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Aaaah. I just read what you wrote about rescuing the goslings. As Tennessee Ernie Ford used to say, "Bless your pea-pickin' heart!" :-) I can't wait to hear more of the story on your website. About a week ago I saw the parent geese in my complex. Parading around with ALL SIX of their nearly full grown chicks. I was so happy. That is a miracle, that all 6 lived to adult hood. We have hawks, possums, raccoons and cats around here. I noticed residents coming by and feeding them. Well good luck with your new family. I guess we'll have to rename you "Father Goose."? ;-) Hey, I know you're probably really behind in mail but don't forget to check out the one I sent you where in I discovered I was 'birthed' by Lois' brother and Bill's brother in law. I sent that in the last week or so and I'm still REELING from discovering that lil tidbit! -Madame
Hi again, Madame,
Yes, I was just getting to your other letter — taking them in chronological order. And
your delivery by Lois Wilson's brother is indeed quite a coincidence. What a small
world it is.
You're right about the dangers of those predators to the goslings and ducklings.
The momma ducks here have a terrible time of it.
Sometimes they lose all of their ducklings to feral cats and river rats. It's really heart-breaking to
see some momma with 9 or 12 tiny fluff-ball ducklings one day, and then 2 the next day, and then none the
next day. And I hear that racoons are bad this year too, and are taking their toll.
The Canada Geese are better at fighting them off, but the parents
still sometimes come out of those fights scarred for life.
About "Father Goose." — a friend was wise-cracking that of all the experiences he
never believed he would have, he never imagined that he would actually meet "Mother Goose"
in real life. He also said that he
never would have guessed that "Mother Goose" would turn out to be a guy.
A few more pictures and your story follow.
And have another good day.
== Orange
[The story of the goslings continues here.]
Date: Tue, July 22, 2008 10:36 pm Hi AO, OK I was slapped while naked and upside down... and minutes old but... Is this a "trip" or what? I was looking at your website again, — just 2 days ago, and looking at *Bill Wilson and Lois Wilson's wills* and...there on Bill's was a familiar name. I did a double take and my jaw dropped. Because it was the same name as on my birth certificate. Bill Wilson's brother-in-law, Lois's brother...DELIVERED ME. He was my mother's obstetrician!! No shit!! (I'm from the NY/NJ ares so small world but not so impossible). From more investigating I'm pretty certain I'm correct. Dr Lyman Burnham is mentioned with his wife "Florence" on Bill's 1968 will. On Lois Wilson's 1983 will, there is no mention of bequeathing to her brother Lyman but she still mentions Florence. This coincides... I had reason to call Dr Burnham's residence looking for my natal and prenatal records sometime between 1981 and 1983 and I got his wife and she? at that time informed me he had passed away fairly recently, in the last year or two years. (So that would make sense, him not being on the drawn up 1983 will). I saved the envelope she sent the records in and it had an englewood NJ return address. I looked on line and a Dr Lyman Burnham did pass away with residence listed as Englewood NJ/ Bergen County(where I as born) "possible spouse Florence Burnham". Whats funny to me too, is, my mother hated him. And — I mean: hated him. — She did not use him when she got pregnant again, after me. The only reason he, and his name, even stuck in my mind is that my mother hated him that much! Left a very bad impression on her, I only wish I could remember her few antedotal stories in the brief time she dealt with him, but he was legendary in a monsterous way. (My sister would ask "Did we have the same doctor?" and I'd be like, "No, you had the nice one, mine was the mean one." And I was saying that from at least age 6 or 7 and up.) — Sullen, mean, ill-humored. My impression was of a man who had little respect for his female patients and treated them less like human beings and more like cattle. My mother said not one kind word about him, if my birth came up in conversation. It was burned into my brain at a young age I was delivered by a jerk. I seem to recall my mother observing other women leaving the waiting room as upset as she often did. Bit of an SOB. (However, I'm pleased to see from the retrieved records he was an SOB he did not get duped by the drug companies: wrote in the margins how he would not use this or that pre-natal drug on my mother because it was "unproved"/ not tested long enough--guess he was good in one respect). Anyway, trippy huh?? PS: of course I had to laugh at the Stepping Stone website saying Lois claimed to come from an idyllic childhood. I can't imagine me telling my mother that if she was still alive. I can tell you for sure her response would be something like "What kind of idyllic childhood produces a man like that?" No kidding.I can't stress enough how little she thought of that man. Now all these years later his name leaps off your website and slaps me in the face. Small world.
-Take care agent! 
Hey Orange, You must have incredible patience to actually converse with all the steppers who attack you and the truth. I stopped reading your letter section some time ago for a simple reason- the average 12 step person is incapable of forming an original thought or idea. They say the same things over and over. It never ends. They reveal their inability to step outside of their narrow belief system and ponder anything other than what they have been taught. You know, the biggest proof of AA being religious isn't the numerous court decisions deeming it as such, but rather the reaction evoked when you question or criticize anything that they (steppers) hold as an immutable truth. They will often (almost always) resort to personal attacks. My experience shows this to be true even with those who have infiltrated our health care system — the self proclaimed "treatment providers". How is it that a person who suffers from the "disease" of addiction is only offered one form of treatment? What's happening today in these treatment centers is akin to a family phyician prescribing only one medication, say penicillin and nothing else. Of course if the patient doesn't show any improvement well then he needs to take more penicillin. If after a week he is still ill, well then it is obvious that he isn't taking the medication as prescribed. It goes on and on. It may sound silly but that is exactly what is occuring today with alcoholics/addicts who seek treatment. For myself I was lucky. I finally realized that AA was causing me more harm than good. Upon reflection it's easy for me to get angry with myself for buying into the lies that perpetuate the notion that AA works. I was duped...for years. UGH!!!! I wasted so much time attentatively listening to these self righteous 12 step gurus regurgitate an endless stream of hypocrisy and utter nonsense. Like yourself I have begun a process of pledging my time to warn others of the cult. As you know, all you have to do is tell the truth. And the truth is that AA or NA isn't about helping someone stay sober. No, AA is about AA. It's primary purpose isn't to help others but to recruit new members by indoctrination, deception, intimidation and coercion. Is that too many "tions"? Like Rational Recovery's founder Jack Trimpey I too hope to see the day that AA is reliquinshed from our health care system and forced back to where it belongs... church basements. Take care and keep up the good work, Chris
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the letter and the compliments, and thanks for the story. And congratulations on your escape.
And please do continue the campaign to get the word out.
What gives me the "patience to actually converse with all the steppers who
attack you and the truth" is that I have to remember to consider the source.
The people who are attacking me are sick, deluded people. Either physically sick, or
mentally sick, or both. And they have been indoctrinated and practically brain-washed
into a cultish belief system that pretends to have all of the answers to "Life, the Universe,
and Everything" (as Douglas Adams would put it), and they believe that anyone
who says something different is automatically wrong. To some extent it may be their own
fault — to some extent they voluntarily bought into the system — but to a great extent they are more
victims than offenders. They got recruited and indoctrinated at a time in their lives when
they were very sick, weak, and vulnerable — easy targets for any cult.
And now they are stuck.
Oh well, have a good day anyway.
== Orange
Orange, I'm taking the liberty of responding to your "Introduction" page. I've read most of your site and even sent you an e-mail a while ago. Your history is nice and some of your points are very valid but you seem to have resentments galore. You can respond to me if you like and/or use this on your site but either way I wanted to reach out with my opinions for what they're worth. I've been sober since 1997 and have been very active in AA and have sponsered many people. Some of your complaints seem so common to me that it seems a shame you gave up on the program before you fully understood it. Belive me, it's not perfect and it's not for everyone so but it's not the evil cult you claim. Not by a long shot. This is the best way I can think of to respond because you have so many arguments in so many places, I figure if I go to the begining I can maybe answer some of you question. Maybe I'm wasting my time but for some reason, as I read your pages, you seem like a good guy. Like your really interested in sobriety, I mean. And if AA isn't for you, then I respect that but your just too heavy handed in your treatment of AA. At least compared to my experience.
Okay, so you stayed sober for 3 years (I did it only for 1 year myself) and then you
went back to drinking, right ? And you ended up in group therapy, right ?
Hello Tony,
Thanks for the letter.
Yes, actually I did eventually deal with all of my issues. The biggest mistake that I
made after three years of sobriety was starting to think that I wasn't really an
alcoholic, because it had been so easy to stay sober for three years. I thought that the
"real alcoholics" — especially the ones portrayed in A.A.-promoting movies —
are constantly craving a drink and having
to call their sponsors in the middle of the night, crying that they are afraid that they are about to
take a drink. I did none of that, so I mistakenly thought that I had alcohol under control
now. But that was a tragically wrong belief. Just a few beers very quickly turned into heavy
drinking for years. Live and learn. That is just another example of how A.A. stereotypes and
misinformation hurt people.
Also, he wouldn't debate with you.
Ego? You think my reluctance to hand control of my mind and my life over to a cocaine-snorting
child molester is my ego getting in the way? That is so wrong and illogical that it is downright
Looney-Tunes. But that is the usual Alcoholics Anonymous attitude.
"Take the cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth."
Well, blind obedience to authority is not a good approach to life in either a treatment center or
in the real world. When you are dealing with a bunch of ex-addicts (and relapsed addicts), ex-convicts,
and assorted other criminals and perverts, it is wise to keep your eyes open and see clearly.
And don't believe everything you are told.
You are demonstrating how the A.A. cult puts
people down as a way of weakening them, and then tries to take their independence away from
them while they are weakened.
If anybody shows any signs of independent thinking, then just start harping on how stupid they were to
have drunk so much alcohol... And they should just shut up and listen and obey.
(By the way, "Listen and Obey" is pure Buchmanism.)
And the commandment to "abandon ego" is
just another standard cult characteristic.
Do you actually think for one minute that I would have been better off if I had believed the
dogmatic slogan-slinging of that criminal pervert?
By not following that "counselor's" advice, I now have 7 1/2 years off of both alcohol and tobacco.
When I quit smoking, 3 weeks after I quit drinking, he actually advised against it by saying,
"Don't put too much on your plate or something might spill off."
I sure am glad I didn't listen to him. And my lungs are happy about it too. So is my general health.
By the way, I wasn't "the patient". They were very clear about that.
We were "clients", not "patients".
We couldn't be patients because the treatment center had no healing credentials. They would not even give me
aspirin for a headache because, they explained, they had zero medical credentials and were not
qualified to give out aspirin. Funny that they considered themselves qualified to give out advice
and pontifications on the life-or-death issues of alcoholism and drug addiction...
Oh, and I didn't "go to him for help", either. I agreed to go through the treatment program in
trade for housing in a shelter, so that I wouldn't have to sleep in the rain.
I approached the program optimistically,
hoping to maybe learn something useful from it. Little did I know that I was
going to get an education about something else instead,
like the sorry state of "drug and alcohol treatment" in the USA.
Lastly, you are overlooking the fact that Alcoholics Anonymous has no quality control for
sponsors. Any pervert or criminal can claim to be an expert on addiction just by declaring that
he has a few years of sobriety. He doesn't even need to be clean and sober. He can lie about it
and just claim to be sober,
and he is still fully qualified to be an A.A. sponsor.
He can even be there at the meetings
solely to seduce under-age girls,
and he is still a qualified A.A. sponsor. There is no examination to be an A.A. sponsor;
there is no Board of Ethics; there are no rules or regulations; there is nobody to answer to,
and there are no check-ups. Being an A.A. sponsor or a "drug and
alcohol counselor" is a great haven
for all kinds of criminals, perverts, and psychos.
I think it is a minor point. It's also a matter of opinion and not AA in any strict
sense.
You are missing the major point that a dogmatic religious nutcase was
promoting "12-Step Spirituality" when he was supposed to be
giving "treatment for alcoholism". He was getting paid by the
city, state, and Federal Government to "treat alcoholics and addicts".
And his "spirituality" amounted
to going home and snorting cocaine and screwing his step-children.
And the fact that A.A. describes itself as "spiritual" is both
irrelevant and hypocritical. Anybody or anything can claim to be spiritual.
All of these organizations also described themselves as "spiritual":
And when did you die ? Those who were on the hijacked airplane were killed. You seem to be alive since you have a website up and running, you also claim your sober. Are you trying to imply that any incompetent quack medicine and bogus alcoholism treatment is okay if the patients don't die immediately? You certainly have low standards.
And you claim you've dealt with all your issues, so how did that counelor harm you ?
Again, you seem to think that quack treatment is okay if I can't claim to have been harmed by it.
What about the other "clients" who didn't make it?
I was lucky. But then again, I was the one who quit drinking
two weeks before the "treatment program" started.
And I quit all on my own, without any "treatment program" or any Alcoholics Anonymous,
because I finally decided that I just wasn't going to die that way (from alcoholism).
Is that really how it played out ? Yes, that is exactly how it played out. I wouldn't have written it if it weren't true. And that was one of the things that told me that something isn't quite right here. Repeating helpful advice on how to get through withdrawal is "getting intellectual on us now"?
When your in rehab aren't you there because you think you need help (or the courts or your family think you need help). Wrong again. You are just full of slogans and assumptions. I went into the program voluntarily, to see if I could learn anything useful from it (besides getting a dry bed). Of course there are other methods you can use to try and get sober, but at that momen, when your in rehab don't you think you should give the counselors the benefit of the doubt. They're the ones who are sober and trying to teach you have to be also. I did give them the benefit of the doubt. The intro page describes how I started off giving them the benefit of the doubt, but began to see that there was something very wrong with the whole program. You seem like my son a few years ago when he wouldn't take his cold medicine. Nothing I could do would get him to put it in his mouth and swallow it because he didn't like the taste and he wasn't mature enough to get past that fact. Allot like drunks trying to sober up, they don't like their medicine so they don't want to take it !!
Again, accepting crazy advice from a coke-head child molester is not
"taking my medicine" and "being mature".
Your condescending A.A. attitude is showing:
Now your over the line. Complaining about your rehabs and AA is one thing, but
comparing it to Scientology or even the Oxford group is too much of a stretch.
You really are in denial, aren't you? The Oxford Group was the parent
of Alcoholics Anonymous, and even the official A.A. publications declare
it, and you complain that I am "over the line" when I tell
the truth about that? Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
Even Bill Wilson himself declared that he got the A.A. theology and the
guts of the 12 Steps from the Oxford Group:
Bill Wilson was being a little dishonest there, when he implied that
Sam Shoemaker was the leader of the Oxford Group. Frank Buchman was
the real leader, and he is the one who copied or made up
all of the theology and tenets and practices of the Oxford Group, which
Bill rewrote into the Twelve Steps. But Frank Buchman had a very bad
reputation for his praise of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi sympathizing,
so Bill Wilson listed Sam Shoemaker as the leader of the USA branch of
the Oxford Group. But the theology and practices are all still pure
Buchmanism.
If you have been in A.A. for 11 years, then you have probably seen the
Hallmark made-for-TV movie, "My Name is Bill W." at least
once. William Borchert's screenplay tells a completely untrue version
of the beginnings of A.A., showing Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob going around
Akron Ohio in the spring and summer of 1935 recruiting alcoholics for
their new sobriety organization. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Bill and Bob were recruiting alcoholics for the Oxford Group in Akron,
and they were using the
standard Oxford Group cult recruiting practices like the
"Five C's". (Bill Wilson repeated the gist of those practices in Chapter 7 of the Big Book
as
the instructions for how to recruit more A.A. members.)
Then Dr. Bob would demand that the newly-sober alcoholics
get down on their knees and "surrender to God", and then the
new recruits would be taken to
an Oxford Group meeting at
the large Westfield home of T. Henry and Clarace Williams.
Bill and Dr. Bob wouldn't break off the alcoholic branch of the Oxford
Group and make it into their own cult for years — 2 years in
New York city, and 4 years in Akron.
In the mean time,
Frank Buchman went to Germany
and attended Nuremberg Nazi Party rallies and Sieg Heil!ed
Hitler with the rest of the Nazis, and then had lunch with Heinrich Himmler,
repeatedly. And then Buchman went to the 1936 Berlin Olympics as a guest
of Heinrich Himmler, where Buchman declared Himmler to be a wonderful fellow,
and then Buchman came back to New York and praised Hitler and
thanked Heaven for giving
us a man like Adolf Hitler,
and advocated Christian Fascist Dictatorships as a cure for all
of the world's problems, and neither Bill Wilson nor Dr. Robert Smith
quit the Oxford Group in protest. They just kept right on recruiting
alcoholics for the Oxford Group and claiming that they had a wonderful
new cure for alcoholism.
"Over the line" for comparing Alcoholics Anonymous to the
Oxford Group? I don't think so. It's not much different from comparing
a guy to his father.
And the comparison to Scientology is valid too. The only huge glaring
difference between A.A. and Scientology is that Scientology is blatantly
out to steal all of your money and A.A. isn't.
Otherwise, they share an immense number of cult practices and they both
sell quackery as a cure-all. Read
the Cult Test.
And I do not "smear Bill Wilson's reputation". I tell the
historical truth about what kind of a lying con man he was, and how he
took a part of Frank Buchman's cult and made it his own so that he never
had to work again.
Bill Wilson became very wealthy by selling Dr. Frank Buchman's
cult religion as a cure for alcoholism.
It's good but not when it's in AA...... There is a huge difference between a genuine spiritual practice and a crazy cult that spouts the words and puts on airs and repeats the terminology and pretends to be oh-so spiritual, but actually does very different things. Read the Cult Test again.
So Christianity is a cult that uses guilt and shame to induct people ???? That's where the whole Original Sin concept comes from. Not Bill Wilson and not Buchman. Jesus taught it. Remember John the Baptist ? What does babtism represent in the Bible but cleansing of sin. That is just a dodge. Alcoholics Anonymous is not like Christianity. In fact, A.A. is grossly heretical and unChristian — even anti-Christian. Read The Heresy of the Twelve Steps.
Really ? I'm glad that you managed to get out of the meeting rooms and go on vacation. Now if you could only give your brain a vacation from the A.A. dogma...
Superstitious ? Never heard that one before. Like if I don't rub my rabbits foot
I'll drink ?
Superstitious as in
You cross another line here. I've examined your statistics and I reject them out of hand. But even if your statistics were validly presented I'd still reject them. Right. "My opinion won't be swayed by mere facts."
How can you get any good statistics from an anonymous organization. Wrong. Randomized Longitudinal Controlled Studies can be done, and have been done. And A.A. flunked every test. A.A. members don't like those results, so they "reject them out of hand" just as you are doing. The best you can do is attend AA for a period of time and see who stays and who goes. Wrong. That is merely taking attendance, not testing the effectiveness of the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-Step program for making alcoholics quit drinking. That's also not a valid test of whether A.A. meeting attendance makes people quit drinking. People who are willing to go to any length do tend to get sober and eventually stay sober. Most people aren't willing to do that at any given time. So, maybe your 5% rate is true. I don't know. Could be 5, could be 25. I know the odds are against the alchoholic. You seem to blame this on AA though. The culpert is alcoholism, not AA. When a person dies of cancer, do you blame the doctor ? That's an emotional and immature position. Common enough, but not really very helpfull.
Again, your approach is wrong. You are trying to shift the blame for failure from A.A. to the individual
alcoholics. That is the standard A.A. dodge. What you are really saying is that A.A. is ineffective
and does not work. Only the alcoholics getting their own lives together and quitting drinking
works. And if a successful newly-sober alcoholic happens to be in or near an A.A. meeting when he
quits and stays quit, then A.A. will take the credit for the success story.
But A.A. always shoves the blame for the failures back onto the alcoholics themselves.
It's a "Heads I Win, Tails You Lose" con game.
Now personally, I also believe that it's up to the individual alcoholics to save themselves. They will decide to
live or die. They will either quit drinking or they won't. Alcoholics Anonymous is totally irrelevant
and ineffective, and is just a cult that steals the credit from others.
About the claim that "People who are willing to go to any length do tend to get sober and eventually stay
sober": Well yes, but that has nothing to do with A.A., now does it?
A.A. apologists routinely use that line to try to limit A.A.'s scope of responsibility to only the successful
people. That's the propaganda trick called
"Cherry Picking".
I can just as easily claim that playing tiddly-winks works great as a program of sobriety for those few people
who really sincerely want to quit drinking and who are willing to go to any length to get sober,
and who will really Work A Strong Program.
Umm, rehabs aren't AA. AA doesn't get money from any health insurance company. Not fair. Rehabs use alot of 12 step stuff but your tend to lump AA and rehab and group therapy together. You take the worst of everything and call it AA. Not fair. Yes fair. The so-called "Rehab Centers" are just recruiting centers for Alcoholics Anonymous. The staffers are mostly 12-Steppers (doing their 12th-Step work), and the standard answer for all alcoholics is to route them into A.A. meetings. In fact, the majority of the "treatment" is just meetings — some "group therapy" meetings where people are guided to talk about drinking alcohol, and then the clients are told to go to "at least three A.A. meetings per week, or preferably one every day." And that is all that the "treatment program" amounts to. They are really just selling A.A. meetings.
So, a girl went was having trouble relapsing and wouldn't take anyones advice. That was just the first of many such failures that I saw, where A.A. and N.A. showed themselves to be useless and no help. She had a problem giving herself to the 12 step program, but not to the bottle. That's the way it is, that's why we need a program of recovery, that's why we're insane !!!!!
You may be insane, but I'm not.
You are again spouting the standard cult dogma:
Oh well, I know it's alot but you wrote alot. Thanks for letting me answer you. You are welcome, and now I've written a lot more in return.
Yours in Sobriety,
You have a good day too, Tony.
== Orange
Excellent, excellent website! Awesome articles. Well-written and informative. As a psychologist, I love the emphasis you place on the 'cultish' aspects of AA and its herd mentality. I especially like your rational examination of the dogma, and uncovering the 'religious' features of AA that have long been denied. As a recovering alcoholic, I noticed that you touch on the weakest aspects and glaring contradictions that constitute the rigid AA mindset. Much of what I already suspected has now been put into words on your website. Congrats! Dave T.
Hi Dave,
Thanks for all of the compliments, and you have a good day too.
== Orange
Last updated 21 April 2015. |
