I'm INNie.
In A.A., who is responsible to facilitate who belongs in the A.A. fellowship and who do not belong? Who is responsible to facilitate where to send alcoholics who are not done drinking?
Do we tell the prospect that we suspect that they are probably not alcoholic and direct them to some other place? If so, where? Do we give them a pamphlet, a slogan... such as "Put the Plug in the Jug", a bus pass, and send them packing? Or do we tell them that we cannot identify with them, but tell them to keep an open mind and keep coming back until they find out otherwise? If they're thirsty, do we buy them a jug and uncork it for them?
Do we tell the alcoholics who will not do steps to go to some other program? Like Life Ring or... the Salvation Army?
Is this the responsibility of the "sponsor" or do we give the newcomer the dignity to take responsibility for themselves?
Is A.A. not just passively letting the courts, treatment centers, medical field, clergy, etc. provide prospects that may or may not be a good fit?
You're either alcoholic or you're not. A.A. has a process to find this out. Get in or get out. Maybe you are being punished for being a law breaker and you are being forced to A.A. Maybe you have some back problems and you're being "coerced" into A.A. You got a wife on your back, or a husband on your back or a boss/company on your back. Well go to your meetings, get your papers signed, then meet back here once the heat is off, and decide... in or out.
If A.A. is not your thing, can you physically decide... for yourself... in or out?
Is A.A. like the Navy Seals during Hell Week? Is the peer pressure so tough that you cannot decide for yourself whether A.A. is for you or not? Must you go for 19 years before you decide that A.A. is a nasty and dangerous cult and that there is a better way? If this is your case, Mike, I suggest you go to the "Drama" section of Blockbuster Video, and rent some Shakespeare plays... and some popcorn... maybe some Goobers and Mike and Ikes.
I see anti/XAers and the claims they make. Then they say that someday, courts and the alcoholism industry will stop meddling into the lives of others and stop forcing people to this place called A.A. They say that something better than A.A. will come about and A.A. will go by the wayside... much like the Washingtonians.
What killed the Washingtonians? Did it not implode from within? I'm not so sure that an outside force will kill A.A. In fact, a certain percentage of the anti/XAers out there seem to be of the same belief; A.A. needs to not be forced upon people... such as from the courts. But as some pro-A.A.ers have observed... those fine folks from the courts see it as the best option STILL!
Why haven't the anti/XAers come up with something better, some better game plan, than "Not A.A."?
洪勳劉耀德劉耀德華 said...
ReplyDeletekeep update, please..bless you
Well thank you 洪勳劉耀德劉耀德華. Now if you would just leave off the ..............'s, we'd be golden. Right now... we're aluminum... which is better than rusty old tin.
"Why haven't the anti/XAers come up with something better, some better game plan, than "Not A.A."?
ReplyDeleteI hope you're not holding your breath waiting for an answer. They don't have one.
The situation is as such. We have a room full of chronic complainers that are low enough on the social ladder that they utilize the age old tried and true method of making themselves feel better.
Blaming someone else, putting others down, and pointing others flaws as to detract the attention away from their own.
A lot of it is explained right here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority
Our buddy Orange suffers from this too.
More can be read here It describes Speedy to a tee.
http://gagne.homedns.org/~tgagne/contrib/unskilled.html
So to answer your question as to why haven't they come up with something.
Simple. They're not smart enough.
Looks like KGB on your orumfay lippedsay gainAye!
ReplyDeleteSurprise surprise! Keep coming back!
Oh, if you're not too busy, and if you've got another drink in you, won't you try a Jager Bomb, a Tuaca Bomb, a Comfort Bomb, and/or an Orange Tic Tak and let me know how those go?
Instead of maybe starting 10 threads a day talking about your going out again, then starting another thread for each of your new days sober, maybe ... don't.
You ain't that important, it ain't about you... sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up... or as my group told me a couple of slips ago... STFD and STFU... slipper.
You are not a real member of A.A. or S.R. KGB. You are a troll and an anti/XAer spy.
That last post of mine seems so damned harsh and mean. Well, it is and was intended to be. That disturbs some. There should be a better way. But what I've seen currently over "there" is even worse; pour honey on the festering wound.
ReplyDeleteOh, you poor chronic slipper you! Let us ((((((you))))) and invite you back! Please don't leave us. You're doing so well... er... you're trying so hard... er... A.A. is so right for you, keep doing this... er... WTF?????????
I, for one, question everything; you, God, y'alls interpretation of God, myself, my own interpretation of God... the whole God-damned shitin' kaboodle. I'm sick of this shit. This PC-ness.
Maybe you're not an alcoholic. Maybe you're just a stupid "Wine"-ey bitch. =) Get it?
Maybe you really are just a troll playing and tugging at the heart-strings of those who've become dependent on Cyber-dependent recoverers. IDK. You did get me thrown out. Really, you did. You also got at least two others thrown out. I saw it with my own eyes. I've got copies of posts I could cite. But that's a waste of time.
The bottom line is you've created a drama team for yourself and you have the decency to be blatant in your "advertised" defects of character.
One of my not-so-distant adversaries over there... someone who I've been coming to understand more and more lately... has ripped your covers. I'm impressed. She said something to the effect that you tend to "slip" and go back out shortly after you point the blame or find fault with another... allbeit so subtley. This time, she called you on your mention of some newcomer who "refuses to do steps, read the A.A. book, take a sponsor... and you post a new thread about that, then sit back and watch the drama fly. Oh, and at the same time, you throw in the "What about A.A. and Catholic Communion" topic to boot.
Then in the midst of it all... you drink... and sit back for a day or two... wait for all your rescuers to come a playin' their harps... then you wait for someone with just a smidgeon of balls to step up and call you on your shit.
Then you can come back a cryin' in your pathetic victimizing way... whilst laughing your ass off on the other side of the keyboard.
Well done. Who are you? Bugsworth's sister? Somebody from Stinkin' Thinkin'?
I blew the whistle on Tib for being a Troll. I got scolded by Carol
ReplyDeleteKCB is a Troll too. Anyone with half a brain could have seen that slip or relapse or whatever coming down the pike months ago.
I'll show these weak minded AA dumbasses! I'll take all 12 steps and then I'll slip. Then I can prove AA doesn't work.
OK! You got me. Ha Ha. Not!
This is cyber space. It's a world of make believe. Some of the folk believe you, some don't. Some are just going along for the ride.
I have no problem calling you on your BS but I'll get in trouble.
Something tells me that you're on ST as much as you're on SR and something tells me you stop by here from time to time.
Could it be that the one and only FTG would stoop so low? Who knows? KCB might not even be a girl. It might be MA in a pair of lace panty hose.
I might have to stop over there to ST and play them just like KCB is playing the sheep over at ST
You do be careful over there. I do like what pagekeeper said to KCB, but haven't seen how it was rcvd yet. I'm wondering if she/it's gonna do an "I'm Sober Today" thread for each day of the week.
ReplyDeleteIf she was legit, I am merely of the opinion that her "caretakers" are going about it the wrong way.
CarolD, for example, tells her that she needs to stay away from negative people.
Others, like that robot character, 24, and a few others really coddle this character.
It's all an act. It's not A.A., yet they do all this in the 12 Step thread.
KCB is fully aware of Orange Papers, so... I know she's playing them all, especially CarolD, like a fiddle.
When you go back and drink in A.A., nobody gives a shit. It's a cold fact and a spiritual law. Think about the slippers in your group. Do you give a damn? Really? Nobody cares if you go out either. They can't care. If you don't care for yourself, I can't care for you either. But if you do care, I have to care.
Whenever I was sent to A.A. or came to A.A. after a bad bender, I thought I cared. But drink day came again, and I was off. The last thing I had on my mind was A.A. or any of you people. I didn't need you. I had booze. The last damned thing I'd do on this earth is drunk-post. How fucked up is that? That'd ruin a good drunk IMO. But when I came back in the last time, booze changed me. I'd been "beaten into a state of reasonableness". I had no more tricks under my sleeve and no more plans. I was whooped and I didn't have the fucking energy to blame it on the sponsors who locked me in their rooms, on the laundry room, on the box of wine, on the jobless spouse, on the children.
No. If you're the slipper, you're the fucking guy. It's not God's fault, or A.A.'s fault, or the group's fault, or the meeting's fault or the fucking coffee's fault.
If you want to try something out besides A.A., go for it. Get the fuck out of the 12 Step Forum then.
I could spend 5 minutes with KCB and have her/it fessing up. She doesn't want sobriety. She wants drama.
But I fear that it's something much much more sinister. She... is an imposter. She is an anti/XAer that doesn't even go to A.A. She makes it all up and laughs her ass off... probably while drinking her Sangrias.
I heard that a now ex member of there was gonna put her in touch with a solid member from her area and she totally flaked out. Then the person trying to help her got upset, let her know about it, then Sober Recovery kicked her off.
Think about it. The Mulligan Group aims to make money off the "Alcoholism Industry". A.A. takes money away from those who stand to make money of the industry, so... the anti/XA crowd is probably the very therapists who stand to lose money from the industry.
Sober Recovery hates real A.A. But there are a few good folks left. Like Rob, still can't quite figure how you've lasted... but you do look a bit lonely there.
So she did all the steps and she/A.A. failed. She was offended when Cathy implied that she didn't do all steps. She came back and claimed that she did, infact do all steps and drank again.
ReplyDeleteThis would imply one of two things; she did all steps properly and A.A. failed. Or, she missed something and she failed.
I've done many sets of steps and I seriously doubt that I ever did them perfectly, ever... and the obsession had been removed from me. And I acted for a time like a recovered alcoholic.
KCB has never acted like a recovered alcoholic. I'm not even so sure she's an unrecovered alcoholic. I think she's maybe not even a hard drinker. I think she's a hard anti/soon-to-be-XAer. She can't be an XAer yet because she's still "IN" A.A. ... allegedly.
Now, even though I'd had a spiritual experience and did a set of steps, that was no guarantee that I'd die sober. Drink day came again. I'd been doing well for a while... but I drank again... and it wasn't because I "stopped going to meetings". I was in a damned group. But once I drank, it was me and booze. I stopped going to meetings because, what the fuck! I had booze! I didn't need y'all.
But... now I've got a hold of something that seems to be a bit more lasting. Why? I didn't know at the time. My mentors told me what they saw. They said before, I wasn't afraid in drinking again. When I came back, I was whooped. Booze taught me something. Now. I could unravel and drink again. I know that. I pretty much still don't want to drink ever again. So much so that I don't have to be told to go to A.A., to commit to the group. It's just fucking there. I hope it stays there.
Now they're talking about how she may just have a 1st Step problem because she's a high bottom drunk and hasn't lost enough. She agrees with this as a possibility and says she'll consider it.
So I'm confused again. Maybe Keep really is sincere and I'm just a mean asshole... or both. Or maybe not. I don't know for sure.
I don't think ... giving her the benefit of the doubt... my doubt that is... she needs to lose her home and her family to get a 1st Step. She merely needs to see what a real alcoholic is, whether she's got the physical aspect of "can't control the amount once started" and the mental aspect of "can't stay stopped on her own power... no matter what", that she's lost control of both... and that she is willing to submit fully to the steps and see what happens.
Maybe that's why I get so angry with her drama. It's not because I got severly busted in her thread. I got busted mainly because I got into it with Bugsworth. It really wasn't Keep's fault... assuming of course that she's sincere for being at S.R. I'm pissed because... assuming she's real alky, I see her arrogance... her ego. It makes me sick. I've been like her for sure. I've had gurus of groups come up to me and yell at me... saying what an arrogant egotistical asshole I was. But... they really cared about me. They knew I'd drink again. I was just where I was. But I'm sober now and I'm still an asshole. So there ya go.
SR, has nothing I want, purely for the reasons you have described, it's a study in censorship and bullshit, I don't know if I was the Rob you were referring to, but my ass was permanently banned from there, when all the shit went down.
ReplyDeleteI decided to give up internet forums for a few months, made a decision, and stuck to it, looks like I have choice.
These days I read you blog, Danny's blog, ST from time to time (mostly for the jokes, the you tube video on amends was pretty funny.
Currently I'm working with several folks who want to recover, my life is blessed.
Good to see you guys in the trenches calling it the way you see it.
Good to see you Rob. I've got a new guy I'm working with too. Got him in Step 4. Hope to hear his 5th soon. His world is rockin'. But he keeps coming around. Pretty cool.
ReplyDeleteOne road in and 4000 roads out, right?
I went over to ST and scooped this turd out of the litter box.
ReplyDelete"Michael Enright, the twenty-one year old wingnut who slashed the throat of a Muslim cab driver in New York, is an AA member".
Since I'm not allowed over there would you kindly ask them exactly whet their definition of an A.A. "Member" is.
I'll bet it's a far sight different than my definition.
Once again. Attending meetings does not make one a "Member"
O.K. I'm done. You can take your fingers out of your ears now.
That ex-member of SR that put KCB in touch with a woman he knew was AGO (Andrew). As you know Patrick, Andrew just left that other forum because of it's MOTR bullshit.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened was that Andrew put KCB in touch withthis woman who lived about an hour from KCB. I guess they actually talked on the phone and made arrangements to hook up. Andrew's friend even took a day off from work and drove an hour to meet KCB. And then KCB flaked and Andrew openly called her on it on SR and Carol had him banned for being too harsh.
By the way, I stay in contact with Andrew and he is doing well.
I knew it was him. I wasn't sure why he left the last forum because they seemed to like him a lot. At least he had that going for him there. I thought he was well understood and supported from the comments I saw about him.
ReplyDeleteHe had an awesome post in there that I thought would bridge the gap between the somewhat secular world and the "religious" world, and I had him post in a crazy blog of mostly antiAAers and he was not well received by the "fanatic anti/XAers" there and I was sorry I had involved him over there. He graciously spoke his peace and walked away from there. Tony J knows the place I refer to... an ongoing blog about A.A. being a cult.
So I just would like for the few real AAers over at S.R. to know whom they deal with... with this KCB character. To not coddle the newcomer is to abuse them... I guess. We don't play that game in my group.
So now there's an anti/XAer that I don't know how to respond to... how to relate to. One Carlton claims they know 5 gals who were raped in A.A. and insists on wondering how many others have been raped in A.A. And if they're not getting raped in A.A., their sponsors are stealing their money from them.
In my personal life, I know two people who have been raped... someone in incarceration at a very young age and another person who was raped at the age of 8 and saw her own mom murdered by the perp after she had found out and set out to confront him. Allegations of crime are serious. To use them to trash the reputation of the A.A. program/fellowship is pretty sick. It's nothing I can really doubt nor do I want to know more about the thing. I've got my own life to live and can only experience what's real and in front of me. I have rarely seen sexual harassment in the rooms of A.A. I've seen some adults, male and female, make some rash and less than intellegent choices... myself included.
Cuda, I can't really post over at ST anymore due to my moral and philosophical conviction to not go where I'm not wanted. But I'd not concern myself with the article as it's written by MA and not ftg. At least ftg has a point and a writting style while MA is just Orange's left foot. Oh, and the expert on what bird shit is and how it's got a lot of white stuff in it and how if you put some on your ice cream, how it makes everything bird shit. He's really got it figured out, that bird shit. I never really gave bird shit a lot of thought. I saw a friend get bird shit on his shirt once. It was some funny fuckin' shit from where I was sitting. Does yogurt look like birdshit to you? Anyway, enough about MA.
ReplyDeleteI looked over the comment section of that topic and all they're going off about is donut holes and wholes and racist racing fans who hate Obama and divorce classes and how A.A. sucks and all.
Oh, someone was talking about how if it weren't for the poor, they wouldn't be motivated to go to work and have a job and shit. Nice. It would break my fucking heart if you lost your nest egg, job, family, etc. and could experience the poor up close and personal like... at the soup kitchen.
Then they talked about how seatbelt and helmet laws suck, but how they wear both... this ST'ers in New Hampshire. Sure you do. How do you wear a fucking seat belt on your Vespa? Or do you wear a helmet when driving your fucking hybrid? When you ride a motorcycle, you don't wear a fucking seat belt, pea brain. It's either seat belt... OR helmet. Four wheel vehicle OR two/three wheel vehicle. Remember the difference? Either or? Heads/ tails? Mutually exclusive?
Then they talked about personal freedoms and guns and libertarians.
They really didn't talk about Michael Enright or Muslim cab drivers or what a "member" was.
Let me guess... you washed the shit off and you didn't turn into bird shit? MA, aka shark sandwich, is a tard.
ReplyDeleteLet ftg run the articles whenever you get the chance. Just a word of friendly advice.
Nice to see y'all in here... Jim and Rob. It's like an SR reunion.
I see my sponsee tonight at our group meeting. Unless I don't. I get to see if he balked on his 4th step over the last 2 weeks. If so, he gets the opportunity to do it with us. We start the work again in a week or so. There's someone else in our group who's been working with him too. I may lose him to this other guy. That's fine. He's not "mine" to claim anyway. I just hope he gets in and does this or if he does something else, he lands somewhere safe. One way or another, I'm sober and I'm glad I ain't him right now.
Looking forward, another new guy came back to our group meeting last week. Be nice if he showed up again. Or someone totally new... Just trying to do what Chapter 7 says...
Any of you guys know where Navy Steve is? How's he doin'?
Happy Birthday to Mark from SR! Actually, he's from somewhere out east I think.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, he's a nice guy. Too nice for the likes of this blog... but still a fellow traveler on the path.
Just got back from my home group meeting. Two guys I am working with became a part of the group tonight and we got a new woman tonight, one who is being sponsored by a woman from the group. We are growing the way they used to grow Alcoholics Anonymous.
ReplyDeleteWe just finished a journey through the steps as a group and next month we are meeting on Fridays outside of our regular meeting to look at Traditions & Concepts.
Tell Mark I said hi.
By the way had chat with Steve on Facebook this past Sunday morning. He is doing good. He got banned from SR too.
ReplyDeleteKind of a funny story. He had a few posts removed by Carol, so he pm's her telling her he is tired of the censorship and wants out of SR and leaves. But they won't take his profile down like he asks them too. So he posts something really offensive just so he can get banned.
I'm not sure about Mark's anniversary date. I may have jumped the gun by two weeks.
ReplyDeleteDang!!! I'm feeling kind of left out. I need to get banned too.
ReplyDeleteI'm open for ideas if anyone has any suggestions.
I must admit that the IP address change gets people fired up.
I suppose you could go in there and tell Music that he's the pivot-man in the circle-jerk and that 24HoursADay is the towel boy.
ReplyDeleteBut don't do that! That would be bad.
Well Keep almost drank again, at day 4... after getting "hit" with anger.
ReplyDeleteIt's nice that she can be "hit" with a thing like that... anger. I always choose the muther-fucker.
Then she doubled-down and chose not to drink. Nice.
Someone suggested to her to not pay attention to the nasty "dates" and go with the "day at a time" plan. This person told her it's a matter of the lack of self love and that she needs to let others love her more until she can love herself. Oh, and that it's a PTSD issue. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Does she get shelled by road-side bombs as she drives to the wine store? Thought she lived in the Bay area. Is Berkley bombing Daly City and Tiburon now? Hmmm.
Someone else suggested she double her efforts around the 60 day mark. I think she should step back, declare herself a social/hard drinker and go try some controlled drinking, tear up her SR membership and her A.A. membership and get after those boxes of wine. Imagine the laundry she could get done.
Who is this Ninja7 character? A recovery hobbyist?
"Why don’t you folks spend as much time trashing Dr. Bob"?
ReplyDeleteGood question and a serious side step by Speedy. Of course. A long winded blow hard statement without an answer.
I'll answer it for the dumb fucks. They can't attack the message because they don't know the message. If they do know, then they haven't been able to best it for 75 years now. So it only makes sense to attack the messenger.
It's trailer trash type debating techniques 101
Unfortunately the most of them have never heard of Dr. Bob. Therefore they can't attack him.
The Bobble Heads are only capable of repeating what they hear.
It's sort of like Obama's Birth Certificate. It comes up most often because it's the only part of our Constitution that most people know.
So what Speedy is saying is this; if Dr Bob was alive today, he would come to our meeting, hold the door open for a pretty lady, be proudly white, be content and happy as the bread winner of the family, been a church goer on Sunday as well, and will have sported a McCain/Palin bumper sticker on his Lincoln.
ReplyDeleteNothing whatsoever about what kind of man he is and what kind of an A.A. he was nor what he did for his fellow man, community, family, friends, and the suffering alcoholic.
Religious right-wing racist bastard. He probably hunts and eats red meat too.