Fornits

Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

Jordan, thanks so much.  You're pretty damn smart yourself.  Thanks for the generosity of you and your father.  This is the beginning of something beautiful.

As a survivor of a somewhat warped treatment center and a member of a 12-step program who has been helped tremedously by "the rooms," sometimes it upsets me reading all the anti-12 step philosophy on this site.  While I'm all for free thinking and speech, I think a great many people misunderstand what AA and other 12-step programs were/are intended to be.

AA has NEVER been a money-making enterprise.  It is true that initial members made some money off of initial publications and such and in hindsight that is against tradition.  Furthermore, there may be treatment center, for and not-for profit, abusive and non-abusive, who borrow the AA philosophy, in whole or in part.  AA cannot and does not endorse these programs as it maintains autonomy.  By the same token, because of its policy of non-affiliation, it cannot condemn them either.

Since each group is autonomous and AA is full of alcoholics, who, like other people, can be selfish and egotistical, it is true that a group can pass down thinking and suggestions you might not agree with.  But the wonderful thing about AA is its diversity.  It upsets me to hear that people say "AA told me this" and "AA told me that" because it seems they are referring to a specific member or group of AA, not AA as a whole.  There are some 12-step groups in my area, that, quite frankly, I do not attend because I don't agree with the way of living generally condoned by the majority of the group members.  That's fine.  They've got their program, I've got mine.

AA does not demand you believe anything.  I've  known Buddhists, Christians, Jews, agnostics, atheists and probably people from a million different other religions who have gotten sober.  Even what is written in the literature is but a mere suggestion.  If anyone in AA tries to bully you into their way of living sober, my advice is RUN!  You don't have to do anything.

I don't agree with everything I hear in the rooms.  I don't have to.  I take what I want and leave the rest.

By the same token, I have no objections to people finding ways other than the 12 steps to get sober or merely live a happy life.  But when I hear people say that AA is this way or that way, I feel I owe it to the addicted individual who may one day find "the rooms," to say that AA and other 12-step programs are what you make it.  

I'll also say this (and this is only for me).  The 12 steps helped me a LOT more than Elan!

[ This Message was edited by: Peter Moore on 2004-02-24 10:00 ]

Jordan,

I will step out of the office for lunch around noon and call you then.

Pete

If nothing else, I'll jump on Monday.  What's your MSN ID, maybe I'll jump on this weekend.

Take it easy man.

Jordan,

Good letter.  I think he'll be interested in it.  I hope you copy-edited it though before you sent it.

I've recently come to respect Michael Moore for his endorsement of Wesley Clark.  I didn't like his Academy Awards speech much, but he seems intelligent, from what little I've heard from him.  One makes the most sense when they talk, instead of whine.  The hysterical Howard Dean speech the other night (I know Jordan will disagree with me here) was disheartening.

Good luck with it Jordan.

By the way Art, I covered Skakel's trial as a journalist.  The most they seemed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt was that he didn't know whether he killed her at the time he was in Elan.  I was shocked when he was convicted.  But evidently, the jurors saw it differently.

hey man, I'll IM ya in a sec

Jordan,
Am signed on to AIM right now... this work computer doesn't have the others and I can't download them.  My AIM is "petrovjourn," say hello when you get a chance.

Pete