Letters CCCIV

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters304.html#Craig_R ]

Date: Fri, April 27, 2012 8:50 pm     (answered 30 April 2012)
From: "Craig R."
Subject: Your article

I just finished reading your article about powerlessness over alcohol. I have to say I think you're an idiot. You dont believe alcoholism is a disease? Why don't you go on a fact finding mission about how it is a disease. It's only some of the most widely spread knowledge in the medical profession. I find it funny you call AA a cult, have you ever even cracked a book a read the defintion of a cult? You are an absolute moron with no credentials that I can find. If you want to hate and slander AA thats your business. But the very fact that you hang on every word of the big book and freely interpret it the way you see fit also makes you an idiot. I can't phathom what your problem but it's far worse than any alcoholic I've ever met. I really hope you do some valid research and quit resenting the AA name it hasn't ruined anyones life that I've ever heard of, alcohol on the other hand has ruined millions of lives. Find something worth slandering like scientology who's religion is based off a science fiction novel and costs ungodly amounts just to be involved in the church. Maybe you could enlighten me on why AA is so horrible but as I see it your the one putting out all the propaganda.

Hello Craig,

Thanks for the letter.

Starting at the top, you wrote:

I just finished reading your article about powerlessness over alcohol. I have to say I think you're an idiot. You dont believe alcoholism is a disease? Why don't you go on a fact finding mission about how it is a disease. It's only some of the most widely spread knowledge in the medical profession.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
*
**     "...AA certainly functions as a cult and systematically
**     indoctrinates its members in ways common to cults the
**     world over.  ...in the absence of proven scientific
**     efficacy, critics are legitimate in suggesting that
**     mandated AA attendance may be criticized as a failure
**     of proper separation between church and state."
**     == A.A. Trustee Prof. Dr. George E. Vaillant,
**     The Natural History Of Alcoholism Revisited, page 266.

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters304.html#Ann_Marie ]

Date: Fri, April 27, 2012 10:01 pm     (answered 30 April 2012)
From: "Ann Marie"
Subject: right!

Dear Madame/Sir,

I have always thought many things you wrote. I just became overpowered by people trying to run my life.

Thank you,
—
*Ms. Ann Marie H.*

Hello Ann Marie,

Thanks for the letter. I trust that you are feeling freer now.

Just coincidentally, in the previous letter, the correspondent complained that A.A. was not a cult. But people overpowering you trying to run your life is a common cult characteristic, or rather, several of them:

• 1. The Guru is always right.
• 2. You are always wrong.
• 3. No Exit.
• 4. No Graduates.
• 6. Group-think, Suppression of Dissent, and Enforced Conformity in Thinking
• 14. Unquestionable Dogma, Sacred Science, and Infallible Ideology.
• 19. Surrender To The Cult.
• 28. Cloning — You become a clone of the cult leader or other elder cult members.
• 29. You must change your beliefs to conform to the group's beliefs.
• 33. Newcomers can't think right.
• 39. Mentoring.
• 40. Intrusiveness.
• 43. Create a sense of powerlessness, covert fear, guilt, and dependency.
• 49. The guru or the group demands ultra-loyalty and total committment.
• 53. Hierarchical, Authoritarian Power Structure, and Social Castes
• 67. Don't Trust Your Own Mind.
• 68. Don't Feel Your Own Feelings.
• 69. The cult takes over the individual's decision-making process.
• 70. You Owe The Group.
• 72. Progressive Indoctrination and Progressive Commitments
• 86. The cult wants to own you.
• 88. They Make You Dependent On The Group.
• 89. Demands For Compliance With The Group

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
*
**     "Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its
**     victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under
**     robber barons than under omnipotent, moral busybodies. The robber
**     baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be
**     satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us
**     without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience....
**     To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not
**     regard as disease is to be put on a level with those who have not yet
**     reached the age of reason."
**       ==  C. S. Lewis,  "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment",
**           God in the Dock. William B. Berdmans Publishing Company,
**           Grand Rapids, MI, 1994.

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters304.html#Hetu-Ahin ]

Date: Sat, April 21, 2012 2:29 am     (answered 30 April 2012)
From: "Hetu-Ahin"
Subject: share

Hi, Orange,

I just feel motivated to write this to you. This is kind of personal. I hope that is ok.

The AA I know in north and central London now is simply nothing like the AA you describe in all your productions.

I go to 3, 4 mtgs a week. I am getting to know the regulars pretty well, some of them, who I was in rehab with, I know extremely well and I know their entire history in AA.

There simply is — apart from one tiny exceprtion I will metion in a moment — no attempted indoctrination or cultism of any sort. Everyone is there to get better and help others get better. That is, palpably the primary purpose of each member. Many of us also go for fun and company because we enjoy the meetings and we get on as people. There is in BB and 12 and 12 a lot of obviously good-sounding stuff about being honest, helping others and so on. We try to live by those principles. I speak for myself here and I know that I am right about myself! But I also speak for my personal friends in the local groups, and, as far as I can tell, for those who I know only casually from meetings. This is simply my observation of the reality of AA around me here and now. I can also tell you that it is my belief that we are all rather serene — on average more so than non-AAs, though it is a bit of a struggle being serene when recovering from serious long-term alcohol problems — and a lot of us are dual-diagnosis. Given that, we do really well on the serenity front.

I pause to make an interesting contrast. AAs around here are HUGELY more serene than people like WDR who are also recovering addicts but outside AA. WDR are extremely lacking in serenity, as well as honesty or ability to think for themselves or look at evidence and arguments with an open mind.

Around here although we regard the primary purpose of group meetings to be carrying the message, we also use them a lot as self-help group therapy. And when we carry the message we don't do it by parroting banal formulaic stuff — we give details of how we worked through personal problems relating to our alcoholism through AA principles.

Religion is on the whole not an issue. Got-talk is minimal. There are lots of atheists, agnostics and all kinds. There are a fair number — probably not a majority, I don't know for sure — who do think that they have had a spirtual awakening that involves conscious contact with God. But they hardly ever talk about that or mention God — they talk about real things, like what happened last time they relapsed or whatever. Occasionally they will spout God-nonsense, of course. But not a lot.I met one old-timer who clearly had no concept of atheist recovery at all. But that was just one old guy.

The exception — I think I mentioned it in a previous email. An MA group actually, not AA. The 'elders' there (about 4 individuals) were AA fundemantalists. They did not know better. I and a couple of other atheists just talked to them — intensely for a couple of weeks. And they learnt: recovery is possible without ever believing in God. All the 'God' posters have been taken down from the walls at those meetings, as a courtesy to us. And the ex-fundies now either use 'higher power' for 'God' or make a point of saying that they personally have God as their HP, but that is just their own thing. And they are happy with that and we all enjoy the mtgs together. This meeting is attached to a rehab, so we get 6-10 newcomers a week.

Ok — I want to mention again that 'you think you are different' document at aa.org. The fact is it has the story of a succesfully recovering atheist in AA who never came to believe in a supernatural HP. That is hugely significant. It is the only explicit recognition of recovery without God by AA other than Burwell's story in the 1955 edition of BB. It is npot insignficant.

AA cannot as whole be a cult because it is too disorganized. It is anarchic. All kind of groups arise. AA as a floewwhip now explicitly recognzises that recovery does not require belief in the supernatural.

That is all for now.
May you have serenity,
Hetu-Ahin

Hello again, Hetu-Ahin,

Thanks for the letter and the opinion.

You started with,

The AA I know in north and central London now is simply nothing like the AA you describe in all your productions.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
*
**  "You have no conception these days of how much failure we had.
**  You had to cull over hundreds of these drunks to get a handful
**  to take the bait."
**  Bill Wilson describing early recruiting efforts for Alcoholics Anonymous,
**  at the memorial service for Dr. Bob, Nov. 15, 1952; file available here.

[The next letter from Hetu-Ahin is here.]

April 22, 2012, Sunday: The Fernhill Wetlands Goslings munching bread That curious examination of the bread is priceless. Like, "What the heck is this stuff?" The goslings are using a parent for shade. [More gosling photos below, here.]

[The previous letter from David is here.]

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters304.html#David ]

Date: Mon, April 30, 2012 1:57 pm     (answered 1 May 2012)
From: "David"
Subject: Re: AA

Hi Orange,

Thanks for that.

I've had a wander through your website and applied for entry to the forum. I don't think that I hate AA per se as much as many seem to. I'd say that the meeting I've been going to is full of people who are not 'spiritually fit' by their own standards. They are so far up their own colons there's no chance they can see daylight. And that makes them dangerous to others who are struggling with a life threatening condition (call it disease, or whatever, it is certainly life-threatening and what you call it is just a word). There was another AA group a year or so ago that I went to for the first time. It called itself a 'Step Meeting' on the find AA card. I went along and asked some questions; one of the members said "This is a STEP meeting, I don't know why you are here". To which I replied "Well, I think I'm an alcoholic and I thought that this was an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting". There seemed to be reluctant acceptance in the meeting that I might have a point.

But I cannot believe that all meetings are as bad. Back in the early 1990s I went to a meeting several times and the people there, if my recollection serves me correctly, seemed much more engaging.

Common-sense and intuition tell us that it must be easier to cope with a drinking problem with others to help than to deal with it alone with friends and family who have no concept of what it's like not to drink....normal people who can for the most part take it or leave it....and say 'no thanks' when they've had enough. For me there isn't enough unless I buy it and drink it alone because I'd be ashamed to drink as much as that in company — yes, like you, I have never got to the stage where I'd do literally anything and be totally uninhibited.

Anyway, Orange, I'm not sure I can relate to the more vindictive anti AA comments. The worst of them are bad and dangerous to others. The best can help. For people needing some kind of spiritual cult, AA could fit the bill and as long as they don't cosh old ladies on the head to and from their meetings, does it matter — with the caveat that they don't screw up people with life threatening alcoholism to satisfy their beliefs.

Still, when you get a chance, please let me into the forum and I'll enjoy chewing some of this stuff over, and hope to find some support.

Best wishes, David

Hello David,

Thanks for the letter.

I never said that all A.A. meetings were bad. I have said over and over again that they are all different, and you will find some nice groups and some nice people — even the Newcomers Rescue League — and you will find some very bad groups where sexual predators rape the young women.

What I did say is that Alcoholics Anonymous is just selling an old pro-Nazi cult religion from the nineteen-thirties as a cure for alcohol abuse, and it does not work, and they lie about that.

The value of "group support" is highly dubious. Common sense may tell you that it is better to have a group than be alone, but most of the successful people did it alone, without any such group:

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
*
**     Just because people say that they are working for a good cause
**     does not make them good people. Remember that both the Nazis
**     and the Communists were "working for good causes."
**     So was the Medieval Catholic Church that burned girls and men
**     to death at the stake for "witchcraft" and "heresy",
**     while the Pope sold indulgences and Bishops' offices.
**     And they all still claimed that they were trying to get people
**     into Heaven — their kind of heaven, some kind of heaven.

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters304.html#GS ]

Date: Mon, April 30, 2012 5:17 pm     (answered 2 May 2012)
From: gs
Subject: AA

On searching for the failure rate for AA I wonder how current your info is. I came across your site while looking and after attending AA rehab and going to AA meetings I do think it is a cult.

Hello GS,

Thanks for the question. The information covers the entire range from the beginnings of A.A. to very recently, just in the last few years.

1. This link gives information about the A.A. failure rate in the earliest days of A.A.

2. This describes the failure rate and death rate from A.A. treatment of alcoholics for an 8-year period ending around 1984.

3. This link gives information about the counts of sobriety coins given out about 12 years ago.

4. This describes the dropout rate just three "triennial surveys" ago — that is, about 9 years ago.

5. This spreadsheet gives the large numbers of newcomers and the few oldtimers in Omaha Nebraska just a few years ago.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     If the thought of quitting drinking forever makes you feel like you are
**     going to lose your best friend, then alcohol is probably your worst enemy.

April 22, 2012, Sunday: Fernhill Wetlands: The Family You might notice that, at this minute, the goslings have had their fill of bread and are eating greens. They have an amazing built-in sense of what constitutes a balanced diet, and they are very good about eating their greens. When I was feeding Carmen, she would insist on filling her stomach three-quarters full of grass first, and then she would finish with the last quarter full of rice. Goslings using a parent for shade Notice how the little gosling is standing on one foot, just like how its parents do. Just hangin' out The life of goslings: resting and eating [The story of the goslings continues here.]

[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters304.html#Ward ]

Date: Wed, May 2, 2012 10:21 am     (answered 4 May 2012)
From: "Ward"
Subject: Apparently never sent but maybe worth a gander....

I wrote this in response to you back in January but never sent....anyway better late than never.

Oh Well, have a good day.

Ward

Hello Ward,

Thanks for the letter. I actually agree with most of it. We disagree on just a few points, but some of them are important:

1. You mentioned "5%" several times. The recovery rate from drugs and alcohol isn't 5% total, it's five percent per year. Cumulatively, after a bunch of years, it adds up to about 50%.

2. Whatever benefits come from associating with other non-using people in an N.A. meeting can also be gained by attending meetings of SMART, SOS, Lifering, WFS, HAMS, MM, or any other such group. And the benefit of all of those other groups are that they are not pushing an old cult religion as the solution to addiction problems. One of the big reasons that A.A. and N.A. have such low success rates is because they teach ideas about addiction that are just untrue, like the disease theory, and being "powerless".

3. Speaking of which, you wrote about addiction as both a disease and a choice. In one paragraph you wrote:

   I would argue that the defining point concerning the desease model of addiction is the addict's continued use of substances despite a concious knowledge that such usage may be eliminated only by exercising the will to stop.
   ...
   For many, death may be the only bottom that stops their disease.
   

   Then, in the next paragraph you wrote:

   Until I exercised my will enough to attempt to change my behavior, I was suicidally using narcotics. Upon making the initial decision to live instead of die, I found my way to Narcotics Anonymous.
   

   That's it. That's the whole ball game. You exercised your will and you make a choice, and you stuck to it. And you made the big important choice BEFORE you ever went to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. So did I. I quit drinking and drugging two weeks before I was sent to A.A. and N.A. meetings by a so-called "treatment program".

   It isn't a disease, it's a bad habit.

4. I know it's hard to quit. Believe me, I know. You wrote:

   Using myself as an anectdotal example, I simply was unable to stop taking drugs. Powerless. I hate the concept; but the fact remained, that no matter how dismal my life became, I continued to abuse drugs.
   

   Right. I was also "unable" to quit drinking and smoking for a long time. I'd say to myself, "I really need to quit doing this stuff. It's killing me." But then I'd say, "But let me do a little more right now, because I'm in pain now. I'll quit later."

   I was "unable to quit" — "powerless over my addiction" — until I suddenly did quit. When it came down to a choice of live or die, I suddenly chose to quit both drinking and smoking (and also drugging) and improve my health. And I did. And that was 11 years ago, and I'm still quit and my health is good. Funny how that works.

   It was always a choice. It was just a difficult choice to make when pain is pushing you to kill the pain.

5. You said,

   I would not want my life to be held up to the kind of scrutiny that you hold Mr. Wilson to.
   

   Yes, but neither you nor I hold ourselves up as prophets who talk to God and get infallible holy Programs from God to save all of the alcoholics. Neither you nor I have started a cult religion that lies about its success in saving alcoholics from death.

6. Personally, I don't care how anyone gets sober. ANY METHOD has my blessing.(Pretty magnanimous for an athiest, doncha think?)
   ...
   In fact, NA quite simply guarantees only one thing. The freedom from the complusion to abuse drugs, if you follow their program.
   ...
   I'm simply not willing to cut this thread, thin as it may be, from the fabric of recovery.
   

   I understand. I am also for any and all methods that actually work. But that is the nasty gotcha. Does it work? Do Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous really work? Do they really help alcoholics and addicts? Do the alcoholics and addicts benefit from hearing the 12 Steps read out loud at the start of every meeting?

   The A.A. and N.A. "program" does not and cannot guarantee "freedom from the complusion to abuse drugs, if you follow their program." It can't. Doing the practices of a crazy old pro-Nazi cult religion from the nineteen-thirties does not save people from addiction to alcohol, tobacco, or drugs.

   The A.A. and N.A. program is just as ineffective as quackery like witchcraft and faith healing. And for the same reason.

   Here are the results of clinical tests of Alcoholics Anonymous. And here are some tests of Narcotics Anonymous.

   What saves people from drugs and alcohol is just the opposite of what A.A. and N.A. teach: Become powerful. Do not be powerless over your addiction. Do not be powerless over alcohol, or tobacco, or food, or sex, or anything else. Develop your will power and take charge of your own life. Over-ride the addictive voice that cajoles us to indulge.

   Bill Wilson called taking charge of your own life and taking care of yourself "Playing God", and he condemned it. Bill also condemned will power and self-reliance. Bill wanted everybody to be grovelling slaves of God. Bill was nuts.

   Again, there are other much better "support groups" that will help people to get and stay clean and sober without indoctrinating them with a lot of misinformation. Here is the list of non-cult organizations and methods.

7. You wrote:

   Personally, as an athiest, I feel that you are going after low hanging fruit. Why not address the gross misconduct of organized religion. My God, (to coin a phrase) has more pain and suffering ever been heaped upon members of an organization than what the clergy inflicts upon believers from it's pulpit on high? What about the abuses of the state? Men, Women sent to kill and die in war?
   

   Oh, I quite agree, and have commented on all of those things repeatedly. Maybe even too much. I have to work on keeping my focus. I don't want this web site to turn into The Drudge Report. This web site is about addiction and recovery, and the "treatment" hoax, and cult religions passing themselves off as the salvation of mankind (or womankind), including as cures for addiction or insanity.

   Nevertheless, I have noted how Moses wrote in the Bible that it is perfectly okay to rob and murder your non-Jewish neighbors, and kidnap and rape their virgin daughters. And he killed hundreds of thousands of them.

   Child-molesting priests have gotten their fair share of mentions too. And jokes. And the medieval Catholic Church has gotten criticism.

   And George W. Bush and his wars didn't fare well, either.

   Still, I'm trying to keep the focus on addiction and recovery, and hoaxes that don't help addicts and alcoholics. And talk about what does help.

8. I totally agree that alcoholics and addicts need help in establishing new sober lives. It is a huge adjustment to just suddenly switch from drinking and drugging as a lifestyle to being a tea-totaller. Unfortunately, most of the "half-way houses" in the USA are just hotbeds of 12-Step cult religion. We need to improve that situation too.

9. Oh, and it's been nearly 10 years now since I've been to either an Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meeting. And it's been 11 years since I went for any reason other than to collect coins and keytags as they came due. (Yes, I had a "drunk junk" habit for a while, and have quite a collection of A.A. sobriety coins and N.A. keytags. But I don't bother with that any more.)

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.info        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
*
**     One Stepper declared, "My stability came out of trying to
**     give, not out of demanding that I receive."
**     Serving humanity is all fine and well, but what if you are humbly,
**     lovingly, spiritually giving out cups of cyanide koolaid?
**     No matter how generous and loving and unselfish you are
**     while you hand it out, it's still cyanide koolaid.

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Last updated 26 December 2013.
The most recent version of this file can be found at http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters304.html