Registered: May 2003
Location: N. Texas
Posts: 3482

4th Step
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory....

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Registered: Jun 2004
Location: Hollywood, CA
Posts: 142

Pity the athiests, because that can't make it to the 5th step.

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Registered: Feb 2004
Location: south afrika
Posts: 16975

AA is a fascinating cult

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Registered: Dec 2004
Location: Beringia
Posts: 5262

quote:

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Originally posted by Hawley Griffin
AA is a fascinating cult

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Registered: Mar 2004
Location: Still Orygun
Posts: 10478

Ha. interesting that the discussion has taken this turn, because I got curious and started googling atheist recovery, AA deprogramming, stuff like that, and came up with the following links, including one that is a recovery program that claims to help you recover right in your own home, from your chair:

http://www.secularhumanism.org/sos/index.htm
http://rational.org/
http://www.aadeprogramming.com/index_frames.html
http://www.smartrecovery.org/
http://www.unhooked.com/index.htm

anyway, I haven't had a chance to explore all this stuff yet. back later.

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Registered: Mar 2002
Location: Mountains
Posts: 4700

quote:

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Originally posted by Hawley Griffin
AA is a fascinating cult

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Registered: Mar 2004
Location: Still Orygun
Posts: 10478

C ~ Cut off from the world. Cult leaders and followers are isolated and cut off from normal interaction with people outside the group. They do not have the corrective influence of other perspectives. They lose their ability, and their desire, to verify information the cult gives them. They become alienated from family and friends and have an unhealthy need to belong to the cult group.
U ~ Undernourished--poor nutritional intake and sleep deprivation often characterizes cult members. They are near exhaustion and their resistance is low, so they can be easily manipulated, deceived, and exploited. Inadequate nutrition and sleep is disguised as a special practice or diet to improve health or advance spirituality.
L ~ Leadership is authoritarian and coercive. The leader claims divinity or special knowledge and authority from God, and often uses deception and has hidden objectives. Unquestioning obedience is expected. This leads the cult follower into total dependence upon the cult for belief, behavior, and practice. He or she loses personal freedom and the ability to make choices.
T ~ Theology or beliefs of a cult always involve some unique or new perspectives, and they claim that truth is only found in what the cult says. Cults often promote the "we/they" syndrome, which also keeps members dependent and loyal to the cult.

Haaaa, fun. http://www.leaderu.com/common/cults.html

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Registered: Dec 2004
Location: Beringia
Posts: 5262

[p]

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Registered: May 2003
Location: N. Texas
Posts: 3482

Thanks Sabine. life has gotten better for me.

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loser, mouse, hawley:

I put that up there for me.

I was confronted once by someone critical of recovery who started in on me with: If you had any will power you wouldnt be in this position, AA is for people who cant handle their liquor, I dont need your program or God to tell me what I need to do, yeah we drug test at work...you got to roll a joint with one hand.

My reply to this is: When you've travelled the path that I have then you can tell me what the fucking view looks like.

Its honest and its the truth. I can put this out there with a clear mind and heart and not just bounce through here or anywhere pretending to be something I'm not. I'm the same person when I go home at the end of the day. I've done enough pretending and acting for one lifetime.

If a being that nobody believes in saved my life....then so be it.

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Registered: Dec 2004
Location: Beringia
Posts: 5262

quote:

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Originally posted by lanin
Thanks Sabine. life has gotten better for me.

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loser, mouse, hawley:

I put that up there for me.

I was confronted once by someone critical of recovery who started in on me with: If you had any will power you wouldnt be in this position, AA is for people who cant handle their liquor, I dont need your program or God to tell me what I need to do,

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Registered: Mar 2004
Location: Still Orygun
Posts: 10478

lanin, for the record: my intent is not to criticize you or anyone else who decides to turn his or her life around. I was curious as to ways to do it without god if one is a nonbeliever, and I ran across other opinions. I'm never interested in just one way of looking at things. I like to take in everything and then see what I think. Usually I think I'll just withhold judgment until all the facts are in, and they never are.

I have not been in your shoes and hope I never am -- my own shoes are enough for me to handle, sometimes more than I can wear, so I apologize if I came across as against, rather than with you.

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Registered: Dec 2004
Location: Beringia
Posts: 5262

quote:

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Originally posted by ignatz mouse
I apologize if I came across as against, rather than with you.

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Registered: May 2003
Location: N. Texas
Posts: 3482

I tend to be too thin skinned about this. I am one of the people who could have easily wound up on chart as a statistic (still can). I owe my life to those people and to God (whatever you want to call it).

Thanks

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Location Location
Posts: 26444

quote:

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Originally posted by lanin

I was confronted once by someone critical of recovery who started in on me with: If you had any will power you wouldnt be in this position, AA is for people who cant handle their liquor, I dont need your program or God to tell me what I need to do, yeah we drug test at work...you got to roll a joint with one hand.

My reply to this is: When you've travelled the path that I have then you can tell me what the fucking view looks like.

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Registered: May 2003
Location: N. Texas
Posts: 3482

quote:

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Originally posted by loser
If it works for you that's great. Obviously, some people need to lay off this substance or that substance, myself included. If AA is what it takes for you, then you gotta do what you gotta do. As for myself, I have a long, personal and family history with AA, dating back to my early teens, and as someone who has been labled a "dry drunk" I can tell you the sort of confrontation you're talking about goes both ways.

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Registered: May 2003
Location: N. Texas
Posts: 3482

quote:

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Originally posted by ignatz mouse
lanin, for the record: my intent is not to criticize you or anyone else who decides to turn his or her life around. I was curious as to ways to do it without god if one is a nonbeliever, and I ran across other opinions. I'm never interested in just one way of looking at things. I like to take in everything and then see what I think. Usually I think I'll just withhold judgment until all the facts are in, and they never are.

I have not been in your shoes and hope I never am -- my own shoes are enough for me to handle, sometimes more than I can wear, so I apologize if I came across as against, rather than with you.

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Thanks, for clarifying this.

Mouse, You might be interested to know that AA and it's offshoots NA, CA, etc are all over the world and there are meetings in most countries daily. Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists that I know of from meetings. I wonder what they say?

Turn my will and my life over to the care of __________

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Location Location
Posts: 26444

The concept in AA has nothing to do with God, at least not specific to any judeo-christian sense. God as we understood him; the concept of a higher power in general. When I think of it, I tend to think the salient point isn't even about positivity per se, but about accepting the notion that you, yourself, are NOT God. But, how I relate to the concept tends to change fairly frequently.

In any case, I'm pretty much an agnostic, and I have no trouble with this stuff in AA. I used to, when I had a big spiritual chip on my shoulder, but all that stuff tends to take a backseat when your primary concern becomes, like, not dying, or living in misery and pain on a daily basis. I don't have the luxury of being hyper-critical. Some people might, and more power to em.

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Registered: May 2003
Location: N. Texas
Posts: 3482

quote:

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Originally posted by Paint CHiPs
The concept in AA has nothing to do with God, at least not specific to any judeo-christian sense. God as we understood him; the concept of a higher power in general. When I think of it, I tend to think the salient point isn't even about positivity per se, but about accepting the notion that you, yourself, are NOT God. But, how I relate to the concept tends to change fairly frequently.

In any case, I'm pretty much an agnostic, and I have no trouble with this stuff in AA. I used to, when I had a big spiritual chip on my shoulder, but all that stuff tends to take a backseat when your primary concern becomes, like, not dying, or living in misery and pain on a daily basis. I don't have the luxury of being hyper-critical. Some people might, and more power to em.

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Registered: Oct 2001
Location:
Posts: 18251

Bennye used to say that anyone can stay sober for three years purely on the novelty of being sober.

I've done several fourth steps, and obviously they weren't sufficient in and of themselves to keep me from drinking again. But I think most folks who are afraid of the fourth are really afraid of the ninth. We've spent most of our lives looking at nothing but this stuff and talking about it, or fearing talking about it. It's approaching the people we've harmed to make amends that most of us secretly balk at when we dig our heels in about writing it down.

That, and I hate writing assignments.

Lord, I'd hate to have to sit through Paint's. I can't imagine what kinda book that was.

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Registered: Oct 2001
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Incidentally, I'm proud of you, bro.

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Registered: Oct 2001
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AA is the furthest thing in the world from a cult. There is no leadership. It isn't even an organization; it's a fellowship. Nobody's in charge. They are the first to admit that they don't have all the answers and that more will be revealed to us and to them. They don't have any real doctrine of affiliations at all, and hold no views on issues outside of recovery from addiction and how to best accomplish that in people's lives. Anything else you hear about them usually comes from people who failed to apply the principles of that fellowship in their lives for whatever reason. Usually it was simply because they were too afraid to be that honest with themselves, or too afraid or resentful to reach out in "faith" toward something other than the direction they'd always given themselves - the counsel of a fool in my case.

God is only mentioned in AA literature, because alcoholism is a spiritual disease as well as a physical and mental ailment. It derives from and sustains a self-centeredness that is fatal, and the most successful treatment for that in the history of mankind has been through a complete psychic shift away from that kind of self-centeredness towards true fellowship with others.

The trouble comes, I think, from folks who do NOT apply those principles, and therefore depend upon meetings and fellowship in order to sustain their sobriety. The original idea was to effect recovery and then send members back into the mainstream of life. There they could be most helpful towards other people needing recovery, and also to the rest of the world in general, by practicing those principles in every aspect of their daily lives. Meetings alone do not keep anyone sober very well. It is a telling fact that in the beginning newcomers were not allowed to attend meetings until they had first made a beginning on the steps and placed their will and their lives in the hands of whatever higher power they could imagine, even if it were simply the combined recovery of the group itself. That couldn't be any worse than the direction they were taking at that point from themselves.

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Registered: May 2003
Location: N. Texas
Posts: 3482

Thanks Frank, that means a lot to me. I will never forget that you were the one who passed this on to me. I'm not perfect and pay a price every day for all those years of selfishness and abuse. I'll never be rid of the wreckage of my past.....although Will G managed to pay off about $900.000 in personal debt by his 12th year sober. Now thats a miracle!

Life is good right now, I'm kinda coasting and letting it happen John (My Sponsor) and his family live about 100 yards away and he is going on 16yrs sober. He's there anytime I need some guidance and there even when I didnt ask for any guidance.

Drugs and Alcohol are not my problem living life on life's terms is my problem. what was it you quoted once: The terrible dailyness of life.

Thats still my problem.

Cheers

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Registered: Oct 2001
Location:
Posts: 18251

I'll take the dailyness any day over what's on my plate now. There's just a bit too much too quick at the moment, and I've been through it all too many times before. If I didn't think there was some reason behind shit, I'd consider sendin myself home. I'm just not seein the point currently. I prayed, and I got somethin new dumped in my lap that fucked me up just the other day. I gotta believe there's somethin worthwhile about it all, or I'm out. I ain't never felt like such a loser in my life as I do today. no sense whinin about it.

I'll smile and chew this shit sandwich I've made for myself and pretend it's peanut butter. I won't be any different at 50, if I make it that long. And that's what's got me wonderin why I should bother.

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