Go read this article by Paul A. Toth at The Nervous Breakdown:
Alcoholism, AA and the Medical Industry: Nationwide Malpractice
Toward the end of the comments section, the author poses a topic for discussion:
Question:If alcohol really is a disease, shouldn’t it primarily be treated by physicians?
No one seems to have engaged him on this question yet.
Stinkin' Thinkin' 
March 31, 2010 at 7:32 pm
Question:If alcohol really is a disease, shouldn’t it primarily be treated by physicians?
Probably. Which is why the book “Alcoholics Anonymous” went out of its way to NOT say that alcoholism is a disease. Bill Wilson didn’t think so when asked directly either. The disease concept is a Treatment Industry thing GSO fell for it in a pamphlet too – but that doesn’t not negate the simple fact that Big Book co-authors DID NOT think that alcoholism is a disease. And neither do I.
March 31, 2010 at 9:16 pm
If it is a disease, and you need to quit — you quit.
If it is not a disease and you need to quit — you quit.
What Wilson thought it was is immaterial.
April 1, 2010 at 6:25 pm
Bad news on that one, Danny. Bill Wilson referred to alcoholism as a disease when he testified before a congressional committee in 1969. Here is the quote
“Mr. Bill W.- When you consider the enormous ramifications of this disease, we have just scratched the surface. I think we should humbly remember this.”
While he did, indeed, remain careful in his use of the word “malady” several times during his testimony, he did let the D word slip during the subsequent Q&A session. It looks like the founder himself left you high and dry on the “not a disease” pulpit. The entire transcript of his testimony can be viewed here:
http://www.a-1associates.com/aa/testimony.htm
The “malady” plea is bogus, anyway, if you care to look at a dictionary. What the heck, I’ll do it for you.
Main Entry: mal·a·dy
Pronunciation: \ˈma-lə-dē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural mal·a·dies
Etymology: Middle English maladie, from Anglo-French, from malade sick, from Latin male habitus in bad condition
Date: 13th century
1 : a disease or disorder of the animal body
2 : an unwholesome or disordered condition
And from the thesaurus:
Main Entry: malady
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: disease
Synonyms: ache, affection, affliction, ailment, attack, blight, bug*, cancer, complaint, condition, contagion, debility, disability, disorder, distemper, epidemic, fever, flu, ill health, illness, infection, infirmity, inflammation, plague, sickness, syndrome, virus
April 1, 2010 at 6:45 pm
I know. He recanted it later. I have let slip the same word myself in talks and in writing. That doenst mean I belive it is a disease – it means I fucked up. Just like we all do.
Bill did not believe it was a disease. And he says so.
April 1, 2010 at 6:57 pm
Danny — if it is a disease and you need to quit — you quit
if it is not a disease and you need to quit — you quit.
Whatever Wilson may have thought – or not thought – is immaterial.
April 1, 2010 at 6:58 pm
Got any links or references to the denial? Not that it matters, since “malady” and “disease” are like “spiritual” and “religious”, in that they mean the same thing.
April 1, 2010 at 7:30 pm
Not to a lot of people Mike. Millions of people hold important distinctions between those terms and you ought o respect that. You don’t have to make ANY distinction for yourself you don’t want to make. That does not negate the fact that for many people there are worlds of differences. I’ll respect your right to not learn the distinctions and you respect the rights of other who have discovered them and they do NOT use the terms interchangeably.
That’s a beautiful thing about the English language that different words have difference meanings. Please don’t let limitations in vocabulary such as the one you cite hamper your respect for those who are more fluent or learned.
Peace and Love,
Danny S – RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic
http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com
April 1, 2010 at 7:41 pm
So, I’m supposed to respect your fluent and learned steppish jargon over Merriam Webster and Roget?
April 1, 2010 at 8:14 pm
Mine? No I believe I said ‘millions of people’ for whom the words you are having a problem with are NOT limited to AA ‘jargon’. Words like “religion” “spirituality” are not solely within AA parlance my friend- as you have just now implied referring to these as “steppish jargon”. That is ridiculous.
You really don’t read so good my friend. It is no wonder your understanding of things based upon a volume of written work – THE BIG BOOK has been correspondingly handicapped. No matter. Just weight carefully who would be your interpreter. That would be my recommendation.
April 2, 2010 at 4:23 am
When millions of people show up agreeing with you, I will give your assertions some credibility. Till then, many words of the English language are synonymous. Your rhetorical parsing might fly in Denmark, where English isn’t the spoken language, but here, it is just steppish jargon. Sorry, just how it is. If you want to compare IQs, education levels, reading comprehension skills, or any other measurable quantifier of intellect, I’m game. If you want to swap barbs and insults, we can work it that way, too. We did plenty of that back in the days of your pal FrescaTom, the Primary Purpose strong-arm man.
April 2, 2010 at 8:22 am
English isn’t the spoken language>>
Sorry but EVERYONE speaks English in Denmark. They speak it very very well. Better than many Americans I know.
April 2, 2010 at 10:34 am
Danny, that wasn’t English they were speaking to you but, rather, steppish. How many 12-steppers do you reckon they have in a European country of less than six million? I’m guessing you probably met every one of them.
April 2, 2010 at 2:08 pm
Sorry Danny, but that is a crock! If you’ve been around the rooms a while then you know how AA’ers define alcoholism.
March 31, 2010 at 9:21 pm
If alcohol really is a disease then yes, it should primarily be treated by physicians, especially the alcoholic ones. I attended medical school for several years and, although I never passed The Bar and became an MD, I stayed in touch with several of my classmates who did and I can assure you that they all know how to drain a bottle and thus protect the public from the dangers of its contents.
March 31, 2010 at 9:40 pm
MDs don’t take the bar exam. If your going to be a liar at least get basic facts straight. I suppose you’ll never be a lawyer either.
April 1, 2010 at 6:43 pm
I guess I should have made this more clear: I meant “The Bar” as in “a counter or location where beverages, especially liquor, are served to its patrons, especially drunks.” I apologize for any confusion this may have caused.
For the record, 1.] I have never passed any bar I’ve seen, [unless I absolutely have to get to a court date] whereas many of my med-school bros did “pass the bar” so now they have the cushy jobs and I still have the coolest nickname in our frat [“THUNDERBALLS”], B.] for a Founding Father who loved booze, broads and talking shit, Ben Franklin is kind of a humorless prig on the Internet, and III.] “your” means “belonging to you.”
Ben, if you’re going to act like a hall monitor on the Internet, at least get basic grammar straight. If this is your A-game, then I weep for the poor editor who will have to line-edit FART PROUDLY Volume Two …. if you come ever stop fighting crime on the WWW long enough to write it.
yours in christ,
— pierre
March 31, 2010 at 9:27 pm
As the author of the piece linked on this page (and thank you for that), AA very clearly employs the disease model of alcoholism: http://www.bhrm.org/papers/AAand%20DiseaseConcept.pdf
The official Oregon AA site [http://www.aa-oregon.org/] states: “Members of A.A. volunteer in a variety of ways to bring hope to those who share our disease.”
Personally, I don’t believe alcoholism is a disease. I raised the issue not because I’m so concerned with whether or not AA considers alcoholism a disease but because the substance abuse treatment community almost-universally accepts the disease model. This despite the fact that, even though AA does refer to the disease model, its key document, the 12 Steps, stands in direct contrast to the disease model.
This is all very confusing, and that’s the problem. If AA considers alcoholism largely a spiritual issue, that’s fine with me, but that is not medicine and therefore the treatment community, having bought the disease model, cannot ethically refer patients to AA. Its tantamount to referring them to acupuncturists.
The obvious solution here is for the treatment community to drop its adherence to the disease model, as it presents many problems and conflicts that could otherwise be avoided. I suggest that alcoholism be labeled a psychological “syndrome.”
Of course, alcoholism has physical consequences. Genetics also plays some, but not as much as some like to think, role in the development or predisposition to develop alcoholism.
Yet so far, true medical treatment of anything beyond withdrawal and the DTs has not arrived. Therefore, until that day arrives, if it ever arrives, alcoholism ought ought not to be considered a disease or treated as one. Instead, it should primarily be considered a psychological disorder, one often associated with other psychological disorders that preceded or proceeded the development of alcoholism.
That alcoholism causes diseases does not render alcoholism itself a disease, just as living in a polluted city and developing lung cancer does not make pollution a disease itself but rather a causal agent of certain diseases.
At any rate, the burden for resolving these issues rests not with AA but with the treatment community, which is trying to have it both ways in supporting a disease model while referring patients to AA. Even though AA’s position regarding the disease model is wobbly, at best, it denies that model in its approach to alcoholism.
One doesn’t see a physician referring a cancer patient to a psychologist for a cure. In the opposite way, if alcoholism were indeed a disease, then the treatment community should refer alcoholics to physicians. That they don’t brings into question how much they really believe alcoholism to be a disease compared to how much they claim alcoholism to be a disease for the purposes of gaining support in the form of federal aid and grants. A disease attracts far more money than a “character defect.”
March 31, 2010 at 11:24 pm
This is a weird little article in “Medical News Today”: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/184138.php
It seems way too short, but also seems to pack a lot in there, especially regarding the disease model of addiction, and this little tidbit:
April 1, 2010 at 5:26 am
Hi Paul. Thanks for a thought-provoking piece, which I thought identified the central inconsistency in the AA “philosophy” very well. Whatever semantic dodges and disclaimers are used, it is very clear that the initial pitch of AA’s key tract, the so-called Big Book, is that alcoholism is an involuntary medical condition and thus not a cause for shame or stigma, but this is contradicted by the “solution” AA offers which discusses how to rid oneself of “character defects” (later in the book explicitly revealed to be a euphemism for sin)by invoking the intervention of God in one’s life.
Personally, I always found the contradiction between these two positions so glaringly obvious that the authors themselves cannot have been unaware of it, but the knack of living in a state of cognitive dissonance accommodating two mutually exclusive ideas simultaneously is not unheard of in religious and quasi-religious movements. I would definitely describe AA as quasi-religious in nature.
I wouldn’t have any particular problem with AA if it was unequivocally religious, as long as it was entirely voluntary and completely unconnected with any outside agency. But it seems to disingenuously want to have it both ways.
It is even more obvious that the medical profession ought to see the inconsistency between claiming that alcoholism is a medical disorder and prescribing a “spiritual” practice to get rid of character defects or sins as a solution for it. Whatever the reason for them turning a blind eye to it, it’s really inexcusable.
April 1, 2010 at 7:01 am
I agree. AA, to me, has its problems. Many of its members seem to find a way around them; I’ve no problem with that. But you are correct that AA both accepts the disease model and negates that model by the nature of Step 6, in particular, whereby one asks God’s help in removing character defects. As I understand it, one major purpose of the disease model was to rid the world of the idea that alcoholism is the result of a character defect! Therefore, the acceptance of AA as the ubiquitous group therapy and/or self-help group is bizarre, to say the least. I recently saw a therapist who took the general party line in absolutely refusing to accept any reasoning against attending AA. But if people stopped drinking before AA existed, then they can stop drinking without it now, and they could more easily do so if some alternatives existed. In fact, they do exist, but they’re nowhere near as available as AA. Making such alternatives as available as AA seems key to me. Alcoholics can’t afford to wait for psychologists to determine whether or not they’ll call alcoholism a psychological syndrome or a physical disease. There are many conditions much more solidly proven to have organic bases but which are considered psychological ailments. Only alcoholism has attained its special status as a “disease” with no known precise cause(s) or mode of physical treatment. There is very little to zero support for my ideas in the therapy community. It is completely blinded by the lack of science in its thinking.
April 1, 2010 at 7:20 am
This blindness/refusal on the part of professionals renders them useless in the matter of substance abuse. As a result, it seems to me that the best thing a person can do to help themselves is to quit on their own. I see no reason to put a sugar coating on it. Then, after quitting, if one still has problems in living, consult a trustworthy and wise person. That person may, or may not, be a professional therapist.
April 1, 2010 at 8:41 am
There are some very real problems from having someone with an alleged voice of authority-a substance abuse counselor or the family doctor diagnosing this so called “disease”
AA, and its profitable arm, the recovery industry, takes it from the disease model and throws in some fanatical, evangelical, fundamentalist religion. This morphs this controversial issue because they add the terminology of ALWAYS progressive, ALWAYS terminal, and ALWAYS incurable, unless arrested.
There are some real complications to this. The Brandsma study concluded that persons in their first year of AA killed themselves from binge drinking at 5 times the national average, and died from binge drinking at 9 times the national average.
In addition, how many people have been killed by drunk drivers that have been through tax funded treatment (tax funded treatment is always 12 step based), and were wrongfully informed they had a terminal brain disease?
There is a lot of blame to go around in this disaster. The medical community deserves some blame because they handed over a disease they concocted to an industry (17 billion dollar industry, roughly the size of the Hollywood film business)
This industry is nearly all 12 step based, which is actually a case on the inmates running the asylum. It has gone so far that “rehab” actually is a punchline for late night comedians.
The problem is Lindsay Lohan will run someone over some day.
April 1, 2010 at 11:25 am
If alcoholism is a disease as is commonly believed in and out of AA ( without a lot of evidence that proves that is a disease that I know of)
Then referring patients to AA is almost equivalent to referring cancer patients to a faith healer to heal cancer.
The conclusion that is commonly derived from the premise that alcoholism is a disease by the medical community/ addiction treatment industry is totally nonsensical and absurd.
Basically, it is one of the biggest April fools day jokes ever played on society in history (I know this is hyperbole hehe)
In a modern society that is built on many great and wonderful scientific and technological discoveries and advances. Referring people who have a disease to a faith healer, witch doctor or a snake handler is a totally archaic and ridiculous approach to healing a disease. This is what it is like in my mind for the medical and recovery treatment industry to refer people to AA.
There are a few evidence based abstinence based social groups that are not hostile to medicine or science ( SMART, LIFE RING, SOS)
Why are these programs not being considered as viable and valid alternatives by the medical community and treatment industry?
Is it because anonymous AA members have infiltrated and promulgated their propaganda so effectively in the addiction treatment industry?
April 1, 2010 at 3:41 pm
I basically don’t have a problem with the disease concept. However,I do have a problem with a closed, absolutest system of faith healing tied to an infallible doctrine that amounts to junk theology. If medical science operated on similar assumptions, doctors would still be bleeding people or trying to scare away bad humors with incantations and so forth. Aside from that, AA has an abysmal success rate.
It seems that addiction studies don’t merit serious attention in the medical community. The best and the brightest become cardiologists or neurosurgeons. Alcoholism and substance abuse have become a File 13 diagnosis. Alcoholics and addicts get a regimen of treatment similar to that of lunatics in the early 1800s who were once consigned places like Bedlam and given moral instruction as a remedy — at least when they weren’t being abused outright. Are drug and alcohol treatment facilities any different?
April 1, 2010 at 4:37 pm
This is the one issue regarding AA that I tend to really get upset about, because it makes the least sense to me.
I can get worked up about the way people treat each other in AA — but that actually makes sense to me. It’s terrible, but it seems to me to conform to what I know about human behavior. People can be really unreasonable and cruel when they’re part of a mob, and especially if they feel that they have God on their side.
What doesn’t make sense is how the whole medical community just fobbed a vast area of mental and physical health off on a “spiritual program.” I repeat myself, but, how did this happen? And, more importantly, why is it still happening?
I have my theories. For instance, I think maybe alcoholism/addiction hasn’t been able to shake the kind of stigma that mental illnesses used to have. Not to say that there’s not still a stigma around mental illness, of course. But generally speaking, people don’t expect schizophrenics to snap out of it, or just pull themselves up by the bootstraps, or pray it away anymore. We don’t preform exorcisms on, or torture, mentally ill people anymore (well, of course we do, but the conventional wisdom is that we should know better at this stage in our evolution).
At some point, mental illness became a serious and legitimate area of research. But it seems that there is no such serious research into addiction. Even prominent rational doctors, who promote a medical or scientific approach to addiction, will honor the “spiritual awakening” cure. I’m thinking of guys like Dr. Harold Urschel and Dr.Mark Willenbring, who seem to know better, but can’t bring themselves to actually say so. Or, perhaps they know that in order to get a toehold, they have to genuflect.
It might be worthwhile to approach addiction as a condition that’s akin to obsessive compulsive disorder.
April 1, 2010 at 4:47 pm
I think that stigma remains alive and well. And, this society has a lot of religiousity and moralism. So, a drunkard has a morality problem, and we retain an affection for religious solutions to moral problems. And, addiction is difficult to treat and all tangled up with mental illness. Complicated and confusing. Thus, follow the line of least resistance and put it in God’s hands – and his vicar on earth, AA.
As for mobs: I don’t do mobs. bad excuse for bad conduct.
April 1, 2010 at 5:11 pm
The medical industry, as well as recovery industry has a legal and ethical obligation to use “informed consent”
They are obligated to tell the success rates of AA and 12 step treatment, as well as be forthcoming about the fact that US courts have declared AA to be “unequivically religious” ffaith healing.
It is a disgrace that the medical community is not SHOUTING the disaster of the current subsatnce abuse system.
April 1, 2010 at 5:19 pm
Then again, I also think it all might just boil down to some happy aphorism: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
It’s broke! Jeezusghod, it’s freakin’ broke already!
(Now that I’m thinking about it, I’d like to point out that anyone who uses the word “ain’t” has a mustache. I don’t care who you are. You have a mustache.)
April 1, 2010 at 5:30 pm
If you consider ‘alcoholism is a disease’ to be an affectation, and not actually, believed – and I think that nostrum is an affectation – then this business of 12 step makes sense. There is nothing to be done, as it is a moral problem. “I can’t treat you unless you quit drinking”, is the order of the day. That is how it works as far as I am concerned. As I said before, it is best to quit on your own; then, see someone about other problems.
April 1, 2010 at 5:59 pm
I do wonder — and I suppose I should ask Danny about this (Danny!) — about the nature of the alcohol allergy which generates such a ferocious craving.
I have heard — can’t cite sources, sorry — about how an allergy to a substance (like sugar) will cause a craving for the allergen.
But, according to the Silkworth allergy theory (yes, I don’t know wtf I’m talking about), is this apocalyptic — chain the werewolf to the radiator type of craving that Danny describes on his blog — unique only to alcohol addiction?
If so, then why don’t other allergies have the same effect? If no other allergy manifests this way, then by what standard is this craving considered an allergy?
And, furthermore, why doesn’t this particular allergy to alcohol manifest in different ways? Many people are allergic to the same thing, but some just get the sniffles or a little itchy eyes, while some cannot even function. Some people might break out in hives over peanut butter, while others’ throats might close up. They’re both allergic to the same thing.
How does this allergy theory reconcile the plain fact that different people respond to the same allergy in different ways? If this doesn’t apply to alcohol, then why not?
Why wouldn’t an allergy manifest in one person as a craving and in another as hives?
I know people who are allergic to alcohol in a very classic way — meaning that their bodies do not tolerate it at all. One drink and they’re sick as dogs. Their bodies cannot even tolerate enough alcohol to get buzzed, and the definitely don’t crave the stuff. Are they alcoholics?
April 1, 2010 at 7:00 pm
It’s the idea that it could be an allergy stems from knowing that craving is an ABNORMAL Reaction not experienced by most other people. THAT abnormal reaction is what suggests the “allergy theory” — not so much what that reaction actually is. Besides, the Big Book co-authors did not ‘BUY’ the allergy theory anyway. Nope!. Didn’t accept it as truth. And they say so right in their running commentary (opinion of the Drs Opinion) of text that runs in between the two letters that comprise most of that section of the book, “Alcoholics Anonymous.”
We have a lot of people who ‘THINK’ they stood behind the doctors theory did but they specifically state that they do not! They only acknowledge the “effect” description – the CRAVING – but they specifically do not embrace Silkworth’s theory. All they admit to is that it “interests us”. Sorry but many, many AA’s are not even aware of this. I wouldn’t expect you to be FTG.
Danny S – RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic
http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com
April 2, 2010 at 5:12 am
Danny — there is nothing unusual about ‘craving’. It is in no way ‘abnormal’. It is a commonplace.
I have no interest in what you expect people not to know.
April 2, 2010 at 8:41 am
You are not acknowledging the distinction between different ‘kinds’ of craving. Its an excellent word that can be used to describe many types of the ‘pining’ that human being experience. There are in the human realm cravings that are mental and there are those that are physical. Some even say there are spiritual cravings such as a yearning for truth or for closeness to God, whatever. What woman cannot identiofy with the emotional craving for paternal love with her father and spouse? (If they are honest) “Craving” as used in the Doctors Opinion is the word chosen to describe a very particular reaction to a single type of food – a carbohydrate which we call Alcohol. There are many different kinds of ‘alcohol’ too, such as the kind found in trace amounts in other foods like OJ – or that is distilled from wood – but it is not any of THESE classes of alcohol with which we alkies have that abnormal ‘craving’ reaction once introduced to the system. The word ‘craving’ can be used broadly to signify many types of “yearnings” even ones that are NOT physical but are mental manifestations, for say, sex or White Castle Hamburgers or fly fishing in spring is not the same kind of physical ‘craving’ an alkies experiences AFTER alcohol enter his body. The kind of craving for EtOH is a metabolic by product of the inability to process Etoh by a very minuscule portion of the human population. Some like “Asian Flush” would be another example of an abnormal reaction to EtOH but it is not the same one described in the Big Book.
Peace and Love,
Danny S – RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic
http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com
April 1, 2010 at 7:05 pm
Craving PLUS Obsession is all that the AA description holds. It is articulated as a TWO FOLD malady and those are the only ‘folds’ (I hate that word – it isn’t even in the book)
There is no THIRD folds. Spiracle malady is another separate form of illness all together. It is not a part of alcoholism according to the book.
I’m just relating the book stuff. I am not smart enough to come up with this. Just thought I’d mention that. (Well I probably am smart enough – but I just wasn’t the one to come up with te description. But I can read reeeel goooooodd!)
Danny S – RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic
http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com
April 1, 2010 at 7:34 pm
Bill W. himself (prophet,seer, and revelator of the AA faith) stated that alcoholism was NOT a disease.
http://www.silkworth.net/religion_clergy/01052.html
Q and A section, third question.
However, the recovery industry, of whom the governing leadership of AA has decided to loan its name to, profit from, and continue have a incestous relationship, requries the disease model of addiction to survive.
We will never know how many people have died due to this unfortunate greed.
April 1, 2010 at 7:49 pm
As I mentioned before, it depended on who he was addressing. When he spoke before a congressional committee which was considering legislation favorable to the treatment industry, he had no problem calling it a disease.
April 1, 2010 at 7:55 pm
I would not doubt that for a second. Bill was a bad writer and a crappy theologian, but he was a world class con man
April 2, 2010 at 4:28 am
Bill had no problem allowing close associates like Marty Mann to carry out intense lobbying efforts for acceptance of the disease model either.
April 2, 2010 at 4:04 am
Lay folk wisdom about medical matters delivered with an air of authority by zealots who were actually proud of their ignorance was one of the main reasons I had to get away from AA.
April 2, 2010 at 9:02 am
“Alkies” do not have an “abnormal craving”. Danny, that is a figment of your imagination.
If you want to argue that “alcoholism” is caused by hypoglycemia, it is a free country.
April 2, 2010 at 9:49 am
LMAO! I don’t know man, they didn’t seem too normal to me when I got them!
No one ought to expect you to understand an experience you have never had. That would be silly of me.
But I will say it is rather arrogant of anyone to insist that a human condition doesn’t exist simply because it is beyond their own experience. There is such a thing as ADD, menstruation, and the fear of spiders just because YOU haven’t got em’ doesn’t mean they ain’t so.
How DAAARE you besmirch my impeccable experience! silly person. Open your mind. (I take ‘silly’ back, sorry)
Peace and Love,
Danny S – RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic
http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com
April 2, 2010 at 10:21 am
You found that that 12 step – a spiritual awakening if you will – is a solution that suited you. No problem. Other people find solutions that are different from yours. That is not a problem either. That is why we need a whole range of approaches.
April 2, 2010 at 10:33 am
Very true. I know of very few people in the meeting I have attended in the last 12 years who probably could do better elsewhere. “better” meaning have stopped drinking, gotten their lives together and NOT have to serve time in church basements- because that’s all is if for them. They do not even need to be there. (Some of them – probably the more intelligent of them – realized they have fallen for a lie, hook-line-and-sinker and do go away finally and start AA-grudge blogs. They’re pissed and can’t seem to get over that humiliation. Can’t say i blame them. OUCH! HAHA!) It’s the few for whom there is no solution save for miracle – people like me – for whom AA was designed.
Peace and Love,
Danny S – RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic
http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com
April 2, 2010 at 10:44 am
You have no way of knowing if they could have done better elsewhere.
If you have decided that you needed a ‘miracle’ that is your choice.
“AA grudge blogs” — that is a fatuous remark – which you own. no one else
April 2, 2010 at 10:59 am
“AA grudge blogs … which you own”>>
The I shall rent it to anyone wishing to use it for small nominal charge. Very reasonable.
Never mind – feel free — everything I write is free for all. (Until my book gets published – some of THAT shit will require permission, baby!)
April 2, 2010 at 10:51 am
At least you seem open to the idea that AA IS actually suitable FOR some folks. The good number of folks on this site have this very Nazi-like mentality that AA ought to be abolished – it’s no damned good! It didn’t work for me and I want it shut down! That is a frightening stance – on ANY subject. These are scary people who post their views in this manner. I cannot imaging how their lives must run – thinking and ‘posting’ like that – it is very revealing. (I have kids – so I shudder.)
Yes, like you say there IS a range of drinking problems so yes it stands to reason there ought to be a range of solutions as well. The spiritual solution is for a very specific type of alcohol problem – one that cannot be solved through human aid – one that a very narrow slice of humanity ever develops. Those that CAN be solved by human aid . . . .. well, why NOT? The spiritual approach is a bitch, man!
The problem arises however when those for whom the IS a HUMAN, NON-SPIRITUAL solution absolutely insists that ALL those who have a problem with alcohol ought to be able to use THEIR human aided methods. That is fascist and narrow minded and not a good indicator of any kind of open-mindedness, or even ‘goodness’. There’s just something sinister about folks who talk and post that way.
Peace and Love,
Danny S – RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic
http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com
April 2, 2010 at 11:04 am
I doubt that anyone wants to shut down AA. What matters is that people have real world options that they can use. A spiritual solution who want to use it. Other people want other methods. That is for them to decide. That is something that you need to understand: people decide for themselves what they need. It is you who do not understand that. Clear?
April 2, 2010 at 11:18 am
I doubt that anyone wants to shut down AA.>>
You haven’t been here very long have you?
April 2, 2010 at 11:45 am
None of your business how long I have been here.
You, simply, don’t pay any attention to what other people are saying. You just wait for the other guy to stop talking so that you can talk.
April 2, 2010 at 12:34 pm
You are correct. I haven’t actually read any more than perhaps 10% of the text of anything you have posted. I only use your (and others) posts as opportunities to post “answers” I decide in that moment to disseminate – not actually in real response to anything you and some other posters – have written, except as an excuse to post some truth. I have absolutely no desire or interest in debating with anyone in hopes of ‘converting’ them to Pro-AA or pro-spirituality. Anyone whose mind is made up and who has already been brainwashed is ‘gone’ as far as I am concerned. My posts are meant to be read by anyone on-the-fence who happens by and reads. That is the truth. There are some here who I do actually give a direct response. But I can count those on 1/2 of one hand. You aren’t one of those. But keep askin! I will continue to appear to be responding in earnest – and my “message” will continue to get read by anyone interested in reading it.
Peace and Love,
Danny S – RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic
http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com
April 2, 2010 at 1:03 pm
In principle, I have no problem with that. AA/12 step does appeal to some people. How many that is, I have no idea. 12 step can be used any way someone wants. You don’t need meetings or a sponsor to do it. It can be done at home, come to that. To me, it all comes down to people having viable options.
April 2, 2010 at 1:04 pm
It all comes down to people having viable options and being free to choose for themselves.
April 2, 2010 at 1:34 pm
What matters is that people have viable options and are able to make an informed choice.
April 2, 2010 at 11:42 am
i do not necessarily want aa shut down.. i want aa information or “literature” to speak to 13 stepping, i want the ideology EVOLVED from the fucking thirties. i want rehabs to say, “this program has a 5% success rate, and some believe that the success may not really be aa’s doing.” i want the truth. not the bullshit lie that “aa saves millions.” it is bullshit. (can i stop saying bullshit?) i do not think though that the idea that some want it abolished is nazi like. i want massage parlors that immigrant teens are jailed into abolished. am i a nazi? i want the bullshit exploitation of the vulnerable, particularly women, in aa fucking done with.
April 2, 2010 at 11:43 am
This is not a question of “shut down AA” There are other problems, involving forced and coerced participation in AA, and the REQUIREMENT to covert to their fanatical religion.
People whould be able to go to AA, or any other religion they choose, and worship any god they see fit- including Bill W.s vision and description of god.
However, when that is forced and coerced, particularly from a goverment agency, it is in direct violation of the US constitution and the International Bill of Human Rights. Amnesty Internation should be involved as the disgraceful usurping of human rights and the outright slaughter of people due to the misinformation and disinformation promoted, marketed, and prosyltized as medical fact. Information that is neither medical nor is it fact.
April 2, 2010 at 11:48 am
I say give the patient a packet of information to study. The packet could include literature from many abstinence support groups, pharmaceutical companies, AA, and educational websites like this one. This way alternatives are provided while the patients individual dignity and freedom to choose remains in tact. At this point a person would be aware of the many options to achieve their goal, including not drinking.
Too many people arrive at AA confused and disgusted by the approach. Those who stay are doomed to be brainwashed. If AA truly had no opinion on outside issues, then it would not adhere to the belief that AA is the only method that will work for many people. They would not adhere to the tradition that all the people in a meeting identify themselves as an alcoholic, without medical diagnosis.
The damaging information that I received in AA is; I am alcoholic and bodily different from my fellows, that if I am not “in here” I am “out there”, and that should I stray from the “rooms” my only options are jails, institutions, OR death. These ideals were firmly planted in my consciousness after I succumbed to the prescribed interval of meetings.
To my mind there are grounds for malpractice and monetary compensation, if not to me, then to the countless individuals who have died under the influence of the AA teachings.
April 2, 2010 at 1:59 pm
It has crossed my mind to go after the courts for sentencing me to AA when I was in my early teens.
April 2, 2010 at 2:26 pm
There was a pop band called “Prozac” that had a song called “Strange Disease”, or at least I think that was the name of the song.
Within the first 164 pages of the Big Book the word “disease” appears only once and it refers to resentment. Now, although the book doesn’t mention it initially, the front groups were in fact the rallying point to the disease concept.
The real question is this: who does it benefit most by calling it a disease? You hear it in AA all the time that is a disease, but does it benefit its members? or does it only benefit AA?