Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => Straight, Inc. and Derivatives => Topic started by: Anonymous on October 30, 2003, 01:25:00 PM
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I was thinking about the 7 steps last night and now my life is pretty difficult at this time. I remember the mantra "use the 7 steps, work your program" I remember also when I was a recent grad, that I used to tell my girlfriend "my life would be better if I only worked my program" I am beginning to wonder the same thing as my life in many ways is beginning to fall apart. I am at somewhat of a mid-life crisis, not knowing what to do career wise, marriage wise, location of my residence, etc. I am wondering if there is any truth to the work the program thing. I think that working the program means practicing the steps in "all my daily affairs..." So I guess my question to the "group" is....is it possible to actually "work" the steps, progam and get something positive out of it? I don't have a drinking or drugging prob, never did and I don't see on rising in the future. The admit my wrongs thing...that ain't too bad. The make amends thing, again, not too bad. taking a moral inventory of myself...on the face it isn't a bad thing. The written confessions is crap, but looking at myself on a daily basis and assessing my faults and working a plan to overcome them, now that is ok I think. I won't go on about the steps, but it seems as my life is falling apart (in some ways), I dream more and more about straight and I have extreme night sweats. I haven't started waking up screaming yet (as I did for many many years after the program), but that may be coming too. Do y'all think there is anything that I can take from the program and apply it to my life now? Or, is it all crap?
A St. Pete Straight Grad from the '70's (won't put my name up here, cause too many people know me)
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you stupid fuck,you can't learn anything from the steps, the program or anything that you were "taught" from straight. shit, go put your head in a shit hole and inhale. You will get about as much good from that as you did from straight. I have an idea. If you life is going so poorly, then why don't you just cut your fucking head off.
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uh, that is not the kind of advice I was looking for.
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Hey,
I recently filed a report with the Pinellas police department. You should, too.
If you insist on applying those bogus twelve steps intended to brainwash you back in the day, there are some pretty sincere ways you can apply them. Some I recommend, other ways to apply them I do not recommend.
Recommended:
1. Admitted we were powerless over the disabilities that Mel Sembler and all those involved with Straight Incorporated inflicted upon me, and my life has become unmanageable as a direct result of what happened to me at Straight.
Not recommended:
7. Came to ammend or forgive Mel Sembler and his cohorts for their intentional wrongful acts in their efforts to raise monies on the backs of children and hoodwinked families. I do not intend to see justice and equality prevail.
Recommended:
12. As a result of my transformation and knowledge of my enemies, I will forever pass on the message of amnesty to whosoever is around me. And the lord will strike down with furious anger those who attempt to hurt me, and my generations will forever hunt down mine enemy's families and pay them tribute to Everything they have done to me.
Recommended:
6. Made a lengthy conscious moral inventory of the things that happened at Straight Incorporated, and decided to stop my insanity long enough to earnestly seek out Mel Sembler so that he can ammend his organized crimes.
Not Recommended:
3. Made a conscious decision that whatever happened to me at Straight Incorporated is actually over now and I will pretend that I don't still suffer for it's crimes, and that I can go on believing that its all just okay and that people like Mel can live in free society. We decided to just turn the other cheek.
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Man, Anon2! Why so fucking mean?
Anon1, I suppose it depends on whether you interpret the steps in a sensible way or by Program definition. For me, it's all just too toxic and confusing to be worth the trip.
Maybe you're just entering that midlife change. I refuse to refer to it as 'midlife crisis'. It's just another change. We ought to be used to that by now, shouldn't we. It's only a crisis if you freak out about it.
Real criminals walk free every day to rape, rob, and murder again because the courts are so busy finding consensual criminals guilty of hurting no one but themselves.... To free cells for consensual criminals, real criminals are put on the street every day.
Peter McWilliams
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Never did find a sane way to read the first step. It just doesn't make sense in context. I admit I'm powerless, then proceed to do a bunch of things to change this thing over which I have no power?
Bullshit! Move on to #2. Don't remember it verbatem, but the procession of thought boils down to sorting out what's going on, what part of it is attributable to your own error and figuring out how not to make the same mistake again.
I sort of sit down for the 'giving back' part. I think we've all had just about all the help we can stand already. Refer back to #2.
The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun.
-- Patrick Henry
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Once again, Ginger has latched onto the the truth. The way I was taught to "work" the steps in straight was toxic under the best circumstances. All you learned there was to mind fuck youself into complete inaction. This took away any chance at free thought and developing your own moral code and the ability to know how to live life. Another thing, to call us the group is not correct. None of us know you nor have we been a part of you life for quite some time if ever. Most everyone here has only one common experience and some of that was worse for some than others.
If you are hell bent on working the steps then I would suggest forgetting everything you "know" about them and look at them as simple directions to be simply followed. What part of your situation is your fault and what part is others. Can you change other people? Certainly, but is it worth the effort? Sometimes. This goes on ad nauseum. My best "advice" is to accept the responsibilty for your own actions, learn from them and move on to the next thing. You can't always be right, but I am right far more than I am wrong. My wife says otherwise but that is her opinion.
I can certainly take things from the program. I know that sleep deprivation works. I know that Goebbels was right in saying that if you repeat a lie long enough it becomes the truth. I know you can convince any one they have problems of a severe nature, and if given enough time, make them be grateful for all of the above.
Last thing, the moral inventory as taught by straight is complete BS. Just a tool for producing guilt. None of this should ever had any guilt attached. I made my choices and I am glad for most of the experiences. It is why I am who I am. Life is sweet so live it.
-CL
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didn't mean to insult you or anyone, but - lots of people who frequent this site know me. I know, that the way we were "taught" doesn't work, I'm just wondering about folks take on things now.
I think I can look at some of this as simple directions, that was good advice. I don't think of life in terms of whose fault is this and I don't blame myself for the baggage that I took from straight. I guess, as I've said in the past, theonly thing that I can take from straight is the friends thatn I made there.
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From what I understand about the 12 steps, refering to A.A. and etc., The 12 steps are voluntary and a person or "addict" chooses to attend meetings and go from one step to twelve to help heal in themselves their situations. why a person becomes an addict is one thing and going to meetings is a personal choice as well as not attending the meetings. piece of shits that created straight etc., decided to order children to follow some 12 steps. completely ineffective. why are children going through these voluntary steps in this manner? If my ass is an addict then I have a right to continue to be an addict.
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It is my belief that just as the 12 steps work for members of A.A. The 7 Steps work too.
Take away the idea that the steps were taught in Straight that's not revelent anymore. Fact of the matter is, they still work.
Just my 2 cents.
Don
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I fuckin hate straight and its bullshit copy cat steps!@ The only step i ever did is the 13th! got high again! :smokin:
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Partly agree with Don on the fact that the steps DO work and I am sure he could cliche the term 'if you work them' as I have heard so many times in A.A. The steps were created to aid others in need of getting away from alcohol.
However....
It is false to believe that admitting you are an alcoholic will somehow magically elude your temptation to have booze in your body or drugs for that matter, or that believing you are an addict and working some steps will somehow make it okay and get you off the hook if you choose to 'relapse' or not or whatever.
What I can never agree with in any discussion and what will never settle in my gut or heart is cult like thinking.
It is a lie to say that for an addict that the steps of A.A. or N.A. are the only way to achieve 'addictive' happiness. Yes, it is good to find a group of people who are similar to you - but is it really healthy to buy into what others and books tell you to believe. Just like it was a lie that Straight was the only way to get straight for kids back then, and just like it is a lie that the church you go to is the only way to get to heaven and that Bible you have there which has been edited and altered hundreds of times is the Actual and one and Only word of God (I am one hundred percent confident that if you followed your Bible verbatum that you would find yourself on lock down before you knew what was happening - but that is a different story for later).
My point is that whatever works for you may not work for others.
If you have cancer and that without that cancer you are the plus side of perfect - I don't think the steps are gonna heal that cancer. It may help, but......
Beyond this advice - educated crackers back in the day have come up with certain unalterable rights that have worked tried and true for Every human in the United States. And these rights are meant to keep people from being brainwashed into believing that there is only ONE way of thinking, and from being Beaten into submission to a following of others or ridiculed into guilt into decision making based on ridicule and guilt and fallacy based on false appeal to authority or ad hominem abusive statements that many accept, or even Red Herring type statements of clever quips of 'moral support'.
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TAKE YOUR QUESTION AND YOUR STEPS AND SHOVE THEM UP YOU ASS AND THEN PULL THEM OUT OF YOUR THROAT, SLICE YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF AND SHYOVE IT BACK DOWN TO YOUR ASS AND PULL IT OUT. WHAT A FUCKING STUPID QUESTION. YOU MAKE ME FUCKING SICK.
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On 2003-10-31 00:45:00, fuck the steps wrote:
" I fuckin hate straight and its bullshit copy cat steps!@ The only step i ever did is the 13th! got high again! :smokin: "
Dang!, You even got that wrong. THe 13th step reffers to the practice of some of the older people in AA, NA any 12 step program taking advantage of people who are just starting to figure out their problems for sex. If you'd put the bong down and step away, you might see there is some sense in the principles. I spent quite a long time in the 12 step programs after straight and learned quite a bit about living life. Today I do not think I am a drunk. This still does not make these principle wrong or invalid. Treat people the way you'd like them to treat you. That is the upshot of the whole thing. Some people may shit on you but you don't have to hang with them.
CL
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Why is smoking so widely accepted?
I mean society has smoke anon meetings in fact me madre' used to go there.
You don't hear about no smokers lives becoming unmanageable because of cigarettes unless they are in prison where your ass will get cold murdered for one lousy fag !!!
Smoke anon meetings aren't a big deal cos' men dont' generally domestically beat their wives just cos' they toke on the marbs, and women don't divorce their kep man cos she can't get off the fucking smoke.
But hey, if you were an alcoholic or a drunk or a shooter or a snorter or a fucker or a rockstar or a dealer or a doper or a addict or whatever the fuck you call druggy slang for what you did when you used to, it probably didn't stop you from lighting up the socially acceptable cig when you bummed one or bought some to smooth the high.
And when you came off that shit or if you know someone who does smoke and you told them to quit and they still did it, too, then you are just as dumb of a fuck as when you were off the wagohn especially if you allow yourself to hang out with secondhand smoke.
Smoking kills more folk than alcohol does bitch.
But the effects of smoking aren't seen, they just make you want more cigarettes, more more more cos of the nicotine. And you wake up hating the person next to you and you can hardly move until you light a smoke.
Next time you light a smoke or are near somebody who does; think to yourself 'I am not a drunk'.
When you have to put a fucking vibrator to your damn throat so people can half understand your fuckin robotic go-bot transformer voice; say to yourself 'I am not a drunk'.
Hey, aren't those steps magic cos' so many people use them ???
Can you see the whole wasted process of public betterment through particular nonprescribed strange steps to placate one addiction to find another more acceptable addiction ???
That's why so much resentment about using the numbered steps. So many people have taken the last word in the title 'A.A.' and totally misrepresented and bastardfuckingized what the definition of that last word means. And you do need respect for others when it comes to counseling to others without more more more years of mad schooling and internships and All that shit when you say shit like 'Hey, these things work if you work 'em'. That's why even non Straight survivors can hardly step into meetings without some form of neat 'relapse' as you've coined it, without hating people like Mel and the cigarette industry and even some shifty eyed, needy lifer 'alcoholic' hoping to god you will pick Them as your sponsor turning 'anonymous' experience into a cluster fuck ridicule and public prejudice fest. Guess I'm not being too anonymous. I can show my ass, too, and call my sobatical an anonymous therapy that you need to get 'deprogrammed' of what you just saw. I will write a book because My steps will change your life if you work only these steps, if you don't work them then you will burn in hell or relapse because God inspired them himself. It's up to you to 'help yourself' and listen to these steps and follow them exactly to the letter.
I need a cigarette.
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[ This Message was edited by: kaydeejaded on 2004-03-03 08:40 ]
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On 2003-11-01 02:27:00, animals all of us wrote:
When you have to put a fucking vibrator to your damn throat so people can half understand your fuckin robotic go-bot transformer voice; say to yourself 'I am not a drunk'.
Oh, that's too fucking funny! That was my grandfather, Haines or "E.H." as he like to call himself. He was one of the original steppers, a professional alcoholic and proud owner of one of those camel saddle trophies from the early days of the European invasion of Palestine. And he had one of those bandaid collored vibrators and wore a little baby bib over the hole in his throat so people wouldn't get all grossed out by the phlegm sloshing around inside. It was hillarious to hear him try and yell at sombody in that voice.
But he was not a drunk! No! He was in AA!If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson
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Kady, just wait. When tobacco is fully illegal, it'll be around $100/oz just like pot is now. People will be killing, fighting, stealing, snitching and all the rest over the shit.
The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. ... All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
--Hermann Goering, Luftwaffe commander, sentenced to death at Nuremberg
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It's all too publicized.
But abuse is Always covered up.
My point exactly.
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On 2003-11-01 12:57:00, Antigen wrote:
"Kady, just wait. When tobacco is fully illegal, it'll be around $100/oz just like pot is now. People will be killing, fighting, stealing, snitching and all the rest over the shit.
It will probably make pot look cheap by comparason. Smoking was the hardest thing I ever stopped doing. Ureal hard!
CL
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The sentence about waking up screaming should tell you that what they did to you in Straight wasn't right. Please get a good therapist that wil help you. A psychoanalytic one, NOT a behavior, cognitive therapist. The 12 steps only teach someone to repress further the experiences that have shaped their lives. Beating yourself up by admitting you are powerless is the most horrendous thing I've heard of. God why were you in Straight if you didn't drug!!! You have been traumatized and have Post traumatic stress disorder just like anyone who has gone through an horrendous trauma. Take care
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"psychoanalytic one, NOT a behavior, cognitive therapist" how can I tell the difference by my health plan information, besides the obvious and calling each one prior to meeting? Also, I said I didn't have a drug problem, not that I never tried drugs. Big difference.
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Sadly it is common that people were in straight w/out doing drugs they would just say that they were "exhibiting the behavior" and they were just getting to the problem prior to the use beinging.
BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!! :flame: :flame: :flame:
Even on the Straights.com there is an article about a girl being in my Boston-straight for sniffing a friggin magic marker. Oh shit get the methadone!!! Assholes and I bitter why???No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober
--Samuel Stiles
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behavioral therapist treat just behaviors
cognitive just thoughts
you need anaylisis do uncover all the deep sinister shit straight did to fuck you up. But this is far from demonstrating that the authorities must interpose to suppress these vices by commercial prohibitions, nor is it by any means evident that such intervention on the part of the government is really capable of suppressing them or that, even if this end could be attained, it might not therewith open up a Pandora's box of other dangers, no less mischievous than alcoholism and morphinism.
Ludwig Von Mises
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3rd post in a row you can ask them and you wouldn't be in therapy for drugs you would be in therapy for your drug treatment program how wrong is that! it is probably PTSD post traumatic stress disorder
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
--Thomas Jefferson
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I don't think that's the only answer, Kady. The best advice I ever got when I was tweaking out was to relax, be glad it's over and come out and play with normal folk. Sometimes the best thing to do is to focus on non-problems and let your subconcious sort out the messy details. Other times, the best thing is to find the answers to your questions. It's up to the person experiencing the problems to decide which (or some other) course will be most helpful.
He that lives upon hope will die fasting
--Benjamin Franklin 1758
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relax :eek:
shit Ginger! Look who you are talking to (enter crazy laughter fire up the bbq grill) Necessity never made a good bargain
--Benjamin Franklin Apr. 1734