Letters, We Get Mail, CDXIX



[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters419.html#Stephen_S ]

Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 15:26:14 -0800     (answered 23 November 2014)
From: Stephen S.
To: orange@orange-papers.info
Subject: A. Orange ???

I would like to find out who authored this article...

Hello Stephen,

The Orange Papers are authored by Terrance Hodgins, of Forest Grove, Oregon.

The autobiographical information is here:

Have a good day now.

== Orange 

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     Rum kills more sailors than the sword.





BLOG NOTE: 2014.11.24: Saturday, I got a letter from the Rental Management Services, saying "Termination Notice — 60 Days". "This is a termination notice. You must vacate by 01/25/2015."

The letter said, "It is not necessary to show you have done anything wrong or that you have violated your rental agreement."

I don't know what is going on, but it looks like I will be busy moving for a while. I don't know what I'm going to do at this stage.

I have been thinking about getting a moderator to help out with the forum. The problem is that there is no moderator function in the Drupal forum software. There is no position between normal authorized user and System Administrator. The only privilege levels are unauthorized visitors who can read but not post, and authorized members who can post, and God Of The System who can do anything and delete anything or change anything, or destroy it all. In order for someone to become a moderator who can authorize new registrations or delete spam or bad posts, they will have to get God-powers over the whole system. That makes me nervous. There is not only the question of good will and good intentions, but they also have to be technically savvy enough to not screw things up.

So I have to investigate that too.

Have a good day now.

== Orange





[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters419.html#Anonymous1 ]

Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 03:20:25 -0500     (answered 25 November 2014)
From: Anonymous1
To: "orange@orange-papers.info" <orange@orange-papers.info>
Subject: Hello

I have a pair of books I think you would like. They can help you add to the propaganda and debating techniques section, and also to anything you might write about critical thinking.

"With Good Reason" by S. Morris Engel
http://www.amazon.com/Good-Reason-Introduction-Informal-Fallacies/dp/0312157584/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416743944&sr=8-1&keywords=With+good+reason

"The B.S. Factor" by Arthur Herzog
http://www.amazon.com/B-S-Factor-Theory-Technique-America/dp/0595276105/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1416817125&sr=8-3&keywords=The+b.s.+Factor

Thanks for reading.

P.S. Your search field is not working, at least not in Safari.

Hello Anonymous1,

Thanks for the recommendations. I'll check out those books.

Yes, I know about the search function. That has not worked since I moved the Orange Papers onto a new host that doesn't have that search engine. I'm looking for a replacement.

Have a good day now.

== Orange 

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition
**     of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life,
**     we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common
**     calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.
**        ==  Joseph Addison (1672—1719), English essayist, critic, poet

P.S.: 2014.12.09: I got "With Good Reason" from the library, and it looks quite good. It lists and categorizes and explains many logical fallacies. I can see that I will get several new entries for the Propaganda and Debating Techniques web page (sometime in the middle of the nightmare of moving, or after).





[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters419.html#Michael ]

From: Michael
To: "orange@orange-papers.info" <orange@orange-papers.info>
Subject: Your website — very powerful
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 07:57:02 -0800

Hello,

I have been sober for over nine months and have ZERO desire to ever drink again. I have been attending AA meetings since Feb 2014. Although they have been helpful, I have had the nagging feeling they were cultish, repetitive and likely harmful in ways I could not put my finger on.

My wife filed for divorce 8 months after I got sober and I believe one of the reasons is her stigma with 12 step programs and fear this would be a significant part of our lives forever. Although, with her drinking habits, there is a lot more to it.

I don't want to be stuck in a life long program of recovery and want to move on with my life.

At the moment, I feel overwhelmed by the amount of information on your site and would like to ask where you recommend I start?

Also, if you have the time, I'd like to converse with you about this in greater detail.

Thank you,

Michael
(858) xxx-xxxx

Hello Michael,

Thanks for the letter and the compliments. Congratulations on your sobriety, and your decision to never drink again.

I also have no desire to spend the rest of my life in a club where people talk about drinking all of the time. Real recovery is just what you described: move on with your life. Go find something better to do. Do something that is more fun than either slow suicide or talking about slow suicide.

Sorry to hear about your divorce. That is a common A.A. occurrence. Psychology Today magazine reported that the divorce rate in families where one partner joined A.A. was 25% in just the first year.

Now, where to start to get the essence of the Orange Papers? I guess I'd have to recommend:

And for recovery:

Have a a good day now. And sure, we can talk more.

== Orange 

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**   Abstinence isn't self-denial or deprivation.
**   It's just that I've already done my lifetime quota.





September 21, 2014, Sunday, the Fernhill Wetlands at Forest Grove, Oregon:

Domestic Ducks
The domestic ducks are coming for some munchies.

Canada Geese
The Canada Geese are hanging out and getting some bread to eat.

Drying Pond with Canada Geese
The pond is drying up in late summer.

Drying Pond with Canada Geese
There is just a little water left for the geese and ducks and other water birds.

[More bird photos below, here.]





[The following two letters arrived by snail mail when the computer system was under a DOS attack.]

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters419.html#Clare ]

Date: 5 Nov 2014
From: Clare E.

Hey Terry,

I am one of your fans. The Orange Papers is where I go to cheer myself up. The site now comes up as "Forbidden". My server goes to Mozilla Firefox and I have complained to them already. Is anything going on?

I enclosed a stamped envelope if you care to answer but can't via computer.

Thanks,
Clare

[I replied something like]
Hello Clare,

Thanks for the note and the donation. Thankful I am. The host computer has been under a Denial of Service attack. Somebody who doesn't want people to be able to read the Orange Papers has been sending immense numbers of page requests to the host computer to overload it and crash it. Jeff had to move the Orange Papers to another host computer to isolate it from other customers' accounts, and during the move, some permissions got turned off. I explained that in detail here:
http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters416.html#DOS

I didn't know about those problems because just after Jeff (the sys admin of the host computers) told me about the DOS attack, I came down with a cold that has had me down for three weeks. But I'm back up now. By the time that I learned about the problems, Jeff had already fixed them.

Thanks again, and have a good day.

[She replied:]

Date: 7 Dec 2014    (answered 10 December 2014)
From: Clare E.

Dear Terry,

So grateful for the Orange Papers — glad the site wasn't out for more than a day or so. Never saw my original letter to you posted so include it here. Have a great holiday. Thanks for everything that you do.
Clare

March 10, 2014

Dear Orange,

My first thought upon stumbling across your website was "there really IS a God!" I say that facetiously as I am an agnostic who has been in and around and out of AA for some 25 years. My story dispels some of those AA myths, particularly about relapse, and I will tell it below. Just want to first say that your website confirms SO many of my impressions and realizations about the cult of AA. You nail it! When I went to my first AA meeting and heard the female speaker tell her story, I thought, "WOW. I'm not crazy!" Haven't had that same feeling of relief until I started reading here. You provide an immeasurable comfort to so many of us who never "got it".

In less than a week I will have a year sober. I relapsed after not getting drunk for 18 years, the last eight of which I rarely attended meetings. I achieved the first 10 years on two meetings a week, sometimes less. One was a women's meeting where I received genuine support and love without being pressed to "work the program" much. Good thing, too, because I was busy working on life: getting a career back, having a child, buying a house, finding a husband. The other meeting was near Wall Street in New York City where I would think "if these guys working on the exchanges can stay away from a drink, then I can do it too."

After sponsoring me for 10 years, my sponsor relapsed — her first attempt at unsuccessfully using crack — but she came back into AA and has another ten years so that is good. We remain friends. She was really helpful when something in life brought me to tears and she and other sober women held a baby shower for me and danced at my wedding. Never bothered to get another sponsor until this year.

I stopped going to AA because the literature just drove me up a tree (or should I say, Down a Well). I could kind of handle people yapping about God because it seemed to help them feel important. But reading the Big Book and that incredibly sick 12and12 would leave me either angry or depressed. I don't think I would have liked Bill Wilson. I wouuld try to "detach" from the readings but that only worked for a while. Then I started to notice that the people who were "Step Nazis" were also the people you would probably want to stay away from, because they certainly didn't practice what they preached and also they really enjoyed mind games, which I hate. I didn't want what the people who "worked" the program had, so over the next eight years, I would occasionally attend a meeting, but pretty much lost touch with the AA ladies and stopped feeling the anger/depression cycle brought on by the literature. I concentrated on my family and work to everyone's benefit. I have seen lots of mothers virtually abandon their children for meetings with sometimes negative consequences.

Here's the part of the story I hate. I relapsed (on Veuve Cliquot champagne, so at least I went out in style) for a silly but major reason most women relate to, and found I didn't really want to stop so soon. I just love tying one on. And whereas I had been one of those "real alcoholics" with blackouts etc... eighteen years ago, when I relapsed I could tie one on and then not touch it for the rest of the day, or for days, or for months (90 days for instance). So much for my "disease" doing pushups for eighteen years. Based on AA lore, I was sure that a relapse would toss me into the streets. As it was, I probably got drunk 20 or so times and even managed controlled social drinking twice. Not one hangover. I was able to hide my drinking from my family, so there weren't really stark consequences. I made some rules for myself (no driving, no talking on the phone) but when I started to break them a year and a half into this process, I concluded that "this is geting really old" and "I need to stop". I had been trying to reacquaint with AA but it wasn't a lot of fun being back in the Rooms. Finally walked into an AA meeting sobbing for help, (Steppers call it a Surrender), got a sponsor 90 days later (a real friend who knows how antithetic to my being the cult mentality is, as well as my scorn for the literature). I am definitely part of the Newcomer Rescue League. I befriend women and tell them they can think and feel whatever they like with me.

I am very quiet about my agnosticism and people assume I am not since I joined the Quackers (no dogma) many years ago. I hate "fake it till you make it" and say that often. When I share in meetings it is using my own truth and words and not related to the steps. I am very careful, though, to not speak against the "Program" because that always invites some asshole to share right after me and "set me straight". Usually men, but some really toxic women, too. Sometimes I will admit that any Higher Power I might have has no bearing on the causality of events, so really might not be a very good one by AA standards. I have AA women friends who are genuinely nice although my non-AA friends are the ones I can really be honest with about the whole cult experience. If I need to ditch AA am preparedd to do so.

I am "sponsoring" two women who have been "chronic relapsers". Just try to be a good friend. They both know that I am certain AA's relapse rate is unspeakably high and that I would love to have the fellowship without the religion. I have found a SMART recovery meeting but it seems to have really young kids in it and I am 56. Am taking the SmartRecovery on-line course so that I can run a women's meeting when and if I'm ready. I am sometimes honest with my AA acquaintances who have "drunk the koolaid". I told one that I thought it was really predatory of her to pounce on newcomers and declare herself their sponsor.

I have a possum living in my garage who is eating the food and sleeping in the beds of the feral cats I feed. He slinks around hoping not to be noticed, although he will soon have to be relocated. I feel much the same way in AA — a possum trying to pass as a cat. For now, AA is repelling and somewhat superstitiously comforting. Reading your site is SUCH a great relief to me. Love the image of the guy throwing starfish back in the ocean. And the letters! If you ever hold a conference open to readers, I will be the first to sign up!

By the way, as you know, I never "lost" my 18 years sober. My confidence about this seems to bother some people. And, absolutely, categorically, simply NEVER pick up that first drink. For sure.

Yours faithfully,
Eggster

Hello again, Clare,

Thanks for the letter and all of the compliments. And thanks for resending the letter. I never saw the first copy. I don't know if it got lost during the problems with my upgrading my notebook computer's operating system, or during the DOS attacks, or sometime earlier, but it somehow disappeared down a black hole.

[OTHER READERS: If you sent a letter sometime in the last couple of months that seems to have just disappeared, please resend it. I know that some email got lost during those problems, but of course can't know what got lost. Hopefully it was just spam, but obviously it wasn't all spam.]

I relapsed once, around 1990, after three years of flawless sobriety. I also found that "my disease" was not progressing while I was sober. I started drinking again at exactly the same level of consumption and tolerance as I was at when I quit. It took another 9 years of drinking for my drinking to increase to near-fatal levels.

It's really a shame that you have to hide your agnosticism and can't tell the truth in A.A. meetings. And you can't "criticize the Program", or dispute the crazy things that Bill Wilson wrote in the Big Book or 12X12. That is one of the things that puts me off too. If I can't tell the truth, then I am not among friends. That was why I found SMART meetings to be such a breath of fresh air. You could actually tell the truth, the whole truth, and question any statement.

I know what you mean about the SMART meeting being full of young people. Years ago, I wrote about SMART meetings here:

One thing about SMART: Please don't just go to one meeting and think that you have seen it all. Different meetings can have very different personalities, just as different as the people who facilitate the meetings. In my area, there were three different SMART meetings that I went to. One was very staid and formal, run by a university professor. It was just too rigid for me to feel really comfortable and relaxed there. The second was run by college students. They were nice kids, but I couldn't get away from the feeling that, since I was old enough to be their grandfather, maybe I knew more about addictions than they did. They were nice, well-meaning kids, but still... I think their actual experience with drugs and alcohol was close to zero. The third meeting was run by a young guy, who was a former skate-boarder and rock band guitarist, who worked as a counselor for troubled children, and it was the loosest, most free-wheeling meeting of all. One visiting facilitator called it "the wackiest ship in the Navy." That was just right for me.

So please give several different meetings a try before coming to any conclusions. Thanks.

You are quite right about the woman who pounces on newcomers and declares herself their sponsor. That is a predator. One of my signatures is: 

**     If someone approaches you at an A.A. meeting and offers
**     to be your sponsor, run — don't walk — for the door.
**     You just met a vampire.

It is even against the unwritten A.A. rules to declare oneself someone's sponsor. The newcomer is supposed to choose the sponsor. Always. That is to protect newcomers from slave collectors who go around drafting sponsees. It is also supposed to prevent sexual predators recruiting for their harems.

I also have a possum or two in my back yard, and a raccoon. They don't need to be relocated. Alas, the 14 skunks did need to be relocated, but at least a very nice company did the live trapping and moving, and they even worked to keep the families together by releasing them all in the same place in a wildlife preserve. And then of course I have hummingbirds and squirrels whom I feed every day. And zillions of other birds. I'm going to miss this place when I am forced to move out in January. Hopefully I can find another place further out in the country where I will have even more wildlife. I want a pond with Canada Geese in my back yard.

Have a good day now, and a good life.

== Orange 

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
*
**     "When you live in a world of universal deceit, telling
**      the truth becomes a revolutionary act"
**       ==  George Orwell
*
**     "In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy
**     of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot."
**       ==  Czeslaw Milosz





September 23, 2014, Tuesday, my yard in Forest Grove:

flower garden
Front yard garden

flowers

Globe Thistles
Globe Thistles

Nigelia Flower
Nigelia Flower

[The story of the birds continues here.]





NEWS NOTE: 2014.12.19: In Albany, Oregon, another pair of parents were found guilty of killing their child by "faith healing". Members of a local nut-case church, "The Church of the First-Born", do not believe in taking their sick children to a doctor. They insist on relying solely on prayer and waiting for the Lord to fix things.

In this case, the prosecutor declared that a 12-year-old girl died from untreated diabetes, and the girl could have lived if the parents had gotten the girl medical treatment. The minimum sentence for the death is 10 years, and both parents were sentenced to 10 years. At the sentencing, the parents cried that they never meant to hurt their daughter. Their two other children will live with friends of the family. (Which probably means other church members.)

I wonder when the courts will start convicting A.A. sponsors for such quackery. A.A. sponsors are notorious for telling people not to take their medications, and to just trust God and the 12 Steps to heal them. Too often, the results are death or suicide.

"Waiting for God to provide is a good way to become very spiritual and very gone from this worldly scene."

== John Phipps

I notice that such use of prayer is a lame attempt at magic. The people who are praying imagine that they are skilled wizards who have such great magical powers that they can get whatever they want by incanting a spell that begins, "Dear God, please gimme, gimme, gimme..."

Now of course they will never use the words "wizard" or "magic" — they will say that would be "black magic" or "sorcery" — but they still believe that they can get magical results by casting spells that they call "prayers".

Alas, they never studied with Harry Potter and Hermione, or graduated from Hogwart.

And isn't it funny how, if you incant, "In the name of Satan and Baelzebub and all of the Demons of Darkness, I command you to give me...", that is "Black Magic" and "Demonology"?

But if you incant, "In the name of God and Jesus and all of the Angels, I beg you to give me...", then that is "pious religion" and "proper God-fearing behavior".

Apparently, it's just a matter of which spirits you invoke to do your bidding. Making Satan your servant is bad, but making Jesus your servant is good.

(I guess we are supposed to simply ignore the fact that it is collosally arrogant for someone to imagine that he can make God or Jesus do his bidding. If God really has a Divine Plan, then I don't think that God needs humans telling Him to change the Divine Plan to suit them.)





Merry Christmas everybody. Please have a sane and healthy holiday season.

And remember: 

**     Buy a Hallmark Christmas card and help A.A. to rape underage girls.





[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters419.html#Patrick ]

Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 06:39:55 -0500    (answered 20 December 2014)
From: Patrick
To: "orange@orange-papers.info" <orange@orange-papers.info>
Subject: Hi

Hey Orange Paper Dude,

AA helped me to get sober and stay sober. My wife has 25 years and I have 21 years. We've been too lazy to celebrate our anniversaries, and haven't really cared to pick up our medallions regularly. Sobriety, with or without AA, is integrated in our lives.

Comments:

1) AA was created by human beings, so it has its flaws.

IMPORTANT: The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking. (I'd add "the only other requirement is having nothing better to do" ) LOL

2) AA has helped alcoholics such as me interrupt the cycle of drinking, depression, and degradation of personality due to not being able to quit drinking.

3) There is a lot of truth in your study, but you dont mention that there are healthy sober people who mind there own business. Examples of MYOB are:
-sober time
-move on from AA
-judgment of dry" or not "dry"; mental and emotional states (always temporary)

4) My wife and I get a lot out of attending meetings where the perspective is more diverse.

5) We want to start a YELP for AA meetings. :-) a rating of 0 means "complete disaster" and 10 means "peaceful and has coffee and donuts"

6) we are open to any debate/discussion of AA and different modalities of treating alcoholism.

Regards,
Patrick C.
Boston

Hello Patrick,

Thanks for the letter and the opinions. Alas, the facts are at odds with some of your opinions.

  1. About: "AA was created by human beings, so it has its flaws."

    That is Minimization and Denial. The A.A. true believers claim that Bill Wilson got "The Program" from God, so it is supposed to be divine and perfect. And I have never heard people discussing the flaws and shortcomings and failings of A.A. in any A.A. meeting. What I get here is hate mail for mentioning the problems of A.A.

    So what are A.A.'s flaws? Please be specific. We can put together a brochure to warn newcomers of the failings and shortcomings of A.A. It should be Council-approved Literature that is given to every newcomer who walks in the door.

  2. About: "AA has helped alcoholics such as me interrupt the cycle of drinking, depression, and degradation of personality due to not being able to quit drinking."

    I dispute that claim. Exactly how many people were really helped? Why has A.A. failed every valid medical test, and only increased human misery, increasing the rates of binge drinking, sickness, and death?

    1. Dr. Brandsma found that A.A increased binge drinking.
    2. Dr. Ditman found that A.A increased the rate of rearrests.
    3. Dr. Walsh found that A.A increased the cost of hospitalization of alcoholics.
    4. Drs. Orford and Edwards found that having a doctor talk to the patient for just one hour was just as effective as a whole year of A.A.-based treatment.
    5. Dr. Vaillant, who went on to become an A.A. trustee, found that A.A. did not increase sobriety in alcoholics at all, not even a little bit, but it did raise the death rate in alcoholics.

    The fact that you see a few sober people with several years of sobriety at meetings only shows that some sober people are attending the meeting. You don't know what made them get sober. The truth is, they quit drinking because they chose to. The fact that they yammer about how A.A. saved their lives shows that they have been hoodwinked and indoctrinated into believing and repeating falsehoods. Yes, they have been brainwashed.

  3. About:
    There is a lot of truth in your study, but you dont mention that there are healthy sober people who mind there own business. Examples of MYOB are:
    -sober time
    -move on from AA
    -judgment of dry" or not "dry"; mental and emotional states (always temporary)

    That is not entirely clear. A few people who mind their own business do not offset crazy sponsors who kill their sponsees by telling them not to take their medications, or the sexual predators who prey on the newcomers. And that does not change the crazy religious dogma and misinformation that is in the official council-approved literature like the Big Book and 12X12.

  4. RE: "My wife and I get a lot out of attending meetings where the perspective is more diverse."

    The fact that you enjoy diverse meetings does not change the failure rate of A.A., or the harm done.

  5. RE: "We want to start a YELP for AA meetings. :-) a rating of 0 means "complete disaster" and 10 means "peaceful and has coffee and donuts"

    That might be interesting. Who will be allowed to vote? And how many times? How do you keep a few proselytizers from casting 100 votes each? (By using false identities.) How will you keep dozens of members of Clancy's Clones or the Midtown Group from claiming that they have wonderful meetings, which all of the pretty girls can safely attend?

  6. RE: "we are open to any debate/discussion of AA and different modalities of treating alcoholism."

    Good. Wonderful. Let's start with this discussion:

    What is the REAL A.A. success rate?

    Out of each 1000 newcomers to A.A., how many will pick up a one-year sobriety medallion a year later?
    Or even several years later?
    And how many will get their 2-year, and 5-year, and 10-year coins? Ever?
    How about 11 years and 21 years?

    No qualifiers are allowed, like, "We will only count the people who worked the program right, or we will only count the people who really tried, and kept coming back." Everybody counts. No exceptions.

    No excuses are allowed. When the doctor gives a patient penicillin, and it fails to cure the infection, the doctor doesn't get to say, "But he didn't work the program right. He didn't pray enough. He didn't surrender. He held something back in his Fifth Step." No excuses.

    So what's the actual A.A. cure rate?

    HINT: the answers are here and here and here.

Have a good day now, and a Merry Christmas.

== Orange 

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     Buy a Hallmark Christmas card and help A.A. to rape underage girls.





[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters419.html#Mat_R ]

Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 03:05:16 -0400    (answered 20 December 2014)
From: Mat R.
To: orange@orange-papers.info
Subject: In Recovery Mode...

Hello Orange!

I hope you don't mind if I send this link to a short essay regarding my understanding of how AA has affected me. You opened the window to a different view for me, one that has helped me to stay sober for over a year and a half now.

I hope to write soon about the importance of the question "why do I want to stop drinking?"

Yours
Mat

http://inrecoverymode.wordpress.com/

Hello Mat,

Thanks for the link and the input. No, I don't mind at all. I like to get such links. More grist for the mill.

Have a good day now, and a Merry Christmas.

== Orange 

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     Buy a Hallmark Christmas card and help A.A. to rape underage girls.





[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters419.html#Michael_L ]

Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 09:34:09 -0500     (answered 20 December 2014)
From: Michael L.
To: "orange@orange-papers.info" <orange@orange-papers.info>
Subject: AA and MDSuicide

DisruptedPhysician.Com ---It is time for the Medical Profession to Wake Up!

Sent from my iPhone

Hello Michael,

Thank you for the link. And yes, it is certainly time for the medical profession to wake up. Sending people to a cult religion for "treatment" is unbelievable, and yet it happens every day.

I regard PHPs as an evil conspiracy. And mind you, I'm not into conspiracy theories. I never did the "Who shot Kennedy" thing, and I don't buy the paranoid stories that 9/11 was an inside job. But the take-over of addiction medicine by the 12-Step cult is not a theory, it is a fact.

A bunch of ASAM members who are mostly failed doctors who cannot get their licenses to practice medicine back discovered that they could make a comfortable living by shoving the 12-Step cult religion on other doctors, nurses, dentists, and veterinarians. They sit in judgement of other doctors as if they are superior to the doctors are still licensed to practice medicine.

ASAM = American Society of Addiction Medicine, an A.A. front group that exists to fools doctors into thinking that A.A. provides good "treatment" for the "disease" of alcohol abuse. ASAM was founded by a vicious mad-scientist doctor, Dr. Ruth Fox, who liked to poison her alcoholic patients with Anabuse and alcohol, which almost killed a few of her patients. She continued doing that anyway. She also liked to dose her alcoholic patients with LSD because it made them more compliant. She founded ASAM in order to sell A.A. to doctors.

We were discussing the ASAM/FSPHP conspiracy before, on the forum, here:
and here:

Also see:
http://www.slideshare.net/MedicalWhistleblower1/08-1511-medical-whistleblower-abusive-residential-treatment-in-usr

Also see this letter from someone else in the same "physicians' health" trap. There we discussed a variety of things to do to get out of the trap.
http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters50.html#mandatory_AA

Have a good day now, and a Merry Christmas.

== Orange 

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     Buy a Hallmark Christmas card and help A.A. to rape underage girls.

[The next letter from Michael_L is here.]





[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters419.html#Chauncey_P ]

Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 17:37:27 -0800     (answered 20 December 2014)
From: "Chauncey R. P."
To: orange@orange-papers.info
Subject: treatment

I buy your analysis of AA, but if we need to send a patient to inpatient treatment in order to save her job (non negotiable) where do I find effectiveness data on specific programs in the western or central US?

Chauncey P., Ph.D. — 530 xxx-xxxx
Certified California Naturalist
Certified FAP Trainer

*Mindfulness is being fully aware of **here and now* *rather than being
lost in **there and then*
*.**If you are focusing on* *there and then**, do it with deliberate
awareness **here and now**.*

Hello Chauncey,

Thanks for the question. Alas, you are asking one of the most difficult questions of all. There have been very few valid tests of the various treatment modalities. A.A. avoids participating in valid clinical studies that could reveal that A.A. is ineffective and even harmful. However, as I have often pointed out, we have these tests results:

  1. Dr. Brandsma found that A.A increased binge drinking.
  2. Dr. Ditman found that A.A increased the rate of rearrests.
  3. Dr. Walsh found that A.A increased the cost of hospitalization of alcoholics.
  4. Drs. Orford and Edwards found that having a doctor talk to the patient for just one hour was just as effective as a whole year of A.A.-based treatment.
  5. Dr. Vaillant, who went on to become an A.A. trustee, found that A.A. did not increase sobriety in alcoholics at all, not even a little bit, but it did raise the death rate in alcoholics.

Dr. Brandsma's test is the only one that included Rational Behavioral Therapy as an alternative to A.A. quackery. The results were spectacular. After several months of "treatment", the A.A.-treated patients were doing five times as much binge drinking as the control group, and nine times as much binge drinking as the RBT-treated group. So Rational Behavioral Therapy actually reduced binge drinking, while A.A. increased it. (Isn't that what you would expect from a cult that teaches people that they are powerless over alcohol?)

Project MATCH was supposed to test A.A. versus a version of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, but the test was so badly done that the results were invalid and meaningless. The "study" had no control group and was basically sabotaged by bad design. Details here: http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-effectiveness.html#MATCH

Perhaps SMART has found or facilitated a clinical test of SMART versus A.A. since I last checked, but I don't know of one. You could ask here:

For that matter, here is the whole list of sane, evidence-based treatment modalities:
http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-alt_list.html

Many of them have forums or bulletin boards where you could ask for test results. But alas, I think that I already know of all of the valid tests. But if you find even just one more, please tell me. I want to know all about it.

Oh, and do beware of faked tests and pro-A.A. propaganda while you are trying to find real test results. We were just discussing yet another piece of such propaganda in the forum a few days ago:

There, someone found a pro-A.A. essay on the Psychology Today web site by a Joseph Nowinski who was citing another faked "study" by the team of Moos and Moos as "evidence" that A.A. works great. Alas, The International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction refuted and totally shredded the Humphreys-Moos study that supposedly showed that A.A. was just as good as CBT. The Humphreys-Moos study was faked, fraudulent, and loaded with errors and deceptions.

See: http://www.directionsact.com/pdf/drug_news/Miller_J_2008.pdf

And I wrote about that here:

  • The International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction totally discredited the faked Humphries-Moos study that supposedly showed that A.A. works better than Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

    For that matter, here is a whole list of pro-A.A. articles that show how A.A. promotes itself with propaganda tricks and misinformation:
    http://www.orange-papers.info/menu1.html#proAA

    Now I realize that is just the opposite of what you were asking for. Unfortunately, that is what you will find the most of.

    So you really have to search and check carefully to separate the wheat from the chaff. As a general rule of thumb, ALL of the "tests" and "studies" that show that A.A. works great are fraudulent, faked, and invalid.

    Now here is where I wish the U.S. Government, or the National Institutes of Health, or National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the National Institutes of Health would do a big study and test of all of the various treatment modalities. It would be a national public service to reveal the truth for all to see. Alas, there seems to be no "political will" to do so.

    Oh, that just reminded me of this:

    When Professors R. K. Hester and W. R. Miller (UNM, Albuquerque — Center for Alcohol, Substance Abuse and Addictions, Dept. of Psychology, University of New Mexico) rated the various alcoholism treatments in their book Handbook of Alcoholism Treatment Approaches: Effective Alternatives, A.A. 12-Step treatment went so far down the list that it almost disappeared. The best treatment was Brief Interventions, and it got a positive score of 390. A.A. got a negative score, MINUS 82, way below zero.

    Look here for the chart online:
    http://www.behaviortherapy.com/ResearchDiv/whatworks.aspx

    The most successful treatment in that chart is "Brief Intervention". "Twelve-step facilitation" is so far down the list that you have to look for it. It's number 37 out of 48. Also notice how 12-Step treatment has a negative success rating — the "Cumulative Evidence Score" is a minus 82, while the best treatments are rated positive 390 and 189.

    "Brief Intervention" consists of a real doctor talking to the patient for usually less than one hour, questioning him about all of the ugly details of his drinking and telling him that he will die if he doesn't quit drinking. One time. That's it. No long counseling sessions, no great guidance, no on-going advice, no shoulder to cry on. And no 28-day treatment program. And no meetings. There is no "three meetings per week" routine, or 90 meetings in 90 days, or one meeting per week. Not even one meeting per year. No meetings. No "support group". No Steps. No "Program". Just one "Dutch Uncle" session and it's over. And that's the most effective thing going.

    That kind of puts the whole expensive "drug-and-alcohol treatment industry" to shame, doesn't it?

    Prof. Miller's biography (on the back of his book Controlling Your Drinking, says:

    Prof. William R. Miller is Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico. He is the author of numerous books, including Motivational Interviewing, a modern classic in the field of addiction treatment. Dr. Miller's research, which focuses on providing a broader and more effective range of treatment approaches for people with alcohol and drug problems, has been supported by a 15-year Research Scientist Award from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. He is a recipient of the international Jellinek Memorial Award for excellence in alcoholism research.

    I don't have Prof. Hester's biography handy, but I'm sure that it is also impressive.

    Have a good day now, and a Merry Christmas.

    == Orange 

    *             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     Buy a Hallmark Christmas card and help A.A. to rape underage girls.





    September 28, 2014, Sunday, my yard in Forest Grove:

    Sunflower
    Sunflower center

    September 28, 2014, Sunday, The Fernhill Wetlands:

    Gus the Greylag Goose
    Gus the Greylag Goose

    Gus the Greylag Goose
    Gus eating

    Gus the Greylag Goose
    Gus asking for some more bread.

    Canada Geese
    Canada Geese begging
    These geese are totally wild, and are afraid to get real close to me. But they will come that close and ask me to toss them some bread. I did.

    [The story of the birds continues here.]





    2014.12.22: Merry Christmas, y'all. And have a happy new year.

    And remember: Abstinence isn't deprivation or self-denial. It's just that I already drank my lifetime quota, and then some more, so I'm still ahead of the game.





    [ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters419.html#Laura_T ]

    Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2014 01:31:05 -0800     (answered 23 December 2014)
    From: Laura T.
    To: Orange <orange@orange-papers.info>
    Subject: Terry I heard you are being evicted

    What the hell is going on? Do you need help?

    Hello Laura,

    Thanks for the concern.

    What is going on is the property management company tells me that the owner has decided that he wants to do some renovations that cannot be done while a tenant is in the place. That strikes me as a little strange, considering that this is the middle of winter, and not prime time for renovations. You sure don't want to take the roof off or open up the apartment in this weather. But that's what they say. And they think they are being very generous, giving me 60 days to move out. (Half of which are already used up.)

    It's doubly strange considering that my apartment is an attic and they are already charging top dollar for it. They have raised the rent twice, from $525 to $585, and it's just an attic in a remote small town. This isn't New York City. I don't think renovations will allow the guy to get much more rent.

    It is possible that something else is really going on. Maybe the owner is a Stepper who found out who was living in his property.

    Or maybe they don't like my cluttered house-keeping style, but they have never complained or mentioned it, so I don't think that's it. (With no vertical walls, you cannot have shelves, so storage is a problem.)

    Or maybe someone pointed the owner to Stuart Hyderman's slander and libel where he claimed that I had been busted for child molestation in a sting operation. That is a lie. Hyderman and I got into an argument when he went on the Internet and pretended to be a doctor and dispensed quack medical advice, including declaring that A.A. was the best cure for alcoholism. I called him on it and he threatened to kill me. It was a spectacular meltdown in the newsgroup alt.recovery.from-12-steps. Then he got his revenge by posting slander several places on the Internet, claiming that I was busted for child molestation.. And Google refuses to erase those posts.

    (http://orange-papers.info/orange-letters11.html#Hyderman)

    (http://orange-papers.info/orange-letters255.html#Hyderman)

    Hyderman isn't a doctor, and never was. When he made up stories in the newsgroup alt.recovery.from-12-steps about having "MD" after his name, and having been educated at McGill University, the most prestigious medical school in Canada, and then giving out quack medical advice on the Internet, I think he was committing a crime — practicing medicine without a license. So I called him on it and pulled his covers, and he hates me. So it goes.

    Anyway, I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but it might.

    Yes, I just might need help. The situation is that I have a month to go and I'm out of here. I don't have like first month and last months rent and damage deposit and cleaning deposit and key depost and security deposit and application fees and all of that. I have next to nothing. I don't charge for my work.

    I just pay the rent from month to month, living off of my small Veterans' Administration disability pension. After I pay the rent and utilities and buy food and some odds and ends like vitamins and supplements, it's pretty much gone. If the owner of this apartment had given me 6 months or a year of advance notice of what was going to happen, then I could have saved up money for the move and found another place to move to. But 60 days, including Thanksgiving and Christmas, just isn't enough time.

    Then I have to hire a crew with a truck to pack up and move all of my stuff. More expense. With that ruptured disk in my spine, I'm not good for much physical activity. And I live on the second floor, in the attic. My back was fine when I moved in — another guy and I carried everything I own up the stairs — but then, 3 years later, the disk ruptured. So I'm good for about a dozen trips up and down the stairs, and then I'm wrecked for the day.

    So right now the plan is to rent a storage locker and hire a crew with a truck to move all of my stuff into the locker, and then hit the streets broke and homeless.

    The Veteran's Administration has a program in Portland called "Per Diem" housing where they collaborate with a corporation called Central City Concern (CCC) to provide housing to homeless veterans. The problem is that they treat all homeless vets as alcoholics and drug addicts and require urinalysis tests and 3 meetings a week. You know the routine. They assume that the reason you are homeless is because you are an addict or alcoholic. I went through that CCC routine 14 years ago. And CCC is the company who foisted Harry Ketchum on me, the crazy Stepper counselor who really did snort cocaine and rape children. Personally, I think I'd rather sleep under a bridge than live in another CCC property and be in another one of their "programs".

    Someone else who requested that her letter not be published asked, "Do you have any tenants' rights organizations you could contact in Oregon?"

    Yes, but they say that unless I can prove racial or religious discrimination, that I don't have a case. The law says that property owners have property rights, and they can kick anyone out without reason or cause at any time after the lease expires, giving only "reasonable notice", and the law considers 60 days to be reasonable notice.

    Now on the bright side, you know the old saying about, "If life hands you a lemon, make lemonade."? Well, that's what I want to do. I'm looking into buying a remote place on the G.I. Bill. I am entitled to it, and never used it, and it will come in very handy right now. I'd like to get a remote house with wetlands and a duck and goose pond in the back yard. It can be old and run down, and a fixer-upper. That's okay. I've built and rebuilt houses before. If I can find a cheap place where the mortgage is about the same as the rent that I am paying now, then I am home free. I'm told that there a lots of such places 10 or 20 miles from here, way out to the southwest, past the next rural town called Gaston. That's just what this country is: duck and goose country. There are lots of wetlands. Suits me fine. I just want to get into a place that is my own and no property company can ever make me move again. I'm getting way too old for moving. I'll be 68 next month. 68 and crippled. Moving will not be fun.

    Oh well, have a good day now, and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

    == Orange 

    *             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     I will not allow my life's light to be determined by the darkness around me.
**        —   Sojourner Truth





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    Last updated 19 January 2015.
    The most recent version of this file can be found at http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters419.html