At the beginning of every mind-fuck 12 step cult meeting, a passage from their big book of lies is read aloud by one member (who incidentally has usually been forced to read it). The “How It Works” passage reads,
“Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.”
Seriously?! Could this possibly be more of a cognitive dissonance inducing pile of shit? No. First of all, most people DO fail at their so-called simple programme. The statistics are overwhelmingly clear on this. That’s because if “it” doesn’t work, YOU are to blame, never their perfect programme.
The AA cult religion is nothing but a dangerous set-up for failure for the vast majority who reject faith healing disguised as medicine. The rest of this passage is a big subterfuge of pseudo honesty all wrapped up in a you’re-a-piece-of-shit sandwich. Don’t fall for it for a second!
I recently had a conversation with a Marriage and Family Therapist who claimed that she did indeed give clients a choice. “They are free to go out and test their ability to drink.” It was all I could do to not reach through the phone and shake the baby!
Telling someone that their choice is to either join your programme, or go out and attempt suicide is NO CHOICE AT ALL. That is most certainly what this choice is placing on someone. in other words, “you can keep trying to be a normal drinker and die on the streets, or you can join us on our “happy road of destiny”, or whatever stupid lie that shit chant states. For a stepper to do this is bad enough, but for a clinician to do it is outright HARMING and CONDEMNING for the client.
First of all, the vast majority of people with a substance use issue get better (moderate or abstain) ON THEIR OWN. A clinician who uses or recommends the 12 step cult in a treatment setting at all, should have their license suspended, until they have been de-programmed and trained in all the evidence-based help available. This acquaintance actually believes she is giving clients a choice when she is creating nothing but a SELF-FULFILLING PROPHESY of FAILURE.
Dr. Adi Jaffe has given me permission to share the link below. He writes a brilliant article that further outlines how this passage in the 12 step cult literature HARMS rather than helps people, doing a great job of explaining how this subterfuge harms and what to do about it. This link will also lead you to a truly revolutionary outpatient center in Beverly Hills that can genuinely help you and those for which you care. There should be more facilities and helpers like Dr. Jaffe!
Where we disagree is his statement “It’s time to dust off the covers, and incorporate the 12-steps into the bigger picture of addiction treatment.” No sir. It is time to get the 12 step cult religion OUT of addiction treatment altogether. Any clinician who continues to push this dangerous cult should be reprimanded for doing so. “Sponsors” can do whatever evil shit disguised as help they chose, but clinicians disguised as cult disciples need to revamp their work. STAT!
What’s wrong with AA’S literature? Everything! How does “it work?” It DOESN’T.
Please read and share everywhere. Thank You!
12 Step Cult Religion Exposed 
I love how Dr. Jaffe draws the comparisons of what 1939 was all about, vs. the “changes” in psychology, genetics, inventions, society-at-large, etc. that have been made SINC 1939! An additional concrete example is to EVANGELIZE the “review” of JAMA on the book “Alcoholics Anonymous” from the 10/14/1939 edition of “JAMA” (found on “morerevealed.com”).
Oh yes! Great and salient point! One evangelizing must be counteracted with another! “The one valid thing in the book is the recognition of the seriousness of addiction to alcohol. Other than this, the book has no scientific merit or interest.” Thank you Ay.
For those following along http://www.morerevealed.com/archives/jama–big-book–review.html
Has anyone besides me SEEN/READ the JAMA review of: 10/15/1939, I referred to?
I have but not recently. I did post the link to morerevealed above. Even in 1939 the big book was called out for being religious indoctrination unlikely to “work” for anyone!
OUTSTANDING! 😉 Nothing better then a “primary source” from 1939 no less, that CALLS AA out for the LACK OF SCIENTIFIC VALUE it had THEN (and continues to not have NOW!)
Well no but the founders and all present and past old-timers never intended it to be based in science or anything that would actually help people.
It was a means for which to blame and get away with abusive, abhorrent, sexist, predatory behavior, just like all successful cult gurus.
It is also a way to justify abandoning fheir family and becoming the big shot in a church basement. Fake it till you make it!
Forever and ever, amen.
Wait-you mean “praying it away”, and “asking for amends” via putting a piece of paper in a box is NOT a way to get or stay sober? Who woulda thought (clearly not Buchman, Wilson, or Smith! Sounds like a BAD law firm. . . 🙂
Ambulance chasers!
Great post! Thanks for your, as usual, pull-no-punches writing.
Implicit in this passage is the idea that nothing other than the “program” need be given any consideration in the pursuit of “recovery”. Therefore, by the time one gets to the ensuing passages that *claim* the 12-step program are a list of “suggested” steps, it becomes clear, that in the entire context of the linked paragraphs, “suggested” is written in understatement. 12-step members clearly get this fact when they make oft heard statements like “The 12 steps are “suggested” like it is “suggested” one pull the rip cord on a parachute when jumping from a plane.
The passage is also a preemptive attack on the character of the person with a substance use problem. ‘If you can’t make our program work, there is something wrong with YOU, not our program’. I can’t imagine a more horrendous thing to do to already broken people who are struggling, often with doubts about themselves. This passage simply threatens to compound the injury should one find “the program” not working for them.
Absofuckingloutely. Very eloquently expressed!
It’s especially concerning when even those with credentials in the field reinforce the damage of the 12 step dogma by ‘towing the party line.’ (Can’t count the number of so-called clinicans who have used that excuse.)
That they feel they must do this to keep their job is bad enough, that the brainwashing has been completed under the “training” umbrella is truly both illuminating and horrific when the implications are considered.
We are in a world of shit. BILLShit.
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Hi Laura
Just a quick response to your article about AA members ‘rarely failing’. I currently live in a hostel in Ireland with 19 other men with alcohol addiction. It is a ‘dry’ house and therefore no alcohol is permitted. It is based on the AA principles, and we must attend an in-house meeting once a week, which is total bullshit. (For me anyway) Every other resident attends meetings outside of the hostel, apart from me. Every other resident has failed, apart from me. Every other resident has lost all self respect and dignity, and ability to communicate with non-addicts, apart from me. Every other resident hates me because I can do this without AA, but guess what? I don’t hate ME. Quite the opposite. I enjoy being me. A freethinker with a mind of my own, and the ability to see through the lies and hypocrisy of that cult. Although, I dare not mention anything derogatory about Bill Wilson to these people, because it’s just not worth it. They are so brainwashed by it that they aren’t able to listen. So, I think I’ve just confirmed the fact that AA’ers DO fail. All the time!! I’ll end this by saying what does help me though, and it’s people like you and Monica Richardson, and a few others who have the courage to fight against these people, and help open the eyes of the poor brainwashed addicts. So far, I’ve managed to get two people out of AA, and they haven’t relapsed once since they left the cult. I’ll keep going until I see a MASSIVE change in numbers of AA. Rant over.
Thanks again.
Neil.
On 29 Aug 2016 7:35 p.m., “12 Step Cult Religion Exposed” wrote:
> 12 Step Cult Religion Exposed posted: “At the beginning of every mind-fuck > 12 step cult meeting, a passage from their big book of lies is read aloud > by one member (who incidentally has usually been forced to read it). The > “How It Works” passage reads, “Rarely have we seen a person fail w” >
Feel free to rant here anytime at all Neil! Thanks for the laugh. The 12 step cult is the most widespread social experiment of all time. The sheeple blindly following others even in the face of horrible abuse and treatment by their “fellows.”
It’s no surprise unfortunately that you are being vilified for exercising your free mind. They hate it when that happens!
Keep in mind that “relapse” is a big bait and switch propaganda technique the cult has used since its inception. If you “relapse” the cult dogma must be true because your “disease” was surely doing “push-ups in the parking lot” perpetually waiting for your “powerless” ass to fuck up. It’s the ultimate self-fulfilling prophesy. The 12 step cult has been proven to PROMOTE binge drinking/using. Since you “relapsed” you might as well go for it, you’ve destroyed all previous progress! Mind-fuck cult religion.
Also keep in mind that the vast majority of people who experience issues with substances do indeed, no matter what the disease conspiracy asshats chant, moderate successfully if and when they work though the reasons for their choices. Drinking to excess is a choice.
Thanks again for the laugh. You are WONDERFUL. These cult disciples may not see it but you are helping them just by being you, more than all the wasted hours they sit in these thought-stopping meetings ever will or could.
Thank you for taking the time to write in! Keep coming back!
I like to point out (and this drives the 12 Steppers INSANE!) that “membership” in AA is based in the “DESIRE to stop drinking”, NOT THE ACT OF ACTUALLY FUCKING STOPPING (because if one actually STOPS, the “desire” part no longer exists!). Accordingly, those who succeed in stopping CANNOT BE in A.A., due to no longer meeting the membership criteria of “desiring” to stop (or can one have a “desire” to stop doing, what has already BEEN STOPPED IN DOING?). Fun analysis! FAILURE in STAYING STOPPED, IS a REQUIREMENT!
That’s fucking hilarious!
I feel like you’re in my mind saying all the things I’ve always thought and suppressed. All I know is that scientifically speaking meetings do not cure (gasp…imagine the true believers heard me use that word) the mental illness affiliated with addiction. Speaking as a licensed professional I never simply say “go to meeting and get a sponsor!” “90 in 90” or any other corny shit. We finally have the evidence that states people (opioid addicted people) have significantly higher rates of better quality of life, health and wellness while on a MAT (medically assisted treatment like methadone or suboxone). I have a number, trust me, but one of my major issues is having to spend weeks and months deprogramming my patients at their most vulnerable and in need of help; NOT SHAME! I always use this analogy with patients – if you lose a spouse a group grief counseling therapy session might help. It might not tho. It also might for a while and then when you’ve got all you can you’re just reliving the worst part of your life (for people with addictions most likely it’s the thing we were trying to get rid of or manage in the first place….dealing with fear, anger, rage, abandonment, attachment, trauma, etc. Another big one it takes forever to convince people of us that the number of days or coins doesn’t fucking matter. What matters is quality of life. Hey if you can have wine with dinner and then not go to an 8 ball then it’s okay. It’s not negatively impacting your life. Ughh. Now I’m on a roll. There’s no magic counting in the sky that you win a price for staying “sober” the longest. Meanwhile while you live out the same day Groundhog Day style life is passsing you by! You mate as well kept using. At least then you missed your life but you felt temporary relief and euphoria 😉
Thank you so much for your comments.
In addition, group therapy is led by a trained facilitator, not some “old timer” predator gaslighter who’s number one accomplishment in life is “time” in an abusive cult religion. The difference is palpable.
Also, in group work, clients are expected to use the help for a short time and move on with their lives. In the 12 step cult religion, you can check in, but you can never check out. Welcome to The Hotel Minnesota.
The price for a collection of landfill chips is a slow painful death of nothing but shame-inducing mantras and “powerless” dogma. For fucks sake man. That 12 step cult religion disciples lose their minds at the truth is just more reason to keep exposing their cult.
I too spend most of my time helping people to deprogram from this deadly cult before they can even begin to address their true cognitive/behavioral issues. It’s a clusterfuck of epic proportions.
How are these cult disciples surviving without their “daily reprieve” from their “character defects” during this pandemic? Again, for fucks sake man.