7 steps to madness

[Anonymous]

The 7 steps- Here are the first four.

1. Admitted that I am powerless over drugs and came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.

2. Made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand him.

3. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself daily.

4. Admit to God myself and another human being the exact nature of my wrongs except when to do would injure them myself or another human being.

or

1. Admit that I am powerless over absolutely everything that goes on here. I do not have control over even so much as my own bodily functions, much less where or if I sleep, eat or speak.Everyone here is insane. Only when I believe that physically & emotionally traumatizing children is an acceptable,rational and positive form of therapy will I be considered sane.

2. Make a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of Miller Newton and likeminded individuals who will abuse my body, attempt to destroy my mind and annihilate my self esteem.Agreement to a life sentence by allowing my mind to become a prison of rationality & logic and my heart an absolute wasteland.

3. Made a searching & fearless or self destructive, desperate inventory of all the things a child can imagine could be wrong with them. List all failings, sins or even thoughts of such and then review them with another adolescent who's own self worth is being likewise destroyed by same process and will continue the dehumanization process by verbal reinforcement.

4. Confess everything and anything to as many people as can possibly be squeezed into the sweating room. Turn in your friends and schoolmates to advance yourself. Cry. On command.Most confess to the injury of oneself. Self destruction is the goal.

Just found this website today. Began therapy two weeks ago. Expect diagnosis of PTSD. On a whim decided to look up Straight on the internet not expecting to find much. Mindblowing.

Straight St Pete survivor-10/20/80 -10/20/83

I was there when the Sarasota group first split off and still there later when Atlanta, Virginia and Ohio left. Some of the names her sound very familiar but can't picture any faces. They stood me up after open meeting in Feb 81 and read my diary in front of the group. I laughed till I cried. I had run away and called HRS. They were not happy.Remember me? Nervous about joining this group. Don't want to be hurt by this shit anymore.I had no idea about all the suicides.

Marcia

[Opiod_Morphina]

They read your diary to the group?
Typical...thats really FUCKED UP...

I had a similar exp...wasnt a diary but..
anyway I feel you...


Glad you are alive...

Therion

[Anonymous]

 

   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
     
 

     
   
 
The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous


1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol ? that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as understood Him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

[Antigen]

Hey Marcia,
  I suppose we must have at least been in the same room together at some point. My intake was Oct, `80 @ St. Pete, then off to Sarasota. My name then was Virginia McNulty. Yeah, if we slept. I remember getting confronted for nodding off. It was so funny! `Course, they accused me of being rude to whoever was talking. I said no, it's all very interesting, just that I'm staying in Osprey, it's a 3 hr drive each way and we're not getting 2 hrs sleep a night.

  So they stood me on the side of group, where I had fun pretending to be a 5th phaser. In a group that size, even some of the staff wasn't quite sure if they'd missed something. Then came the dreaded PB&J sandwich on a stale hamburger bun. More good luck! It just happened that, that night, somebody in the kitchen fucked up and the macaroni and cheese turned out like wallpaper paste. There I stood, approving all COCs w/o even bothering to write them down (Bathroom? Yeah sure, ga head!), munching on my comparitively tolerable PB&J and just enjoying the moment.



 

"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

[Anonymous]

Thanks Therion. Glad you are alive and kicking.

Hey Antigen

We must have been in the same group at least for a little while. I have a lot of blanks about the first few months. I think I was in shock for a while. It's amazing to have found this website. I started talking to a therapist a few weeks ago. I could hardly explain to him about the craziness of the place. The things that I remembered were just so outrageous that they seemed made up. Not possible. I must be crazy. Nice to know I'm not.

The twelve steps are tickling my brain.  I can almost remember the lst three. Will fill them in later.

[Antigen]

No, you didn't imagine it. It happened. Sorry. Personally, I liked it better when the world was more or less OK and only I was a little paranoid. Damned curiosity! Just had to look. But it's all good. I'm sure this is just one crazy assed little story that will live on in legend and only the few of us will ever know that it really happened. At least, that's looking at the bright side, eh?

What is a committee?  A group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary.    
-- Richard Harkness, The New York Times, 1960

[Anonymous]

7 STEPS continued


5. Make direct amends to such persons whenever possible except when to do so  would injure them, myself or others.

6. Sought to improve my conscious contact with God praying only for knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry that out.

7. Having received the gift of awareness I will continue to practice these principles in all my daily and carry the message to those that I can help.  

OR

5. Make direct amends for being such a sorry worthless human being. Apologize & grieve over the fact that I exist at all. Embrace my utter hopelessness, worthlessness and shame. Feel guilt and shame for the rest of my life. Make sure that my worthlessness is so driven into my psyche, into my very being that I will carry it into the rest of my life. Every decision I ever make will be affected by my shame. My shame of being.I will beg for my parents forgiveness. I will be forever unable to forgive my self for hurting them by being. I will repress my anger forever because that would hurt them and hurting them is not allowed. Hurting me is preferable and recommended.An amend is a change.Make a change. Change into someone or something else.Plaster 14 barrettes in my hair, a smile on my face and serve 9 to 9 with complete enthusiasm. Arm waving, sweat breaking, chair rocking, grunting and moaning ecstasy.And for God's sake be grateful for the opportunity to have been saved by the ultimate higher power no not God(silly) Miller Newton.

6. I never understood the application of this except perhaps to pray for release.

7. Having received the gift of awareness I will be hyper conscious of my worthlessness and my every failure for the rest of my life. I will swallow my rage and turn it against myself. I will use empathy as a weapon and self discipline and responsibility as tools to administer punishment for my obvious wretched and worthless state of being. I will be ever vigilant in disciplining myself for even minor infractions of capricious rules developed to dehumanize me. I will carry this prison in my mind forever. Long after my conscious has moved on to a career, family and life, my subconscious will continue to censor my thoughts & emotions to the extent  that shame and worthlessness will become part of my very being. And don't forget those that I can help. Initially this means reporting phasers and 7 steppers until I am terminated at which point I shall become so focused on the needs of others, especially others who treat me poorly that I become co dependent. I will seek to help people who continue to annihilate my self worth because this is a way of life. This is normal. This is what I do. And I  shall suppress my rage until I develop some sort of compulsive behavior be it, drinking, drugs, gambling, sex,food, shopping or all of the above. My compulsive behaviors shall continure to reinforce my negative self worth and feelings of shame, worthlessness and hopelessness.

It is a brilliant, well thought out plan. Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin wish they had been so clever, so devious. All in the name of tough love and all for a profit to boot. Miller Newton will be in wickedly envious company when he gets to hell.

[Anonymous]

1. Admitted that I am powerless over drugs and came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.

OR

1. Admit that I am powerless over absolutely everything that goes on here. I do not have control over even so much as my own bodily functions, much less where or if I sleep, eat or speak.Everyone here is insane. Only when I believe that physically & emotionally traumatizing children is an acceptable,rational and positive form of therapy will I be considered sane.  

2. Made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand him.

OR

2. Make a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of Miller Newton and likeminded individuals who will abuse my body, attempt to destroy my mind and annihilate my self esteem. Agreement to a life sentence by allowing my mind to become a prison of rationality & logic and my heart a wasteland.

3. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself daily.
OR
3. Made a searching & fearless or self destructive, desperate inventory of all the things a child can imagine could be wrong with them. List all failings, sins or even thoughts of such and then review them with another adolescent who's own self worth is being likewise destroyed by same process and will continue the dehumanization process by verbal reinforcement.  

4. Admit to God myself and another human being the exact nature of my wrongs except when to do would injure them myself or another human being.
             OR
4. Confess everything and anything to as many people as can possibly be squeezed into the sweating room. Turn in your friends and schoolmates to advance yourself. Cry. On command. Most definitely confess to the injury of oneself. Self destruction is the goal.


5. Make direct amends to such persons whenever possible except when to do so  would injure them, myself or others.

OR

5. Make direct amends for being such a sorry worthless human being. Apologize & grieve over the fact that I exist at all. Embrace my utter hopelessness, worthlessness and shame. Feel guilt and shame for the rest of my life. Make sure that my worthlessness is so driven into my psyche, into my very being that I will carry it into the rest of my life. Every decision I ever make will be affected by my shame. My shame of being.I will beg for my parents forgiveness. I will be forever unable to forgive my self for hurting them by being. I will repress my anger forever because that would hurt them and hurting them is not allowed. Hurting me is preferable and recommended.An amend is a change.Make a change. Change into someone or something else.Plaster 14 barrettes in my hair, a smile on my face and serve 9 to 9 with complete enthusiasm. Arm waving, sweat breaking, chair rocking, grunting and moaning ecstasy.And for God's sake be grateful for the opportunity to have been saved by the ultimate higher power no not God(silly) Miller Newton.

6. Sought to improve my conscious contact with God praying only for knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry that out.

OR

6. I never understood the application of this except perhaps to pray for release. out.

7. Having received the gift of awareness I will continue to practice these principles in all my daily and carry the message to those that I can help.  

OR

7. Having received the gift of awareness I will be hyper conscious of my worthlessness and my every failure for the rest of my life. I will swallow my rage and turn it against myself. I will use empathy as a weapon and self discipline and responsibility as tools to administer punishment for my obvious wretched and worthless state of being. I will be ever vigilant in disciplining myself for even minor infractions of capricious rules developed to dehumanize me. I will carry this prison in my mind forever. Long after my conscious has moved on to a career, family and life, my subconscious will continue to censor my thoughts & emotions to the extent  that shame and worthlessness will become part of my very being. And don't forget those that I can help. Initially this means reporting phasers and 7 steppers until I am terminated at which point I shall become so focused on the needs of others, especially others who treat me poorly that I become co dependent. I will seek to help people who continue to annihilate my self worth because this is a way of life. This is normal. This is what I do. And I  shall suppress my rage until I develop some sort of compulsive behavior be it, drinking, drugs, gambling, sex,food, shopping or all of the above. My compulsive behaviors shall continure to reinforce my negative self worth and feelings of shame, worthlessness and hopelessness.



It is a brilliant, well thought out plan. Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin wish they had been so clever, so devious. All in the name of tough love and all for a profit to boot. Miller Newton will be in wickedly envious company when he gets to hell.


 Began therapy two weeks ago.  On a whim decided to look up Straight on the internet not expecting to find much after 20 years. Mindblowing. Just found this website today.

Straight St Pete survivor-10/20/80 -10/20/83

[Antigen]

This post got smacked down, and the user temporarily banned by cookie, by accident. Must better tweak those filters or turn the damned thing off! My apologies.

This is a long winded answer to your query but it describes how straight affected my adult choices. I was married to someone with paranoid personality disorder for 17 years. Last year he started drinking heavily and started becoming psychotic when he drank. I started drugging him with Paxil. And all the while I am a VP at a large company making six figures and acting like this is just one of those things that happens in life. In July he got loaded got on his motorcycle and crashed. The police said he was killed instantly.I went for counseling for my grief. And find I have much more to grieve.



1. Admitted that I am powerless over drugs and came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.



OR



1. Admit that I am powerless over absolutely everything that goes on here. I do not have control over even so much as my own bodily functions, much less where or if I sleep, eat or speak.Everyone here is insane. Only when I believe that physically & emotionally traumatizing children is an acceptable,rational and positive form of therapy will I be considered sane.



2. Made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand him.



OR



2. Make a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of Miller Newton and likeminded individuals who will abuse my body, attempt to destroy my mind and annihilate my self esteem. Agreement to a life sentence by allowing my mind to become a prison of rationality & logic and my heart a wasteland.



3. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself daily.

OR

3. Made a searching & fearless or self destructive, desperate inventory of all the things a child can imagine could be wrong with them. List all failings, sins or even thoughts of such and then review them with another adolescent who's own self worth is being likewise destroyed by same process and will continue the dehumanization process by verbal reinforcement.



4. Admit to God mysel!
 f and an
other human being the exact nature of my wrongs except when to do would injure them myself or another human being.

OR

4. Confess everything and anything to as many people as can possibly be squeezed into the sweating room. Turn in your friends and schoolmates to advance yourself. Cry. On command. Most definitely confess to the injury of oneself. Self destruction is the goal.





5. Make direct amends to such persons whenever possible except when to do so would injure them, myself or others.



OR



5. Make direct amends for being such a sorry worthless human being. Apologize & grieve over the fact that I exist at all. Embrace my utter hopelessness, worthlessness and shame. Feel guilt and shame for the rest of my life. Make sure that my worthlessness is so driven into my psyche, into my very being that I will carry it into the rest of my life. Every decision I ever make will be affected by my shame. My shame of being.I will beg for my parents forgiveness. I will be forever unable to forgive my self for hurting them by being. I will repress my anger forever because that would hurt them and hurting them is not allowed. Hurting me is preferable and recommended.An amend is a change.Make a change. Change into someone or something else.Plaster 14 barrettes in my hair, a smile on my face and serve 9 to 9 with complete enthusiasm. Arm waving, sweat breaking, chair rocking, grunting and moaning ecstasy.And for God's sake be grateful for the opportunity to have been saved by the ultimate higher power no not God(silly) Miller Newton.



6. Sought to improve my conscious contact with God praying only for knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry that out.



OR



6. I never understood the application of this except perhaps to pray for release. out.



7. Having received the gift of awareness I will continue to practice these principles in all my daily and carry the message to those that I can help.



OR



7. Having received the!
  gift of
 awareness I will be hyper conscious of my worthlessness and my every failure for the rest of my life. I will swallow my rage and turn it against myself. I will use empathy as a weapon and self discipline and responsibility as tools to administer punishment for my obvious wretched and worthless state of being. I will be ever vigilant in disciplining myself for even minor infractions of capricious rules developed to dehumanize me. I will carry this prison in my mind forever. Long after my conscious has moved on to a career, family and life, my subconscious will continue to censor my thoughts & emotions to the extent that shame and worthlessness will become part of my very being. And don't forget those that I can help. Initially this means reporting phasers and 7 steppers until I am terminated at which point I shall become so focused on the needs of others, especially others who treat me poorly that I become co dependent. I will seek to help people who continue to annihilate my self worth because this is a way of life. This is normal. This is what I do. And I shall suppress my rage until I develop some sort of compulsive behavior be it, drinking, drugs, gambling, sex,food, shopping or all of the above. My compulsive behaviors shall continure to reinforce my negative self worth and feelings of shame, worthlessness and hopelessness.







It is a brilliant, well thought out plan. Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin wish they had been so clever, so devious. All in the name of tough love and all for a profit to boot. Miller Newton will be in wickedly envious company when he gets to hell.



St Pete Straight 10/80-10/83

Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? ... If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?
-- Patrick Henry

[Dr. Miller Newton]

And for God's sake be grateful for the opportunity to have been saved by the ultimate higher power no not God(silly) Miller Newton.

Damn right!  Now your on the road to earning T & R!  Keep meditating on the steps.  You seem to be gaining some understanding of them.  You need to work on showing gratitude, though.

[ehm]

OR

7. Having received the gift of awareness I will be hyper conscious of my worthlessness and my every failure for the rest of my life. I will swallow my rage and turn it against myself. I will use empathy as a weapon and self discipline and responsibility as tools to administer punishment for my obvious wretched and worthless state of being. I will be ever vigilant in disciplining myself for even minor infractions of capricious rules developed to dehumanize me. I will carry this prison in my mind forever. Long after my conscious has moved on to a career, family and life, my subconscious will continue to censor my thoughts & emotions to the extent that shame and worthlessness will become part of my very being. And don't forget those that I can help. Initially this means reporting phasers and 7 steppers until I am terminated at which point I shall become so focused on the needs of others, especially others who treat me poorly that I become co dependent. I will seek to help people who continue to annihilate my self worth because this is a way of life. This is normal. This is what I do. And I shall suppress my rage until I develop some sort of compulsive behavior be it, drinking, drugs, gambling, sex, food, shopping or all of the above. My compulsive behaviors shall continue to reinforce my negative self worth and feelings of shame, worthlessness and hopelessness

Brilliant.

[Anonymous]

Thankyou.

I've been applying the 7 steps for 20 years without truly understanding their meaning. I feel so enlightened now.

Straight St Pete
10/80-10/83

[Anonymous]

Have no fear. I will continue to apply my steps until I am dead. Say Dr Newton It's been 20 years since I did a speaking engagement or radio interview for you. I'd love to do one now. I promise it will be so much more interesting than the last one.

You don't even have to pay me. A nice fat frozen pb &j will be sufficient.

Coming to Florida in a few weeks. I'll look you up.

Sadistic Bastard!

St Pete Straight
10/20-10/83

[Anonymous]

remember that bullshit?  Seven steps/3signs/5 criteria----ALL JIVE

[`]

On 2004-03-21 17:23:00, MMW wrote:

"

OR



7. Having received the gift of awareness I will be hyper conscious of my worthlessness and my every failure for the rest of my life. I will swallow my rage and turn it against myself. I will use empathy as a weapon and self discipline and responsibility as tools to administer punishment for my obvious wretched and worthless state of being. I will be ever vigilant in disciplining myself for even minor infractions of capricious rules developed to dehumanize me. I will carry this prison in my mind forever. Long after my conscious has moved on to a career, family and life, my subconscious will continue to censor my thoughts & emotions to the extent that shame and worthlessness will become part of my very being. And don't forget those that I can help. Initially this means reporting phasers and 7 steppers until I am terminated at which point I shall become so focused on the needs of others, especially others who treat me poorly that I become co dependent. I will seek to help people who continue to annihilate my self worth because this is a way of life. This is normal. This is what I do. And I shall suppress my rage until I develop some sort of compulsive behavior be it, drinking, drugs, gambling, sex, food, shopping or all of the above. My compulsive behaviors shall continue to reinforce my negative self worth and feelings of shame, worthlessness and hopelessness

Brilliant."

WORD