Sad pathetic things you've done

[The exploding boy]

you don't have rights on get on my level. It's everywhere on the interwebs.

[The exploding boy]

though you DID bring it back to my mind. ill credit you that much fine. happy now?

[slunken]

[reprise85]

Originally Posted by Charmbag

?

AA is a religion. You have to follow their steps or you are not one of them. Recruiting is important. And whatever BS they spout about things, like that your higher power can be anything - all that evaporates under the pressure of being in a group of 10-50 people who are mostly all calling their higher power "God". By the time you're in the third step the step even says "God".

And the state sponsors it by forcing people who have drug related crimes to attend as part of their sentences.

It's a religious cult, its success rate is not high, and is perhaps the same or even lower than spontaneous remission

AA is anti-psychiatry. At least most meetings are. Meanwhile, half the congregation is on psych meds but too ashamed to talk about it.

Sponsor are not professionals but are treated as such. Gossip is rampant and IME predators are drawn to meetings to find vulnerable people to exploit.

I could go on. I really dislike AA. It works for some people. There are good parts about it. But it is a religious program based on programming/mind control and, IMO, is ultimately harmful overall and at the very least should not be forced on people in any capacity.

[null123]

Okay I can understand that more. I don't have personal attachment to it, I've just heard more neutral/slightly positive things from some people. I still don't understand why the God part specifically is such a problem, but that's probably an agree to disagree thing. If it doesn't help people it doesn't really matter

[reprise85]

Originally Posted by Charmbag

Like I don't get it. Do you guys think if they took the God part out, AA would suddenly be an ideology-free zone? Secularism is a much more specific point of view than an undefined, pluralistic "higher power" concept

It is not soley the God thing, and no - it may look like on paper that you're accepted for having any kind of "higher power" - but to move higher in the group structure you will believe in AA's version of God and conform.

You lose your status if you use drugs or alcohol just one time. This causes a phenomena where people go out and use big because they've already blown their sobriety and have to start over anyway.

Like seriously I attended for about two years before I met someone who was being forced to go for getting caught with a gram of weed and I finally realized that it just wasn't for me. I was on psych meds and as soon as I told someone at a meeting everyone else knew and I was treated differently.

The two people I knew from my childhood that went with me both died from drug ODs.

That is not AA's fault but it certainly didn't help them.

AA is better than being an active alcoholic but basically anything is better than that.

[duovamp]

Classic bush league trolling from Charmbag. Religion enslaved your gender but let's act contrary toward its opposition.

[reprise85]

Originally Posted by pavementtune

I'm used to AA as just one of several options, and it's not one medics like to recommend.
Aren't there alternatives in the US, without this transcendence/spiritual factor?

There is Rational Recovery and a couple of others but really, the underlying reason why you got addicted needs to be addressed and IMO that needs individual therapy and perhaps group therapy lead by a therapist or psychologist.

[reprise85]

I see other people covered some of this already. oops.

[slunken]

[Order 66]

i always assumed AA was pretty much mandatory in recovery because anytime i went into treatment (and we're talking like ten years ago here, nothing recent) any doctor was like YOU GOING TO MEETINGS? even the really smart ones

[reprise85]

yeah it's pretty alarming. halfway houses are also terrible places for people trying to get off drugs. let's put a bunch of newly sober people together and not even do background checks since everyone will have convictions. OOPS we missed that one with an attempted murder conviction.

and all the facilities that run on 12 steps, shit the whole thing is a racket. state sponsored fraud, ruins people's lives. the junkie lifestyle really almost begins with that first step into AA or NA. you're a junkie before that but the whole idea that AA is the only way and that you have character flaws and are a terrible person and will only get better when you accept you are powerless and give up your will and blah blah blah if you don't do it this way YOU WILL DIE makes you feel completely hopeless. i mean really, when you get clean it's basically the only thing that gets promoted and that's sad as fuck.

[null123]

My old therapist specialized in alcoholism in women (not what I saw her for, just happened to be the focus of her practice) and one thing she mentioned is how AA was really originally designed for a specific type of psychological profile in men and when I was trying to get help for my mom she recommended against AA. I thought that was interesting

[Order 66]

alot of the meeting locations i was given by my doctors were women-only. but they didn't tell me that and i felt like a total ass when i went there and they kicked me out.

but i guess it makes sense. i started a lot of relationships in those meetings and of course it was a disaster every time

[reprise85]

It might work for people who are antisocial in general (as in anti-society, no morals etc). But being told you have character defects and have no control over them except giving your will to a higher power is not very conductive to feeling better about yourself or gaining control over yourself. When people would wax about how terrible they were I just wanted to shake them and be like hey, that's being human, not having character defects. Drugs fucked you up. You're not that person who stole or whatever anymore. But the in and out nature and relapse culture and constant reminders that you're a piece of shit without the program is cult programming, plain and simple.

If it was used for people who had a weak moral compass to kind of train them to act better when their impulse is not to I can see it having some value. But 9/10 people at NA are decent (as decent as all of us) who made mistakes and got caught in addiction, but once they are free of it don't do those behaviors anymore. Case in point: me.

The thing about predators is a big problem. Men who maybe aren't even addicts hitting up 18 year old women and men with 2 weeks clean and hitting them up for sex/money. All you have to do is say you just moved in the area and have 10 years clean and boom, instant credibility.

They set you up with emotional control as well. Like the step (4th?) where you write down every bad thing you've ever done and then the next step you tell your sponsor and magically feel better, and they call it a spiritual awakening. Fucking duh, being worked up for weeks while you write your darkest secrets down is terrible, and telling someone provides catharsis, it's not some magical process.

I think my therapist is even pro-NA but she knows I hate it and we never talk about it. Might be because I don't use drugs and have had a couple of small relapse in the past 4 years (as in, using once or twice) but am under control without it. NA would say my one-off uses start me over at the beginning, but that's not even close to being true.

[Trotskilicious]

how come scotty has to just be all richard dawkins all over the place, doe

[Order 66]

the worst thing i've seen is when we hired some 20 year old kid and he was cool. kind of slow but whatever he got the job right. then somebody invited him to a party and he got drunk and fell asleep at a stoplight on the way home and got popped by the cops

he didn't seem to have an alcohol problem but the court gave him the mandatory AA meetings and he totally eats it up. i think, cool, that works for you whatever... then he'd start bringing his bible to work every day and go outside the building and start praying. which is.. eh.. but whatever. then he started getting all high and mighty about our sense of humor and telling us how offensive it is.. we let it slip whatever. then he'd leave work to help out his AA buddies and i let it slide some more. then he was just so engrossed with it all he was fucking up jobs left and right... which is funny because the employees who *were* on drugs were doing a lot better job than he was. so we were like, yeah we need to let this guy go.. then that very day he started screaming about how we were all a threat to his sobriety and he quit and then he went to every employee and told them how much he loved them and gave them a pamphlet and went back to his apartment he could no longer afford because he had no job

that's like one guy and not indicative of the program.. but jesus

[yo soy el mejor]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...rd/8201930.jpg

[ohnoitsbonnie]

Lots of things...

[The exploding boy]

I cant decide whether i'm disgusted or turned on by the above pic.