The entire idea that your perfectly normal feeling of anger is somehow a poison you are choosing to drink just by allowing the feeling… is a 12 step cult platitude designed to stop you from living in your immense power. Reject the very idea that “anger is a luxury you alcoholic/addict cannot afford.” Or the ever-popular “resentment is death.” Anyone who attempts this platitude is trying to shut you up. Anyone who insists your feelings are not facts is abusing you. Anyone who spews such nonsense is gaslighting you. The meme above sums is up perfectly.
What are some other abusive platitudes of the 12 step cult religion? There are hundreds from which to choose.
I hope you are having a lovely weekend with people deserving of your company
12 Step Cult Religion Exposed 
They’re big on the whole anger thing, and the denial of it being a normal human trait. My ex-girl I’ve lost to this cult of terrorists is given “homework assignments” by her sponsor to be nice to people. Umm….what? I guess that means to everyone but me. I’ve seen her cruelty that wasn’t there before, and when I finally did get angry myself, I was the asshole.
Boy that brainwashing is REALLY working on her! What a waste. What a gift to you! She did you the favor! Have your feelings! She’s all in and in a very short time, you will have moved on when she’s just realizing all she lost in you…
It’s amazing how fast it happened. Not only does she have a long time AA Nazi “regular” sponsor, but also a woman who calls herself a “step guide” and she calls them both every day, goes to their houses and meetings with them. Add to this a former sponsor from a few years ago who just relapsed big time, who I know is talking to her about the best ways to break it off with me. Some shit just went down two days ago, it was the final crushing by her over the phone with the ex-sponsor-drunk-fucker sitting next to her. Trust me, I am shattered beyond pain but thankfully for your blog and everyone else chiming in with my exact pain and stories, I now have some strength back. And I’ll keep being pissed off until I can get thru this. She used to be a warm, kind lady with some rough edges to be sure, but now she’s just a cold and cruel narcissist taking orders from other sick people. No wonder it’s called a “program.” Remember the movie called The Stepford Wives? She’s just a fuckin’ robot now.
Just checking in! How goes it? Are all the robots in jail, an institution, or dead? Or is this virus the ultimate excuse to drink?
I can’t think of anything better to “kill off” 12 step meetings then this virus! I have no doubt that they have all gone online, and are “suggesting” regular attendees go there also. But what WILL they do without a coffee pot to have their meetings with? Maybe screen shots of personal coffee pots will be required? And how will 12 step naxis be able to run roughshod over their “sponsees” without a physical presence? Poor 12 step groups. Who knew they could have their physical presence removed so quickly, and without atomic weapons!
That’s hilarious! You make a great point. The coffee pots end up being their new higher power, you know! Or is it the cigarettes? Or is it the donuts? Or all three?
Who knows?!
This is where a cell phone recording becomes important! Record her demonstrating an episode of anger with you, record it, and upload it accordingly to “YouTube”, etc. Or better yet, play it at her 12 Step meeting! Nothing like “shaming” a 12 Stepper at their “home group”! FUCK THEIR “ANONYMITY!
I would LOVE to do something like that! Her and I also have a lot of normal mutual friends, we went to the same high school in L.A. forty years ago!
This entire thing has rocked your world after knowing this woman for so long. You CAN trust your “best thinking” whether she can or not. Keep that in mind. Literally.
I am waiting for the day, when the next mass shooting occurs at an “addiction treatment center” or a 12 Step meeting, I am not saying that I WANT this to happen (but I am surprised it has NOT YET happened!). When you piss enough people off, for a long enough period of time, and then deny them the outlet of a valid emotion, violence becomes their “chosen option”. Sad as it is, THAT is probably what it will take to “shine a permanent light on the IDOCY of the cult of “12 Steppism”! With any degree of luck the victims that get created IN that mass shooting will only be the “12 Stop Nazi’s” that deserve a violent death the most. But it never works like that. Never.
Wonderfully said.
Nice to see you again, posting the truth. You are a gift and a true educator to those who seek recovery. Please don’t give up you are very unique and important offering
Len
[cid:2898D13A-C250-4FCE-AFC3-2084E8E15339]
Thank you Len! i really appreciate your support!
Damn Laura you nailed it again calling out the cult on their fucked up lies.
[…] via Harmful Platitudes of the 12 Step Cult Religion […]
“Take the cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth.”
“Your best thinking got you here.”
“An addict’s Mind is a dangerous neighborhood to be in.”
“Keep it simple, stupid.”
All of this encouragement to not trust your own mind or your own thoughts, and don’t think or express yourself. Maddening.
Thanks for bringing up “your feelings are not facts”. I had a gaslighting social worker therapist tell me that often, and she would routinely say things like “oh I’m sure it wasn’t that bad” or “I’m sure that didn’t happen”. Even when I would share my innermost tender pain and shame, I’d be shot down with her minimizing.
The inpatient treatment center she sent me to in the inner city had two counselors: one really supportive and compassionate, the other just awful and very emotionally abusive. When I complained about how the one treated me (and others) so horribly, she told me to get rid of my “unreasonable resentment” toward the mean addiction counselor. I’m with you, anger is an appropriate response to mistreatment. What passes for addiction counseling by these glorified 12-steppers is appalling.
Truly appalling and for friends/family/coworkers to be so ignorant makes it even more appalling.
The counselor who was supportive & compassionate must have known about the abuse from the other. Sounds like they were playing ‘good cop bad cop’ to the detriment of vulnerable clients when they should be protecting you, not shaming you for taking care of yourself.
Thanks so much for your eloquent comments. The “your best thinking got you here” is horrific abuse. You can never again, or for the first time, trust your instincts and live in your immense power. This is the OPPOSITE of help. It’s harm. And sanctioned harm is the worst harm of all.
Any “counselor” or “therapist” that would MINIMIZE your feelings is NO COMPETENT THERAPIST, and needs to have their license to practice IMMEDIATELY REVOKED! File a complaint with the state licensing agency against these monsters, and get THEM investigated, and “minimized”. There is so much “two-hatting” in between licensed clinicians and the 12 Step mentality, it is not even funny! Those monsters need to be weeded out, and FAST!
Thanks. What was funny is I had come off a bullying work situation that had me near suicidal. And all she could say when I tried to process was “well that doesn’t happen here!” Basically implying totally my fault.
Then her beloved and supportive boss of the past 20 years retired, and guess what social worker/psychotherapist got? A very non-supportive bully boss who clipped her wings. And did not respect her, at all. How do I know this? She told me all about their internal politics and how awful it was for her. (Boundary violation? Role reversal?). I did appreciate her telling me, from the standpoint we could now relate …. but otherwise pretty lame I should console her now.
Ugh. She would always say she loved her job and would never retire, but she retired real quick when it happened to her (age 62, USA, minimum retirement age). She had fostered and then adopted a sibling group of three young children … think she is a wonderful mother and do appreciate that so much about her. However, likely best she is a real estate agent now, and not a “counselor”.
I hope her children agree that she’s a wonderful mother. We never know what happens behind closed doors & gaslighting abuse is most prevalent with families who go out of their way to be seen as the perfect family. A great parent does not need to convince anyone of their great parenting.
Real estate broker is a better fit for her since she’s clearly breaking ethical boundaries by sharing ANY of that with you, a former client. Things that make you say… What. The. Fuck.
Thanks, Laura, so much. She was actually sharing when I was a “current client”, not a “ former client”. I hope she is good with the children, and really think and hope she is a good parent to the children – actually suspect she is.
Personally know all about the “behind closed doors”, as my mother is a severe covert narcissist.
That’s highly unethical and just plain lazy ‘counseling.’ You deserve far better!
Thanks for this. The “two-hatting” is sooo prevalent. This social worker outpatient addiction counselor was “saved” by her A.A. sponsor years ago, and she preached all the answers to life are in the twelve steps. Very biased.
All the answers to life are in the 12 step cult religion if you want to NEVER move on with your life and always want to have a built-in excuse for shitty choices in your “powerlessness.” Biased and brainwashed indeed.
Exactly. I have heard cult members say that the 12 steps could cure diseases like cancer and manic-depression etc. I actually believed that when in my first year in there. All the answers were in the “Program” as they preached yet you only had to look at the oldtimers to see that it didn’t work for them. It certainly did not work for Wilson either.
No kidding. Wilson chested on Lois their entire marriage & other male disciples followed him around to try to keep him from Preying on all the new women, that’s how bad it was.
He killed himself slowly with nicotine. He begged for whiskey on his death bed. He lived his life as a complete fraud.
How sad! They’re all sicker than others. By design. Cult religion.
It’s nothing that a good ETHICS COMPLAINT against the counselor/therapist with this certifying or licensing agency should not take care of! 😉 I wonder hoe many have ever been filed that have actually resulted in the therapist/counselor being “investigated”, “reprimanded” or their LICENSE REVOKED (we should be so lucky! 😉
the first meeting I was forced too was when I was sixteen years old and man it sucked, but I was like I ain’t going back I think some old fucker told me don’t fix it if it ain’t broken and yeah so I took it there was nothing wrong with me just being a kid like any other kid, anyway get caught with pot sent to 12 steps forced by the school I fucking hate Christians regular teenage problems and yeah rehab never helped with the trauma of my past over and over and since I am still broken 45 I wish I could go back in time and just told that kid to run away from home and run far and stay away for a long time the last rehab was court-appointed so I was stuck I wanted to leave but if I left I would go to jail, the drug counsellor in Barrie was so supportive of AA and I think she sent me to Timmins as punishment as I told her I wouldn’t go to AA, so I am a vegan Timmins is hunter-gathers and gold mines emotinally abused for my veganism and ragged on they would eat all the salad wouldn’t let me make extra lived on peanut butter sandwitches and jam and potatoes pure hell fuck AA and the 12 steps so happy I found this place so I don’t have to feel alone anymore.
I was active in AA for twelve years. My theory is that AA members are actually more angry than the average person, for several reasons..first, the constant talk of resentment actually fosters such feelings – people expect to feel this way and so they do, to a deep level that must be addressed by “working the steps.” Second, the stress of molding he psyche into AA dogma, with its disempowerment and cognitive dissonance, creates anxiety and depression – members are told they are sick and powerless so that is how they feel. On top of that, members aren’t even allowed to express or validate their anger.. it’s a horrible organization.
One employee at my company is 15 years “sober” tell’s everyone that he is an AA member, my word what an angry AAhole he is to everyone. His own best friend quit his job because of him!! This prick preach’s to others at work to sort their lives out. His face has the look of rage on it always. Hair-trigger rage and a AA godlike complex.
Typical Stepper so angry since their real issues have and never will be sorted out.
Yes, indeed. Alcoholics Anonymous is a dangerous cult, built on a fundamental lie, that people are “Born That Way.”
SICK!