Quote

You state with a certain degree of conviction that the "professionals" are "jealous" of AA for curing alcoholics?

Where the devil did you come up with that one?

Are medical professionals immune to Jealousy?

Medicine had NO solution for alcoholics when AA came around. They could only put them in asylums.

Dr. Carl Young in Switzerland is accredited by Bill Wilson as being responsible for the idea that started AA. Young while treating a New York business amn for chronic alcoholism explained that the only thing that has ever brought about long term sobriety for the alcoholic is a spiritual awakening. Young's patient "Roland" had such an awakening and never drank again.

Dr. William Silkworth of Towns hospital was familiar with the work of Young and drove home this point to Bill Wilson, a hopeless drunk and chronic relapser. Bill would have a spiritual awakening or spirit rebirth as well. Bill never drank again but would die from his cigarette addiction.

The concept of a spiritual rebirth is not a new idea. Jesus explained to Nicodemus, a sincere Jew:

John 3
1Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2He came to Jesus at night and said, "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him."
3In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.[a]"

4"How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!"

5Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You[c] must be born again.' 8The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

9"How can this be?" Nicodemus asked.

10"You are Israel's teacher," said Jesus, "and do you not understand these things? 11I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?


Bill Wilson's grandfather was a drunk in East Dorset Vermont. One day he went up on top of a mountain, gave himself to God and never drank again. He lived 8 more years, no AA just church.

Quote

[b:c944604657]The latest "statistics", claim that the alcoholic who receives no treatment at all has the best [u:c944604657]chances for a cure![/u:c944604657] [/b:c944604657]

The world is full of educated derelicts. The above statement has to be one of the most bizarre thing I've heard to date.

Quote

AA is an organization whose members and groups often use deceptive and coercive thought control techniques like "destructive religious and spiritual organizations" often do.

AA in you area must really suck! I have never expierianced anything like what your discribing and I have been sober for 21 years.

Why didn't you start an AA meeting based on the program and the traditions? There is NO deception in the program or the traditions.

Quote

Colter:

I'm getting that it really, really, really bothers you when people call AA a cult.

What bothers me is that just because you were unable to get along with the people in AA from the time you said you first went into treatment until you quit that you feel the need to trash the program and possibly mislead someone who may be able to get a very simple program.

Quote

Why does the AA organization allow the court system to force AA membership on a portion of the American Public?

Groups are autonomous, AA world services does not dictate who groups are allowed to accept or reject into a meeting. Some groups are closed and some are open.

Most meetings are open to court ordered guests because we are adverse to rejecting anyone who might find recovery. Besides, we might get that one dollar a week that they may or probably won't put in the hat when it's past round. Theoretically we could get $52 a year from them, $520 over ten years and $1,040 over 20 years. We use that money to run our AA concentration camps in Cuba.

Considering that contributions to AA are voluntary and minimal, and that AA's bylaws forbid a donation of more than $1,000 from an estate upon death of a member and refuses ANY donations from ANY institution outside of members, well, we'll take anything we can get from wealthy court ordered homeless people.

Quote

Does the "Court System" force the organization of AA to accept court-ordered inductees for membership in AA?

AA is open to anyone who has a desire to stop drinking. Open AA meetings are open to all. For instance if the entire Duke Lacrosse team stopped by for a visit we would accommodate them. :wink:

Colter

Does this sound like sermonizing to anyone else?

Colter:

I realize that you were making a point and not preaching a particular religion per se, but please rememberthat this is not a message board to promote a particular religion.

I have chosen to delete my AA experiences from this thread.

[www.guardian.co.uk]

Quote

[b:225406ec3b]Drink advice service confronts sex abuse[/b:225406ec3b]

AA acts on rising reports of attacks by volunteers

[b:225406ec3b]Gerard Seenan
Guardian[/b:225406ec3b]
Wednesday July 5, 2000

An internal memorandum circulated to every Alcoholics Anonymous group in the country reveals that volunteer members are increasingly being investigated by police forces examining allegations of sexual abuse.
According to the memo, leaked to the Glasgow-based Herald newspaper, within AA "there is a small minority of men and women who operate with sick but hidden agendas, and,...[b:225406ec3b] they seek self-gratification[/b:225406ec3b] often at the expense of other members or [b:225406ec3b]potential members[/b:225406ec3b]".
A senior alcohol addiction worker said: "AA [is] in a difficult position: we all put checks and balances in place, but it is [b:225406ec3b]very difficult to protect people entirely from abuse of position because the people involved are invariably clever[/b:225406ec3b]."
Abusers within the organisation are said to have exploited their positions as [b:225406ec3b]"sponsors", taking advantage of the vulnerable when they are at their lowest ebb[/b:225406ec3b].
The document says: "There appears to be a growing number of cases around the country of police (and other agency involvement) in allegations of unlawful sexual conduct by AA members."
A spokeswoman for AA yesterday confirmed the leaked document was genuine, but refused to comment further.

Bonnie,

Have you not read the AA manual, the Book Alcoholics anonymous? Sex problems and alcoholics may be news to the Guardian but they shouldn't be to anyone who's been in AA and worked the program.

Self centerdness is the core of the alcoholic sickness. We are addicted to all things pleasurable, or at least we manage to abuse most of them, nicotine, caffeine, food, sex, money, power, you name it we've over indulged in it.

Where I come from men sponsor the men and women sponsor the women.

The Book Alcoholics Anonymous

Now about sex. Many of us needed an overhauling
there. But above all, we tried to be sensible on this question.
It's so easy to get way off the track. Here we find
human opinions running to extremes -- absurd extremes,
perhaps. One set of voices cry that sex is a
lust of our lower nature, a base necessity of procreation.
Then we have the voices who cry for sex and more
sex; who bewail the institution of marriage; who think that
most of the troubles of the race are traceable to sex causes.
They think we do not have enough of it, or that it isn't the
right kind. They see its significance everywhere. One
school would allow man no flavor for his fare and the other
would have us all on a straight pepper diet. We want to
stay out of this controversy. We do not want to be the arbiter
of anyone's sex conduct. We all have sex problems.
We'd hardly be human if we didn't. What can we do about
them?

[u:f6d1ef8c8b] We reviewed our own conduct over the years past. Where
had we been selfish, dishonest, or inconsiderate? Whom
had we hurt? Did we unjustifiably arouse jealousy, suspicion
or bitterness? Where were we at fault, what should
we have done instead? We got this all down on paper
and looked at it.[/u:f6d1ef8c8b]

In this way we tried to shape a sane and sound ideal for
our future sex life. We subjected each relation to this test --
[u:f6d1ef8c8b]was it selfish or not?[/u:f6d1ef8c8b] We asked God to mold our ideals and
help us to live up to them. We remembered always that our
sex powers were God-given and therefore good, neither to
be used lightly or selfishly nor to be despised and loathed.

Whatever our ideal turns out to be, we must be willing
to grow toward it. We must be willing to make amends
where we have done harm, provided that we do not bring
about still more harm in so doing. In other words, we treat
sex as we would any other problem. In meditation, we ask
God what we should do about each specific matter. The
right answer will come, [b:f6d1ef8c8b]if we want it.[/[/b:f6d1ef8c8b]u]

God alone can judge our sex situation. Counsel with
persons is often desirable, but we let God be the final
judge. We realize that some people are as fanatical about
sex as others are loose. We avoid hysterical thinking or
advice.

Suppose we fall short of the chosen ideal and stumble?
Does this mean we are going to get drunk. Some people
tell us so. But this is only a half-truth. It depends on us
and on our motives. [b:f6d1ef8c8b]If we are sorry for what we have
done, and have the honest desire to let God take us to
better things, we believe we will be forgiven and will
have learned our lesson. If we are not sorry, and our
conduct continues to harm others, [/color:f6d1ef8c8b]we are quite sure to
drink. We are not theorizing. These are facts out of our
experience.[/b:f6d1ef8c8b]

To sum up about sex: We earnestly pray for the right
ideal, for guidance in each questionable situation,[b:f6d1ef8c8b] for
sanity, and for the strength to do the right thing.[/b:f6d1ef8c8b][b:f6d1ef8c8b] If sex is
very troublesome, we throw ourselves the harder into
helping others. We think of their needs and work for
them. This takes us out of ourselves. It quiets the imperious
urge, when to yield would mean heartache.[/b:f6d1ef8c8b]

Drunks have sex problems.

Colter

more sermonizing, IMO

[radar.smh.com.au]

Quote

In November of 1999, the US Supreme Court ruled that atheist drink-driver Robert Warner had been “denied his constitutional rights” when he was forced, as a condition of his probation, to attend the “deeply religious” meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. It was a bitter judgement for AA, a movement which, since its inception in the 1930s, has successfully battled the stigma of religion and thus enjoyed a level of legitimacy in the public mindset not usually afforded to churches.

and here:
[www.law.duke.edu]

That's the Duke Law Journal.

Colter, perhaps you should also look at a few of the numerous sites devoted entirely to the people who have been damaged by AA...

[groups.msn.com]

[health.groups.yahoo.com]

[www.factnet.org]

[health.groups.yahoo.com]

Quote

[b:457d788a7b]Few A.A. boosters will admit that Audrey Kishline, the founder of "Moderation Management", went back to being an A.A. member.[/b:457d788a7b]

[www.positiveatheism.org]

Quote

On June 29th, Audrey pled guilty to two counts of vehicular homicide. Her lawyer again noted that Audrey had realized that MM "was nothing but alcoholics covering up their problem", now stating she knew this in January, when she resigned from MM. But this statement hardly seems to work to help her. In addition, this statement contradicts her announcement to the MM list that MM continued to be valid for some, and that she was switching her own goals, as anyone was free to do. That there will not be a trial avoids the defense being confronted with these contradictions.
[b:457d788a7b]I think important issues are that Audrey entered AA and sought to abstain some months before her drunken accident. One could maintain that she never displayed such extreme drunken and antisocial behavior (and getting .26 BAL drunk and driving a pick-up on the wrong side of an interstate highway is generally not going to go unnoticed) UNTIL she was striving to abstain through AA[/b:457d788a7b] -- that what Marlatt refers to as the Abstinence Violation Effect seems to have been in action -- the "I'm not supposed to drink at all; God, I've drunk, now let it all hang out!" effect.

[www.schaler.net]

Quote

Will the Kishline auto accident be a boost for total abstinence and a blow to moderation? I hope not, since the Twelve Step cult, by undermining individuals' sense of personal competence and responsibility, does a lot of harm.
And this story does have one more little wrinkle. A short while before the accident, [b:457d788a7b]Kishline announced that she had relapsed into excessive drinking and had again begun attending AA meetings.[/b:457d788a7b]
David Ramsay Steele

[www.orange-papers.org]

Quote

....The founder of "Moderation Management" is now an AA member! ?Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Vaillant. [b:457d788a7b]Few A.A. boosters will admit that Audrey Kishline, the founder of "Moderation Management", went back to being an A.A. member.[/b:457d788a7b] They won't admit it, because after three months of A.A. "help" and "therapy", she relapsed, went on a huge binge, drove drunk, and killed two people in a crash. Now she is going to prison for manslaughter. She was a hell of a lot better off before she got the help of A.A. and the Twelve Steps.

[www.doctordeluca.com]
A letter reputed to be from Ms. Kishline to Moderation Management

Quote

1/20/2000
Hello Everyone, fellow MMers,
I have made the decision recently to change my recovery goal to one of?abstinence, rather than moderation....

I am now following a different path, and to strengthen my sobriety [b:457d788a7b]I am attending Alcoholics Anonymous[/b:457d788a7b], but will also attend Women for Sobriety and SMART Recovery. I am sure I can learn much from all of these fine programs......

Her switch fro MM to AA was noted by the New YouK Times:
[www.nytimes.com]

Quote

But far from depicting Ms. Kishline as an example of the failures of Moderation Management, people involved with the organization note that she had also tried abstinence and failed. [b:457d788a7b]And the worst incident occurred, in her own depiction, after she had joined Alcoholics Anonymous.[/b:457d788a7b]
"Isn't it ironic that her most extreme case of intoxication came after she quit Moderation Management?" said Stanton Peele, a board member of Moderation Management who is a psychologist in Morristown, N.J. "A.A. didn't have the answers for her, either."