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I must say that as a member of AA I find your article on alcoholism and your theory that AA is cult to be totally ridiculous. I wonder what you have been drinking or using. What ever it is it really distorted your brain!!!!!!!!!!!! K9man
Hello K9man,
I notice that you didn't offer a single fact to support your opinion — you just claimed that I
must be brain-damaged from drugs or drinking.
That is standard cult behavior — don't argue the facts (because you can't); just
launch a personal attack on the critic
—
"You are insane. You are immoral. You are leading people away from Salvation..."
That is such common cultish behavior that it is listed in
The Cult Test as one of the 100 common cult characteristics.
Your letter is more evidence that Alcoholics Anonymous really is a cult.
Oh well, have a good day anyway.
== Orange
[2nd letter from K9man:]
Date: Sat, May 5, 2007 6:11 pm (answered 10 May 2007) You speak of salvation. Let me set the record straight. I have a God of my understanding today. The good Lord has kept me sober for over 33 years. He has given me salvation on earth by giving me a daily reprieve from this horrendous disease. For that I am eternally grateful. I also believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ. I do my best to be of service to my fellow man. " If you do this for the least of my brethren you have done it for me". What sort of good do you do for your fellow man? And what makes you an expert on salvation of the soul. To tell me that I'm leading others away from salvation? Ridiculous!. How could you say such a thing? The only way we can see if we are worthy of salvation is after we pass from this world. It is Jesus who will decide if we met his criteria for salvation. Not man! All we can do is try our best to adhere to his teachings. It is said that you never judge a person until you have walked a mile in their shoes. You should attend a few open meetings to see the miracle of what sobriety has done for the common drunk. But for the grace of God we now found a better way to live. I follow my religion and also the teachings in AA. I believe that the program of AA was divinely inspired. So, if you are not a recovering alcoholic you won't understand. If you don't understand then you shouldn't judge me and say I belong to a cult. Also it says in the bible "Judge not lest you be judged".Think about that statement for a while. Who are you to decide or criticize any religion or program that brings a person closer to God? By making statements like that you are displaying ego rather than humility... I would like for you to reply to my e-mail and also submit proof that you are qualified to make statements like this. I have submitted my proof that AA works for me and has worked for many others. So it doesn't matter to me what you call AA. I know a priest who is a member of AA. His comment to others is " I know my religion but I come to AA to learn about God and stay sober" There are many religious leaders i.e. ministers, rabbis and the like that are members of AA only you don't who they are. That's why it's called Alcoholics Anonymous............
Hello again, K9manFL,
It is all fine and well that you enjoy your religion and believe that it helps you to lead
a better life.
However, you seem to be equating Alcoholics Anonymous with "your religion".
A.A. claims that it is not a religion.
I did not accuse you of leading people away from Salvation. I said that is what the
cult fanatics accuse people like me of doing when we tell the truth about their cult.
I have been to lots of A.A. meetings, both open and closed. Read
the introduction to this web site.
I am also a recovering alcoholic, so I do understand.
You are trying to use the propaganda and debating trick of
Deflect Criticism and Blame By Deligitimizing It, by
claiming that I am not a recovering alcoholic so I can't understand Alcoholics Anonymous.
I most assuredly do understand A.A. very well.
I simply do not agree with Dr. Frank Buchman's bizarre cult religion, or with Bill Wilson's
crazy ravings, or with the grossly exaggerated A.A. claims of success.
I am sure that you have seen a few sober old-timers at your A.A. meetings. I am equally sure
that you are not counting a much, much larger number of A.A. failures
who are not sober and who did not benefit from Alcoholics Anonymous,
and so they don't come back any more.
Your story about the priest who had to go to A.A. to learn about God is pure Buchmanism.
That's
what they were all saying back in 1934:
And then A.A., which was of course began life as just a branch of Buchman's Oxford Group cult,
simply copied that jabber:
The very idea that a Catholic priest has to go to Alcoholics Anonymous to really learn about God is
religious bigotry at its finest —
"A.A. is better than the ordinary religions, which don't actually do a very good job of
teaching people about God."
And the priest who was saying that stuff to you is of course a good example of a well-indoctrinated cult member.
He was actually saying that A.A. is better than the Catholic Church for learning about God.
I wonder what his Bishop would have to say about that...
And then you use that line about
"Judge not lest ye be so judged."
And then Jesus started swinging a whip and drove the money-changers from the temple.
(Mark 11:15. Also see Matthew 21:12 and Luke 19:45.)
He was being just a litte bit judgemental there, wasn't He?
The idea that you must always be nice and meek and polite and namby-pamby
and never judge
when confronting evil and wrong-doing is just another superstition. (Notice how it helps Evil.)
Alcoholics Anonymous is an evil that I choose to confront.
Oh well, have a good day anyway.
== Orange
Hello my gray-bearded acid loving hippie friend. *S* In the long run, Bill Wison's hokey, cultish, religious program will cure alcoholism. In society, it takes egoticical quacks like Wison to move things foward.
Hi again Tom,
Alas, there is zero evidence that Bill Wilson's hokum will help alcoholics. None at all.
The real evidence says that A.A. kills more alcoholics than it helps. You did read
"The Effectiveness of the 12-Step Treatment", didn't you?
A.A. Trustee Prof. Dr. George E. Vaillant,
who just loves A.A. and wanted to show that it works,
ended up with these results from his first 100 A.A.-treated alcoholics:
5 sober, 29 dead, 66 still drinking.
Dr. Vaillant recognized that 5 out of a hundred sober is the success rate of people who quit on their
own, without any help at all. So five minus five yielded zero, the real A.A. success rate.
But the death rate was the highest of any kind of "treatment"
or "help" for alcoholics that Dr. Vaillant studied.
Dr. Vaillant tried to minimize the damage to A.A. by declaring ("The Doctor's Dilemma", 1980, p 18.),
"The best that can
be said for our exciting treatment is that we are certainly
not interfering with the normal recovery
process."
But the evidence is that A.A. really was "interfering" — it was raising the death rate.
In forced treatment, which I attended, piss samples were taken on occasion. If only they would require blood samples. Then more actual medical research could be taken into account for a medical condition I call "alcohol addiction". The fact that you were pressured into quitting drinking by having urinalysis tests done on you has nothing to do with the effectivenss of the Alcoholics Anonymous program. In the Big Book, Bill Wilson never mentioned enforced urinalysis as a way to quit drinking. The insurance costs, in the future, for hocus-pocus treatment facilities, will reach an unaffordable high point and the medical profession will step in and take over producing a medication for this ailment. So, in the long run Bill Wilson will have been instrumental in the cure of this nightmare medical condition. Nonsense. Bill Wilson just foisted a pack of Oxford Group cult religion on some sick people. It has not helped the situation. It has wasted peoples' time and money and kept them from getting something better. As far as Bill Wilson being a lying manipulator and pussy chaser........ Yes, ...? Your point is...? Take care old hippie *LOL* Tom H. PS. What got me sober in AA (which I no longer attend) was having somewhere to go, and ignore the doctrine, and concentrate on chasing skirt. The wonderful turnover of slipping female members in AA kept me busy enough to stay sober, long enough, until I had a moment of clarity.
While that may have been Bill Wilson's method, it isn't the official A.A. method.
And what did it do to the women who were seeking sobriety?
[2nd letter from Tom H.:]
Date: Sun, April 29, 2007 8:56 pm (answered 4 May 2007) Mr. Orange, I have read your site for six years. As you probably well know. You and I are about the same age. You are probably a kind man today and have tried to live a kind life over the years. You have been a acid head for part of your life, and a drug addict, and possibly an alcoholic. That is all true except that technically, I was never a drug addict, not unless you count alcohol and tobacco as drugs. You would think that cocaine or heroin should have hooked me, but no, it was alcohol and tobacco that were the curse of my life, not some illegal drug. I, too, am a Viet Nam era vet. I believe you were in the Air Force and must have received a discharge above a dishonorable being that you are on some kind of pension. Whether or not your disability comes from a combat related condition (which I highly doubt) I could care less. I feel confident that your pension is of the mental disorder type which I pay for that gives you time to type type type and then type.
Nice try at an
ad hominem attack, but untrue.
A psychiatrist examined me, and he declared that while I may have some small amount of cognitive
impairment (short-term memory loss), I didn't qualify for anything there.
No, I got the disability declaration for a lot of little things like having osteoporosis so bad
that sometimes the bones in my feet break just from walking up the street.
Unfortunately, I don't have enough time to just type and type. I actually do have a life beyond this
web site. Heck, I'm six months behind in answering some of my email. I wish I did have more time and
energy to just type and type.
I have used your site over the years in my now retired professional occupation. I speak with airline pilots like myself who are on the verge of losing their certificates because of alcohol addiction. ( I am even careful of using the term "alcoholic" because it is such a misunderstood and debated term) I do not shout from the roof tops my praises of Alcoholics Anonymouos at all. Because I only see A.A. as a last desperate step of "recovery" for individuals where nothing else has worked. It matters not that AA is a quack cultish religion and Bill Wilson and his gang were thieves, liars, molesters, manipulators, and complete frauds. How does it not matter that A.A. is a quack cure that doesn't work? That sounds like minimalization and denial. I know all of your endlessly repeated arguments, for all of your resentments against AA, which I agree with you. I personally, have to purposely, select parts of your site to use as examples for people that may insist on trying AA and I make sure they are forwarned of what they are getting involved with. But time and time again I am asked for your web site addy and when people explore it they come away thinking you are a person with a lot of time on his hands and quite angry with the entire world. I usually agree with them. Opinions aren't worth much. Would you care to get specific? Precisely which statements have I made that are inaccurate or untrue? Please cite the page name, and give an exact quotation, and then counter my statements with better facts from good sources. The best sources are formal studies like Randomized Longitudinal Controlled Studies. Would you please for the sake of the site, try and remain focused with these simple questions which are at the base of your entire argument. In simple terms, please explain in as short order as possible : Specifically answer how "AA kills more people than it helps" If you are correct in your answer and hypothosis then the AMA and our government needs to be informed. I dont care about the Moonies or the rest of the cults. I dont care if it is unconstitutional to "condemn" drunks to treatment or any of that debate. I agree with the vast vast majority of your anger and reasoning. I have much more experience than you do in the fellowship of AA in the past. I know well of what you speak. But thats another subject.
I just answered the "A.A. kills" statement above. 5 sober and 29 dead per hundred alcoholics, verified by
a Trustee of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., who also just happens to be a medical
doctor and a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He also just happens to be someone
who spent the better part of 20 years treating alcoholics with Alcoholics Anonymous.
Dr. Vaillant found that no other way of treating alcoholics produced such a high death rate
as Alcoholics Anonymous did.
Also see these studies done by other doctors:
You imply that the people in AA must just be imagining things in their heads with having "spiritaul awakenings?" I notice that most cults convince their followers that they are getting "religious experiences" when they are merely deluded. Seeing lights or feeling great feelings of comeradery are not religious experiences. Emotional hype is not a religious experience. Getting excited and energized at a convention is mob psychology, not a religious experience. Convincing oneself that he or she is only feeling "Serenity and Gratitude" is not a religious experience. You argue the prayer concept with the people who died in 9-11 and in Iraq and "what kind of God would do that?" I know all of those debates well. Yawn......
Yawn all you want.
(That's another propaganda and debating technique — just dismiss the
argument as worthless and not worth answering, so that you don't have to answer it.)
Believing that God goes around deliberately handing
out suffering and death is a twisted religious belief.
Still, it's common. I ran into it again this morning in The Washington Post, in
an article about a disreputable
lawyer. He minimized the criticism and legal charges against him with:
I admire your attempts to educate people from the deceptions of AA. But please please explain simply to me where AA is KILLING people. I know well of the past AA tactics of telling members to not take medications etc. That is in the past.
No it isn't in the past. That is another kind of minimization and denial — just claim that
the problems are all ancient history. The "no medications" instructions are still happening now.
Check out:
I was a member of Mid town from 1999 to 2004...."
It's worth reading.
Please do NOT attempt to convince me with your endless writings about "AA" telling people that AA is the only way or you will die. Are you saying that the suggestions (and downright cultish declarations made my many members) KILL these poor helpless lambs but telling them they are powerless ? (that these people cannot leave AA meetings or the cult?) The "A.A. is the only way" rap certainly discourages people from seeking something else that may help them more. It's a stretch to claim that that does not ever kill people. If you can show me real facts and proof I would back you (with the help of others) financially to stop the murdering and killing that AA does. Your pronouncements of "AA kills more people than it helps" is the foundation of everything I read on this site. Everything else I could care less about. I dont care what cults claim and that includes the cult of AA. Okay, I already showed you, above. I personally beleive your anger goes way beyond AA my friend. You have been protesting life your whole life *LOL* But then again so have I. Tom H. PS. I too, have many friends in the past who have died of booze and that AA did not work for. Booze killed them ! Not AA. The fact, that there presently is no cure for alcoholism with any form of therapy or group still today is just a ugly reality. I hope this doesnt turn into one of your endlessy long winded philosophical lectures. Okay ?
No Tom, I am not protesting against my life. I am just laying out the facts about a national
problem.
Have a good day anyway.
== Orange
Date: Fri, May 4, 2007 4:33 pm (answered 7 May 2007) Hello again Mr. Orange, I must get busy now alerting all the medical doctors and psychologists and Priests and Rabbi's and mental health councelors of your discovery that Alcoholics Anonymous "KILLS" people. Those dummies just don't know the "facts."
Hi again, Tom,
Actually, a lot of them don't want to know. They've already heard it, and they go out of their way
to avoid hearing it. The A.M.A. had a committee made up of
two A.A. front
groups write the definition of "alcoholism"
for them. They don't want to ever consider the fact that
they have been wrong for so many years, and that they declared that "alcoholism is an illness"
without having a definition of alcoholism for 36 years.
A rare few priests and ministers do notice that
the A.A. religious dogma is heretical,
but most just ignore it and imagine that anything that gets the drunkards praying must be a good thing.
Dr. George Vaillant will be the first I shall inform of "his" findings. So that sneaky old devil George V. is promoting Alcoholics Anonymous and knowing he is killing them. Or maybe being that he is a professor of Psychology at Harvard (where I attended) has deluded his brain and he must be confused. I need to inform him quickly. Please do. There are already books about the dangers of attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings written by both women and men. Taking "facts" out of context and being unchallenged by the people in person is silly. (so hold the presses) What facts out of context? I am very careful not to take things out of context, or misquote things. Your simple claims you make when attempting to make your points about AA members of, " well, the AA members Orange knew and talked with," said thus and so-and-so are sophmoric and one sided. It's called "cherry picking" and you know it.
While it's true that I haven't talked to all of the A.A. members in the world, it is valid to
talk about the experiences I have seen with my own eyes and ears — things like friends getting
told not to take their doctor-prescribed psychiatric medications. Wherever possible, I try
to get larger samples, like properly-done studies. But they are not always available.
In the end, I have to talk about something.
Notice that there is a huge difference between these things:
The first item is a fact. The second and third items are subjective impressions.
That's why I am not even slightly impressed when A.A. members write to me and tell me how wonderful
they think A.A. is, because the meetings make them feel so spiritual, or how the 12 Steps relieve them
from guilt, or how the 12 Steps make people quit drinking. The hard evidence says that the 12 Steps
do not work to make people quit drinking.
Also notice that I went out of my way to find
a good study about the "no medications"
problem, so that I was not just using
proof by anecdote, or just
cherry-picking.
Now do you have a well-done study of A.A. that shows that A.A. sponsors do not
tell newcomers not to take their medications?
The absense of professionals responding to your site (including the ones you are
"quoting") speaks volumes.
The intelligent reader of your invisable podium comes to realize quickly that you
would like to stop all cults from existing. That would be an entire debate initself
trying to determine what a cult is. So you produce your own definition
unchallenged. Actually, I do occasionally have professionals respond. Although the A.A. hate mail really does outnumber the professionals. All these professionals out there that recomend their patients to AA (especially when the insurance money runs out) need to be informed of your "findings." Think this through Mr. Orange. If AA did nothing else but kept toxic people from driving drunk and beating their kids for ONE night, the sheer numbers of people per year, attending meetings, that would benefit would be staggering. But since we are not seeing the "staggering benefits", A.A. must really be doing something wrong. A.A. has had 70 years to fix the problem, and things have just gotten worse, not better, while A.A. has dominated the alcoholism treatment field. I truely beleive that if you had the power to illegalize Alcoholics Anonymous you would. Along with organized religions (except the ones YOU chose to remain in business) and probably the American government. (or at least the party of your choice)
Wrong. I would illegalize:
Like I have said many times, I don't care if some burned-out old alcoholics want to gather in
church basements and convince each other that they are God's Chosen People.
They are just pathetic. They don't matter. What matters is that sick people
are getting fed quackery when they need something more true and honest, and less lethal.
I hope you remain anonymous because society likes debates face to face with professionals that will put thier real names and reputations on the line. Keep your head down Mr. Orange and enjoy your online "celebrity." And as I mentioned in previous letters. I think you are probably a kind person and it would be fun to sit and rap and toss thoughts around. I used to do that with guys like you in the service. We would get fried on LSD and try and understand why the world just couldn't see things our way. You would be fun. Not to mention that it was always guys like you that knew where to score the really good dope. Your friend, Tom H. Oh well, Have a nice day anyway. You have a good day too, Tom.
Date: Fri, May 4, 2007 4:50 pm (answered 7 May 2007) This isnt for the web page but a personal note to you from me. Without responders like myself your letters part of your site gets really old and is the same thing over and over. Some humor is good and debate (that is thought out) will keep peeps checking back in. It may be a personal note, but since there is nothing personal (about you) in it, I'll go ahead and include it with the others. It is informative. You should lighten up and realize I was being funny about chasing slipping chicks to get sober. Well, acatually I did chase chicks but I stunk of shit and piss so bad that they kind of stayed away from me.
Actually, you had me fooled. Some guys really do use A.A. as a meat market. Have you been
watching the flap over
the Washington, DC "Midtown Group", and
the Phoenix, AZ, Young Peoples' A.A.?
Newsweek magazine just published an article about the Midtown Group.
See
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18368218/site/newsweek/
where MSNBC has reprinted the article
I will see if I can get some professionals to write to you and debate. Take care Tom And by the way ( I will include this concept in another online public letter later) WHY did you wait until you were 54 to get sober. If you answer me with "tired of being sick and tired" I will scream !! I think one of two things. ONE : you hit the street and your teeth were falling out of your head and you freaked. TWO : Your chemical body changed and allowed you to sober. I dont think sobriety really has much to do with choice dude. And your concept of peeps in AA or anywhere else "not really wanting to get sober" doenst hold water with this guy. Very mysterious indeed
Well, scream all you want, but the truth really is that when the sickness mounted and I was so sick
and tired that I believed the doctor when he told me to quit drinking or I would die,
then I was really ready to quit drinking. I got sick and tired of being so sick and tired.
I had lost my teeth ten years earlier. That had nothing to do with quitting drinking.
Seeing that I was loosing everything else, including my short-term memory, had a lot to do with it.
Date: Sun, May 6, 2007 11:58 pm (answered 7 May 2007) I find it difficult to beleive that Prof. Vaillant is ignoring facts and allowing AA memeber to die because he really wants to build a larger membership to his cult. I'm open to any other explanation. How do you reconcile his statement that A.A. kills more alcoholics than any other way of treating alcoholism with his statements that A.A. is wonderful and more alcoholics should be forced into it for their own good, or for their "social rehabilitation"? May I write to him being that I am alumni with Harvard and see if I could get him to read your assessments ? Please do. I would love to read his reply concerning your thesis. And would you post his answers ? Yes. Thanks my friend Tom H.
Tom, especially ask about these quotes:
Dr. Vaillant clearly declared that A.A. was a failure with no more recoveries than no treatment
at all, and that it had
an appalling death rate,
the highest of any method of treating alcoholism
that he studied, and then he switched to raving about the
"success of Alcoholics Anonymous and its reasonable facsimiles".
What success?
It would appear that Vaillant's "real goal" is the
"social rehabilitation" of alcoholics,
not to get them to quit drinking.
Apparently Dr. Vaillant feels that getting people confessing their sins
in a Buchmanite cult religion accomplishes that goal.
Now perhaps Dr. Vaillant has some other explanation. I would love to hear it, and will print
whatever he says.
Have a good day.
== Orange
Hello Orange, Thanks for all the replies. I think I may be able to get connected to our Prof. at Harvard. If you will notice, my e-mails to you are with both my wife and my name. Obvioulsy, I trust you. I may not agree with some of your personal assessments concerning what you see as the average AA meeting or existing members attitudes or practices. You're different than me, as you use the example of your physican informing you that you were alcoholic and should quit drinking or you would die. I didn't need a medical doctor to tell me that. I ended up being a 24/7 round the clock alcoholic for many, many years. I was luckier than you as my drinking progressed eariler and I had money and was able to get out of my profession soon enough to completely hide it.
Hi again, Tom,
Let me clarify that. I knew that I was sick, even without a doctor telling me.
During that last year of drinking, the summer of 2000, I would wake up so sick and hung-over that
a little voice in my head would ask,
"How long do you think you can keep on doing this?
How long can you be so chronically sick before you just die?"
I guessed that I had 3 years left. I figured that the situation was hopeless, and that I might as
well just stay stoned and kill my pain until the bitter end.
That's why I was willing to believe my doctor when he told me that I was going to die. I already
knew that.
The amazing part of it is why I just suddenly changed my mind and decided to live, and decided to
fight for my life. I have no explanation for that sudden change in attitude.
I can only guess that it was a long time coming, and that it took a certain accumulation of
experiences to get to the magic moment.
My wife and I also had money (from both our earnings) Gorgeous neighborhood to live in with a alcoholic passed out on the streets getting picked up for vagrancy. Cops putting on rubber gloves to get me in the car. Lets just say that my personal hygine had something to be desired. I have a spotless law record except for DWI's that came about forcing me to take a "leave of absence" from work. I never would have beleived my bottom was going to be so far down. And I am just typical of a late stage alcoholic. Then I was forced into AA. And got sober. The only thing I can say about AA is that it gave me somewhere to go with other people like myself. No sponser. No big book. No steps. But then again I went to outlaw AA. Mostly bikers, hookers, dopers, criminals. I got along just fine and was quite well respected. Our group was constantly getting thrown out of our buildings cause of non payments. AA was trying to shut us down for tons of reasons too. What got me sober was having somewhere to go and hang out with other crazies like myself. I went back to flying at 49 years old. No one in the world hated "standard AA" more than this alcoholic. I was booted out of treatment more than once because I was preaching the Orange tirade before you put down your last drink. I purposely debate with you and have done so over the years. You have NO idea how much I agree with what you write about. Not everything but MOST. Anyways, soon I will be emailing you hundreds and hundreds of pages of research. (I have a degree in Psych) My wife and I spend a couple of hundred a week in ads in newspapers directing former ( and minimum 5+ year) alcoholics to anonymously email me with tons of information. Dude, your hate mail is chicken feed. *LOL* I have been getting data on where have the drunks gone that used to be in AA ? Are they still sober and why they left AA. I just get a different form of hate mail than you do. I have no intention of doing anything academic with my work but will be sharing it with you and others. Let's see if I can get some going with the Prof. at Harvard. That sounds very interesting. I'm impressed. AA obvioulsy has purposely not given out data on their fellowship since its beginning. But that is changing today with people speaking out. Which includes data from treatment centers that they cannot hide from the public. And yes I read about the New York case at thier AA church. Hope you caught Paula Zahns show last Wednesday showing the failure rates at treatment centers. The segment ended with her showing a herion addict receiveing medication via an IV and the shows content was informing the public that this is a MEDICAL problem and not a spiritual problem. You have a nice day and keep your head down my friend. There are many out there that would love to knock your head off. I have always tried to warn you to keep it down to a mild roar. But you just can't. But then again, you went and lived up in the trees. I have always hoped that you were bullshitting when you shared you had taken acid 200 times but when I finally saw your picture on your site it made me think, "Yep the Orange has dropped 200 times." *LOL*
Yes, really 200. What is funny is that, at the commune, I once mentioned that number to a friend
and he shrugged and said, "Heck, I did it 600 times."
Apparently I was a bit of a conservative.
What is equally funny is that that same friend went back to college, studied medicine, and is now a
high-grade registered nurse and emergency medical technician, and he is quite good at it, and
doesn't do drugs or smoke or drink or anything any more.
So it goes.
Take care my friend. Tom H.
Okay Tom,
You have a good day too.
== Orange
Your work is well thought out and well organized. I truly do love to read. I began to read my first time in treatment some years ago. I really have enjoyed looking over your pages and although I do not agree with your point-of-view, I do applaud you for the professionalism used in presenting the material. I will tell you that I am a member of AA. If I may be so bold, I would like to point out to you the one thing that stood out in my mind as I was reading:
"My doctor said it this way, "Alcoholics have great control over their sobriety. They can stay sober for years at a time. They just don't have any control over their drinking. Their drinking will spin out of control very rapidly."
"That answered a lot of questions for me, because I had always had a problem with the A.A. "powerless over alcohol" confession. I'm not powerless — I can stay sober for years at a time, and have done so before, and am doing it again. I only have a problem with alcohol when it is inside of me. Then I go non-linear and try to drink myself into the astral plane." Sounds like to me you might not be an alcoholic of the "hopeless variety"
'Moderate drinkers have little trouble giving up liquor entirely if they have good reason for it. They can take it or leave it alone. Then we have the certain type of hard drinker. He may have the habit badly enough to impair him physically or mentally. It may cause him to die a few years before his time. If a sufficently strong reason — ill health, falling in love, change of enviroment, or the warning of a doctor — becomes operative, this man can also stop or moderate, although he may find it difficult and troublesome and may need medical attention.' Since you may not be an alcoholic, the answers to your problems may be found elsewhere. I tell you I have tried many ways to quit and simply cannot. I don't believe that AA is a cult.
Hello David,
Thanks for the compliments, and thanks for the letter. That's really something else.
About 19 years ago, I quit drinking because my ex-wife wouldn't send me my son for the summer
unless I promised to quit drinking for the summer. I did. 48 hours without alcohol and I went into
DTs. It was intense. Sort of like being electrocuted, tripping on LSD, and going through drug withdrawal
all at the same time. I was shaking so bad that I couldn't even crawl across the floor to a telephone and
dial a number on a touch-tone phone to call for help, so I had to just lay in bed and ride out the storm.
That impressed me enough to stay sober for 3 years.
Then I was at a friend's birthday party, and thought that I could handle just one beer, after 3 years
of perfect no-cheating-at-all sobriety. So I had a beer. That tasted so good that I had another and another.
That was it. My goose was cooked. I was readdicted. I "went out" for 9 years.
I descended into a private Hell, lost everything, ended up homeless,
got to the point where a doctor recognized that I was
alcoholic just by looking at the skin on my arms and chest
and seeing Spider Angiomas and Palmar Erythema,
and he told me that it was very close to the end, and that I was going to die if I didn't quit drinking.
Do you know what those things are? — Spider Angiomas and Palmar Erythema?
They are discolorations in the skin that are caused by the capillaries breaking down and leaking
blood into the skin.
They indicate that things have gotten so bad that the body is breaking down and falling apart.
You can see what is happening in the skin, and that just hints at what
you cannot see and can only guess at: the breakdown
that is also happening everywhere else inside the body,
in the intestines and liver and heart and kidneys and brain...
No wonder the doctor told me that when you are seeing spiders in the skin that it is very close
to the end.
Confronted with such dire information, I decided to not die that way.
I made a couple of the smartest decisions in my life, and quit both drinking and smoking.
Neither was easy, but I was determined.
So I made the long march back to sobriety and health and happiness,
It is 6 1/2 years of sobriety now, and now you tell me that I was not really
an alcoholic because you read an untrue stereotype about alcoholics that was written by a
certified nutcase who tried to sell cult religion as a quack cure for alcoholism 70 years ago...?
All that Bill Wilson was doing there was using scare tactics to try to con alcoholics into joining his cult
and buying his book:
"You had better join my cult, quick, before you die." —
But then Wilson had to explain away all of the cases of alcoholics who successfully quit drinking without
joining Bill's cult, or doing his Twelve Steps to Buchmanism.
They proved that alcoholics are not powerless over alcohol, and don't have to join a cult religion
to quit drinking.
So Wilson rationalized that they weren't "real alcoholics". Wilson was just using
The Real Scotsman Logical Fallacy, trying to dismiss those inconvenient
successful do-it-yourself people as irrelevant.
I notice that you quoted Bill Wilson as if he was a real authority on alcoholism, which he was not,
while you dismissed the words of a real medical doctor who very much knew what he was talking about as
"just one man's opinion". That is the propaganda trick of
Escape via Relativism
— dismiss facts that you do not like as "just one man's opinion", as if all opinions
had equal merit.
I know that my doctor was a lot more knowledgeable and realistic about alcoholism than was Bill Wilson.
Heck, my doctor was even sane.
Then you finished your letter with just an unsupported opinion of your own, based on no facts:
"I don't believe that AA is a cult."
Oh well, have a good day anyway.
By the way, you imply in your letter that you have not quit drinking yet.
So, apparently, you made some kind of effort to quit drinking several times —
you sort of decided to quit drinking, but then you decided not to really quit after all,
because you'd rather have a drink.
That does not mean that you cannot quit drinking. That just means that you haven't done it right, yet.
First off, see a doctor — a doctor who is really good at addiction medicine.
Perhaps you are suffering from some underlying mental or physical disorders that
drive you to compulsively drink in an attempt to fix things.
That is important. Please do not dismiss all doctors as merely being "one man's opinion".
Then, of course I have to suggest the alternatives to 12-Step quackery, like
SMART.
See the entire list
here.
And we were talking about what works in a previous letter,
here.
Also see
this list of "what works", here.
Good luck and take care of yourself.
== Orange
A Struggle Inside AA Recovering alcoholics say a Washington, D.C., group has
hijacked the 12-step program's name.
Hi again, John,
Hello again and thanks for the tip.
Oh yeh, I've been following the Midtown group for a while now.
Look here.
Still, I object to the phrase that the Newsweek reporter used:
The Midtown Group allegedly "hijacked the 12-step program's name."
No, they REALLY ARE a part of Alcoholics Anonymous. The Newsweek reporter was
being far too easy on Alcoholics Anonymous.
It's a common stunt — cherry-picking — to claim that all of the good things that
some A.A. members do are "the real A.A.", while the bad things
that they do are not "the real A.A.".
My opinion is that it is ALL the real A.A. — the good, the bad,
and the ugly — it's all what people really get when the judge or
counselor or "therapist" sends them to Alcoholics Anonymous.
And that is one of the big problems with Alcoholics Anonymous: there is no quality control.
Any kind of religious fanatics or sexual predators can set up an A.A. group and start preaching to
the beginners, and there is no board of examiners to certify them as teaching the right stuff.
Heck, most of the A.A. dogma is not "the right stuff", or even valid and true medical advice.
Likewise, there is no oversight of sponsors. Any kind of creep, any
sick cocaine-snorting child molester,
can declare himself a sponsor and start spouting "words of wisdom" to the newcomers.
A sponsor can do almost anything and there is no oversight process or certification to
determine whether he is doing a good job of it, or is even qualified to speak as an authority
on anything.
And that's really what you can get at Alcoholics Anonymous.
Oh well, have a good day anyway.
== Orange
....and over. I have read nearly 100 or so letters sent to you.It is pretty obvious that you only have limited artillery. No matter what point someone makes about AA being a cult, you have the same answer over,and over. Like when you are called crazy for calling AA crazy your reply is :" don't argue the facts (because you can't); just launch a personal attack on the critic — aka Ad Hominem attack".That is all you have.
Hello Tela,
The reason you keep hearing that challenge to ad hominem attacks
is because A.A. boosters keep doing it. As you say, they keep giving
"the same answer, over and over".
Or another one would be, in regards to AA working: "Alas, there is zero evidence that Bill Wilson's hokum will help alcoholics. None at all. The real evidence says that A.A. kills more alcoholics than it helps. You did read "The Effectiveness of the 12-Step Treatment", didn't you? A.A. Trustee Prof. Dr. George E. Vaillant, who just loves A.A. and wanted to show that it works". You are basing your facts on one source, on one book(one exceprt).I don't care what his association is with AA. It proves very little, except for a defense for you. It's your only true crutch, with the exception to a handful of other Doctors you list from time to time. But,like always, you will use the classic "Ad Hominem attack" if someone can't provide a link or resource you approve of.
Actually, Tela, Dr. Vaillant's study proves a great deal, for several good reasons.
Of course you object to me repeatedly mentioning Dr. Vaillant's work. It is some of the most damning
evidence that there is that proves that A.A. is not all it is cracked up to be.
And the reason that I have to keep mentioning it again and again is because A.A. members go out of their
way to ignore it and not get the point and not see the truth.
When I knew for sure you really just took random information, and based it as fact, was when you took advice from a 13yr "old timer" when she stated how AA GSO can shut down meetings.All of a sudden you take the advice and use it as fact just because it came from some lousy AA lady who thought AA was crazy after 13 yrs.No group can be shut down through AA's headquarters'.Period!She told you a half truth.Also known as a lie to support you.It is 100% false.There are 100's of groups that never send a single penny in to their states AA fund that goes to AA GSO.Yeah,GSO is really losing money on AA pamphletes sales,so they better shut them down.Even if these groups send no money and deiced to vote at a state General Assembly,they are welcome to do so.That is "crazy".Right?
You are completely reversing reality there.
I was arguing with that person, Pamela D.,
not taking her statements as fact.
She was all over the map, alternately declaring that A.A. was wonderful,
and then talking about the horrible cultish meetings that she went to that the AA GSO later shut down.
I also questioned her statement that the GSO could shut down meetings. Didn't you bother to actually
read that?
I did not quote her as an authority on anything; I guessed that she was not entirely rational.
A few files of letters later,
I did mention her
and challenge another old-timer to compare his
statements with hers. But I was not saying that she was correct.
I was just comparing the raps from two different old-timers, both of whom claimed to be authorities
on Alcoholics Anonymous, but who said very different things about Alcoholics Anonymous.
So which one to believe?
Keep your head clean,and while your at it here are some links. Hang in there, tela k. ps. I think my all time favorite thing is when you quote Dr. Brandsma and Dittman from Wikipidiea.You also forgot to mention these were studies done in 1967 and 1979. I mean,damn, you really took the quotes right out of Wikipedia. I know you are a bit older than I. Let me give you a little tip.People don't take people serious who quote wikipedia. That is the High School kids 21st century version of Cliff Notes.
If Dr. Jeffrey Brandsma's study is bad because it is old, then Alcoholics Anonymous is really bad,
because it is really old. In fact, Bill Wilson copied all of the A.A. philosophy and doctrines
from Dr. Frank Buchman's Oxford Group cult, which dates from the nineteen-twenties.
You are, of course, trying to use the propaganda trick called
Appeal to Novelty — Newness (Argumentum ad Novitatem).
Things are not necessarily good because they are new, or bad because they are old.
I didn't even know there was a web page on Wikipedia about Dr. Brandsma. I don't think there is.
I just looked for what you were talking about, and all that I found was
the page on Alcoholics Anonymous,
which contains two sentences about Dr. Brandsma's study.
Those two sentences are very similar to mine. They may have been copied from me.
If so, that's okay.
My description of Dr. Brandsma's study
is a lot more than two sentences long. It is like a whole type-written page long. Obviously,
I could not possibly have gotten my information about Dr. Brandsma
from that Wikipedia page about A.A., because the information isn't there.
Where were you hallucinating the Wikipedia web page about Dr. Brandsma's study?
Where I got my information is that I went to the original publication.
There is a wonderful service that public libraries have that is called "interlibrary loans".
That includes two things called WorldCat and ArticleFirst.
With ArticleFirst you can request copies of articles from all kinds of
obscure and hard-to-find professional journals. I have managed to
collect xeroxes of almost every study and article that I cite. It took a few years, but I have quite
a collection. I like to ALWAYS go to the original article, because I don't trust other people
to quote correctly, or to necessarily get all of the facts right.
In the case of Dr. Brandsma's study, he wrote it up in a book,
Outpatient Treatment of Alcoholism; A Review and Comparative Study,
Jeffrey Brandsma, Ph.D., Maxie Maultsby, Jr., M.D., and
Richard J. Welsh, M.S.W.; University Park Press, Baltimore, MD., 1980.;
ISBN: 0-8391-1393-5.
I got a copy of the book through the WorldCat interlibrary loan system.
(Oh, by the way, 1980 isn't that long ago. Didn't Bill Wilson write the
Big Book "Alcoholics Anonymous" in 1938 and 1939?)
The situation with the study by Dr. Keith Ditman is the same. There is one sentence about his
study on the Wikipedia web page about Alcoholics Anonymous. Period. But I have a lot more information
than that,
here, in my web page about
The Effectiveness of the 12-Step Treatment.
That's because I used the ArticleFirst system to get a xerox of
the original article. Again, it is possible that the
authors of the Wikipedia web page copied information from me, but I couldn't have gotten my
information from them, because it isn't there.
But a fascinating fact that is on the Wikipedia, that I didn't know until I did this search, is that
Alan Watts took LSD with Dr. Keith S.
Ditman, back in the early days of LSD research, and that Dr. Keith Ditman was studying
LSD as a possible treatment for alcoholism. (See the bibliography of
this web page.
What a small world it is after all.)
if you want to play fair...here are some "new" links as well as older ones.And the list goes on.I just don't have the time like you too cut and paste because I have a life that is fullfilling beyond your wildest dreams.I am sorry for your medical conditions though.I wish and pray for the best for you.I really mean that.Pain is no fun no matter how it hits you. Hey, post some pic of you. We would love to see the reall Agent "I fly rainbow colors on my wesbite" Orange. ;-) hmm,I womdor what those colors mean?We can only speculate. <----Is that anoher ad Homonim attack? Silly me! Thanks for these links. Now you are showing why I have to repeatedly bring up the studies by people like Doctors Brandsma, Walsh, Vaillant, Orford and Edwards, and Ditman. That small set of studies is the only valid studies of the effectiveness of A.A. that have ever been done. The other "studies" are phony hack jobs on the numbers. All five of the so-called studies that you list below are such pieces of propaganda.
You see, Tela, not a single one of those things was a real test to see whether A.A. actually works,
and reduces the drinking of a bunch of alcoholics.
I described how you do a valid Randomized Longitudinal Controlled Study
here.
That is the kind of medical test that real doctors or the FDA give to
medicines or treatments to see whether they work properly and heal the patients.
And that is what Doctors Brandsma, Ditman, and Walsh did, which is why I keep mentioning them.
Almost nobody else did it right.
You know, all of that A.A.-promoting propaganda might be entertaining,
a sort of Divine Comedy Of Errors, if it weren't
for the fact that a lot of sick people are getting cult religion dogma and quackery instead of
real help for a very serious, often fatal, illness. That where Alcoholics Anonymous and its
propaganda machine stop being funny. That's where A.A. starts doing harm to people.
Oh well, have a good day anyway.
== Orange
[2nd letter from Tela:]
Date: Tue, May 15, 2007 6:13 am (answered 28 May 2007) I'm not bashing you again(see my last email yesterday). But I thought I would mention and quote the Wiki page since you thought I was "hallucinating" it ;-). It just seemed a lot like your exact quotes. That was all I was saying. It is in the section on Alcoholics Anonymous. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholics_Anonymous
[edit] AA's critics
Hello again, Tela,
Ah, okay, so you accused me of poor research methods and copying Wikipedia
without having actually bothered to read what I wrote about the research
projects of Doctors
Brandsma
and
Ditman.
Is this saying mentioned anywhere on your site? "The doors of AA are always open,those who enter are free to stay,those who stay,stay sober." Most meetings in my area end that way.
It doesn't matter how nice their sayings are, or whether the doors are always open to us.
The doors of Scientology and the Moonies are also always open to us, too.
They too are willing to take our lives, our minds, and our souls, any time.
The issue that really matters is whether Alcoholics Anonymous does more harm than good.
The evidence says that A.A. kills more than it saves.
I also did not notice this:"Let's close the meeting with a moment of silince,followed by the Lords prayer,or prayer of your choice in silence."...maybe this is a southern thing.
So what? Do you think that closing the meeting with a prayer makes it a good organization?
You've got to be kidding. (And it isn't just a Southern thing. They do it at every meeting I've ever
attended.)
And please don't tell me that you haven't seen a sexual predator make a bee-line for the new
female attendee immediately after that prayer ends...
Do you know what the word "hypocrisy" means? It comes from the Bible, and describes the behavior
of a religious sect that was named "Hypocrites".
Jesus had a few caustic comments about them and their behavior.
Jesus also had a few comments about the people who pray standing on the
streetcorners, or standing in synagogs... Wasn't it something about
"when you pray, go lock yourself in a closet and pray alone"?
Also,most groups that have the "think think think" sign,turn it upside down
before the meeting and wait for newcomers to fix it so they can correct them
and explain how the sign made them think.I thought you would like that one.
That is actually another good example of what is wrong with Alcoholics Anonymous.
That cute little trick shows several of the standard cult characteristics:
The "fear" is the lesson that if you do something as simple
as fix an upside-down sign, you are doing something wrong, breaking some
unwritten rule. You never know what you can do right.
have a nice day Orange
You have a good day too, Tela.
== Orange
Last updated 11 February 2014. |
