. Chris W.
You wrote: >>And a disease that has only symptoms is called a psychosomatic illness. They say that it's all in your head. I never heard a competent doctor declare that alcoholism was a psychosomatic illness. http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-interpreted.html#symptom The definition of Psycho-Somatic means that the mind caused the problem in the body. A classic medical example is a stress induced ulcer that really exists. The physical ulcer is caused by the mind. "Hysteria," is when there are no organic (somatic) signs but only subjective symptoms. IMHO, alcoholism is a symptom and not a disease per say like Wilson claimed. The only way alcoholism can be remotely defined as a disease is that it causes difficult ease (dis-ease) to the person. Anyway, I like your papers and want them to be accurate.
Chris W., DC
Hello Chris,
Thank you for the correction. I also want every last little detail to
be correct.
Okay, so the proper term is hysterical, not psychosomatic.
And yes, "alcoholism" isn't a disease. It's behavior.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2014 01:52:49 (answered 8 July 2014) Hi Orange, Here's an interesting study from Germany in 2007 that concluded that "The present study was unable to show an advantage of self-help group [AA] attendance in reducing relapses compared to the control group." THE IMPACT OF SELF-HELP GROUP ATTENDANCE ON RELAPSE RATES AFTER ALCOHOL DETOXIFICATION IN A CONTROLLED STUDY. http://alcalc.oxfordjournals.org/content/42/2/108.long Participants were taken from the placebo arm of a pharmaceutical trial of the treatment of moderately to severely alcohol dependent individuals. In addition to receiving a placebo pharmaceutical injection the participants were allowed to choose between attending AA or not attending AA. Participants were monitored for 1 year and abstinence was verified by biological tests. Intention to Treat (ITT) evaluation was used where drop outs in both the AA and non AA groups were considered failures. Over the course of 1 year 42% of participants in the AA group dropped out and 39% in the non AA group dropped out (possible treatment effect on retention here). At the end of 1 year the ITT abstinence rate in the AA group was 36.0% and in the non AA group it was 35.7% — essentially no difference. Of those that completed 1 year of participation in the study (Per Protocol evaluation) 62% of the AA group was abstinent and 59% of the non AA group was abstinent — again, essentially no difference. There are some really good aspects to this study:
In summary, 36% of those who began the study remained abstinent for 1 year and ~60% of those who completed 1 year in the study remained abstinent regardless of whether they attended AA or not. Statistically, attendance at AA had no effect. Iamnotastatistic
Hello Iamnotastatistic,
Thanks for a very interesting study. I am not really surprised
that A.A. was shown to be completely ineffective and useless, of course,
because
ALL of the valid clinical tests of A.A. have revealed that
A.A. does not work.
Still, it's good to keep on collecting the evidence
and reporting the truth to the public. The public will wise up
eventually.
That study had a very high success rate, like 36% of the alcoholics
getting a year of sobriety. That is much, much higher than
the usual
5% per year rate of normal spontaneous remission.
I suspect that they must have cherry-picked the people who would
become the test subjects, and rejected the sickest ones who would
not recover. Otherwise, those placebo pills would seem to be pure
magic.
So far, there is no treatment or medication on earth that immediately
cures 36% of the alcoholics, or alcohol abusers, or alcohol addicts,
or whatever you wish to call them.
And for a placebo pill to do it is outrageous.
I have a big problem with the author's introduction to the subject:
He says that the results of various tests of A.A. are "inconsistent",
and he cites A.A. promoters and propagandists as if their tomes were
just as valid as the reports from researchers who
conducted randomized longitudinal controlled studies. The author cites
Emrick and Moos and Moos and Humphries as if they told the truth. But
we know that they didn't.
The International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction
strongly criticized the Moos and Humphreys team for conducting a very
bad test that was basically a fraud.
And the Emrick "study" was nothing but Emrick quoting a bunch
of other A.A. propagandists in order to "prove" that A.A. works.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2014 20:20:44 (answered 12 July 2014) Just a quick FYI if you have not seen this. Long Island Bob O. When is an Alcoholic not a "real alcoholic"? When they stop drinking by any other means than AA.
Hello again, Bob,
Ah yes. Funny how that works. That is exactly what happened to me.
The counselors and A.A. know-it-alls were sure that I was a real
alcoholic before I quit drinking, but after I quit drinking without A.A. or
doing the 12 Steps or "working a strong program", they suddenly
changed their minds and declared that I wasn't a "real alcoholic"
after all, and I didn't know anything about it.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2014 11:00:38 (answered 12 July 2014)
Friends, Indeed.
Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2014 12:02:33 (answered 12 July 2014) I don't know who will read this, or who wrote this. I just wanted to say thank you. I too went to AA for 6 months going through difficult times. I allowed an alcoholic to tell me I had a problem and needed to go to AA. When what I needed was a therapist and anxiety medication. It destroyed me emotionally and mentally. Altered my sense of reality and my faith in humanity. Never have I met such a crowd of hypocritical lying egotistical people stuck in their delusional pink cloud of narcissism in my life. I rarely drink now. My life although not perfect is not the complete chaos it was since I got away from AA. I suffered much there and was an outcast all because I refused to become an drone and drink the AA kool aid. The 12 steps don't work for everyone and as they say, "we are not doctors,". I was accused of not surrendering and not working the steps and that's why I was not happy in my sobriety. Well with all due respect AA can kiss my ass. Once again thank you gor this article. I hope more people read this and get the proper help they need and stay away from the cult that is AA.
Hello Ronnie,
Thank you for the letter, and thanks for the thanks,
and I couldn't agree more.
I'm glad to hear that you are doing well, and are free of the
madness.
Many people will read your letter. I don't have any statistics handy
now, but the last time I was getting numbers, the web site was getting
5 or 6 million hits a month, so certainly at least a few thousand people
will read your letter, maybe a lot more than that.
And I also hope that people get the help that they really need,
rather than quackery and superstition, and abuse from cult members.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Last updated 9 October 2014. |
