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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
 Posted - 05/16/2009 : 02:50:45
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None of this proves anything, but I thought it was an interesting discussion with the comments below the essay.
In my not-so-humble opinion, AA is like any other cult. Yes it helps many sober up. Any "program" will have its successes. For many, however, it creates another kind of addiction.
And that addiction can be almost worse.
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I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 05/16/2009 : 04:16:31 [Permalink]
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Years ago I too, did the program. It worked, at least up to a point. But I noticed something; for some members it was like a religious conversion.
I think that like religion, it appeals to a certain mind set and some few simply give up booze in favor of the Kool-Aid.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2009 : 07:34:42 [Permalink]
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AA, and other steps program, have a big religious element to it.
As well as a self-deprecating element and admonitions to 'surrender to a higher power', that would make it good fodder for a cult-like developement.
Penn and Teller did an episode on steps programs, they were not too impressed, as you probably imagine... |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2009 : 17:45:59 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ricky
Makes me wonder if there are any such programs meant to empower a person, to encourage them to use their own strength to beat out an addiction.
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SOS: Secular Organizations for Sobriety |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2009 : 19:21:10 [Permalink]
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I know a couple people who were helped by AA, but neither of them got obsessed or "addicted" to it. They just used it to the extent that it helped them by providing a structure for quitting a behavior that they did want to quit, and a support group of people who had a the same problem, and thus, could relate to them without judgment.
That said...
There is a cult-like element to AA for a lot of people. For three years I wrote an often controversial column for my student newspaper at Ohio State U. I wrote about gay rights, I wrote columns critical of religion (including one which criticized the Pope), but it is this column that I wrote criticizing AA (and if you read it, you'll see it is fairly mild criticism) that attracted far more hate mail than any other column I ever wrote. I was shocked.
"Recovery programs are lame, ineffective."
[Edited to fix link - Dave W.] |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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How AA Robbed Me Of My Dad
