Quote
andychee
"Frequent masterbation is a symtom of sex addiction?"
Who gets to decide how much is too much, the room full of people or just your sponsor and why would any body want to talk to people they hardly know about stuff like that?
If this is the kind of stuff AA wants you to think about and talk about all the time I'm glad i quit. I dont want to hear about it in a room full of people and if anyone thinks I'm going to sit there and tell everybody this kind of stuff and listen to them tell me I'm sick if they think I have sex with myself or someone else too much they're nuts.
This is why my Dad quit a long time ago, and its one of the reasons why I hated AA because they want to tell you that every little thing you do or dont do is wrong and that it means you're sick when they're not even doctors or psychologists. They're just drunks.

errrrrrrrm, andychee, what I told you is not from AA, it's from the clinical psychology community as relates to sex addiction and any number of other addictions.

The way AA puts it, our instincts are God given and right, it's when we abuse these instincts that they become a problem.

Colter

Quote

errrrrrrrm, andychee, what I told you is not from AA, it's from the clinical psychology community as relates to sex addiction and any number of other addictions.

From colter

That the kind of talk I heard all the time at AA meetings, and that's what every body said you had to get a sponsor so you could tell them everything bad you did especially sex.
I don't have a problem with sex but I just dont agree with the judge and AA that I should have to listen to a whole room full of people talk about the details of their sex life ar how much or how not enough sex is wrong, and they do.
Plus, at the speaker meeting and even at other meetings people wanted to talk about sex addiction and coda and stuff that I didn't think you should tell any body but your doctor or wife or maybe a preist if youre catholic.
No matter what, you're going to say AA is right and every body else is wrong.

Well, I'm new to this forum but not to the "rewms" of AA. I have been both a voluntary and coerced member for about 20 years now, and just recently made the decision to stop going altogether. because even though I enjoyed the people I had met at one of the better groups, I hate most of what it stands for and do believe it to be a cult.

What I have asked repeatedly at meetings, with sponsors, and in message boards without ever getting a sensible response, is this:

How can your HP be anything you want (including a doorknob or a blue rock) and still be capable of saving your behind from the ravages of alcoholism? It can't, obviously, and therein lies the bait and switch tactic. Newbies are told to use whatever they want as a HP--even the AA group itself. BUT, as you move through the steps it becomes obvious that your HP needs to be something that is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient. Something that can hear your prayers, and that can--and will--respond to them by "relieving you of your alcoholism". It has to be something that you can turn your will and life over to with confidence (a doorknob? I don't think so!), and something that you can seek to have a constant conscious contact with, that you can pray to (praying to the AA group? Might make them a bit uncomfortable) and that has a will that you can seek out and do.
Obviously, in view of this, things like "nature", "The group" or a doorknob won't work. This narrows things down a bit. THEN you have to deal with the fact that not just any deity will do, either. Many religions have gods that aren't particularly interested in their worshippers dilemmas or daily lives. or are in fact rather capricious and have a tendency to play jokes on their devotees or send harm upon them, so they won't do either. Really, it needs to be some form of Judeo-Christian theology for it to work as a deity with the 12 steps as they are written--a loving, caring, single entity deity who can and will work miracles for you at your request. And heck--if He will heal us of alcoholism if we only ask Him to, what about AIDS? Or cancer? Why not those diseases too?

The fact remains that if GOD really IS god, then we cannot just pick-n-choose what we wish he/she were like, write up a "god-profile" and call that our god. We don't get to call those shots--God does!

This is only part ( a small part) of why I think AA is a crock. I attended all those years, worked those steps with the approved Christian god, had several sponsors, and relapsed into addiction over and over and over again. Only when I got smart and started reading about the real AA did I find another method of treatment--one that has kept me free of the tortures of addiction for 2 years now.

To whom it may concern:

It seems like there is something of an organized effort to encourage "AA is a cult" proponents and various anti-AA bashers to post here.

The same rhetoric is being posted on and on and on and those involved almost seem "cult-like" in their obsession to continue this.

If you don't like AA fine.

Perhaps it would be best to post on sites devoted exclusively to bashing AA.

But please don't come here and post "AA is a cult" over and over again.

It is repetitive, this verbiage is redundant and not really educational and it also verges on needlessly spamming this board.

Again, AA doesn't fit the criteria to be defined as a "cult" per any profile as establsihed historically for destructive cults through an understanding of groups like the Waco Davidians, Manson Family or "Heaven's Gate."

Please understand that repetitive posts about AA may not be approved here, such as posts that argue the same points endlessly, which have already been discussed on this thread ad nauseum and/or other threads regarding AA.

So if you essentially plan to post the same type of comments as previously posted by another AA basher don't be surprised if they don't come through.

Also note the rules.

If anti-AA folks break the rules they will be banned from the board.

zenith:

Look back on various AA threads on the message board.

I am reasonably sure that your points have already been discussed.

Quote
zenith
Well, I'm new to this forum but not to the "rewms" of AA. I have been both a voluntary and coerced member for about 20 years now, and just recently made the decision to stop going altogether. because even though I enjoyed the people I had met at one of the better groups, I hate most of what it stands for and do believe it to be a cult.

What I have asked repeatedly at meetings, with sponsors, and in message boards without ever getting a sensible response, is this:

How can your HP be anything you want (including a doorknob or a blue rock) and still be capable of saving your behind from the ravages of alcoholism? It can't, obviously, and therein lies the bait and switch tactic. Newbies are told to use whatever they want as a HP--even the AA group itself. BUT, as you move through the steps it becomes obvious that your HP needs to be something that is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient. Something that can hear your prayers, and that can--and will--respond to them by "relieving you of your alcoholism". It has to be something that you can turn your will and life over to with confidence (a doorknob? I don't think so!), and something that you can seek to have a constant conscious contact with, that you can pray to (praying to the AA group? Might make them a bit uncomfortable) and that has a will that you can seek out and do.

Obviously, in view of this, things like "nature", "The group" or a doorknob won't work. This narrows things down a bit. THEN you have to deal with the fact that not just any deity will do, either. Many religions have gods that aren't particularly interested in their worshippers dilemmas or daily lives. or are in fact rather capricious and have a tendency to play jokes on their devotees or send harm upon them, so they won't do either. Really, it needs to be some form of Judeo-Christian theology for it to work as a deity with the 12 steps as they are written--a loving, caring, single entity deity who can and will work miracles for you at your request. And heck--if He will heal us of alcoholism if we only ask Him to, what about AIDS? Or cancer? Why not those diseases too?

Zenith, you don't seem to have considered a further option: that AA attendees themselves can stop themselves drinking.

Oh, wait: AA attendees can't stop themselves drinking. That's why they attend AA..

Wow, this is a vicious circle. Must be a cult! Come to think of it, isn't the motto of the American Mint: "In God We Trust". Perhaps we might start a new thread: AA in cahoots with the American Mint??

PATHETIC

I see that anything pro AA gets posted and the truth gets censored.

I read the wikipedia entry for rick ross. Now it's all clear.

vince:

Whatever "floats your boat."

A great deal of anti-AA posts and information has been approved and remain archived at this message board.

Attempting to attack me personally won't advance your cause.

Anyone referring to Wikipedia should note the disclaimer that Wikipedia posts regarding the content of that Web site.

See [en.wikipedia.org]

Wikipedia says that it "cannot guarantee the validity of the information found" within it.

Quote
rrmoderator
vince:

Whatever "floats your boat."

A great deal of anti-AA posts and information has been approved and remains archived at this message board.

Attempting to attack me personally won't advance your cause.

Anyone referring to Wikipedia should note the disclaimer that Wikipedia posts regarding the content of that Web site.

See [en.wikipedia.org]

Wikipedia says that it "cannot guarantee the validity of the information found" within it.

Rick,

It took my whole lunch break to read all that "Wiki" stuff. We have a few "indiscretions of youth" in common.

I remember back well before Waco that I had heard about David Koresh, while Most Americans had not. Depending on how people presented the facts around the tragedy in the Branch Davidian compound some people could come away with "the federal government just went in and picked on some church folks".

I remember that Koresh had murdered someone or was suspected in a murder. Some guy had written a song about Koresh, "there's a mad man living in Waco"...la.la.la. It was a catchy tune. Never the less one should never crash a tank into the compound of a nut job and drop off smoke bombs on a windy day.............especially if the guy is a prophet and predicted going up in flames.

On this whole cult definition business I do have a question for you and would hope for a straight answer. As a Jewish person do you consider Christianity from it's inception a "cult"?

If not then why? It fits the criteria in many respects only our leader floated off into the sky.

I'm still troubled by the definition of cult's in general, it's like a greezed watermelon, I just can't get a firm grip on it.


Colter

The moderator wrote on 09-06-2006 01:14 PM to James G.:
============================================
Thanks for expressing your opinion.

No recognized cult expert that I know of has ever compared AA to Lifton per the criteria you have used regarding thought reform (including Lifton) or cult formation, and concluded that AA is a "cult" or that it somehow "brainwashes" people, but you are entitled to your opinion.
===========================================

Apparently the moderator has not read the pioneering work of Dr. Edgar H. Schein.

There were three pioneering experts in the field of "brainwashing", or "coercive thought reform" -- Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, Prof. Margaret Thaler Singer, and Dr. Edgar H. Schein. See this page for a summary of their various approaches to the subject:
[www.orange-papers.org]

Here is Edgar Schein's book on brainwashing:

Coercive Persuasion: A Socio-psychological Analysis of the "Brainwashing" of American Civilian Prisoners by the Chinese Communists by Edgar H. Schein, with Inge Schneier and Curtis H. Barker
W.W. Norton, New York, 1961.
LC: BF633
LCCN: 61-7483
Dewey: 131.333

In some ways this book complements Edward Hunter's book "Brainwashing, From Pavlov to Powers", because this book concentrates its attention on American civilians who happened to be in China when Mao took over, and were arrested by Mao's forces and subjected to "thought reform" in prison.

The author states (p.21) that he checked his hypotheses with others like Lifton and Barnett, and drew heavily from Hunter, so obviously that small group of pioneers were in communication with each other, trading ideas and information.

This book and the books by Edward Hunter and Robert Jay Lifton ("Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of 'Brainwashing' in China") are the classics of the field, and are simply must reading for students of brainwashing and mind-control programs.

Schein saw "thought reform" programs as working in stages:
1. Unfreezing -- Make the subject lose his previous identity. Shatter his self-confidence and belief in himself, his moral standards, and his previous philosophy.
2. Changing -- Change the subject into whatever is desired.
3. Refreezing -- Make the subject lock in the changes by solidifying his new personality.

Schein wrote:
-------------------------------
The bases for being judged guilty which he [the victim] must come to appreciate are the following:
1. Guilt by Association.
2. Guilt by Intention.
3. Guilt for Incorrect Attitudes.
4. Guilt for Incorrect Thoughts.
5. Guilt for Having Knowledge.
6. Guilt for Harmful Action.
7. Guilt for Failure to Act.
8. Guilt for Having a Characteristic Personal Fault or Faults.
9. Guilt for Having Dangerous Social Origins.
--------------------------------
-- pages 141-143.

The confession sessions of Alcoholics Anonymous Steps 4 and 5 do that guilt-inducing job, and so does the "sharing" in A.A. meetings where you are supposed to confess how bad and stupid you were.

Even back in 1960, Edgar Schein saw that Alcoholics Anonymous was a mind-control or thought-reform program. While he was describing the workings of Chinese Communist brainwashing programs, Schein wrote:

--------------------------------------
Certain organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) do not deliberately unfreeze an individual but refuse to take anyone under their care who is not already unfrozen. Thus a person does not become eligible for care by AA unless he has really become desperate, is dissatisfied with himself, and is prepared to turn his fate over to some greater power.
-- page 272.

The interesting question arises then, in what way are groups in fact used in the unfreezing of individuals in the paralleltypes of institutions which we have discussed? ... In AA the small discussion group plays a key therapeutic role; in mental hospitals there has been an increasing reliance on therapy groups, work groups of various sorts, and/or patient self-government groups, where in each case the assumption is made explicitly or implicitly that for the new group member the membership experience will produce influence of a kind desired by the institution; in educational workshops, like those concentrating on human relations training, the group experience is considered the key educational experience...
-- page 274.

But what of those institutions which are entered voluntarily and from which the individual may withdraw voluntarily -- educational institutions, religious orders, AA, psychoanalysis, revival meetings, fraternities, and so on? We believe that in suchinstitutions the social pressures which can be generated can be as coercive as the physical constraints previously described. Not only is voluntary withdrawal generally defined as failure, but the act of entry into an institution may constitute a more or less irrevocable commitment in that the individual often cuts himself off from alternate paths when he makes his decision. Inaddition to these two forces there is acting perhaps an even more powerful one, the confirmation by fellow group members and by "back home" significant others of the emerging institutional identity. The young man who has entered a religious order and wishes after half a year to leave it will have a difficult time psychologically if he is considered by his peers and teachers to be a good student, if his parents have their hearts set on his becoming a priest, if his friends have already abandoned his oldidentity in their own eyes and treat him only in terms of his new one, and if his termination is defined by all concerned as an act of moral weakness. Obviously these pressures are not always as strong as we have implied, and obviously people do leave institutions like religious orders, but equally obviously it generally requires an act of great courage to do so. Such courage is not too dissimilar to the courage required to resist the pressures of thought reform.
-- pages 275-276.
-----------------------------------------

Schein clearly saw that "voluntary" organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous (or Scientology, or the Moonies)
are not entirely voluntary, and that quitting them can be very difficult, sometimes nearly impossible.

And when people are sentenced to A.A., and the choice is either A.A. or jail, then there is no freedom to quit.