12-step bashing

[Cayo Hueso]

Peter, please read the last two letters on this page:

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

then read this:

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

It best explains my response to your post.

here's three more

http://www.morerevealed.com/articles/checklst.htm

http://www.morerevealed.com/articles/kirton.htm

http://www.morerevealed.com/articles/ther.htm

I believe the steps are dangerous.  I also believe that your friend was heavily influenced by the self-fulfilling prophecy that IS AA.  In MY opinion, that had much more to do with his despair than anything else.  Once I realize that I was NOT powerless over alcohol, I also realized that it meant that I didn't ever have to pick up another drink in my life.  From now on, when the shit hits the fan in my life, I can make a decision to get trashed, or not to....it's really quite as simple as that.  Everyone has the ability to control their hands.  If drinking has effected your life negatively, DO NOT PICK UP A DRINK.  I know you can't see that right now.  Hope you're able to sometime in the future.  

AA may have it's purpose as a social club and if it makes someone feel better to be around similarly idealed folk, great....but NO ONE will ever convice me that the basic premise of those steps is not about control over people.  It began with the Oxford Group, passed to Bill Wilson and now the cancer has spread worldwide.

I'm not telling anyone NOT to go to AA....I just want them to know that there ARE alternatives and there are definitely different opinions than the ones espoused by true believers.

Understand that legal and illegal are political, and often arbitrary,
categorizations; use and abuse are medical, or clinical, distinctions.

--Abbie Hoffman

[Cayo Hueso]

thought we could use this...copied it from AADeprogramming.


NEW RECOVERY GROUP
Recover From Twelve-Step Groups

We have a new thirteen-step program to help you recover from the evil influences of too many twelve-step recovery group meetings:


1. Admit that you are powerless over twelve-step meetings -- that your life has become unmanageable. Scream and pass out.


2. Come to believe that only Santa Claus can restore you to sanity.


3. Make a decision to give all of your problems to Santa Claus, as we understand him.


4. Turn your will and your mind over to the care of Santa Claus. They were worthless anyway. Also stick him with those pesky problems.


5. Make a searching and fearless inventory of your garage. You won't believe the junk you will find in there.


6. Confess to everyone that you can't sing, you can't dance, your butt is too fat, and you have bad breath.


7. Be entirely ready to have Santa Claus remove all of those defects.


8. Write a letter to Santa Claus, humbly begging him to fix all of those shortcomings.


9. Make a list of all of the people you have pissed off.


10. Go piss them off again.


11. Continue to inventory your garage, and when you find that you are hoarding some really useless junk, promptly admit it.


12. Seek, through your cell phone, to maintain constant contact with Santa Claus, as we understand him. If you can't get him, call a psychic hotline.


13. Make twenty copies of this letter, put your name at the bottom, and send them to all of your friends.

"I predict, Sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease."
 "That all depends, sir, upon whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."
--Disraeli to Gladstone

[Cayo Hueso]

More humor:


A Vision for You


...Two days later, a future fellow of Anonymous Alcoholism stared glassily at the strangers beside his bed. "Who are you fellows, and why this private room? I was always in a ward before."

Said one of the visitors, "We're giving you a treatment for alcoholism."

Hopelessness was written large on the man's face as he replied, "Oh, but that's no use. Nothing would fix me. I'm a goner. The last three times, I got drunk on the way home from here. I'm afraid to go out the door. I can't understand it."

Asked one of the visitors, "Can you move your right hand?"

With a puzzled look on his face, the man tried it and discovered that he could.

Asked one of the visitors, as he offered a glass to the man, "Can you pick this up with your right hand, and put it to your mouth?"

The man tried it. "Why, yes, I can," said the man.

One of the visitors filled the glass with whiskey, and handed it to the man, and asked, "Can you use your right hand to lift this glass to your mouth, and drink all of this?"

The man discovered that he could.

One of the visitors filled the glass with whiskey again, and handed it to the man, and asked, "Can you use your left hand to lift this glass to your mouth, and drink all of this?"

The man discovered that he could do that, too.

Said one of the visitors, "That explains it. That is what is happening to you on the way home from here. At least one of your hands is lifting glasses of whiskey to your mouth, and you are drinking the whiskey. That is why you are getting drunk."

Said the man, "This is amazing. No one has ever been able to explain it to me so clearly before. I want to join your church right now."

The visitors thought they noticed something different about him already. He had begun to have a spiritual experience.

The sadist cannot stand the separation of the public and the private; nor can he grant to others the mystery of their personality, the validity of their inner self...in order for him to feel his maximum power, he wants the world to be peopled with concrete manipulatable objects...
-- ERNEST BECKER, The Structure of Evil, 1968.

[RTP2003]

A great example of the profound insight offered by Stepcults.

[Pete]

In every cult I've ever seen, there's been some people who deny "bad stuff" ever happened.  (Incidentally, this includes Elan.)

Every scenario described by Agent Orange is something I legitimately think probably has happened or can happen.  But one needs to be courageous and free one's mind and think independently -- not give in to dogma.  If, by the time someone has five years or so of sobriety, they don't learn to use their brain, their stupidity should be condemned and their consequence should be their own thinking.  

Use your brain in AA, that's my advice.  Need a sponsor?  Choose carefully.  Isn't working out?  Fire 'em or just stop calling.  Need a home group?  Likewise.  Someone bombarding you with unsolicited advice?  Tell them to stop taking your inventory or just limit your conversations with them to pleasantries.  Nine times out of 10, they'll leave you alone.  I've done all these things and it's worked.

Like most of those he criticizes, Agent Orange lumps together people in AA and generalizes.  While he has some good points, he seems unfairly prejudiced.

[Cayo Hueso]

On 2004-03-02 07:58:00, Peter Moore wrote:

"In every cult I've ever seen, there's been some people who deny "bad stuff" ever happened.  (Incidentally, this includes Elan.)



Every scenario described by Agent Orange is something I legitimately think probably has happened or can happen.  But one needs to be courageous and free one's mind and think independently -- not give in to dogma.  If, by the time someone has five years or so of sobriety, they don't learn to use their brain, their stupidity should be condemned and their consequence should be their own thinking.  

Well, that's part of the problem.  AA is geared towards people NOT thinking for themselves.

Use your brain in AA, that's my advice.  Need a sponsor?  Choose carefully.  Isn't working out?  Fire 'em or just stop calling.  Need a home group?  Likewise.  Someone bombarding you with unsolicited advice?  Tell them to stop taking your inventory or just limit your conversations with them to pleasantries.  Nine times out of 10, they'll leave you alone.  I've done all these things and it's worked.

Beg to differ with that.  Most of the time if you try to do what you've suggested, you're met with things like, "you're in denial, or Hey, I've got a lot more time than you, who do YOU think you should be listening to, or that's your druggie talking"  

Like most of those he criticizes, Agent Orange lumps together people in AA and generalizes.  While he has some good points, he seems unfairly prejudiced.

"

He's not talking about the people of AA.  He's talking about the entire structure of it and how it is set up by and for people who love control!! If people want to go to AA for the fellowship, great, but I hope they realize what a vulnerable position they are putting themselves in.  Alcoholics are a ripe group for people that crave power.

The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest possible limits. ... and [when] the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.
-- St. George Tucker, Judge of the Virginia Supreme Court 1803

[Anonymous]

As a Atheist I am put off by writings in AA texts like

......Let's look first at the case of the one who says he won't believe - the belligerent one. He is in a state of mind which can be described only as savage........

12x12 Step 2 Page 25

Passages like these are just not acceptable today and if the modern program is going to continue using them then their will be anti AA feelings.

Much of the literature needs to be rewritten

Guest

[try another castle]

I follow the 12 steps. That is...  Jim Goad's 12 steps*:


1. We admitted that our addictions were really fucking us up.

2. Came to believe that since we started them, only we could stop them.

3. Made a decision to follow our gut instincts as we understood them.

4. Didn't bullshit ourselves about our many flaws.

5. Having admitted our flaws, we kept them to ourselves - they're nobody else's business.

6. Were entirely ready to argue with anyone who disagreed.

7. Filled with self-respect, we did nothing humbly.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and realized that most of them deserved it.

9. Paid all our police fines, then burned all our bridges.

10. Continued to be ruthlessly honest with ourselves and admitted all our wrongs - to ourselves.

11. Trusted ourselves and only ourselves with what's best for us.

12. Having assumed full responsibility for our lives, we weren't foolish enough to try to change anyone else - first, it's a losing proposition, and second, we couldn't care less.



*From "Answer Me", Vol. 1, No. 1

_________________

"Learn from your mistakes so that one day you can repeat them precisely."
-Trevor Goodchild

[ This Message was edited by: sorry... try another castle on 2006-01-29 19:29 ]

[Anonymous]

The reason I liked James Frey's book A Million Little Pieces, despite the controversy, is because he thought the powerlessness stuff was bullshit as well as the need for cultic intervention.  Basically, Hazleden gave him a warm, safe place to get over withdrawals etc. and come to terms, but he didn't go for all the 12 step shit and idea of powerlessness.

But I do think that owning up to hurting others is important if you want to keep them in your life.  I'm not talking about a faux pas you made when youwere drunk or juiced. I mean really hurting your loved ones, stealing from them to support your habit etc.  Not being there for your kids, etc.  

By the way, I saw this program on the news last night about some rich Malibu socialite that claims to be cured of alcoholism based on treatment from a Malibu center. (This center says it cures, not just treats).It totally pissed me off because she talked about overcoming it and having replacement vices but she could afford a chef, going to a spa-like center overlooking the most expensive piece of ocean front property in America, doing yoga and taking breaks and having a trainer get in her shape... She was the model for recovery and I'm thinking this is unrealistic bullshit. What about people who can't afford yoga, personal trainers, spa treatments, luxury clinics... she is NOT the model for recovery.  It pissed me off.  Man if that's the only way to recover, everyone else is fucked.

[try another castle]

"cured" of alcoholism. Ha. What a joke. You can't cure something that isn't a disease to begin with.

Anyone see this season of South Park? They did a wonderfully scathing episode about 12 step.

[Anonymous]

12 step programs just provide
a dedicated audience so speakers
can embellish their naughty
episodes to the hilt.

That is all that happened to
that author, he was just embellishing
just like they do at meetings.

Except, perhaps he believed his
own shit, then published it.

Fool ...

Now, rich, wealthy fool!

[Anonymous]

If ya want a good laugh check this site out.

http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Spa ... dex11.html

Someone took the time to write out 252 "AA sayings".

'Easy does it'- they must have missed that one.