some links

On line SOS chat at Yahoo! http://www.secularsobriety.org/chat.html
http://www.positiveatheism.org/tocrw.htm#OTHER
http://www.positiveatheism.org/rw/sameplay.htm
http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id409/pg1/ is aa threating your nation?
http://www.positiveatheism.org/rw/alcohol.htm new front line for battle of separation of church and state

http://fornits.com/anonanon/
http://fornits.com/anonanon/docs/lifton-criteria.txt
http://www.smartrecovery.org/
http://www.morerevealed.com/dev_art.jsp
http://www.morerevealed.com/checklist.jsp
http://www.morerevealed.com/books/resist/r_chap_2.htm efficacy of 12-step programs
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://aadeprogramming.com
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.r....from-12-steps
http://web.archive.org/web/200011010...m/gambler.html
http://www.positiveatheism.org/rw/wandl69.htm "you don't grant the same consideration to other paths"
http://www.sossobriety.org/cults.htm staying clear of recovery cults with checklist
gulag camps

http://fornits.com/wwf/viewforum.php?forum=37&1964
http://fornits.com/wwf/index.php?viewcat=1


When I find links to rehab skills training sites for children of substance abuse and the domineering stepper recovery system I'll try to get back and post them. If anyone knows of such sites please let me know.

Down

sigh. feel better, down. I hope so.

I've procrastinated for weeks posting some links and I'm afraid they are still disorganized as my life. LOL I forgot this important book summary link.
http://www.morerevealed.com/books/resist/r_chap_7.htm book summary

Having gotten some alternatives to the "help and support" links to stepper sites up here I do feel a little better but still want, as I mentioned above to know about skills training sites. I would also like to see more representation of these sorts of alternatives on this site's support link page but as yet haven't managed to get organized enough to winnow the many links I've found down enough to submit them for the doc's consideration.

Scientifically supported efficacy of methods should be the criteria for most prominent placement and ranking as I see it both here and in the general society.

~Down

he's going to check them out anyway, so just PM him a bunch to begin with! I agree, I think there are plenty of resources out there, but it's easier for us to find them and suggest than for admin to go hunting....

for whom it may concern

curtsy of the newcomer rescue league

Some 12step free help links can be found at http://www.morerevealed.com/misc/orglinks.jsp

Another interesting idea that seems to go counter to the guidelines here as well as at 12step meetings is that one can't realistically have serious discussions while pretending that politics and religion are irrelavant or even seperable from most subject matter, as discribed here from agent orange's site I think.

It totally ignores all social issues.
A.A. says that the answer to all social problems is the Twelve Steps, and that all of your problems are of your own making. Like the Oxford Group before it, Alcoholics Anonymous believes that all social problems are caused by sin, and only by sin. A.A. will not look at any of the causes of alcoholism, like poverty, racism, child abuse, lack of education, lack of opportunities, or injustice.

A.A., along with all of the other 12-step recovery groups, is not only apolitical, it is downright anti-political. This, combined with the anti-intellectualism listed above, makes the A.A. organization a corrupt politician's dream come true -- those people just will not do anything to rock the boat or threaten the status quo. It is no surprise that fascist dictators like having A.A. in their countries, and Latin America is one of the biggest growth areas for A.A..

Indeed, an organization that tries to ignore all societal causes of social problems "and to concern itself not at all as to the way in which the corporate life of society is organized" ... "enters the social arena inevitably on the side of reaction". In other words, it becomes fascistic in nature.

The only apparent exception to the rule of ignoring the societal causes of alcoholism is that A.A. recognizes that past child abuse, being an Adult Child Of Alcoholics, contributes to alcoholism. And the fix is: Join ACOA, do the Twelve Steps, read the Book, go to lots of meetings, etc... And make amends by apologizing for being angry about getting beaten or molested. And for other family members, the answer is to join Al-Anon or Alateen, and do the Twelve Steps, go to lots of meetings, etc...

Take care ~Down

Good to see you back around Down. I hope life is treating you as well as you are treating it.

I always enjoy your stuff, you are a very bright and inquisitive soul. And you bring up good observations about 12 step stuff.

You are right when you say that we have no opinion on outside issues. For the hour, in meetings that I enjoy, we focus on the solution exclusively. But you ought to see a bunch of x drunks sitting around the tables before the meeting starts, just going down the list, and discussing just about every subject under the sun.

We agree on the spiritual solution to our alcoholism, and that is just about it. We don’t agree on the color of the sky or much of anything else. Political affiliations run the gambit from anarchists through neo-con and everything in-between. Don’t think that just because we get sober with the 12 steps that we stop thinking, or acting politically or socially, we don’t.

But for the hour, we give our undivided attention to recovery. At any rate that’s how it works for me.

Richard

I always love your posts Richard! I agree about the meetings before and after the meetings, the other day a bunch of us went to lunch and had the greatest discussion about American culture as compared to cultures around the world and I was sitting there thinking that it was one of the best intellectual conversations I've had in a very long time. Sure beats sitting round with the active drunks and stoners talking about nothing like the old days. My group of recovering drunks are the best people I've ever had in my life, you included. =)

bump
... some links for those with open eyes.

Hi Down,

Good to see you around, and I share your doubts about the AA dogma.

Something that is rarely mentioned in the literature on drug and alcohol addiction is the nature of the depressive mind.

If a person suffers from a mental illness, the chances are that they are feeling rough for a lot of the time. Give them something that relieves that feeling, ie, alcohol, a smoke, or a powerful tranq (maybe diazepam) and they are going to want more of it. How can you blame anyone for wanting to feel better? How can you blame anyone for having an illness?

The nightmare is that the ill person suffers terrible hangovers and/or withdrawals as they come down and that IMHO is where the moral courage comes in. Where AA does seem to work is in helping people to deal with suffering, which I believe is the key to much of our problems.

I have spent many years learning to live outside the comfort zone, but I still feel so much better after a glass of wine. It will always be like that, and I will always have the struggle. That's just how it is I guess.

Good thoughts, M

Down…

One of my favorite TV shows was Taxi. And one of the cast was this total stoner named Jim, played by Christopher Lloyd {SP?) I loved that guy.

In one episode, he goes up to the lead character played by Jud Hirsh, and proclaimed he has found the perfect drug. It just has one bad side effect. The Jud Hirsh character inquires, well, what is this one bad side effect?

And Jim says that the only bad side effect to this otherwise perfect drug is it wears off!

Ain’t that the truth.

If I could just stayed stoned and drunk everything would be manageable. I thought. But every time I turned around, I was coming to undrunk. That was the pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization that drove me to look for anything that could change the pattern of my life.

I think that every one of us (those in whom drugs or alcohol are interfering in their lives) should search everywhere for that path with a heart that Carlos Castanadas talks about.

Here is one more link you might want to add to your list. It is a guy in Australia who is doing some interesting research into alcoholism. His basic take is we suffer from hypoglycemia, and we drink to augment low energy production from a poor diet. That diet may be the key to our obsessive relationship to substances that change the way we feel, and change it fast.

http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/index.html

He is a smart guy, and his stuff is worth a read.

Down, if you want to, check it out and tell me what you think.

Still on the road to the good stuff,
Richard

LOL! Sorry, this just made me laugh because I was suffering all the symptoms of hypoglycemia - all of them - but the docs couldn't diagnose it. 2 weeks into my sobriety, I had absolutely no symptoms of hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia, at all! And still don't! No matter what I eat!! It's great. I used to not be able to anything with carbohydrates or sugar unless I could follow it by a ton of protein. Now I can eat and entired plate of just pasta and be fine.

Is the whole sugar study the "science may one day accomplish this" answer every abnormal drinker is hoping for? I don't think so.

~Rayna

Myzen,

Efficacious help delayed is help denied for many who die and those who lose precious working years, stuck in bait and switch mind control exercises that don't work while hurting confidence.

If decorating altars with chicken bones worked without corrupting the healthcare, and political system it would only be guilty of fraud through pseudo-science and delaying scientifically proven methods of help.

http://www.rational.org/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000067.html
http://www.morerevealed.com/dev_art.jsp

~Down

Down, is it just me or is your skull avatar looking a little ragged these days. Seems to me it used to look sharper. Or maybe it’s just my own senility setting in.

On the road to the good stuff
Richard

Shadow,

I don't know what you are talking about, have you had your eyes checked lately?

Actually I changed it about a month ago from an modified photo to an expressionistic sketch I did. I wanted it on a black background but lost patience figuring out how to do that and just settled with it as is for now.

Hope you're well and still learning, to stave off the alzimers(sp), what we can do about the half-hymer's(sp) that I already seem to have idk.

Down,
If you want to, I can revise on your skull art with a black background. Or anything else for that matter.

I do this sort of thing for a living, people like me are the reason photos can’t be uses in a court of law ant more. A little Photoshop and a larcenous character is all it takes.

Like I said, e-mail me your original scan, or your jpeg, gif, tiff, or whatever format art you have, and I will do what I do.

My website is: Orangeblossomgraphicsonline.com
And my e-mail address is shadowalker164@aol.com

If you don’t want to, no biggie, the thought just occurred to me. And if I get these thoughts and don’t do anything about them, they screws with my day.

Peace my friend
Richard

That's a nice offer shadow but it's not very important, I'll get to it some day after I get my own puter optimized for graphics and the other things I want it to do. I swear sharing a puter must be like trying to heard cats, they just go where ever they want knock things over and mess in out of the way places stinking up the place lol.

I hope these links refer to the 12-step recovery-mind control techique-of lies, and pseudo-science which is dead and history; but I have seen few signs that the profit motive of faith healers has been repealed,or that the12-step religion can change itself. I continue to mantain that it's victims are the majority who need but aren't getting help and skills training that documentedly works. Children of substance abusers have been left to fend for themselves by the cult escapees to SOS. Pychologists and the general social infrastructure has failed us as well, possible due to the same contaminating influence of spirutality and faith healing propoganda that "knows" "truths" that just ain't so.

Down…

Like I said before on the skull art, no biggie.

Did you check out that guy in Australia? He and I have had long conversations on this business of alcoholism. We don’t agree on all points, but I admire his work never the less.

He actually may be on to something with his idea that we alcoholics suffer from hypoglycemia, and that the sugar boost we get from booze is a major part of the craving. I don’t know, but I, like you am a fan of the scientific method. If it is linked, it can be quantified as so.

I know you and I don’t agree on what path to recovery holds the most promise. That’s OK. We are both doing something. It seems most drunks just drink. Good for you, good for me.

What we do agree on is kids. They get the short end of the stick every time. We have all seen or heard of stories where a poor child suffering in an alcoholic home is left there to fend for themselves. Parents who drink too much may love their children, but that love never stopped them from building a home that harbors anger, resentment, selfishness, broken furniture and hearts.

I don’t know what the solution to this tragedy is. For me, a spiritual experience replaced all that crap in my home. It is no longer a scary place for my children to live. And I am very grateful for that gift.

This notion of spirituality is the place my friend in Australia and myself part ways. He, as a scientist, will not avail himself of this dimension of existence. Intellectual pride is a pair of blinders we need not wear.
Science and spirituality are just two ways a blind man may describe an elephant he can not see with his eyes.

At any rate, take care of yourself my friend.
Richard

don't have the word to back you up or the links dont then I doubt I want to see them. talking A.... words
Is still good to see you around!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shadow,

I haven't checked on the hypoglycemia connection but it may be of interest idk, I'll wait for the findings to come in and the normal science processes to test the results of studies. As for who and what groups are in the business of putting blinders on others I think the links I've posted here point to the major pernicious culprits.

~Down

bump

adding some links to the links thread for crack cocaine

http://www.crackcocainerecovery.com/

http://www.devilscandy.com/

http://www.rational.org/

http://www.soberrecovery.com/

http://www.soberforever.net

Yo!

Ah, C. don't know about those, the one with the st. is a big red flag for me. If they are instruction and support without indoctrination and control, I'd say fine.
~Down

fyi, updates to some links to follow or find for yourselves.

~Down