drug addicts don't want to get clean

[psy]

Remember that we have rarely seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.

This is accurate. Fornits is testimony to this, as very few program dropouts post here.

UM....


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Most users ever online was 461 on Mon Jun 04, 2007 9:28 pm

Oh yeah... it's a reeel fuckin ghost town.

[Anonymous]

I made this from another web site to show everyone I did not take these terms from Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. I am no alcoholic. I am trying to help you become free of the past. Many of us have traumatic childhood. Ones who move on want to help those stuck in Stinking Thinking become free. Read this
Start

Stinkin' Thinkin', otherwise known as thinking negative thoughts, is a common but unhelpful pastime. Imagine all the extra energy and creativity we could muster if we weren't bogged down by thoughts of doom and gloom. Let's have a look at some of the most common forms of "Stinkin' Thinking."

•   Black-and-white thinking In this form of self torture, everything is either black or white, good or bad. Common examples include: "It's really bad that we didn't get that house at auction." Yes, it might be disappointing that you couldn't afford the house, but another house will come up, and it might even be better.

Or, "Getting a dog is a bad idea. I'll ruin the garden." Of course, the puppy may ruin part of the garden initially but it will also give you years of joy.

•   Overgeneralization This is a favorite among Stinkin' Thinkers. Here a single event colors the rest of your day, week, or even life. Favorite topics: "I failed the math test, I'll never get a good job now." Or "I ate half a packet of Oreos. I'm supposed to be on a diet. I'll never lose any weight. I'll be fat all my life." Gee, I could go on so easily, but you get my drift!

•   Ignoring the positives No matter how bad your life is, it is possible to find at least one positive aspect to it. But Stinkin' Thinkers can't, or rather, won't. Since there are numerous examples of people coming through traumas and stating publicly that the whole experience made them stronger and that they would go through it all again to gain what they have learned, it is possible to remain positive in just about any situation. The act of counting your blessings is an old one but it hasn't lost any of its potency over the years.

•   Catastrophizing Catastrophizing is all about blowing things up out of proportion, or alternatively, minimizing any good things in your life. So if your son pulls out of school early, a catastrophizing parent might say: "I've tried to do my best for him, but now he's left school, he'll never get a proper education, or a proper job and it's my fault. I should have got him a tutor. We can't afford to keep him forever, and he'll end up on the streets. You can see how easily this train of thoughts takes hold and the escalating stress levels that accompany it.

Alternatively, catastrophizers also minimize their own skills or the good in their life. That same son may be a very caring and loving young man, who gets on well with young and old alike, but all those people skills are ignored by the catastrophizer. The fact that the son loves his parents and doesn't want to move to another state is not seen as a positive, but is buried instead under the "catastrophe" that he has decided that at this point in his life, he wants to do something other than attend school.

•   Wearing the "blue" glasses This is a term that refers to the act of dwelling on one negative detail about a situation, so that the entire scenario takes on a negative and depressing hue. For example, Leanne's friend is less than ecstatic when Leanne tells her the news that she is going back to her ex-boyfriend for the third time. Because Leanne's friend isn't as happy as Leanne would like her to be, Leanne becomes obsessed by this, and ultimately gets so angry with her friend that she ends the friendship. Leanne has let one incident where two friends don't agree cloud her whole opinion of the friendship to the point where she pulls the plug on it. She has effectively put on the "blue" glasses and refuses to see all the positive aspects of the friendship.

•   Mind reading A favorite among Stinkin' Thinkers, Mind Reading involves assuming that people are reacting in a negative way about you without any evidence to back it up.

•   Fortune telling Closely related to Mind Reading, Fortune Telling involves predicting that things will turn out badly, with no evidence to back it up other than "things always do." Of course, thinking that "things always do" is a form of Overgeneralization.

•   The "Should" problem The word "should" is perhaps one best left out of your life. It is mainly used to criticize yourself and others and serves no real useful purpose. "I should have got tutoring for James, and now he's pulled out of school!" James may have pulled out of school anyway. Blaming yourself with a series of "shoulds" keeps you stuck and less likely to be useful in the present moment.

"He should have addressed his drinking problem earlier and now he's been involved in a car accident." Yes, it would have been best if the drinking problem had been addressed earlier, but it wasn't and now the present situation must be dealt with. "Shoulds" keep up locked in the past.

•   Self-labeling Calling yourself an "idiot" or a "fool" or any other derogatory name not only dents your self esteem but derails you from looking more closely at the problem and finding a better way to go about it. Be kind to yourself and drop the names. Names will actually hurt you in the long term.

•   Playing "Atlas" This game refers to shouldering responsibility for all the things that go wrong in your life, regardless of whether or not you are to blame. This includes being hard on yourself for getting the flu or not accepting that your divorce involved the behaviors of two people, not just you. Or you may believe you were retrenched for something you did, rather than being able to see that powers other than yourself were involved in the decision. Playing "Atlas" is certainly a hard cross to bear through life.

Finish

[psy]

I made this from another web site to show everyone I did not take these terms from Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. I am no alcoholic.

http://http://www.orange-papers.org/

Go there and learn.

The individual members of the cult are told that they are inherently small, weak, stupid, ignorant, and sinful. Cult members are routinely criticized, shamed, ridiculed, discounted, diminished, and told in dozens of ways that they are not good enough.

This cult characteristic is sometimes expressed in the infantization of the cult members: They refer to the leader as "Father", while he refers to them as "my children."

Cult members are also told that they are in no way qualified to judge the Guru or his church. Should you disagree with the leader or his cult about anything, see Cult Rule Number One. Having negative emotions about the cult or its leader is a "defect" that needs to be fixed.

A corollary to this rule is the practice of lowering members' self-esteem by a variety of methods:

    * Elders or higher-ranking members will berate the newer members and tell them that their work or their spirituality isn't good enough. Again, the beginners are abused by the guru and his henchmen until they reach the inner circle, at which time they can turn around and do it all to someone else who is just beginning.

    * It is almost a universal cult characteristic that, in the opinion of the cult leader and other elders, newcomers cannot think correctly. They are too "new", or "unspiritual", and they haven't been members long enough, or they haven't prayed or chanted or meditated long enough, or they haven't been off of drugs and alcohol long enough, or something... It's always something.

    * Members will criticize themselves and confess all of their sins and faults, sometimes engaging in public self-criticism or confession sessions. This is used by everybody from Maoist Chinese Communist groups to Christian cults.

    * Sometimes other members will attack them and criticize them in "group therapy" sessions, or Synanon games.

    * Members are taught not to trust their own minds or their own judgement:
          o Your thinking has been corrupted by sin.
          o Your judgement is no good.
          o Your thinking is no good.
          o Your mind is no good.
          o You have a criminal mind.
          o You have an alcoholic mind.
          o You need a complete make-over.
          o Your thinking is controlled by your addictions.
          o Your thinking is controlled by your sexual desires.
          o Your thinking is controlled by Satan.
          o You haven't been chanting or meditating or doing yoga long enough to have a clear head.
          o You haven't been off of drugs and alcohol long enough to have a clear head.

    * Members are taught not to trust their own motives:
          o Your motives are no good; everything you do is just for yourself.
          o You are selfish, vain, egotistical, self-seeking, and always trying to get your own way.
          o You are just seeking ego-gratification.
          o You are lazy.
          o You are always trying to do things the easier, softer way.
          o You just want to get laid.
          o You just want to get drunk or high.
          o You just want to avoid the hard work of getting right with God.
          o You just want to be happy.

    * Members are taught not to feel their own feelings.

Steven Hassan wrote

    Since mind control depends on creating a new identity within the individual, cult doctrine always requires that a person distrust his own self.
    Combatting Cult Mind Control, Steven Hassan, 1988, page 79.

The fawning hero-worshipper and sociology professor Dr. Lewis Yablonksky praised Synanon's mind-control tactics like this:

    The development which takes place is best described as a "resocialization process." The individual is, in a fashion, "brainwashed" to give up his old deviant patterns.
    The Tunnel Back, Synanon, Lewis Yablonsky, page 261.

Prof. Yablonsky seems to have really gotten a kick out of watching tough old thugs beating up on the wimpy newcomers -- he just gushes with praise for their skill in tormenting the newcomers:

[etc... go there for more]

http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-cul ... _you_wrong

I could care less where you get your information about AA or any 12 step based cult.  If you haven't been there, you don't know.

Freedom from my past?  Fuck you.  My life was seriously fucked up by you freaks who convinced me I was an alcoholic when I was not.  I never liked it very much and don't drink now, not out of some idiotic desire to remain "sober" (or I'll die) but because i just don't like it.  My parents did not send me to program for drinking and clearly were not worried about that based on their correspondence with program which I have.

You aren't interested in freeing anybody from their past, you're interested in helping to revise people's beliefs of what happened in the past by convincing them they can't rely on their own reasoning and are sick when they probably aren't.



That reference is from margaret singer's cults in our midst Page 73.

[Froderik]

Sorry, I've been in my head... trying to keep up with this..

Someone please continue...

[Anonymous]

Q: I seem to beat myself up about my adolescence. I catch myself saying that I died as a person when I had a negative experience in a treatment program. And then I end up regretting not doing anything and get more and more frustrated with myself. I can't get over what happened and spend a lot of time reliving the experience. A friend of mine pointed this pattern out to me, but neither one of us knows what to do about it. What should I do?

A: I know what it is.

It's your stinking thinking.

Both of the thinking patterns you describe are examples of stinking thinking, or put differently, thoughts that are so unhelpful, they stink. Another way to think of them are as SDTs or self-defeating thoughts. The two that seem to be hanging you up the most are so common I even have special names for them: Mr. Yabuts and Ms. Ifonly Ida. Let's take a closer look at each of these patterns of stinking-thinking SDTs, and then how to change them.

MR. YABUTS

Mr. Yabuts rears his ugly head when we say something like, "YEAH, I really need to do that, BUT . . ." We can easily "yeah but" ourselves into inaction _ defeated before we even start. Yeah buts are self-defeating, but they serve a self-protective function. If you can convince yourself there is no reason to even attempt to do what you want, then you no longer face the risk of trying and failing. While this can protect you, it also cripples you.

Mr. Yabuts also shows up in the business world and serves as a good example of how to change this self-defeating pattern. Many times when a solution is offered, someone who will say, "Yeah, but . . ." This is followed by all the reasons the idea will not work. A useful alternative to "yeah, but" is "yes, and . . ." followed by a realistic listing of the problems and - here's the crucial part - a reasonable plan of action to deal with them.

In our personal lives, we typically say "yeah but" when we are dreaming about something we want, get scared, and then try to talk ourselves out of pursuing our dreams. Instead of stopping ourselves with "yeah buts," we need to ask, "and what is stopping me?"

The answer is usually ourselves. The same solution applies: Make a list of the obstacles and then create a reasonable plan to effectively deal with them.

MS. IFONLY IDA

Ms. Ifonly Ida shows up as a self-defeating form of regret, as in "If only I'd have (fill in the blank), then everything would be OK."

The purpose of healthy regret is to help us learn from our mistakes, not make the same ones over and over.

By focusing on the past, Ifonly Ida robs you of your present and future. Have you ever tried to drive your car looking only through the rear-view mirror? It's a silly notion, but it's how we live our lives when we get caught up in Ifonly Ida.

When you catch yourself using this particular brand of self-defeating thinking, stop and ask yourself some better questions, such as: "What can I learn from this situation?" "What mistakes did I make that I never want to make again?" "How can I use what I've experienced and learned to live better the next time I face a similar situation?"

These questions help you do two important things with past regrets: Make a place for them because they did happen and to not acknowledge them keeps you from learning from them; and put past regret in its place, which is behind you. Then you are able to live in such a way as to create few, if any, future regrets.

One way to avoid future regrets is to ask yourself, "How will I feel about this decision tomorrow, in a year, and at the end of my life?" Learn and then live so you have as few Ifonly Idas in the future as possible.

Mr. Yabuts or Ms. Ifonly Ida are bad enough each by itself. Combine them and you've set up a vicious cycle that keeps you stuck. Get rid of one of them, and you are doing better. Get rid of both, and you're on your way.

My suggestion is to kick both out of your brain, because they are taking up lots of room and not paying any rent.

[Anonymous]

I was never a drug addict, but I died in a program.

:skull: :skull: :skull: :skull: :skull: :skull:

pretty much

Black-and-white thinking
Overgeneralization
Ignoring the positives
Catastrophizing

This is classic Stinking Thinking! Please read what I posted, it might help. You are obviously suffering with a bad case of Stinking Thinking.

[psy]

Classic examples of loading the language are being used by this particular guest.

[psy]

I was never a drug addict, but I died in a program.

:skull: :skull: :skull: :skull: :skull: :skull:

pretty much

Black-and-white thinking
Overgeneralization
Ignoring the positives
Catastrophizing

This is classic Stinking Thinking! Please read what I posted, it might help. You are obviously suffering with a bad case of Stinking Thinking.

Your post lacks something... a shred of science.

[psy]

I made this from another web site to show everyone I did not take these terms from Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. I am no alcoholic.

http://http://www.orange-papers.org/

Go there and learn.

The individual members of the cult are told that they are inherently small, weak, stupid, ignorant, and sinful. Cult members are routinely criticized, shamed, ridiculed, discounted, diminished, and told in dozens of ways that they are not good enough.

This cult characteristic is sometimes expressed in the infantization of the cult members: They refer to the leader as "Father", while he refers to them as "my children."

Cult members are also told that they are in no way qualified to judge the Guru or his church. Should you disagree with the leader or his cult about anything, see Cult Rule Number One. Having negative emotions about the cult or its leader is a "defect" that needs to be fixed.

A corollary to this rule is the practice of lowering members' self-esteem by a variety of methods:

    * Elders or higher-ranking members will berate the newer members and tell them that their work or their spirituality isn't good enough. Again, the beginners are abused by the guru and his henchmen until they reach the inner circle, at which time they can turn around and do it all to someone else who is just beginning.

    * It is almost a universal cult characteristic that, in the opinion of the cult leader and other elders, newcomers cannot think correctly. They are too "new", or "unspiritual", and they haven't been members long enough, or they haven't prayed or chanted or meditated long enough, or they haven't been off of drugs and alcohol long enough, or something... It's always something.

    * Members will criticize themselves and confess all of their sins and faults, sometimes engaging in public self-criticism or confession sessions. This is used by everybody from Maoist Chinese Communist groups to Christian cults.

    * Sometimes other members will attack them and criticize them in "group therapy" sessions, or Synanon games.

    * Members are taught not to trust their own minds or their own judgement:
          o Your thinking has been corrupted by sin.
          o Your judgement is no good.
          o Your thinking is no good.
          o Your mind is no good.
          o You have a criminal mind.
          o You have an alcoholic mind.
          o You need a complete make-over.
          o Your thinking is controlled by your addictions.
          o Your thinking is controlled by your sexual desires.
          o Your thinking is controlled by Satan.
          o You haven't been chanting or meditating or doing yoga long enough to have a clear head.
          o You haven't been off of drugs and alcohol long enough to have a clear head.

    * Members are taught not to trust their own motives:
          o Your motives are no good; everything you do is just for yourself.
          o You are selfish, vain, egotistical, self-seeking, and always trying to get your own way.
          o You are just seeking ego-gratification.
          o You are lazy.
          o You are always trying to do things the easier, softer way.
          o You just want to get laid.
          o You just want to get drunk or high.
          o You just want to avoid the hard work of getting right with God.
          o You just want to be happy.

    * Members are taught not to feel their own feelings.

Steven Hassan wrote

    Since mind control depends on creating a new identity within the individual, cult doctrine always requires that a person distrust his own self.
    Combatting Cult Mind Control, Steven Hassan, 1988, page 79.

The fawning hero-worshipper and sociology professor Dr. Lewis Yablonksky praised Synanon's mind-control tactics like this:

    The development which takes place is best described as a "resocialization process." The individual is, in a fashion, "brainwashed" to give up his old deviant patterns.
    The Tunnel Back, Synanon, Lewis Yablonsky, page 261.

Prof. Yablonsky seems to have really gotten a kick out of watching tough old thugs beating up on the wimpy newcomers -- he just gushes with praise for their skill in tormenting the newcomers:

[etc... go there for more]

http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-cul ... _you_wrong

I could care less where you get your information about AA or any 12 step based cult.  If you haven't been there, you don't know.

Freedom from my past?  Fuck you.  My life was seriously fucked up by you freaks who convinced me I was an alcoholic when I was not.  I never liked it very much and don't drink now, not out of some idiotic desire to remain "sober" (or I'll die) but because i just don't like it.  My parents did not send me to program for drinking and clearly were not worried about that based on their correspondence with program which I have.

You aren't interested in freeing anybody from their past, you're interested in helping to revise people's beliefs of what happened in the past by convincing them they can't rely on their own reasoning and are sick when they probably aren't.



That reference is from Margaret Singer's "Cults in Our Midst" Page 73 of the 1994 edition.

[Froderik]

I was never a drug addict, but I died in a program.

:skull: :skull: :skull: :skull: :skull: :skull:

pretty much

Black-and-white thinking
Overgeneralization
Ignoring the positives
Catastrophizing

This is classic Stinking Thinking! Please read what I posted, it might help. You are obviously suffering with a bad case of Stinking Thinking.

". . . the Strength to find truth and meaning in a world gone insane,
at a time in my life where my sanity has finally become realized.
And please Dear Lord, please grant me the wisdom to know where
to hide the bodies of those unfortunate enough to really piss me off."

-another survivor

[Anonymous]

If you were not an alcoholic why did you enter a treatment center? You harbor self directed anger stemming from your poor decision.

Black-and-white thinking-- Believing everyone did not need treatment. Seeing the world through only your experience.
Overgeneralization-- Everyone who disagrees with you is not a cult member.
Ignoring the positives-- you are alive and free and not addicted to drugs.
Catastrophizing-- You are making a big deal out of nothing.

Your anger is a positive sign that you are attempting to engage your repetitive Stinking Thinking behavior. You are showing progress by releasing this to me.

[Botched Programming]

I was never a drug addict, but I died in a program.

:skull: :skull: :skull: :skull: :skull: :skull:

pretty much

Black-and-white thinking
Overgeneralization
Ignoring the positives
Catastrophizing

This is classic Stinking Thinking! Please read what I posted, it might help. You are obviously suffering with a bad case of Stinking Thinking.

No stinking thinking is what programs drill into you. They tell you things that warp your own sense of reasoning. Take this line from chapter 1 of the NA Basic Text.

We are people in the grip of a continious and progressive illness whose ends are always the same: jails, institutions, and death.

Now you tell me how this kind of horseshit would not fuck your head up if it were drilled into you everyday of your life while you are in a program.

They want people to believe that you are going to die if you don't do what they say. This is all brainwashing drivel designed to make people subservient slaves of the program.

[psy]

If you were not an alcoholic why did you enter a treatment center? You harbor self directed anger stemming from your poor decision.

I WAS TOLD IT WAS A BOARDING SCHOOL[/color]

Black-and-white thinking-- Believing everyone did not need treatment.

I'm not the one telling a person you don't know on the internet about whether or not they have a drug or alcohol prpblem.

Seeing the world through only your experience.

I came to the conclusions I did about Benchmark (and wrote about them) LONG before I ever found fornits.  If it was just my experience why are the experiences of so many others on this board so similar.

Overgeneralization-- Everyone who disagrees with you is not a cult member.

Fool.  There are three types of AA: institutionalized AA (where they force you to go first) then outside AA which is the support structure for the belief system.  Third is AlAnon where relatives and friends are indoctinated in cult ways.  You see... Unlike many cults, AA reaches out and convincingly indoctrinates family and friends who end up believing and further re-enforcing the cult dogma.  Furthermore, it spreads like wildfire and into the popular lingo and culture, making AA seem like the only way to treat alcoholism.  The supreme court ruled it a religion, this isn't really up to debate anymore.  I don't take too kindly to you shoving your beliefs down my throat and trying to tell me how to think, I was born with that capacity as was everybody if they would bother to fucking use it.

Ignoring the positives-- you are alive and free and not addicted to drugs.
Catastrophizing-- You are making a big deal out of nothing.

NOTHING.  NOTHING... They tried to tell my parents to abandon me on the streets and continue to do the same today across the industry.

Your anger is a positive sign that you are attempting to engage your repetitive Stinking Thinking behavior. You are showing progress by releasing this to me.

Releasing this to you?  Know what.  Pissing me off only makes it worse for your entire industry.  Go "release" your loaded language right up your ass.

[Anonymous]

If you disagree with what you were taught, then great. Why spend so much of your life whining about it now? Go get drunk, nobody is forcing you to stay sober or go to meetings anymore.

[Anonymous]

PROTIP: This is a troll in the traditional sense of the word.