"Bobby L." <BobbyL2000nospam@bellsouth.net> wrote in message news:<s2Gib.754$w_5.108@bignews4.bellsouth.net>...

Hi Bobby, thanks for a great letter.

>> AO,
>>
>> For many of us (that I know personally), it was not the only program we
>> tried. It was just the first one that provided some level of measurable
>> extended success. For me I tried counseling and a church based recovery
>> program, but neither had any lasting success. In truth, it likely was not
>> the program. Perhaps, it was more a case of "when the student is ready, the
>> teacher will appear." I finally reached a point where I was teachable.
>> Perhaps, at that time, had I gone back to those other programs they may have
>> finally worked also. But alas, I did not. I chose AA. And it worked. I
>> could see it was working for those folks when I first arrived and I see it
>> working for folks today - some several years later. I am also comfortable
>> with the way it worked and continues to work -- for me.

Yes, when the student is ready...
You cannot just assume a cause and effect relationship
between quitting drinking and A.A.. You are describing a
learning experience where you failed in your first few attempts
to quit, but you learned what didn't work for you (things like
"just having one"), so that you finally got your act together.
The same thing happened with me.

When you say that "AA worked...", do you realize what you are saying?
A.A. would have to be some kind of a mind-control program that
keeps you from choosing to drink. Or a body control program that
turns you into a little robot or puppet and keeps your hands from
reaching for a drink.

How, really, could working the 12 steps of a cult religion possibly
keep anybody from drinking?

The truth is, you quit drinking. And you deserve some
congratulations. Nobody quit for you.
Nobody but you holds your hand every Saturday night
and keeps you from drinking.

In addition, A.A. is different things to different people.
It may sound like a strange question, but what do you mean by
"Alcoholics Anonymous"?
That is not a joke, or a trick question.
A.A. is different things to different people.
What was the "A.A." that "helped" you?
For some people, A.A. is a meeting where people tell stories
about alcoholism and recovery.
For other people, A.A. is a cult religion that induces feelings
of guilt and inadequacy mixed with delusions of grandeur.
For others, it's a non-drinking social club.
For others, it's "group support" where people encourage
each other to get and stay sober.
And for other people, A.A. is an intense one-on-one relationship
with a sponsor (for better or worse).
And for others, A.A. is a package of old superstitions
and misinformation about alcoholism.

And above all, the fact remains that whenever anybody has done a
valid test of A.A. treatment of alcoholics, to see what kind of
improvement in sobering up alcoholics A.A. produced, the results
ranged from "zero help" to "really good for killing alcoholics".
Professor George E. Vaillant, who is a non-alcoholic member of
the Board of Trustees of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.,
got that "AA kills" result when he tried for 8 years to show that
A.A. works.

And Dr. Brandsma found that A.A. QUINTUPLED the rate of binge drinking.
And Dr. Ditman found that A.A. increased the rate of rearrests
for public drunkenness. And Dr. Walsh found that the "free" A.A.
program caused many alcoholics to require more expensive
hospitalization later.
It's all in
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-effectiveness.html

Those very negative effects are part of the reason for the zero
percent success rate of A.A. As we all know, statistics can
be true for groups, but invalid for individuals.
It is not possible to prove or disprove that one individual
person was helped or not helped by A.A.; it is only possible
to show that A.A. did or did not help A GROUP of people
become more sober than another group who didn't get any
A.A. treatment.
Individual alcoholics either quit 100% or 0%, not 5%.
But 5% of the groups quit.

A.A. treatment has never passed a single valid controlled test.
Unfortunately, it has flunked every test.
It has never shown positive results.
(And I say "unfortunately" in all sincerity. At one time,
I thought A.A. was great stuff and would help alcoholics.
Alas, I was misinformed by A.A. publicity.)

I have searched this world for every valid test of A.A. that
I could find, and I haven't found a single one that showed
that A.A. produced even one tenth of the successes that
the A.A. public relations machine brags about.

Just recently, we had a flap here about Keith Humphrey's
piece of propaganda about A.A. producing better results
than Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It was just another hoax
-- a rigged test -- just another piece of institutional
dishonesty.

But to give the A.A. program the benefit of the doubt:
Hypothetically, it is entirely possible that A.A. group support
caused some guy "Joe" to successfully quit drinking, but the
"powerless over alcohol" doctrine caused some other guy "Fred"
to go on a binge and die.
So the A.A. program did make Joe quit drinking, but it killed Fred.
Win one, lose one; the averaged-out success rate is zero.

It is possible that Prof. Vaillant saw something like that, because
he got a zero percent success rate accompanied by a 29% death rate
over the course of his 8-year test of A.A. treatment of alcoholics.
The A.A. death rate was much higher than any other
treatment program that he examined. Vaillant called the A.A.
death rate "appalling."

(It would be nice if only the "Joes" could then be sent to A.A.,
but nobody has found a way to predict the future... That was
part of the idea behind Project MATCH, matching patients to
treatment programs, but it didn't work, either.)

>> I strongly encourage those who still have a choice to try other recovery
>> programs. From my experience they are easier than some of the tasks I have
>> been asked to do in AA. I stress "asked" as in suggested. No one forced me
>> to do any of these things. Nobody berated me into or through the steps. I
>> realize that has not been the experience of all AAers, but there is little I
>> can do about that. I accept that sometimes recovery alcoholics are just
>> self-centered enough to believe they still control the lives of others and
>> have found the answer for all. I also accept that simply is not the case.
>> AA is not a cure-all, nor is it a cure-for-all.

Actually, a lot of people are forced into a lot of things that
include A.A.. The treatment industry and the legal systems are
still routinely forcing 12-step programs on people, in spite of
the fact that it is now illegal on religious grounds.
That is one of my biggest complaints about the current system.

I know of a drug court judge who is really sold on A.A. and N.A.,
and who gives public speaches praising it,
and who uses 12-step groups as punishment.
That is, people he is happy with can go to either SMART or AA/NA.
People he is mad at get mandatory 12-step AA/NA only, or else.
He knows full well that he is violating the law by doing that,
but he can get away with it.
Now why is he doing that?
The most reasonable answer is that he is misinformed, and
actually believes that 12-step programs work and produce
some good results. So he is "forcing people to be good."
I hope that eventually judges like him will read some of my
web pages on that subject, and learn something.

>> I suggest that AA is one of many roads to sobriety and for many of us the
>> steps do not take us someplace we do not really want to go. It works for
>> us. Although it may not work for others. If it does not work for you then
>> I suggest you try something else (plural you). To say it does not work at
>> all -- that it is all a fallacy, or just voodoo, is simply not supported by
>> what I have seen nor by what I have experienced.

What have you seen? A hundred new people come into a room, and a year
later 5 of them are sober, and the rest of them are gone, right?
Five percent is the normal rate of spontaneous remission in alcoholics.
That is the same result as you get if you do nothing at all
for a group of alcoholics.

(Or maybe the results are even worse than that -- 300 or 400
go through the rooms, and 5 are left sober a year later...
Even the successful quitters drop out of A.A., for a variety
of reasons.)
As you said, when the student is ready.... he will quit.
Until then, he won't.

A.A. is simply taking the credit for the people who are going to
quit anyway.
The real evidence of that is the fact that 4 out of 5
of all alcoholics who successfully quit drinking for a
year or more do it ON THEIR OWN, alone, without any "treatment
program". The Harvard Medical School said that. See:
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-ef...Harvard_Mental

It reminds me of the old "Silent Majority" slogan of Lyndon Johnson
in the sixties. Most of the alcoholics who quit drinking
don't tell anybody that they are an alcoholic who is quitting.
Why would they want to embarrass themselves like that?
They just quit drinking, silently, alone.
So they are *really* the anonymous alcoholics.

The alcoholics who recover in A.A. are only a small minority
of those who recover.

My observation is that people quit when they want to quit, and
don't quit otherwise. And basically people don't REALLY want to
quit until they become convinced that drinking is causing them
far more pain than pleasure.
When you are really totally convinced that drinking alcohol
is going to kill you with a long, slow, painful death, then
it becomes easy to quit.
As long as you think that you can nibble, and just have a few
now and then, quitting is very difficult.

And I know it sounds drastic to say that A.A. does not work
*AT ALL*, but that is what everybody from Prof. Vaillant to
Doctors Brandsma, Ditman, and Orford found. Again, just because
somebody sobers himself up while going to A.A. meetings
doesn't mean that the meetings necessarily did anything.
When many more people sober themselves up without the meetings,
then you know that the meetings aren't doing it.

Again, seeing cause and effect relationships between A.A.
meetings and people quitting drinking is the same old logical
fallacy as:
A bunch of people went to a Baptist church for years.
During those years, many of the women got pregnant and had babies.
That proves it: going to Baptist churches causes women to get
pregnant and have babies.

>> I have seen your site and read many of your posts here and I have found a
>> vast array of information that has little or nothing to do with Me - Today.
>> I am not dedicated to learning the entire history of AA, I understand Bill W
>> was hardly the saint many would paint him be and I truly believe that parts
>> of the reading material is dated.

If it were just history, then it would be somewhat irrelevant to
recovery today. Certainly people can quit drinking without knowing
anything about the history of Alcoholics Anonymous.

But the 12 steps simply are Frank Buchman's cult religion -- channeling
God in Step Eleven, surrendering to "God" or the cult in Step Three,
making confessions in Steps Four through Seven, and "making amends"
in Steps Eight and Nine, and declaring yourself insane and powerless
in Steps One and Two, and spending your life as a slave of God in
Steps Three and Eleven....
The whole so-called "spiritual" A.A. program is nothing but
repackaged Buchmanism.
As long as those 12 steps hang on the wall of the A.A. meeting room,
then people are still practicing the Buchmanite cult religion.
As long as people read the first 164 pages of the Big Book,
they are reading Bill Wilson's interpretation of the Oxford Group's
theology.
So the history of A.A., the Oxford Groups, Bill Wilson, and
Frank Buchman is very relevant. Buchmanism is still being sold
as a cure for alcoholism.

And I think it is good to understand what Bill Wilson was and what
his game was (getting supported in comfort for the rest of his
life by gullible alcoholics).
Then one can understand why the A.A. program does not
work, and never did. We also need to know that Bill's claims of
great success in sobering up alcoholics were lies. Then people will
understand that A.A. has not "gone downhill" since the days of
Bill Wilson and Doctor Bob. So there is no way to return to the
"good old days" when 12-step treatment worked, because it didn't.

Last but not least, knowledge of the history of A.A. and the
theology of Frank Buchman upon which it is based is becoming
more relevant, not less. George W. Bush is now pushing
"faith-based" programs as a panacea. He is also under the
misimpression that cult religion is actually an effective
cure for addictions. Guess who has been selling that idea
for the last 60 years.... (Hint: The Friends of Bill.)

And on Bill Moyers' show tonight (17 Oct) we saw Senator
Jim Ramstad (R-MN), a not-anonymous member of Alcoholics
Anonymous, scheming to get more money for 12-step treatment
facilities. It's called the "Treatment Parity Bill".
The idea is that quacks should be able to treat addictions
with 12-step faith healing and get just as much money as a
real doctor who treats cancer using real medicine.

A.A. ideas, which are really Frank Buchman's ideas, pervade
our society more than is healthy. Over the last 60 years,
A.A. has done an excellent job of proselytizing and
spreading Buchmanism around, while claiming to be
promoting recovery from alcoholism.
People should be aware of what those Buchmanite ideas are
and where they come from.

A.A./Buchmanite ideas are getting blended in with fundamentalist
Christian ideas in a lot of people's minds, including G.W. Bush's.
You have probably heard on the news the last couple of nights
about Lt. Gen. William Jerry Boykin, who while in uniform went
to churches and delivered speaches/sermons where he declared
that he saw the war in Iraq and the war against terrorism as
a holy war between Christianity and Islam, and in his opinion,
God, rather than the American people, selected G.W. Bush to be
the President, and the real enemy is not Osama Bin Ladin or
Sadam Hussein, it is Satan...

That strongly echoes Frank Buchman's fascism and
love of theocratic dictatorships. Just like Frank Buchman,
Gen. Boykin is ready to abandon democracy and have a
"God-controlled" country.

Do you think Gen. Boykin will be fired for such conduct?
Or relieved of his command? Or disciplined for conduct
unbecoming of an officer? I don't. G.W. Bush likes such talk.
The same George W. Bush who finds such conduct acceptable is
the same G. W. Bush as the one who went to Bill Wilson's
house "Stepping Stones" to announce new financing for
"successful treatment programs" and "faith-based" programs.

In fact, Bush agrees with so much of the A.A./Buchmanite theology
that I still wonder whether he really is a hidden A.A. member,
someone who is truly practicing anonymity. He says, for instance,
that God told him to invade Iraq. That's A.A. Step Eleven,
listening for God to give you your marching orders.
That is also Frank Buchman's practice of "Guidance".

Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.

>> I have read your introduction and I am
>> trying to understand your perspective versus my experience. If in fact what
>> you propose is correct, then we do not need recovery programs at all. In
>> fact, none us do or ever did. Those who will recover will and those who
>> will not recover will not. That seems to be the logic you are supporting.

It is certainly possible that we don't need treatment programs
-- at least not the current ones, which do not work anyway.
And we certainly do not need the kind of inpatient treatment
that Senator Ramstad is pushing. Doctor Orford clearly showed
that a doctor talking to alcoholics for just one hour,
telling them to quit drinking or die, was just as effective
as lengthy expensive treatment programs that included A.A..
At the one-year point, the group that got minimal treatment
(one hour) and the group that got maximum treatment, full
access to all of the hospital facitilites, in-patient
treatment, and a zillion A.A. meetings, scored just the
same. No difference in outcome, no matter how much money
was spent on the alcoholics.

Like you said, when the student is ready...
Otherwise, forget it.

Some kind of educational classes can certainly help people,
and I am not opposed to some kind of a "support group" where
people help each other with encouragement and advice.
I think that can be a good thing.
But it is essential that the information given out in both
of those things be true, not some superstitious old cult
dogma and fallacies about alcoholism.

As I have said so many times, I personally recommend SMART. Also
check out SOS, WFS, or MFS if you can find them in your area.
(Also read Trimpey's stuff about the "Addiction Beast" or
my rap in "The Lizard-Brain Addiction Monster":
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-addmonst.html )

But I do not expect any great success rate from them either.
There is no panacea. There is no easy answer.
If they get just one or two percent more successes than the
spontaneous remission rate, so that they get maybe a 6% or 7%
success rate, then that would be great.
That is still some lives saved, so it's worth the bother.
And, if we can get people to quit a few years sooner, to
reduce the damage to brain, liver and kidneys, that would
be great too.

But note that SMART is not a "program".
There is no N-steps routine to do.
It's just like how high-school biology is not a program.
It's a class that you go to until you learn the stuff, and then
you walk out the door and get on with your life.
With neither SMART nor high-school biology do you spend the
rest of your life in meetings.

Now if people want to spend the rest of their lives
in the meetings of a social club, then that's okay.
I have no problem with that. But the social club
should not be telling people that they cannot ever
quit the club or they will die drunk in a gutter.
That is a cult talking.

>> Plainly you have offered up what you feel to be your truth on the need and
>> purpose of AA, but you have offered little if anything as an alternative.
>> What do you have to offer that will assist someone who is in recovery or
>> more importantly someone who feels they need some assistance in controlling
>> or arresting their drinking habits? Surely you have more to offer than the
>> hope for spontaneous remission.
>>
>> Bobby L

Yes, I actually work very hard at making sure that everything I put
up there is true. I have seen friends basically killed by bad
information, and I've seen people driven away from recovery by
"Step Nazis" and fanatical true believers.

As far as hope goes...
You know, the bottom line is still that people quit
when they want to quit and don't quit until then.
So I feel rather pessimistic about "treatment programs".

We can cajole and encourage people to quit drinking or drugging;
we can recommend things; but in the end it is still just
a matter of "People will do what they want to do."
That is what is going on now; that is why treatment doesn't work.

And until we have a horrendous totalitarian science-fiction
dystopian world where somebody has some effective electronic
brain control technology that he can use on other people,
I don't think we will be able to force people to WANT to quit.

When I think about my own idea of an ideal treatment program,
I think about things like take them out in the country, up in
the mountains, give them a month (or maybe a lot longer, maybe
a year) of being way out in the boondocks away from temptation,
just some time to get out of one rut and into another rut.
(It's called "building a positive, balanced, life-style".)
Breaking habits is hard, and such a change of environment can
help. Throw in a lot of classes that offer good, true information
-- not 12-step dogma -- and sure, have some group discussions.

That doesn't sound much different from a lot of current treatment
facilities, does it? But barring the 12-step cult would be a
very large departure from the status quo. And also bar any
Synanon-style "tough love" treatment. The camp is supposed to
be help, not punishment. The boot camp approach didn't work either,
it just killed children. See:
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-gulags.html

Still, the bottom line is that such a facility will not do anything
for someone who does not really want to quit. I would say, "This
program or camp or class or whatever you want to call it will not
make you quit drinking or doping. You will quit if you want to quit,
and you won't otherwise.
The program doesn't work. YOU WORK. Or you don't work.
The best that we can do is make quitting a little easier for you,
and teach you a few helpful things. Nothing more than that."

The reality is that many people just want to want to quit.
They don't really want to quit.
They just wish that they really wanted to quit.
They just wish that they were already quit.
They just wish that they weren't feeling the negative
side effects of drinking or drugging.
They would like to be quit if it were convenient and easy.
And that's why they don't quit.

If we can help to nudge them from wanting to want to quit
over to really wanting to quit, then that could make a big
difference. In SMART that is called motivational enhancement:
keep talking about all of the good reasons for not killing
yourself. Keep emphasizing the negative side effects of
drugs and alcohol. Build up some motivation. Build some
desires for health.
If you are lucky, a few people will say, "Hmmm... Maybe I
really should just quit and stay quit.... Maybe life will
be better."

As far as my ultimate hope is concerned, I hope for some
medical advances. When people feel so bad that they are
killing themselves with painkillers like alcohol and drugs,
then something is very wrong. Some of the recent advances
in the field of alcoholism and addictions involve the
recognition that many alcoholics and addicts have underlying
medical or psychiatric problems that cause them to want
to kill their pain with whatever they can get.
Some doctors now consider ALL addiction cases to be
Dual Diagnosis cases. They look for the reason why someone
had to use painkillers (including alcohol) until they got
addicted.

You are probably aware of Dr. Blum's research on dopamine
receptors.
(See the Hazelden Coffee War page,
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-coffee.html#Blum
and
http://www.sigmaxi.org/amsci/article...Blum-full.html
)
He discovered that many alcoholics and other addicts suffer
from a "Reward Deficiency Syndrome" because of a broken gene --
the gene that is supposed to build the dopamine receptor in
the brain. The defective receptors made it difficult or
impossible for people to feel good enough to be happy.

In other words, "I Can't Get No Satisfaction, though I try,
and I try, and I try..."

I don't know if we will ever be able to fix
congenitally-broken dopamine receptors, but maybe someone
will find a chemical that patches the problem.
That would go a long ways towards solving society's drug
and alcohol problems.

Thanks again for a great letter. You are obviously somebody
who is interested in the truth.
And have a good day.

* Agent Orange *
* agent_orange@linuxmail.org *
* AA and Recovery Cult Debunking *
* http://aorange1.tripod.com/ *
** Bill Wilson wrote that you cannot quit drinking by using
** your own intelligence and will power; that you must have
** a "Higher Power" doing the quitting for you.
** When I asked God about that, He said, "Screw Bill Wilson.
** I'm not gonna quit drinking."

On 18 Oct 2003 12:49:35 -0700, agent_orange@linuxmail.org
(Agent_Orange) wrote:

>How, really, could working the 12 steps of a cult religion possibly
>keep anybody from drinking?

It doesn't stop anyone from drinking if they honestly want to drink.
What it does offer is a way out of the mental insanity of obsession
with drink when they DON'T want it.

>It may sound like a strange question, but what do you mean by
>"Alcoholics Anonymous"?
>That is not a joke, or a trick question.
>A.A. is different things to different people.

Indeed. There's at least 2 AAs that I know of, and I often hear AA
"fellowship" confused with the AA "program".

<snip obsession with AA>

--
Blue Moon

"Agent_Orange" <agent_orange@linuxmail.org> wrote in message
news:8e728989.0310181149.3d5c0612@posting.google.c om...
> "Bobby L." <BobbyL2000nospam@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:<s2Gib.754$w_5.108@bignews4.bellsouth.net>...
>
> Hi Bobby, thanks for a great letter.
>
> >> AO,
> >>
> >> For many of us (that I know personally), it was not the only program we
> >> tried. It was just the first one that provided some level of measurable
> >> extended success. For me I tried counseling and a church based recovery
> >> program, but neither had any lasting success. In truth, it likely was not
> >> the program. Perhaps, it was more a case of "when the student is ready, the
> >> teacher will appear." I finally reached a point where I was teachable.
> >> Perhaps, at that time, had I gone back to those other programs they may have
> >> finally worked also. But alas, I did not. I chose AA. And it worked. I
> >> could see it was working for those folks when I first arrived and I see it
> >> working for folks today - some several years later. I am also comfortable
> >> with the way it worked and continues to work -- for me.
>
> Yes, when the student is ready...
> You cannot just assume a cause and effect relationship
> between quitting drinking and A.A.. You are describing a
> learning experience where you failed in your first few attempts
> to quit, but you learned what didn't work for you (things like
> "just having one"), so that you finally got your act together.
> The same thing happened with me.

Dear Agent Orange,

When I used the DIY approach (ie the willpwer approach) to not drinking in the early 1990's, I was
able to not drink for nearly 8 years. You've said that the DIY approach has worked for you for 3
years. I''m therefore thinking that what it enabled me to acheive might enable me to speak with
greater authority than you on the effectiveness of that approach :^)) Incidentally, I note that
many of those whom I've met in AA have many more years of not drinking behind them than you do.
Quite a few have not been drinking for more than 20 years. By comparing what you've acheived with
what they've acheived, I therefore also that your acheivement isn't that great.

Turning now to your reply to Bobby L. Bobby L stated that he feels comfortable in AA. IMO, if
someone feels comfortable with what they're doing they're more likely to benefit from whatever it
is they're doing than someone who does the same thing without feeling "comfortable" about it. Do
you think I speak the truth ?

My only experience of AA is of meetings that take place in local halls and on-line meetings. To
date, no-one has forced me to go to any such meetings. If I don't turn up, no-one rings me up the
following day demanding to know where I was. Furthermore, no-one has forced me into AA's Twelve
Step programme, nor are they forcing me to keep working it. This leads me to believe that in my
dealings with AA I am able at all times to exercise free will. If what I do enables me to acheive
on a daily a basis my goal not to drink you'll not hear me complain :^))

FWIW, I believe that anyone who wants to not drink for however long they want not to, should be
enabled to find a method/programme that enables them to achieve their goal. For this reason, I am
always interested in knowing what works for individuals. So, AO, I hope to hear more about why your
method works for you. Perhaps others would to.

Yours

JB

.. > When you say that "AA worked...", do you realize what you are saying?
> A.A. would have to be some kind of a mind-control program that
> keeps you from choosing to drink. Or a body control program that
> turns you into a little robot or puppet and keeps your hands from
> reaching for a drink.
>
> How, really, could working the 12 steps of a cult religion possibly
> keep anybody from drinking?
>
> The truth is, you quit drinking. And you deserve some
> congratulations. Nobody quit for you.
> Nobody but you holds your hand every Saturday night
> and keeps you from drinking.
>
> In addition, A.A. is different things to different people.
> It may sound like a strange question, but what do you mean by
> "Alcoholics Anonymous"?
> That is not a joke, or a trick question.
> A.A. is different things to different people.
> What was the "A.A." that "helped" you?
> For some people, A.A. is a meeting where people tell stories
> about alcoholism and recovery.
> For other people, A.A. is a cult religion that induces feelings
> of guilt and inadequacy mixed with delusions of grandeur.
> For others, it's a non-drinking social club.
> For others, it's "group support" where people encourage
> each other to get and stay sober.
> And for other people, A.A. is an intense one-on-one relationship
> with a sponsor (for better or worse).
> And for others, A.A. is a package of old superstitions
> and misinformation about alcoholism.
>
> And above all, the fact remains that whenever anybody has done a
> valid test of A.A. treatment of alcoholics, to see what kind of
> improvement in sobering up alcoholics A.A. produced, the results
> ranged from "zero help" to "really good for killing alcoholics".
> Professor George E. Vaillant, who is a non-alcoholic member of
> the Board of Trustees of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.,
> got that "AA kills" result when he tried for 8 years to show that
> A.A. works.
>
> And Dr. Brandsma found that A.A. QUINTUPLED the rate of binge drinking.
> And Dr. Ditman found that A.A. increased the rate of rearrests
> for public drunkenness. And Dr. Walsh found that the "free" A.A.
> program caused many alcoholics to require more expensive
> hospitalization later.
> It's all in
> http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-effectiveness.html
>
> Those very negative effects are part of the reason for the zero
> percent success rate of A.A. As we all know, statistics can
> be true for groups, but invalid for individuals.
> It is not possible to prove or disprove that one individual
> person was helped or not helped by A.A.; it is only possible
> to show that A.A. did or did not help A GROUP of people
> become more sober than another group who didn't get any
> A.A. treatment.
> Individual alcoholics either quit 100% or 0%, not 5%.
> But 5% of the groups quit.
>
> A.A. treatment has never passed a single valid controlled test.
> Unfortunately, it has flunked every test.
> It has never shown positive results.
> (And I say "unfortunately" in all sincerity. At one time,
> I thought A.A. was great stuff and would help alcoholics.
> Alas, I was misinformed by A.A. publicity.)
>
> I have searched this world for every valid test of A.A. that
> I could find, and I haven't found a single one that showed
> that A.A. produced even one tenth of the successes that
> the A.A. public relations machine brags about.
>
> Just recently, we had a flap here about Keith Humphrey's
> piece of propaganda about A.A. producing better results
> than Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It was just another hoax
> -- a rigged test -- just another piece of institutional
> dishonesty.
>
> But to give the A.A. program the benefit of the doubt:
> Hypothetically, it is entirely possible that A.A. group support
> caused some guy "Joe" to successfully quit drinking, but the
> "powerless over alcohol" doctrine caused some other guy "Fred"
> to go on a binge and die.
> So the A.A. program did make Joe quit drinking, but it killed Fred.
> Win one, lose one; the averaged-out success rate is zero.
>
> It is possible that Prof. Vaillant saw something like that, because
> he got a zero percent success rate accompanied by a 29% death rate
> over the course of his 8-year test of A.A. treatment of alcoholics.
> The A.A. death rate was much higher than any other
> treatment program that he examined. Vaillant called the A.A.
> death rate "appalling."
>
> (It would be nice if only the "Joes" could then be sent to A.A.,
> but nobody has found a way to predict the future... That was
> part of the idea behind Project MATCH, matching patients to
> treatment programs, but it didn't work, either.)
>
> >> I strongly encourage those who still have a choice to try other recovery
> >> programs. From my experience they are easier than some of the tasks I have
> >> been asked to do in AA. I stress "asked" as in suggested. No one forced me
> >> to do any of these things. Nobody berated me into or through the steps. I
> >> realize that has not been the experience of all AAers, but there is little I
> >> can do about that. I accept that sometimes recovery alcoholics are just
> >> self-centered enough to believe they still control the lives of others and
> >> have found the answer for all. I also accept that simply is not the case.
> >> AA is not a cure-all, nor is it a cure-for-all.
>
> Actually, a lot of people are forced into a lot of things that
> include A.A.. The treatment industry and the legal systems are
> still routinely forcing 12-step programs on people, in spite of
> the fact that it is now illegal on religious grounds.
> That is one of my biggest complaints about the current system.
>
> I know of a drug court judge who is really sold on A.A. and N.A.,
> and who gives public speaches praising it,
> and who uses 12-step groups as punishment.
> That is, people he is happy with can go to either SMART or AA/NA.
> People he is mad at get mandatory 12-step AA/NA only, or else.
> He knows full well that he is violating the law by doing that,
> but he can get away with it.
> Now why is he doing that?
> The most reasonable answer is that he is misinformed, and
> actually believes that 12-step programs work and produce
> some good results. So he is "forcing people to be good."
> I hope that eventually judges like him will read some of my
> web pages on that subject, and learn something.
>
> >> I suggest that AA is one of many roads to sobriety and for many of us the
> >> steps do not take us someplace we do not really want to go. It works for
> >> us. Although it may not work for others. If it does not work for you then
> >> I suggest you try something else (plural you). To say it does not work at
> >> all -- that it is all a fallacy, or just voodoo, is simply not supported by
> >> what I have seen nor by what I have experienced.
>
> What have you seen? A hundred new people come into a room, and a year
> later 5 of them are sober, and the rest of them are gone, right?
> Five percent is the normal rate of spontaneous remission in alcoholics.
> That is the same result as you get if you do nothing at all
> for a group of alcoholics.
>
> (Or maybe the results are even worse than that -- 300 or 400
> go through the rooms, and 5 are left sober a year later...
> Even the successful quitters drop out of A.A., for a variety
> of reasons.)
> As you said, when the student is ready.... he will quit.
> Until then, he won't.
>
> A.A. is simply taking the credit for the people who are going to
> quit anyway.
> The real evidence of that is the fact that 4 out of 5
> of all alcoholics who successfully quit drinking for a
> year or more do it ON THEIR OWN, alone, without any "treatment
> program". The Harvard Medical School said that. See:
> http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-ef...Harvard_Mental
>
> It reminds me of the old "Silent Majority" slogan of Lyndon Johnson
> in the sixties. Most of the alcoholics who quit drinking
> don't tell anybody that they are an alcoholic who is quitting.
> Why would they want to embarrass themselves like that?
> They just quit drinking, silently, alone.
> So they are *really* the anonymous alcoholics.
>
> The alcoholics who recover in A.A. are only a small minority
> of those who recover.
>
> My observation is that people quit when they want to quit, and
> don't quit otherwise. And basically people don't REALLY want to
> quit until they become convinced that drinking is causing them
> far more pain than pleasure.
> When you are really totally convinced that drinking alcohol
> is going to kill you with a long, slow, painful death, then
> it becomes easy to quit.
> As long as you think that you can nibble, and just have a few
> now and then, quitting is very difficult.
>
> And I know it sounds drastic to say that A.A. does not work
> *AT ALL*, but that is what everybody from Prof. Vaillant to
> Doctors Brandsma, Ditman, and Orford found. Again, just because
> somebody sobers himself up while going to A.A. meetings
> doesn't mean that the meetings necessarily did anything.
> When many more people sober themselves up without the meetings,
> then you know that the meetings aren't doing it.
>
> Again, seeing cause and effect relationships between A.A.
> meetings and people quitting drinking is the same old logical
> fallacy as:
> A bunch of people went to a Baptist church for years.
> During those years, many of the women got pregnant and had babies.
> That proves it: going to Baptist churches causes women to get
> pregnant and have babies.
>
> >> I have seen your site and read many of your posts here and I have found a
> >> vast array of information that has little or nothing to do with Me - Today.
> >> I am not dedicated to learning the entire history of AA, I understand Bill W
> >> was hardly the saint many would paint him be and I truly believe that parts
> >> of the reading material is dated.
>
> If it were just history, then it would be somewhat irrelevant to
> recovery today. Certainly people can quit drinking without knowing
> anything about the history of Alcoholics Anonymous.
>
> But the 12 steps simply are Frank Buchman's cult religion -- channeling
> God in Step Eleven, surrendering to "God" or the cult in Step Three,
> making confessions in Steps Four through Seven, and "making amends"
> in Steps Eight and Nine, and declaring yourself insane and powerless
> in Steps One and Two, and spending your life as a slave of God in
> Steps Three and Eleven....
> The whole so-called "spiritual" A.A. program is nothing but
> repackaged Buchmanism.
> As long as those 12 steps hang on the wall of the A.A. meeting room,
> then people are still practicing the Buchmanite cult religion.
> As long as people read the first 164 pages of the Big Book,
> they are reading Bill Wilson's interpretation of the Oxford Group's
> theology.
> So the history of A.A., the Oxford Groups, Bill Wilson, and
> Frank Buchman is very relevant. Buchmanism is still being sold
> as a cure for alcoholism.
>
> And I think it is good to understand what Bill Wilson was and what
> his game was (getting supported in comfort for the rest of his
> life by gullible alcoholics).
> Then one can understand why the A.A. program does not
> work, and never did. We also need to know that Bill's claims of
> great success in sobering up alcoholics were lies. Then people will
> understand that A.A. has not "gone downhill" since the days of
> Bill Wilson and Doctor Bob. So there is no way to return to the
> "good old days" when 12-step treatment worked, because it didn't.
>
> Last but not least, knowledge of the history of A.A. and the
> theology of Frank Buchman upon which it is based is becoming
> more relevant, not less. George W. Bush is now pushing
> "faith-based" programs as a panacea. He is also under the
> misimpression that cult religion is actually an effective
> cure for addictions. Guess who has been selling that idea
> for the last 60 years.... (Hint: The Friends of Bill.)
>
> And on Bill Moyers' show tonight (17 Oct) we saw Senator
> Jim Ramstad (R-MN), a not-anonymous member of Alcoholics
> Anonymous, scheming to get more money for 12-step treatment
> facilities. It's called the "Treatment Parity Bill".
> The idea is that quacks should be able to treat addictions
> with 12-step faith healing and get just as much money as a
> real doctor who treats cancer using real medicine.
>
> A.A. ideas, which are really Frank Buchman's ideas, pervade
> our society more than is healthy. Over the last 60 years,
> A.A. has done an excellent job of proselytizing and
> spreading Buchmanism around, while claiming to be
> promoting recovery from alcoholism.
> People should be aware of what those Buchmanite ideas are
> and where they come from.
>
> A.A./Buchmanite ideas are getting blended in with fundamentalist
> Christian ideas in a lot of people's minds, including G.W. Bush's.
> You have probably heard on the news the last couple of nights
> about Lt. Gen. William Jerry Boykin, who while in uniform went
> to churches and delivered speaches/sermons where he declared
> that he saw the war in Iraq and the war against terrorism as
> a holy war between Christianity and Islam, and in his opinion,
> God, rather than the American people, selected G.W. Bush to be
> the President, and the real enemy is not Osama Bin Ladin or
> Sadam Hussein, it is Satan...
>
> That strongly echoes Frank Buchman's fascism and
> love of theocratic dictatorships. Just like Frank Buchman,
> Gen. Boykin is ready to abandon democracy and have a
> "God-controlled" country.
>
> Do you think Gen. Boykin will be fired for such conduct?
> Or relieved of his command? Or disciplined for conduct
> unbecoming of an officer? I don't. G.W. Bush likes such talk.
> The same George W. Bush who finds such conduct acceptable is
> the same G. W. Bush as the one who went to Bill Wilson's
> house "Stepping Stones" to announce new financing for
> "successful treatment programs" and "faith-based" programs.
>
> In fact, Bush agrees with so much of the A.A./Buchmanite theology
> that I still wonder whether he really is a hidden A.A. member,
> someone who is truly practicing anonymity. He says, for instance,
> that God told him to invade Iraq. That's A.A. Step Eleven,
> listening for God to give you your marching orders.
> That is also Frank Buchman's practice of "Guidance".
>
> Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.
>
> >> I have read your introduction and I am
> >> trying to understand your perspective versus my experience. If in fact what
> >> you propose is correct, then we do not need recovery programs at all. In
> >> fact, none us do or ever did. Those who will recover will and those who
> >> will not recover will not. That seems to be the logic you are supporting.
>
> It is certainly possible that we don't need treatment programs
> -- at least not the current ones, which do not work anyway.
> And we certainly do not need the kind of inpatient treatment
> that Senator Ramstad is pushing. Doctor Orford clearly showed
> that a doctor talking to alcoholics for just one hour,
> telling them to quit drinking or die, was just as effective
> as lengthy expensive treatment programs that included A.A..
> At the one-year point, the group that got minimal treatment
> (one hour) and the group that got maximum treatment, full
> access to all of the hospital facitilites, in-patient
> treatment, and a zillion A.A. meetings, scored just the
> same. No difference in outcome, no matter how much money
> was spent on the alcoholics.
>
> Like you said, when the student is ready...
> Otherwise, forget it.
>
> Some kind of educational classes can certainly help people,
> and I am not opposed to some kind of a "support group" where
> people help each other with encouragement and advice.
> I think that can be a good thing.
> But it is essential that the information given out in both
> of those things be true, not some superstitious old cult
> dogma and fallacies about alcoholism.
>
> As I have said so many times, I personally recommend SMART. Also
> check out SOS, WFS, or MFS if you can find them in your area.
> (Also read Trimpey's stuff about the "Addiction Beast" or
> my rap in "The Lizard-Brain Addiction Monster":
> http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-addmonst.html )
>
> But I do not expect any great success rate from them either.
> There is no panacea. There is no easy answer.
> If they get just one or two percent more successes than the
> spontaneous remission rate, so that they get maybe a 6% or 7%
> success rate, then that would be great.
> That is still some lives saved, so it's worth the bother.
> And, if we can get people to quit a few years sooner, to
> reduce the damage to brain, liver and kidneys, that would
> be great too.
>
> But note that SMART is not a "program".
> There is no N-steps routine to do.
> It's just like how high-school biology is not a program.
> It's a class that you go to until you learn the stuff, and then
> you walk out the door and get on with your life.
> With neither SMART nor high-school biology do you spend the
> rest of your life in meetings.
>
> Now if people want to spend the rest of their lives
> in the meetings of a social club, then that's okay.
> I have no problem with that. But the social club
> should not be telling people that they cannot ever
> quit the club or they will die drunk in a gutter.
> That is a cult talking.
>
> >> Plainly you have offered up what you feel to be your truth on the need and
> >> purpose of AA, but you have offered little if anything as an alternative.
> >> What do you have to offer that will assist someone who is in recovery or
> >> more importantly someone who feels they need some assistance in controlling
> >> or arresting their drinking habits? Surely you have more to offer than the
> >> hope for spontaneous remission.
> >>
> >> Bobby L
>
> Yes, I actually work very hard at making sure that everything I put
> up there is true. I have seen friends basically killed by bad
> information, and I've seen people driven away from recovery by
> "Step Nazis" and fanatical true believers.
>
> As far as hope goes...
> You know, the bottom line is still that people quit
> when they want to quit and don't quit until then.
> So I feel rather pessimistic about "treatment programs".
>
> We can cajole and encourage people to quit drinking or drugging;
> we can recommend things; but in the end it is still just
> a matter of "People will do what they want to do."
> That is what is going on now; that is why treatment doesn't work.
>
> And until we have a horrendous totalitarian science-fiction
> dystopian world where somebody has some effective electronic
> brain control technology that he can use on other people,
> I don't think we will be able to force people to WANT to quit.
>
> When I think about my own idea of an ideal treatment program,
> I think about things like take them out in the country, up in
> the mountains, give them a month (or maybe a lot longer, maybe
> a year) of being way out in the boondocks away from temptation,
> just some time to get out of one rut and into another rut.
> (It's called "building a positive, balanced, life-style".)
> Breaking habits is hard, and such a change of environment can
> help. Throw in a lot of classes that offer good, true information
> -- not 12-step dogma -- and sure, have some group discussions.
>
> That doesn't sound much different from a lot of current treatment
> facilities, does it? But barring the 12-step cult would be a
> very large departure from the status quo. And also bar any
> Synanon-style "tough love" treatment. The camp is supposed to
> be help, not punishment. The boot camp approach didn't work either,
> it just killed children. See:
> http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-gulags.html
>
> Still, the bottom line is that such a facility will not do anything
> for someone who does not really want to quit. I would say, "This
> program or camp or class or whatever you want to call it will not
> make you quit drinking or doping. You will quit if you want to quit,
> and you won't otherwise.
> The program doesn't work. YOU WORK. Or you don't work.
> The best that we can do is make quitting a little easier for you,
> and teach you a few helpful things. Nothing more than that."
>
> The reality is that many people just want to want to quit.
> They don't really want to quit.
> They just wish that they really wanted to quit.
> They just wish that they were already quit.
> They just wish that they weren't feeling the negative
> side effects of drinking or drugging.
> They would like to be quit if it were convenient and easy.
> And that's why they don't quit.
>
> If we can help to nudge them from wanting to want to quit
> over to really wanting to quit, then that could make a big
> difference. In SMART that is called motivational enhancement:
> keep talking about all of the good reasons for not killing
> yourself. Keep emphasizing the negative side effects of
> drugs and alcohol. Build up some motivation. Build some
> desires for health.
> If you are lucky, a few people will say, "Hmmm... Maybe I
> really should just quit and stay quit.... Maybe life will
> be better."
>
> As far as my ultimate hope is concerned, I hope for some
> medical advances. When people feel so bad that they are
> killing themselves with painkillers like alcohol and drugs,
> then something is very wrong. Some of the recent advances
> in the field of alcoholism and addictions involve the
> recognition that many alcoholics and addicts have underlying
> medical or psychiatric problems that cause them to want
> to kill their pain with whatever they can get.
> Some doctors now consider ALL addiction cases to be
> Dual Diagnosis cases. They look for the reason why someone
> had to use painkillers (including alcohol) until they got
> addicted.
>
> You are probably aware of Dr. Blum's research on dopamine
> receptors.
> (See the Hazelden Coffee War page,
> http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-coffee.html#Blum
> and
> http://www.sigmaxi.org/amsci/article...Blum-full.html
> )
> He discovered that many alcoholics and other addicts suffer
> from a "Reward Deficiency Syndrome" because of a broken gene --
> the gene that is supposed to build the dopamine receptor in
> the brain. The defective receptors made it difficult or
> impossible for people to feel good enough to be happy.
>
> In other words, "I Can't Get No Satisfaction, though I try,
> and I try, and I try..."
>
> I don't know if we will ever be able to fix
> congenitally-broken dopamine receptors, but maybe someone
> will find a chemical that patches the problem.
> That would go a long ways towards solving society's drug
> and alcohol problems.
>
> Thanks again for a great letter. You are obviously somebody
> who is interested in the truth.
> And have a good day.
>
> * Agent Orange *
> * agent_orange@linuxmail.org *
> * AA and Recovery Cult Debunking *
> * http://aorange1.tripod.com/ *
> ** Bill Wilson wrote that you cannot quit drinking by using
> ** your own intelligence and will power; that you must have
> ** a "Higher Power" doing the quitting for you.
> ** When I asked God about that, He said, "Screw Bill Wilson.
> ** I'm not gonna quit drinking."

"Agent_Orange" <agent_orange@linuxmail.org> wrote in message
news:8e728989.0310181149.3d5c0612@posting.google.c om...
> "Bobby L." <BobbyL2000nospam@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:<s2Gib.754$w_5.108@bignews4.bellsouth.net>...
>
> Hi Bobby, thanks for a great letter.
>
> >> AO,
> >>
> >> For many of us (that I know personally), it was not the only program we
> >> tried. It was just the first one that provided some level of measurable
> >> extended success. For me I tried counseling and a church based recovery
> >> program, but neither had any lasting success. In truth, it likely was not
> >> the program. Perhaps, it was more a case of "when the student is ready, the
> >> teacher will appear." I finally reached a point where I was teachable.
> >> Perhaps, at that time, had I gone back to those other programs they may have
> >> finally worked also. But alas, I did not. I chose AA. And it worked. I
> >> could see it was working for those folks when I first arrived and I see it
> >> working for folks today - some several years later. I am also comfortable
> >> with the way it worked and continues to work -- for me.
>
> Yes, when the student is ready...
> You cannot just assume a cause and effect relationship
> between quitting drinking and A.A.. You are describing a
> learning experience where you failed in your first few attempts
> to quit, but you learned what didn't work for you (things like
> "just having one"), so that you finally got your act together.
> The same thing happened with me.

Dear Agent Orange,

When I used the DIY approach (ie the willpwer approach) to not drinking in the early 1990's, I was
able to not drink for nearly 8 years. You've said that the DIY approach has worked for you for 3
years. I''m therefore thinking that what it enabled me to acheive might enable me to speak with
greater authority than you on the effectiveness of that approach :^)) Incidentally, I note that
many of those whom I've met in AA have many more years of not drinking behind them than you do.
Quite a few have not been drinking for more than 20 years. By comparing what you've acheived with
what they've acheived, I therefore also think that your acheivement isn't that great.

Turning now to your reply to Bobby L. Bobby L stated that he feels comfortable in AA. IMO, if
someone feels comfortable with what they're doing they're more likely to benefit from whatever it
is they're doing than someone who does the same thing without feeling "comfortable" about it. Do
you think I speak the truth ?

My only experience of AA is of meetings that take place in local halls and on-line meetings. To
date, no-one has forced me to go to any such meetings. If I don't turn up, no-one rings me up the
following day demanding to know where I was. Furthermore, no-one has forced me into AA's Twelve
Step programme, nor are they forcing me to keep working it. This leads me to believe that in my
dealings with AA I am able at all times to exercise free will. If what I do enables me to acheive
on a daily a basis my goal not to drink you'll not hear me saying that I think I ought to change
what I'm doing :^))

FWIW, I believe that anyone who wants to not drink for however long they want not to, should be
enabled to find a method/programme that enables them to achieve their goal. For this reason, I am
always interested in knowing what works for individuals. So, AO, I hope to hear more about why your
method works for you. Perhaps others would to.

Yours

JB

<snip>

"JB" <JBCatRB@coldman.com> wrote in message news:<bmtktu$ivd$1@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk>...

Hi JB. Thanks for a thoughtful letter.

>>
>> Dear Agent Orange,
>>
>> When I used the DIY approach (ie the willpwer approach) to
>> not drinking in the early 1990's, I was able to not drink
>> for nearly 8 years. You've said that the DIY approach has
>> worked for you for 3 years. I''m therefore thinking that
>> what it enabled me to acheive might enable me to speak with
>> greater authority than you on the effectiveness of that
>> approach :^))

Congratulations on your nearly 8 years.
Nevertheless, I must strongly disagree with that attitude.
Even though you are talking about recovery without A.A., that
is still the standard A.A. attitude of "Those with the most
Time are the wisest gurus." That is not true at all.
Someone with 20 years sober can be twice as crazy as someone
with 10 years or 1 year.

There is simply no evidence that prolonged sobriety increases
sanity, wisdom, or knowledge much beyond that obtained during an
initial period of recovery. Certainly, getting off of alcohol
or other drugs allows the brain to heal and the mind to clear,
but after two or three years, the additional improvement
that comes from more years of sobriety grows smaller and smaller.
Then other factors matter more -- like how sane were those
people to start with, anyway?
And what are they doing with their lives now?

When I got 6 months, I went to an A.A. meeting and picked
up a coin. When it came my turn to speak, I said that I had
quit both alcohol and tobacco at the same time, and was so
glad that I did. The improvement in my health was fantastic.
It was all a whole new ball-game now.
After the meeting, out in the yard, a guy with 7 years wanted
to pick me up as a sponsee. He was chain-smoking cigarettes
all of the time we talked. I gently deflected and ignored
his offer. I knew that he'd have to start giving me "advice"
like that smoking is okay, to rationalize his own behavior.
So there you are, someone with 7 years, and he would have
destroyed me if I had let him. I would have gone back to
dying from tobacco, rather than recovering, if I had copied
his style of "sobriety". So what good was his 7 years?
The guy may have had 7 years off of alcohol, but he was still
addicted to a drug and killing himself with it, wasn't he?
Remember that the U.S. death toll from alcohol is about
113,000 per year, including alcohol-related auto accidents.
From tobacco, the death toll is 430,000 per year.
As far as I'm concerned, I, with my mere 6 months, was
already far ahead of him with his 7 years. I was really
recovering; he had just transferred his obsession from
alcohol to tobacco and A.A. meetings.

On top of that, he told me that his style of sponsorship
was to start his sponsees right in on Step Four -- don't
waste much time on Steps One through Three. Oh great,
start guilt-tripping them immediately. No thanks.

And, more to the point, just what do you imagine "enabled"
you to not drink? What even makes you think that you needed
to be "enabled"? You were always able to quit drinking, as
long as you could control your own hands. The fact that you
did not *wish* to quit drinking, and did not *choose* to
quit drinking for many years does not mean that you
*could not* quit drinking. (The "enabled" terminology again
reflects A.A. dogma, not the Do It Yourself program, which
says that "You Are Not Powerless Over Alcohol!")

More and more, I find that not quitting is not a matter
of being unable to quit; it is *not wanting* to quit.
People just sort of want to quit, but they don't really want
it enough to bother to do it. They usually want to get rid
of the down side of drinking or doping or smoking; they want
to get rid of the painful negative consequences, but they
don't want to give up the rush, the intoxication, the
feel-good.
So they keep nibbling, imagining that they can get only
the pleasant effects of the intoxication, and somehow avoid
the negative effects. Sometimes it takes years for us to
learn that you just can't do that. It just doesn't work.

And the fact that it was very difficult to quit, and very
uncomfortable to quit, didn't mean that you couldn't quit.
Eventually, you did quit, didn't you?

Watch out when people talk about what "made them quit", or
"helped them to quit", or "enabled them".
People can easily pick up mistaken impressions
about cause and effect relationships, like the idea that
some ineffective medicine cured them. Such erroneous
thinking proves nothing. See Dr. Beyerstein's and Dr. Duncan's
comments on quack medicine and how easy it is to fool
people with quack cures.
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-ef...k_testimonials

It's just like:
"When I was a child, I was never able to ride a bicycle.
I just couldn't do it. I fell down every time I tried.
Then one day, Jimmy loaned me his lucky rabbit's foot,
and I succeeded. I didn't fall down.
That proves it: the lucky rabbit's foot enabled me to stay
up on the bicycle."

Incidentally, this is not the first time that I got 3 years.
This is the second. Fifteen years ago I quit and stayed
quit for 3 years, after going into DT's. It was so easy
to do the third year that I got fooled into thinking that
I had it under control and could drink just a little bit.
I began to wonder if I even was a real alcoholic.
"Real alcoholics are supposed to be 'white knuckling it' all
of the time, aren't they? Real alcoholics have to be constantly
calling their sponsors for help in the middle of the night,
don't they?", I thought, because that's what they show in the
pro-A.A. movies.
So at about 3 years and 3 months I had a beer at a friend's
birthday party, thinking that it would be okay.
The rest of the story is the usual classic disaster.
I went out for 9 years and got really sick. I quit again
when my doctor said, "Quit drinking or die. Choose one."

That is simply a story of a learning experience. I had
everything right the first time around except for one
little detail, and it cost me dearly to learn that last
one little detail, like that you never "have it under
control", and "just one" isn't ever okay for a genetic
alcoholic like me, even when I'm not white-knuckling it.
("Genetic alcoholic" means that I inherited the gene from Dad,
who inherited it from his mother, who got it from somewhere...)

That story leads to the question of "So why did you
return to drinking after almost 8 years of sobriety?"

>> Incidentally, I note that many of those
>> whom I've met in AA have many more years of not drinking
>> behind them than you do. Quite a few have not been
>> drinking for more than 20 years. By comparing what you've
>> acheived with what they've acheived, I therefore also that
>> your acheivement isn't that great.

That is just a game of cultish one-upmanship.
I was not claiming to have "a great accomplishment".
I simply stated that I have three years now.
That is long enough to get a feel for living sober.
I am simply way beyond detoxing or getting used to living
without alcohol and tobacco.

What evidence do you have that 20 years spent in A.A. is
an accomplishment? Not drinking for 20 years is a very good
thing for an alcoholic, but remaining in A.A. is not a sign
of sanity. Three psychiatrists studied A.A. members to see if
they really became "happily and usefully whole" like Bill
Wilson claimed. They found that the majority of A.A. members
were mentally ill. See:
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-cult_a4.html#Lemanski

Likewise, a 20-year A.A. old-timer wrote to me,
"Old timers in AA are often an angry lot: a mask of serenity
with a seething cauldron underneath." See:
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-letters.html#Bernie

There are some illegal drugs that I have not touched in 20 or
30 years. Does that make me wiser, holier, and more authoritive
than an N.A. member who last used such drugs "only" three
years ago?

Again, do you imagine that someone who has 20 years in
Scientology is saner than someone who has only one month?
A lot of time spent in a cult is not evidence of sanity.
If anything, it is a sign of insanity.
How about 10 or 20 years in the Moonies? Does that make him
wiser, holier, or saner than someone who has no time there?

The idea that the old-timers with a lot of time are
fountains of wisdom is one of the basic problems with
A.A.. There are no tests or exams to see whether people
are knowledgeable about recovery or even sane or moral
before they become sponsors.
The ONLY requirements for a sponsor are dry time and A.A.
membership.
Somebody can be neurotic, crazy, a criminal, a sexual
predator, or a pedophile, and still be a sponsor.
If someone has several years of sober time, he is
supposedly qualified to teach the newcomers all about
how to live, and how to be "spiritual".

My 12-step counselor in a "treatment program" who had 6 years
was supposedly qualified to teach the newcomers.
Now he's doing hard time in prison for criminal sexual
penetration of a minor and Internet child pornography. See:
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-intro.html#porno

Would you choose your doctor, gynecologist, or surgeon
on that basis?

Incidentally, you are ignoring all of the millions of people
who stay sober without any 12-step program.
Many of them have 10 or 20 years sober, too.
The Harvard Medical School said that 80% of the alcoholics
who successfully quit drinking for a year or more do it alone,
on their own, without any "treatment program".

So if A.A. claims to have a million sober members in the USA
(which is probably a grossly inflated number), that means
that there are *AT LEAST* 4 million more sober alcoholics out
there who have nothing to do with any A.A. program, but who
are doing quite well anyway, thank you.

The reason for the "at least" term is because there are also
sober people who did go through a treatment program but who
don't now do the A.A. program and are not A.A. members.
There may be several million completely sober non-AA-member
alcoholics.

Why don't you talk about the "great accomplishments" and
"achievements" of all of those millions of long-term sober
non-members?

>>
>> Turning now to your reply to Bobby L. Bobby L stated that
>> he feels comfortable in AA. IMO, if someone feels
>> comfortable with what they're doing they're more likely to
>> benefit from whatever it is they're doing than someone who
>> does the same thing without feeling "comfortable" about it.
>> Do you think I speak the truth ?
>>

I think you speak the truth. Unfortunately, you are not
representative of the larger system that is called something
like "the recovery industry" or "the recovery community".
I call it "The Evil Empire".

I have stated many times that I don't care if some burned-out
old alcoholics want to gather in church basements and tell
each other that they are God's Chosen People. I feel sorry
for them. My attitude is, "Leave them in peace." See:
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-cu...#chosen_people
and
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-Wh...re_Chosen.html
and
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-letters3.html#agenda"

The problem is that they won't leave other people alone.

1) Like all cult religions, they have to go recruiting.
They use the criminal justice system and health care system
to force 12-step meetings on more people. See:
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-cu...ittle_Red_Book

2) They refuse to learn from modern medicine, and in fact
arrogantly insist that modern medicine must learn from them,
as if they had "the answer".
(Most cults claim to have "the answer", and "the only way".
See:
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-cu...ml#cq_only_way
and
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-cu...ml#ca_only_way )

Bill Wilson claimed that some ex-drunks who had no medical
training, not even any basic scientific knowledge, who had
nothing but blind religious faith in A.A. and the Twelve
Steps, could fix problems that "baffled even the most learned and
distinguished" of the real "doctors and priests and ministers
and psychiatrists". (The Big Book, 3rd Edition, page 473.)

3) They continually crank out a stream of propaganda and
misinformation about addiction and recovery that basically
says that the 12-step religion is the best answer, or the
only answer. They routinely lie about the 12-step success
rate, which is really a failure rate. See:
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-effectiveness.html

Alcoholics Anonymous is doing a great deal of harm by
constantly spreading misinformation about alcoholism,
addiction, and recovery. For a couple of examples, see:
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-spirrecov.html
and
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-pseudo2.html

A.A. is also driving people away from recovery with its
cultish religiosity. A lot of people take one look at it
and say, "If that is what I have to turn into to 'recover',
then I'd rather not."

4) And they even scheme to get money out of the government
and health insurance for foisting their ineffective quack
cures on people. Even today, Senator Jim Ramstad (R-MN),
a non-anonymous member of Alcoholics Anonymous, is at
it again. With his "Treatment Parity Bill", he wants to
guarantee that 12-step quacks get parity with real doctors
when it comes to getting paid. But he will not even consider
adding an amendment that requires that the "cures" or
"treatment programs" be tested and proven to actually
work before the government pays for them. ALL other medicines
and medical treatments have to pass rigorous FDA testing,
but not 12-step cures.
All other doctors have to be trained and pass extensive exams
for many years and then be licensed to practice medicine,
but not A.A. quacks. But Sen. Ramstad wants 12-step
treatment centers to get just as much money as any
cancer clinic, and Ramstad wants alcoholics to get just
as much treatment as cancer victims get for cancer.
He calls that "parity".
It wouldn't be so bad if 12-step "treatment" actually worked,
but it doesn't. It's just another cult religion, no more
scientifically valid or effective than Scientology "auditing"
to make people clear-headed and immortal.

5) Lastly, there is the issue of informed consent.
Real doctors are legally and ethically required to explain
the treatment and the risks of any operation.
Doctors are required to tell the truth about the success
rate of any procedure.
A.A. does not do that. A.A. lies about the success (failure)
rate, and A.A. hides the true nature of the program from
beginners. See:
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-bait-switch.html
and
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-cu...ive_recruiting


>> My only experience of AA is of meetings that take place in
>> local halls and on-line meetings. To date, no-one has
>> forced me to go to any such meetings. If I don't turn up,
>> no-one rings me up the following day demanding to know
>> where I was. Furthermore, no-one has forced me into AA's
>> Twelve Step programme, nor are they forcing me to keep
>> working it. This leads me to believe that in my dealings
>> with AA I am able at all times to exercise free will. If
>> what I do enables me to acheive on a daily a basis my goal
>> not to drink you'll not hear me complain :^))

That is another logical fallacy. The fact that you haven't
seen something does not prove that it does not exist.
I have never seen a whale, close up and in person, in spite
of many years of playing in the ocean.
Does that prove that whales do not exist?
As Carl Sagan liked to say about alien intelligences,
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

Just because you luckily managed to avoid seeing the
12-step coercion does not mean that it does not exist.

You haven't been through the criminal justice system or
a "treatment program", have you? In the USA, 93% of
all treatment facilities push the 12-step nonsense.
Try one of them some time, if you want to see the madness.

Besides, you probably have seen the coercion, but you choose
to pointedly ignore it.
Every time you see someone getting one of those slips signed
at a meeting, you are seeing coercion.
There is always a big "OR ELSE" behind the requirement that
people go to meetings and get their slips signed.
When people face jail or prison or loss of their jobs and
careers if they don't go to 12-step meetings, then that is
certainly coercion. Even if the threat is just getting
kicked out of a treatment program for not attending A.A.
meetings, there is still the risk of losing thousands of
dollars. Some health insurance plans make patients pay all
costs if they fail to graduate. For other people, failure
to graduate means the loss of all of the money that they paid
in advance. See a letter from a woman who put her boyfriend
through seven treatment programs for more on that:
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-le...l#seven_rehabs

In addition, there is a point of confusion here. The A.A.
that you are referring to is only one of three different
meanings of the term "A.A.". Variously, A.A. is:

1) a small neighborhood group of recovering alcoholics who
meet to give each other some support in staying sober, and
to "share their experiences, strengths, and hopes".

2) a corporation in New York state that sells a lot of books
about Bill Wilson's cult religion, and commits perjury in
foreign countries to put A.A. members in prison for "carrying
the message". See:
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-no...l#AAWS_perjury

3) a loosely-associated group of organizations that makes
hundreds of millions (or billions) of dollars by foisting
voodoo medicine on alcoholics and drug addicts. It includes,
but is not limited to:
a) the General Service Organization and Alcoholics Anonymous
World Services, Inc.
b) ASAM -- the American Society of Addiction Medicine
c) NCADD -- the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence
d) NAADAC -- the National Association of Alcoholism and Drug
Abuse Counselors
e) thousands of 12-step-based treatment facilities, starting with
the big famous ones like Hazelden and the Betty Ford Clinic.

You participate in the first form of A.A.. Of course you don't see
what the other ones are doing in your name.

>>
>> FWIW, I believe that anyone who wants to not drink for
>> however long they want not to, should be enabled to find a
>> method/programme that enables them to achieve their goal.
>> For this reason, I am always interested in knowing what
>> works for individuals. So, AO, I hope to hear more about
>> why your method works for you. Perhaps others would to.
>>
>> Yours
>>
>> JB
>>

As far as people being able to choose their own program,
I totally agree. But that is not what is happening,
unfortunately. Not at all. (That is supposed to be the
law of the land, but the coercion continues.)

Heck, look at the Talbott-Marsh Recovery Center,
Dr. G. Douglas Talbott's center in Atlanta, Georgia.
Dr. Talbott is a former president of ASAM --
the American Society for Addiction Medicine --
another A.A. front group, this one designed to sell 12-step
treatment to the medical community.

Well, Talbott also decided to force steppism on other
doctors and nurses. His center catered to EAPs and
diversion programs -- programs designed to force drinking
or drug-using employees (or, in this case, doctors, nurses
and dentists) into his center where he tortured them and
drove them to suicide with 12-step "treatment".
That is not an exaggeration. The suicide rate
there was huge, and the patients whom he had mentally
damaged continued to commit suicide in large numbers
even after they left Talbott's center.
And the patients couldn't leave Talbott's prison before
Talbott said they could leave or they would lose their
license to practice medicine.

Oh, by the way, Dr. G. Douglas Talbott is himself a
recovering alcoholic and another true believer in
Alcoholics Anonymous.

Finally, one doctor, Dr. Leonard Masters of Florida, successfully
sued Talbott for $1.3 million for fraud, malpractice, false
imprisonment, and deliberately causing him mental anguish.
(He got even more in punitive damages, but that figure was
not publicly disclosed.) Dr. Masters was lured into Talbott's
center under the pretense of getting a 4-day evaluation.
He couldn't get out for four months.

The court case established that Talbott was so eager to
"carry the message" that he even diagnosed non-alcoholics
as alcoholics and kept them imprisoned for four months or
more of sadistic treatment.
"The healing time is dictated by the patient's progress
rather than a predetermined program [time]," said Talbott
in an earlier newspaper interview, which meant that some
victims were kept imprisoned for up to a year.
And then "graduates" were required to attend A.A. meetings
for an additional 5 years in order to get Talbott's stamp of
approval and avoid professional repercussions.

See:
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-Tiebout.html#Talbott
and
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-letters.html#Talbott
and
http://www.peele.net/debate/talbott.html

Also see The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper,
by doing a search from your public library, if they
have access to the newspapers database.
Just search for "Talbott and Atlanta" or "Talbott and recovery".
First you will get fluffy P.R. stories about how wonderful
the recovery center is (1988-1997), and then you will get
the truth about fraud and false imprisonment (1999).

ASAM -- the American Society for Addiction Medicine-- has
still not disciplined or censured Dr. Talbott, or even had
anything to say on the matter. One can only wonder if such
"treatment programs" are okay with them.

But that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Dr. Talbott is merely one extreme example of the 12-step
"recovery industry", one that got some publicity.
People are routinely shoved into 12-step treatment programs,
everywhere, every day, in order to "force them to get help."
It's all being done "for their own good."

All of that is of course a total violation of the Eleventh
Tradition which says that A.A. is supposed to be a program
of attraction, not promotion. I can't think of any promotion
more intense than imprisoning people and forcing 12-step
religious dogma down their throats.

It is also a violation of the Establishment Clause of the
Constitution of the United States. And of course it is a
violation of the laws against fraud, blackmail, and false
imprisonment.

=====================================

As far as how I stay sober is concerned, I do not have any
magical formula or "program" or "method".
I have a bunch of loosely-connected ideas.

To give fair credit where credit is due, by far and away,
the most important rule for me is something that I got from
a movie about A.A.:
"Just don't take that first drink".

If you just follow that one rule, then you don't need any
other rules, or any 12 steps, or any program, or any meetings,
or any Big Book, or any cult religion...

Beyond that, there is,
"We're just getting too old to be doing that stuff any more."
And,
"Play the tape to the end."
Meaning, look way forwards to see where a single drink will
lead, again, just like it did the last time...
Think about how bad it will get; think about what you will
lose; think about what it will cost for just one night of
getting high...
(That is also a "cost-benefit analysis".)

And I love Paul Roasberry's line:
"Try the one-step program. Just quit drinking."
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-Cult_Called_AA.html

And be sure to read about the Lizard Brain Addiction Monster:
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-addmonst.html
Understanding that little voice that nags me to have a drink
or smoke a cigarette helps A LOT. The biggest cause of
relapses is that stupid little voice nagging people to "just
have one", "it'll be okay", "you can handle it", "you've got
it under control now", "just one to calm your nerves",
"and besides, you deserve it".

And for further reading, check out my "Top 10" reading list
(which has grown to more like 20 items).
There are several good recovery books there which are loaded
with good advice and helpful techniques.
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-top10.html

I also go to SMART meetings, as much to give help to newcomers
as to get help. (You know, so that the meeting won't be only
beginners.) I like SMART, but the truth is, I quit without
it. I didn't even know it existed until some months after I
quit drinking. Still, you can pick up some good ideas and some
helpful techniques for straightening out your thinking.
But SMART is not a "program", and it is not a panacea. It is
not advertised as a cure-all.
It is more like a class where you learn some things. Then,
when you have learned all you need, you walk out. You do not
waste the rest of your life in meetings.

I wrote out a few SMART techniques in another letter:
http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-le...l#cost_benefit


Well, have a good day, and congratulations on your sobriety.
No matter how you get it, it sure beats dying drunk.

* Agent Orange *
* agent_orange@linuxmail.org *
* AA and Recovery Cult Debunking *
* http://aorange1.tripod.com/ *
** Being surrounded by a group of people who keep telling
** you that you are powerless over alcohol, and that your
** will power is useless, is not getting "support". It is
** getting sabotaged.
** With friends like them, you don't need any enemies.

Hi Agent Orange,

Thank you for your reply. I'm pleased to know more about you. To date, nothing you have said has
made think that I ought not to be working AA's Step programme :^)) I

Incidentally, if you reply to this post with further criticisms of either me for doing what I'm
doing or AA as a whole, hoping to make me think differently, I won't :^))

Yours

JB

"Agent_Orange" <agent_orange@linuxmail.org> wrote in message
news:8e728989.0310241122.7441a80b@posting.google.c om...
> "JB" <JBCatRB@coldman.com> wrote in message news:<bmtktu$ivd$1@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk>...
>
<snip very long reply

<snip> See previous message in thread.

AO,

You are right, AA did not work for me -- I worked -- But without trying to
twist my or yours, what I worked was basically a guided realization to
staying sober. It's likely I could have gotten much the same from a good
therapist, if I could have opened up. For me it was simple, I found a group
of people who (a) I felt I could trust and (b) could tell me how to stop
drinking -- how to overcome the beast, the addiction, the craving, whatever
you want to call it. What allowed me to both trust them and listen to them
was the simple fact that they had been there.

Oddly enough, from my own experience I knew the answer but had never applied
it to my drinking. Once I had a couple of Buck Sergeants working for me --
arguing over the best way to make Staff Sergeant. I told them that they
should shut-up as nei