Rational Recovery ®

It still hasn’t been reported by our diligent public media that the Wellstone-Ramstad Mental Health Parity Act, successfully repelled for decades by commonsense politicians, was clandestinely rammed through to become law during the Congressional Panic of 2008. In addition to the bailout for Wall Street, the Parity Act simply removed the cap on the amount that can be spent on addiction treatment services. It added nothing to the up-front $750 billion bailout, but its effects will be seen in astronomical spending on addiction treatment services justified as crime prevention, cost-cutting, and compassion. Talk about inverted thought!
California Prop. 5 is one more example of the 12-step syndicate up to its usual gutter oriented programming. Here is a well-written rebuttal that will also explain what the proposal proposes:

The Sacramento Metro Chamber is one of many organizations opposed to the measure, including our regional law enforcement.  This measure establishes two new bureaucracies with virtually no accountability, and will cost hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars.Proposition 5 weakens drug rehabilitation programs by allowing defendants to continue to use drugs while in rehab and softens the punishment of many of those accused of child abuse, domestic violence, fraud, identity theft, auto theft and a host of other crimes.  This measure would reduce penalties for crimes against business, including property and white collar crimes, and would limit the ability of judges to hold parole violators accountable.

FACTS ABOUT PROPOSITION 5

Click here for full text of Prop 5 Initiative

Proposition 5 shortens parole for methamphetamine dealers and other drug felons from 3 years, to just 6 months.

Proposition 5 is strongly opposed by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) because it provides a way for those who kill or maim others while under the influence to avoid criminal prosecution.

Proposition 5 could provide, in effect, a “get-out-of-jail-free” card to defendants charged with crimes. For example, domestic violence, child abuse, mortgage fraud, identity theft, vehicular manslaughter, insurance fraud and auto theft, letting them effectively escape criminal prosecution altogether. If a violent offender is granted a hearing using “the drugs made me do it” defense, the burden of proof shifts to the prosecution to prove that the defendant should be held responsible for his or her crimes.

Under Proposition 5, someone who commits felonies, even violent felonies, and claims “the drugs made me do it” will be referred to country-club like drug centers, not jail or prison. These criminals will receive better medical-care than many hard-working Californians – costing taxpayers millions.

Proposition 5 goes far beyond the drug-dependent individual; it also applies to drug dealers. For example, those found with up to $50,000 worth of “meth” would be treated the same as an individual user. We need to keep focused on helping those who are drug-dependent, rather than dealers profiting off addiction. Prop 5 treats meth dealers the same as an individual drug user.

Proposition 5 changes the law so that paroled felons can keep abusing drugs without being sent back to prison. In fact, under Prop 5 if a criminal tests positive for drugs while on probation or parole they won’t face jail-time or new criminal charges.

Proposition 5 creates an “Express Lane” for drug dealers to get back on the streets and selling drugs to our kids.

Proposition 5 is designed to allow for paroled felons who commit new misdemeanor offenses, not be sent back to prison.

Under Proposition 5, paroled felons and drug dealers who ditch their parole will only receive, if captured, no more than 30 days in county jail.

Proposition 5 is universally opposed by organizations representing rank-and-file police officers, police chiefs, prosecutors and parole supervisors because they know that shortening parole for drug dealers will dramatically increase violent crime rates.

Proposition 5 sets up two new bureaucracies with no accountability, at a cost of hundreds of millions.

Proposition 5 falsely claims that it will save money, but in fact, costs will be shifted from the state to the counties, which may be forced to raise taxes.

Proposition 5 spending will continue forever, and can only be restricted by a future multi-million dollar voter initiative campaign. The Governor and Legislature cannot adjust Prop 5 funding, even in times of budget shortfall or state crisis.

Proposition 5 proponents want voters to think this proposition is about keeping non-violent drug offenders out of the prison system, but that’s based upon a false premise. Today, no first-time offender arrested solely for possession will be sent to prison – ever. The real beneficiaries of Proposition 5 are drug dealers and those accused of crimes such as domestic violence, child abuse, identity theft, mortgage fraud and others.

Proposition 5 undermines successful rehabilitation. Current rehabilitation and drug courts are set up with defined goals and consequences – these two elements are critical to effective rehabilitation efforts.

Some of the crimes that defendants can commit and qualify for “treatment” rather than jail under Proposition 5 are:

-Use of false citizenship documents
-Perjury
-Conspiracy
-Counterfeit of a registered mark
-Selling counterfeit products
-Crimes against elders or dependents
-Arson to inhabited structures or forest land
-Possession of incendiary devices
-Burglary
-Forgery
-Passing bad checks
-Non-sufficient funds
-Possession of counterfeiting equipment
-Theft
-Receiving stolen property
-Hacking and computer crimes
-Embezzlement
-Impersonating a peace officer
-Identity theft
-Possession of counterfeit birth certificate
-Insurance fraud
-Petty theft with priors
-Possession of an illegal weapon
-Felon in possession of a firearm
-Carrying a concealed weapon
-Carrying a loaded firearm
-Statutory rape
-Driving under the influence
-DUI with bodily injury
-DUI with multiple offenses
-Reckless evading a peace officer
-Auto theft

Jack Trimpey

©2007, Jack Trimpey. All rights reserved. 

A British couple visiting Dubai was recently observed warned by police against having sexual intercourse in a public place, a sandy, public beach which was obviously under the jurisdiction of Islamic law. Later on, they were once again found in their flagrant embrace, deterred neither by fear of arrest nor even by sand itself. As might be expected, they were arrested, charged with public indecency, and now face six years in prison, where they presumably will not have convenient access to each other.

News agencies have seized upon this lurid news story as an example of the intransigence and moral excess of Islamic law, as if one nation must accommodate the cultural traditions and moral standards of their tourists and other visitors. Although I do not endorse such draconian punishments for the crimes this couple committed, I strongly support Dubai’s sovereign right to punish any crime any way they so choose.  If they chose to publicly execute this couple through whatever primitive means their traditions may call for, I would grieve for them and their families, and certainly look with moral condescension upon a theocracy so given to moral excess. I would feel great pride in my own ancestral heritage and in the founding traditions of the United States of America which preclude such cruel and unusual punishment. In the American tradition, we legislate morality by creating laws of justice tempered by reason and compassion. Our lawmaking is an inexact art, to be sure, but a sign of human consciousness at work.

An interesting side note to this is that the couple had been drinking, which adds a uniquely American dimension to this international incident. In American courts, this couple may have only faced minor, misdemeanor charges, drunk or sober. If drunk at the time of the offense, however, they may have found considerable leniency in that fact, and the judge may have compassionately sentenced them to “counseling,” or into recovery groups consisting of other lowlife suffering from mysterious biopsychosocial anomalies such as “alcoholism,” and “sexual addiction.”

Yes, we can see an oceanic gulf between “primitive” Islamic theocracy and the New Primitivism carried forward by the American social service system. In Dubai, sin is illegal. In America, sin has transmuted into disease. In Dubai, if you do the crime, you do the time. In America,  you may do the crime, cop a disease, and do one day at a time in the spiritual shackles of recoveryism — for life. In Dubai, you are assumed to have free will, able to restrain bodily desires according to laws. In America, you are presumed unable to obey the law due to a constellation of biopsychosocial factors which dispose you to break the law, and referred into political re-education. In other words, our traditional judicial philosophy has come to deny free will, justifying antisocial conduct based upon the intensity of desire, resulting in a radical change in mainstream thinking and public behavior. More and more, we are animals in a large sanctuary regulated by social policies, rather than free souls seeking liberty and happiness.

Six years in prison for a roll in the sand will be a heavy penalty for stupidity, if this couple is convicted. But when they are free again in 2014, they will truly be free to continue their lives as free souls, emotionally battered of course by the ordeal, but nevertheless free to start over, climb back into their family trees, and make whatever they wish out of their terrible vacation in Dubai. I doubt they would be overweight from being provided imported fast-food based upon cultural sensitivity, nor would they be court-ordered to participate in programs delving into why they screwed up on the beach, nor would they be granted proactive forgiveness for future “relapses.” In fact, I imagine either of them might be executed for ever again defying the law of the land in this particular way.

Had they committed their erotic error on American sand, 2014 would see them six years “sober,” at best, or more likely, wound down from six years life on the wild side, and headed toward the docile, burnout state called, “in recovery.” They would hate their genetic origins and original, dysfunctional families, and have no identity higher than “grateful, recovering alcoholic.”  More likely, they would not have been prosecuted at all, in the mistaken belief that public morality should not be legislated. That belief has resulted in radical social changes that only 20 years ago would have been uniformly rejected as improbable futurism or humanistic fantasy. Not long before that, the words “pregnant” and “brassiere” could not be said on TV, in strong contrast to current standards which broadcasts dinner-time drug ads which cutely suggest emergency medical services if the product evokes four-hour erections.

Although I disagree that the penalty for sexual error should ever be death, I believe that sovereign Dubai is entirely entitled to impose any sentence it chooses upon persons duly convicted, regardless of their personal values. When you travel into a sovereign, foreign nation, you are subject to the laws of that land, no matter how much you may disagree with them. It is most unwise to enter a foreign country with the idea that you are or should be exempt from the laws and taboos of that culture. Sadly, we have little expectation that our own citizens conduct themselves according to traditional cultural standards, much less those who cross our borders to escape the tyrannies of their homelands.

To All,

This evening, Mon, April 28, 2008, the Rational Recovery website is back in the Google index, ranking first on the key search terms as usual. For exactly one month, since March 28, 2008, we were invisible to searches for Rational Recovery and AVRT.

I haven’t got a clue as to what really happened, whether it was a fluke, an accident, or malicious prank. Many also wonder why Google would pick on Rational Recovery. I have only speculated that possibly a low-ranking employee committed an “oops” that wiped us off the Google index. A more likely explanation is proxy hacking, but I doubt I’ll ever know what really happened.

We have been busy for the last several weeks sending out inquiries, pleas for help, and filing complaints about the vulnerability of small businesses to Google error or negligence. I’m not sure what we’ve learned from this crazy experience other than how dependent we are on a giant corporation that has outgrown its original purpose.

Thanks to everyone who expressed concern, and particular thanks for the contributors who referred me to important resources for webmasters who have gotten banned. Yes, it truly was a ban, and the result some reported above was a paid/sponsored ad with a yellow background.

Existential crisis
Since discovering the ban, I pushed as many buttons as I could. Maybe one worked; I doubt I’ll ever know.

To me, the Internet is a mystery. The Google algorithm is a gigantic, self-serving monstrosity that is probably the closest thing I can think of to the sci-fi tales of artificial intelligence in cyberspace. Although it may be written somewhere in code, it travels autonomously as an electronic entity in a universe consisting of servers and clients, arranging data in such a way that its own existence is insured. It has an innocent skin, seeming to serve the clients, but ultimately has the predatory mission of corporate profits = power.

In sci-fi, the drama centers around man versus monster, and the AI entity, seeming to have consciousness, works its magic and destruction as it zooms through cables, antennas, and receivers while hapless humans fret, wildly pushing buttons and double-clicking to stop the madness before the entity gains control over the world.

Oh, well, crisis over for now. Back to work, but I keep searching for myself to make sure I really exist. Do I really exist, or am I a figment of Google’s imagination? Oh, dear!

Jack Trimpey

©2008, Jack Trimpey. All rights reserved.

I propose that this title, above, be adopted as Google’s corporate slogan. Their real slogan is “Don’t be evil.”

If you Google “Rational Recovery” right here, you’ll discover a truly frightening fact about today’s Internet. Bottom line: If Google thinks you’re evil, Google can get you. The famous, controversial, widely-acclaimed Rational Recovery website can no longer be found on Google!

Rational Recovery was a steady customer of Google for several years, buying key words to reach people desperate for information on independent recovery from addiction. Our ad campaigns were successful, bringing a message of hope to many thousands of families trapped in the world of addiction and recoveryism.

The ads were expensive, however, so as 2008 began, we discontinued our Google ads. As we expected, web traffic tapered down to a healthy baseline of activity that has made the Rational Recovery website a high-profile Internet resource since 1995, practically since the birth of the Internet, long before Google had even been thought of.

Then, on March 28, 2008, nothing. As far as Google clients are concerned, the Rational Recovery website, including the crown jewel of addiction recovery, AVRT®, do not exist. Our competitors, detractors, imitators, infringers, and critics now have top rank for those key words. This website is zeroed out, nowhere to be found, as you can see for yourself. Only a paid, “sponsored” ad may appear.

Google denies blacklisting Rational Recovery. Since that false reply, they will not respond to my emails, nor speak to me by phone. I don’t exist. Clients of Yahoo, MSN, AltaVista, and other search engines still rank Rational Recovery first or very high on the key search words people use to get help with addictions. However, the New Behemoth, Google, now owns 70% of the search engine market. Google is a virtual monopoly aiming at 100% market share. This is a new age when one giant corporation has enormous control over the business world, and occasionally uses that power by blacklisting sites it deems unworthy of existence. While this power can have beneficial uses, such as in the control of illegal operations, it can also be abused according to the whims of low-ranking employees possessed by a keen sense of social justice.

Background…

Read the rest of this entry »

©2008, Jack Trimpey. All rights reserved.

Think of the Beast as the embodiment of addictive desire, a ruthless entity, relentless in its pursuit of addiction’s unspeakable pleasures. Think of it as an intelligent, well-spoken Beast with clever, predatory mental processes that support endless addictive pleasure, regardless of the risks and costs to others. Imagine this Beast with the gift of language and the ability to speak intimately, with god-like authority, in the conscious minds of addicted people everywhere. Now, think of a few million such creatures going to the polls to vote for social policies and elected officials.

Yes, you may think of these voters as the barbarians at the gates, for that is quite literally who they are. They think and speak a special language called the Addictive Voice (AV), which is the sole cause of all addiction. The function of the AV is to create a world more tolerant of substance abuse, and an environment more hospitable to substance abusers. Voting can be a strong expression of bodily desire, when issues related to the pursuit of physical pleasure are on the ballot.

Who will this special interest group, the Beast Lobby, vote for? In other words, is Joe Sixpack more likely to vote for or against increased taxes on beer? Will they vote for stricter or more lenient legislation and law enforcement regarding alcohol and drug-related crime? Will they vote for legalization of drugs? Will they vote for increased funding for “diversion” programs that protect substance abusers from lawful punishments? Will they vote for an individual having a history of addiction, or for someone who is in recovery? What self-respecting Beast would not vote for the Mental Health Parity Act, which removes the cap on third party spending for addiction treatment services, as if addiction is a real disease, just like cancer and tuberculosis?

Friends of the Beast
Make no mistake — voters in the grip of addictive desire make up a significant portion of the electorate. Moreover, fellowships of addiction exist in the form of political action groups that mobilize the recovery group movement to come to the aid of one-day-at-a-time sobriety on election day. Join Together is one such organization, and there are thousands more like it. In all, there are over 8,000 non-profit organizations serving a population who are either actively addicted or in that delicate condition of suspended indulgence, “in recovery.” As might be expected, they are dependent organizations, relying upon charitable donations to combat the pretend disease of addiction with pretend treatments derived from pretend science. They glorify perpetual, adult dependence, chronic addiction, and submission of one’s will to addictive desire.

In effect these non-profit organizations are an enormous syndicate consisting of licensed counselors and health care workers, most of whom are chronically addicted themselves, i.e., “in recovery.” They comprise the base of the Beast Party, a loose, underground coalition of men and women who view human affairs through the eyes of addiction. Their millions of clients in the social service system are foot soldiers in a struggle toward social change that favors mass addiction.

AVRT® helps anyone to detect the Beast Party at work by applying the definition of AVRT® to their policies, publications, and social actions. The Addictive Voice is any thinking that supports or suggests the possible continued use of alcohol or other drugs by problem drinkers and other substance abusers. The Addictive Voice says, “Vote for Friends of the Beast!”

About the Addictive Voice
A prime example of the Addictive Voice is, “I have mysterious disease that results in my preposterous drunkenness.” If such a disease existed, it would mean that the act of drinking/using is a disease symptom, an innocent act, such as when someone with colon cancer soils the couch. Although we might be offended at the stinky mess, we would naturally be compassionate and tolerant toward the involuntary functioning of someone so afflicted.

However, if we discover that the individual who soiled the couch does not have colon cancer, but makes his deposit purely because it feels so good to do so, then our attitude toward him and his production might significantly change. For example, we might issue him an ultimatum, that he must never do that again, for any reason, or he will be put out in the barn yard where he belongs. Such an imposter would likely experience the natural, logical consequences of his antisocial behavior, such as eviction or even jail.

Fellowships of Addiction
Problem drinkers and other substance abusers naturally join together in bars, taverns, recovery groups, and elsewhere in the shadows of society. When two or more of them get together, they form a fellowship of addiction. They have a lot in common, and have an intuitive familiarity with each other based upon their common problems and experiences as addicted people. They share a common language, the Addictive Voice, so that their preposterous conduct and twisted belief system is quite agreeable, and their manner of speaking sounds quite reasonable. They commiserate and sympathize with each other, and the share a common viewpoint about the nature of addiction and the meaning of life.

However, they are also prone to develop strong attachments to recovery groups that lend respectability to the rules, beliefs, and values of addiction itself. Recovery groups typically create formal, pro-addiction doctrines based upon the familiar clichés of pop-psychology, science, and religion. Those arcane doctrines thinly veil their unwillingness to summarilly quit drinking/using, and mask their clear intent to continue drinking/using under certain conditions.

Elsewhere, I have referred to recovery groups as the Fellowship of the Beast, because they harbor and protect, rather than defeat, addiction. By diverting newcomers from principled abstinence into the endless loop of one-day-at-a-time sobriety, recovery groups actually convert problem drinking/using to chronic, lifetime addiction.

Politics of Addiction
The recovery group movement is a special interest group with the goal of making families and society more tolerant of substance abuse, and making their immediate environments more hospitable to problem drinkers and other substance abusers. This vast, politically-active special interest group uses the disease concept of addiction as the cutting edge for social change.

Appealing to the compassionate nature of families and society at large, recovery groupers induce their families, courts, and society at large to accommodate addiction rather than create conditions whereby addicted people would most likey surrender their right to intoxicate themselves with alcohol and other hedonic drugs. Through their political influence, they elect public officials and administrators who will set social policies that are pleasing to the Beast of addiction.

Whether individually or collectively, the Beast of addiction has strong political preferences and will naturally favor candidates who take a liberal stance on issues such as decriminalization of drugs, punishments for drug and alcohol related offenses such as drunk driving and possession of narcotics and controlled substances.

The Beast greatly fears and loathes any kind of authority, as seen in the structure of the recovery group movement, and in the beliefs and values of addiction recovery. Most of all, the Beast fears moral authority that would intervene, not with a comfy treatment spas, sensitive social workers, or love-bombing recovery groups, but with a zero-tolerance ultimatum backed with severe, punitive sanctions against any further self-intoxication. On the other hand, the Beast is quite comfortable with, and will likely vote for, officials and policies that increase leniency or permissiveness surrounding the satisfaction of bodily desires, particularly the desire for the high-life produced by alcohol and other drugs. In fact, the Beast is inherently soft on crime, viewing perpetrators as victims of background circumstances, just as in their recovery groups, where the immorality of addiction is believed to be an innocent outcome of one’s bad gene pool, a rotten ancestral heritage, a dysfuncional family of origin, and a multifarious coalition of triggers, codependents, enablers, and just bad luck.

Election Day
For example, the current menu of presidential candidates contains one person who favors legalization of marijuana to normalize his own past pot-smoking, and another candidate whose wife was addicted to opiates during the 1990’s.

When Cindy McCain was discovered stealing narcotics from the non-profit organization she was in charge of, she attempted to fire the potential whistle-blower, who had reported her theft to the DEA. She evaded criminal prosecution by calling a news conference to confess before the DEA investigation was made public. Through smarmy legal maneuvering, accusing the whistleblower of extortion, and publicly lying about entering a diversion program and addiction treatment (evidently she has not), her criminal history and moral turpitude has been expunged from her public image as a potential first lady. The press loved the melodramatic story http://www.commondreams.org/views/021400-102.htm of her struggle against addiction, even comparing it her husband’s stint in the Hanoi Hilton. The whistle-blower was nearly bankrupted in the protracted, agonizing legal battle.

If elected, Barack Obama will do his part to popularize the notion that pot-smoking is innocent and harmless and that criminal laws against it are more destructive than any harm done by the drug. Whether this emancipates the people he hopes to free from our terrible drug laws remains to be seen, but you can be sure that millions of Beasts will be stepping on each other’s tails waiting to vote for their candidate on election day.

So, in 2008 the Beast may get to pick between a Democratic or a Republican candidate to serve its interests. The Beast has never had it so good since the repeal of Prohibition, or that day when a pot-smoking, presidential candidate evasively claimed, “…but I didn’t inhale.”

©2007, Jack Trimpey, all rights reserved.

The moral of this story: Although you cannot fool all the people all of the time, you can certainly make a lot of money trying to do so.

I think most thoughtful people have been sanely suspicious of the politically-driven, global warming hype in the last few years. When you see massive political mobilization around a tenuous-at-best hypothesis, and then witness the rise of a new witch hunt for heretics, it seems only a matter of time until the whole idea melts down like a polar ice cap.

Here’s a good link showing how global warming hot air has blown back in the faces of greenies. It’s about time, which is not to say that some problems do not exist with regard to our planetary stewardship.

Sadly, however, the day of reckoning may never come for the massive fraud called the disease concept of addiction. If there is a point beyond which there is no return, we may have already passed it. The United States of America collectively made an error during the 20th Century — a well-intentioned act of trust, but still an error from which she may never recover. It was an error that may equal or even surpass the error of slavery, so great is the damage to the Republic.

We have chosen to turn over the great social problem of substance abuse to the fellowship of addiction, Alcoholics Anonymous, which is based upon the unique beliefs and values of addicted people, not of normal people from real families. This is like turning over the supervision of elementary schools to child molesters. We have put the inmates in charge of the asylum, and now the nation is steadily moving into the asylum.

Our physicians are foxes in the chicken coop, members themselves of Alcoholics Anonymous by mandate of their licensing boards. Essentially criminals, like AA co-founder Rober Smith, M.D., who drank while performing major surgery, today’s physicians “in recovery” have been politically rehabilitated in expensive rehabs like the Talbott Rehabilitation Center, founded by Douglas Talbott, M.D., himself a grateful, recovering alcoholic. Addiction is no longer immorality, but a disease symptom compassionately “treated” by grateful, recovering alcoholics who themselves claim to suffer from the terrible disease of addiction, which they say is just like cancer, heart disease, or diabetes. Right. Dr. Talbott is also the founder of American Society for Addiction Medicine (ASAM), which advances the disease concept of addiction within the medical profession.

The problem is, addiction treatment doesn’t work, and actually converts problem drinkers who should be required to pledge and fulfill lifetime abstinence, into chronic, relapse-prone, one-day-at-a-time sober “alcoholics” based solely upon the ghastly misuse of medical authority. Addiction treatment is truly an astronomically expensive introduction to the fellowship of addiction, Alcoholics Anonymous, a self-supporting, non-profit organization co-founded by its own great physician, Robert Smith, M.D.

Notice the non-profit organization status, here, as if irresolute substance abusers qualify for charity. It is this kind of bald deception that underlies recent legislation aimed at limitless public funding for the ever-expanding dependency of ever-growing addicted population. Such suckers, are we!

Under medical supervision, American-style recoveryism has destroyed more lives and families than addiction itself, producing a greater body count and economic cost than any of our military wars. There is simply no way that our social service system can be held accountable for such a catastrophic public health disaster as the addiction treatment industry, which includes all of the academic, social welfare, public health, and non-profit organizations that make up the 12-step syndicate. There may be a slow, cautious acknowledgement of error, such as “overdiagnosis,” or “deficiencies in treatment planning,” or other bureaucratic jive, but we will likely never see justice such as came out of the litigations for black lung, landfill pollution, breast transplant, and the asbestos and tobacco related illness. Too many bodies; too many iatrogenic casualties. Denial is so much easier.

Slavery? Really?

If you are still grating over my comment about slavery, think racism instead. The disease concept of addiction is worse than racism, in that it confers congenital inferiority upon individuals based upon thought content, without any use of laboratory data or physical traits such as in race. (Yes, the cardinal sign of addictive disease, “denial,” is purely thought content.) Racism is conspicuous compared to the disease concept of addiction parades as compassion itself. Thus, our social service system may mercifully consign you to a social ghetto for other congenital defectives like yourself based upon nothing more than the arbitrary opinion of another tentatively sober substance abuser. Addictive disease, e.g., “alcoholism,” is purely conjectural, a simple, unproven hypothesis based upon the very faulty, circular, self-serving reasoning of addicted people themselves.

If you are a substance abuser in trouble, no one, not even your family, your employer, the courts, or society at large will expect or demand that you quit drinking/using. They will think you are defective, unable to comply with Read the rest of this entry »

©2007, Jack Trimpey. All rights reserved.

The following essay by Danny S. was submitted as a comment to the earlier blog entry, “Pimps Anonymous,” but it is so cogent and relevant to this website that I will feature it here as a full blog entry. — Jack Trimpey, Editor

Jack, yes AA is a mess. That much is true. Unfortunately people are forced into AA by ignorance, by a generalized mis-characterization of the Fellowship, and without regard to their qualifications to become members.

The vast majority of these are non-alcoholic drug addicts; the rest are heavy drinking fools for whom counseling or some other less drastic means other than a spiritual awakening would suffice. Remember Jack, “spiritual awakening” is the sought after result of the Twelve Steps. Sobriety is just one of the consequences.

If folks were more knowledgeable about the Fellowship and its Program, they would see and admit that the addicted need a solution for addicts — a solution which AA cannot supply. (No one is “addicted” to alcohol past the normal seventy hours of detoxification)

AA is for alcoholics — not “addicts.” They are not the same. The mainstream “addictions” treatment industry would like us to think they are the same and has tried very hard to convince us of it, but it isn’t so. It just doesn’t jive with the experience of a real alcoholic. But POP-AA and the public at large has fallen for the scam. Make no mistake Jack, a large part of the “recovery business” is a scam, save for a small portion.

As far as evangelizing goes, in the sense that AAs are supposed to seek out other alcoholics to help — what is so horrible about that? I race thoroughbred pigeons. We love to get more people involved. So do the Boy Scouts, Free Masons and Model Rocketeers.

The AA juggernaut to which you refer is a cultish, subgroup of non-Twelve Step AA that has infiltrated society and spread as the result of ignorant judges, doctors and mainstream media They don’t understand that AA isn’t for every Tom, Dick or Harry with a drinking problem. AA is for true alcoholics only, but the fellowship is now flooded with impressionable, suggestive and successfully hypnotized AA zombies who didn’t need to go there in the first place.

All of this further justifies your comment that “AA is a fellowship of addicted people who know nothing about recovery because none of them, including their founders, defeated their own addictions. This is true, except for the “founders” comment.

Sadly, most AAs can’t tell you how to recover from alcoholism. How could they? They never have recovered themselves. No one has ever recovered from an affliction they didn’t actually have in the first place.

The founders did achieve victory over alcoholism, (not “addiction”, Jack) and this has been the experience of those who have followed exactly their procedures for doing so. It happened to me! - - and my experiences with AA are far removed from the popular characterization of AA that you detest so vehemently. Because they are not real alcoholics, many AA’s recovery and drinking experiences are essentially different from mine.

I have heard the “Relapse is part of recovery” kind of talk in treatment centers and unfortunately also out of the mouths of those 27 1⁄2 day wonders who graduate from such facilities - and bring that rehab-speak into AA. However, people such as myself who have recovered from alcoholism do not often relapse. If it does occur it is certainly not looked upon as “part of recovery.” It is looked upon as the result of absence of spiritual growth.

I know there are folks running around the AA fellowship saying crapola like “one-day-at-a-time,” but that is simply another one of those perverted pop-AA concepts that has nothing to do with the AA Program. The objective is permanent sobriety, forever. That is repeated over and over in Alcoholics Anonymous.

We may live a day at a time, but the ubiquitous idea of living with one foot on a banana peel and the other in front of a saloon is just not AA, but that brings us back to item one above: Why are non-alcoholics being taken into AA? It is our own ignorance, Jack. Too many generations of non-alcoholic infiltration has been going on and the new cult of aa interlopers is what has become most viable and prolific. It is probably the type of fellowship to which you have been exposed.

Jack, perhaps you will destroy aa. If you do, I hope it is not AA you destroy, but the aa that resides within it. If you are successful you will have helped AA in way unimaginable. You might even unwittingly go down in history as one of the co-founders of a new AA because you will have earned a spot as a true AA hero! I know you would be a hero of mine, because the Fellowship has become top-heavy with those whom you yourself see as hypocrites, liars and misinformed. Unfortunately, I fear that AA will collapse under its own weight. But maybe that’s good. Maybe it needs a shakeup. Because AA will never really die, you know. It is likely that it will just cleanse and reform - hopefully stronger, having learned from its errors.

Cheers, right back atcha, Danny S.

To the Reader:

This is an example of the, “AA isn’t what it used to be,” defense, which glorifies 12-step recovery while condemning current practices. Danny loves the idea of AA, but the reality of AA doesn’t match his own concept of AA. He is part of something he knows is wrong, so his criticisms of AA are sincere. His criticisms are also highy accurate, based upon his own direct observations and tempered by his loyalty to AA itself.

Danny summarizes a number of popular ideas I have written about for years, such as one-day-at-a-time sobriety, the 12-step syndicate (juggernaut), and the lack of abstinent outcome of recovery group participation and addiction treatment services. He sees the flagrant social cultism of contemporary AA, and takes notice of the low life that comprise the ranks.

I have searched for the kinder, gentler version of AA, the one old-timers like Danny wistfully recall, but when I look into the quality of AA in days of yore, I don’t find anything substantially different. I attended meetings in the early 1960’s, and I see a nascent social cult that would naturally become the American addiction tragedy it has become.

Even then, there was discussion of the “real alcoholic” versus the “problem drinker.” Then as now, it was a circular logic used to explain why some fit or don’t fit in AA, why some succeed in the steps and others don’t. I wondered then as now how a real alcoholic could be identified without waiting for self-destruction. As always, “real alcoholics” are simply self-identified; as with anyone else in the Imanalcoholic family. I’m one because I say I’m one. I suppose AA might split into Alcoholics Anonymous and Real Alcoholics Anonymous.

I still remember my shock at the idea that my self-indulgences in alcohol were not immoral conduct, and I remember myself taking the bait of addictive disease hook, line and sinker. I recall the rapid turnover of the group, so that few had more than a couple of months “sober,” and I remember the strained smiles of hopelessness and the snickers during drunkalogs. I also remember the group counseling me, “Your family won’t understand you because you’re an alcoholic. They won’t understand about your disease of alcoholism. You will have to teach them about alcoholism, and get them into Al-Anon.”

It’s the same now as then, only new generations have come in with a more nihilistic viewpoint that makes their evangelism less concerned with helping people quit drinking than with recruiting them into AA and getting magical protection against the evil spirit of alcoholism. Certainly, the self-stigmatization which is part of addict-identity continues today, not much different from the Halloween masquerading of old-time 12-steppers, pictured here.

The masquerade of addictive disease, which appeals the family’s compassionate nature, is more grotesque than any Halloween get-up. Saying, “Hi, I’m Bill Imanalcoholic, and don’t be surprised if I continue getting drunk because I’m diseased,” was no less wrong and no less a fabricated excuse sixty years ago than it is now.

Many have fought to the death defending their family’s name and honor; such is the importance of the family in human affairs. To conspire against the family, as all in recovery do by claiming addictive disease, is disgraceful and destructive. There can be no more abhorrent attack on the nuclear family than to trace your stupidity to your own gene pool, and hang your personal immorality on your own family tree.

Just think of what it means to America to have a de facto state religion which forces millions of addicted men and women to accept the stigma of congenital deficiencies and blame their ancestors for the suffering they cause to themselves and others.

Danny hopes I can destroy the part of AA he objects to, and save the baby, the AA of his dreams. AA has always been rotten to the core, giving with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Like any addicted person, only AA can defeat its own base nature. Because it is founded on the lower nature of homo sapiens, it cannot change itself.

I can’t destroy AA, although I wish I could. I am an optomist, however. I believe in people, not programs, and I believe that human resilience will overtake the gloom and doom of recoveryism, and a younger generation will catch on that their elders have allowed a group of religious eccentrics to mutate into an evil tyranny that uses our social service system to funnel new members into itself.

AA members themselves carry the burden of destroying the 12-step syndicate which has invaded the social service system. Steppers such as Danny may pave the way for AA to tackle the greatest problem in its history, that of being an active participant in one of the greatest public health catastrophes in human history.

Perhaps when AA is expelled from the health and corrections systems, its members can regain their honor by providing all newcomers with clear information on how people normally quit drinking/using without making a big deal out of it.

Jack Trimpey

©2007, Jack Trimpey. All rights reserved.

Over the last several months, I received a steady stream of emails about the Midtown Group, an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) group in Washington D.C., that reportedly fosters the sexual exploitation of young women by sponsors.

Appealing to those with an appetite for lurid stories, the Washington Post reports: In the Midtown Group, female sponsors are actually pimps who refer their tender, young sponsees into the clutches of older sexual predators. According to today’s story in the Washington Post, one such sponsor describes how she referred her young, female sponsees to male sponsors, encouraging the underage girls to have sex with them because that would help them remain sober, one-lay-at-a-time. In other words, the girls became sacrifices to please the Beast Almighty.

The Midtown Group has become a sensational media story, not because it signals a fundamental problem with the practice of corralling tentatively “sober” substance abusers into tight, inbred, long-term relationships, but purely because of the exciting tales of victimhood emanating from that particular group. Because the public doesn’t really care about what goes on in recovery group meeings, only the sex stories have brought the Midtown Group to media attention. The American addiction tragedy — the recovery group movement itself — has gone undetected, unmentioned, un-reported.

The counseling professions, aided by mainstream media pumped up with Hollywood mythology, is running a bulldozer of interference protecting the broader 12-step fellowship of addiction from serious scrutiny. They employ a special manner of speaking, steptalk, a language of spin, that reflects the perceptions, beliefs and values surrounding the recovery group movement. Steptalk plucks our heartstrings as it deceives us.

Steptalk Defense
Here are the main elements of steptalk currently being used to defend the recovery group movement in the light of the Midtown Group sex scandal:

1. The Midtown Group sex scandal is an aberration, a dysfunctional recovery group that arose from malignant social cultism surrounding one charismatic sponsor, Mike Q, who, during his 60’s, achieved rock-star, stud status among the local AA groupies. AA is not a cult, but the Midtown Group became like a cult. Already, some are saying that the Midtown Group isn’t even an AA group. According to that twisted logic, the Midtown Group has strayed so far from AA’s wholesome standards that they have withdrawn by default from AA. That is so-o-o-o like an addict’s con job!

I have answered the telephone at Rational Recovery Headquarters for twenty years, and I assure the reader that the Midtown Group is no aberration. I have known of many Mike Q’s, and heard from numerous families fractured by 13th step, sexual infidelity. Sexual exploitation is rife in the recovery group movement, which is exactly what we should expect when addicted people are forced by lack of choice into confined, long-term, primary relationships with other irresolute substance abusers, practicing a lifestyle so devoid of intrinsic reward that the promises of eventual benefit must be posted on the walls.

Of course, recovery groupers everywhere are going to screw like a cage full of bunnies! They do this everywhere that substance abusers coagulate into abject fellowships consisting of fast-living, I-want-it-now, substance abusers and lonely, depressed people estranged by addiction from their families. Sexual error is a cardinal sign of addiction, reflecting the impairment of moral judgment caused by alcohol, and part of the comprehensive breakdown of moral functioning caused by addiction.

2. In the Post article, the topic of AA scandal is strategically balanced by this out-of-the-blue, gratuitous praise:

“Over eight decades, Alcoholics Anonymous, a pioneer in the support-group model of treatment, has grown to attract about 2 million members in more than 100,000 groups. Despite a stellar reputation and worldwide brand, it has never been more than a set of bedrock traditions. It has no firm hierarchy, no official regulations, and exercises no oversight of individual groups.”

Which is to say, AA will not respond to complaints by families affected by the Midtown Groups treachery. Instead, they must grapple with local courts, local agencies, local politics, all of which are tended to by the local 12-step activists and functionaries, i.e., the 12-step syndicate. In other words, Alcoholics Anonymous is neither accountable, nor liable, for the conduct nor for the effects of the Midtown Group, nor of any other of its cell-groups found in every local community. Now, let me ask you, isn’t AA Central just like every alcoholic or addict you’ve ever known? “It’s not my fault. I’m not responsible. Don’t look at me. I have nothing to say about it. I’m above criticism. It’s really someone else’s fault.”

The character of AA itself follows the beliefs, practices, and values common to addicted people. Any two substance abusers can start a group, attract new members from our social service system, gain favor with the media using the holy name of Alcoholics Anonymous, and claim to be the final authorities on the subjects of addiction and recovery. They are secretive, above criticism, above accountability, above controversy, above liability, have no opinions on anything except a very narrow range of practical matters. Members may not speak for AA, even if they are substance abuse counselors with advanced degrees in the learned professions. As private citizens, however, AA members may promote AA, glorify AA, and defend AA as long as they don’t “break anonymity,” meaning they cannot admit they are members of AA. It is a secret, shadow organization using anonymity as a shield, as if anonymous means confidential. Members do not realize that anonymity is worthless to members, but vitally important to the organization.

3. The 12-step syndicate, the addiction treatment industry in particular, is condemning the Midtown Group, as if the offenses aren’t widespread. Every effort is being made by the 12-step syndicate to advance the official story that the pimp stories are rare abuses and unproved allegations, certainly far outweighed by the wonderful AA program that has helped millions of people, more people than any other program. These official criticisms aim to convey that Midtown Group is a rogue fellowship that should be expunged, to maintain the long tradition of wholesome, selfless altruism aimed at restoring victims of addictive disease to sanity and positive living. The 12-step syndicate hopes their condemnation of the Midtown Group will resemble cutting out a local infection from a larger, otherwise healthy organism.

Here some specific practices that are being presented as aberrations that rarely occur elsewhere:

A. Isolating newcomers from mainstream society. This is universal in the recovery group movement. Addiction treatment centers restrict reading material, cut off all family visitation, permit telephone calls, etc., as part of isolating inductees from the outside world. Total immersion is best exemplified by the universal “90-in-90” standard, whereby newcomers are expected to attend a meeting every day for three consecutive months.

B. The pattern of sexual exploitation commonly known as “13th-stepping.” This is commonplace, part of the recovery group subculture, as shown by having its own universal step-jargon word.

C. Predicting suffering and death for dissenters or dropouts. This is the infamous “Curse of AA” about which I’ve been writing about for decades.

D. Pressuring members to discontinue psychiatric medications, as if they are street drugs. Again, this is a practically unversal attitude and practice in the 12-step movement, unabated since I first complained of it while I worked for Community Mental Health in California 25 years ago.

E. Micro-management of newcomers personal affairs and lives, total intrusion of the “new family” into the minds and families of members. Our Insanity of AA page details the intense social cultism experienced by people all over the world, for the last several decades. Consequently, recovery group disorder is common in the fellowship, and the cause of much suffering and family disruption.

Fellowship of addiction, not of recovery.
America doesn’t have a drug problem, nor an alcohol problem, nor an addiction problem. She has an AA problem, and has been overtaken by a subculture of addicted people who are devoted to making the world more hospitable to self-intoxication and other vice. Wherever two or more addicted people join together, they may call themselves, Alcoholics Anonymous, and a new fellowship of addiction exists. Together, they have in common a set of perceptions, beliefs, and values that form the foundation of their relationship, beliefs and values that are sharply at odds with the foundations of family life and human civilization. The entire recovery group movement, and its business arm, the addiction treatment industry, is a giant fellowship of addiction carried forward on the deceptive nature and ruthless character of addiction itself. What could be more alarming than that?

We all know the nature and character of addiction. It is ugly, immoral, antisocial, devious, and ruthless in its struggle to survive. That is the underlying character of Alcoholics Anonymous, of its recovery doctrines, of its 100,000 cell-groups, of its school of thousands of non-profit fishes, and of the substance abuse counselors who comprise the medically-oriented addiction treatment industry. Mostly from good families, AA members once fell into the moral abyss of addiction, coalesced with similarly inclined people, and have never climbed out. Lodged by 12-step doctrine between using episodes, they are engaged in original denial, which means these things:

1. they deny the moral dimension of self-intoxication,
2. they deny the moral imperative of immediate, permanent, voluntary abstinence,
3. they craftily shift the moral burden of their own vice:

a. onto their ancestors, whose beliefs and values they have defied,
b. onto their suffering families, which they have injured and betrayed,
c. onto codependents and enablers everywhere, who are their primary victims, and
d. onto society and its taxpayers, upon whom they are increasingly dependent.

4. they reserve the option to intoxicate themselves (have a relapse) whenever they really feel like it
5. they refuse to apologize for their past self-intoxication by using the pretense of disease,
6. they expect their families, society, the courts, their patients, and God to accept tentative abstinence, i.e., “one-day-at-a-time sobriety,” as if such moral laziness should be admired.

Recovery groups, whether spiritual or psychological, are social manifestations of addiction itself. They impose the inverted beliefs and values of addiction upon newcomers in the form of quasi-religious doctrines. The lifestyle advanced by recovery groups is an emulation of normalcy, an imitation of human life seen through the eyes of animals, and as human life is experienced in the simplified emotional field of addicted people.

The recovery group is a primary group, an emulated family, even introducing itself to newcomers, “Hi, we’re your new family!” The 12-step program is an emulation of religion, borrowing the dignity and trust accorded religion, while substituting a moral code fit for a snail. What sane moral code would deny the immorality of self-intoxication among problem drinkers? Why should we respect someone who refuses to guarantee lifetime abstinence to the family he betrayed through the ultimate self-indulgence, substance addiction? Why would groupers inventory their drunken behavior but exclude the act of self-intoxication from moral inventories? What sort of adult must try to “be good” every day of his life by doing moral inventories and rituals of recovery, unless he has no core of moral integrity?

When irresolute substance abusers get together for any reason, especially after dark, we can be certain they’re up to no good. They operate on the direct, biological voltage of addiction, using forms of language compatible with the addictive mandate, i.e., the Addictive Voice. Meetings start with the self-contradicting proclamation, “AA is a totally self-supporting non-profit organization…,” and the ensuing program is delivered in clever slogans and mottoes that squelch good questions and dissent.

Midtown Madness in Your Town

Recovery groupers are desperately unhappy from their own self-indulgences, have a sense of loss of personal control, lonely, depressed, and yearning for any sign of warmth, affection, or closeness. They are vulnerable to misguidance by any warm hand outstretched to help. They are also sociopaths, all of them, who naturally live double lives, loyal first to the addictive mandate, and then emulating their family roles as necessary.

Recovery groups are hot, singles-scene gatherings with undercurrents of sexuality between people whose chief common trait is impulsive, instant gratification of bodily desires. What could be more predictable than sexual involvements among a group of substance abusers in a state of comprehensive moral collapse, currently estranged from their families, alienated from mainstream society, professing powerlessness over bodily desire, spending more time with each other than with their families, in unsupervised evening meetings during evening hours when they are struggling most to deny themselves addictive pleasures?

Just at the moment of marital crisis, when the addict is forced to choose between his family and addiction, a moment when the heat of marital conflict has stoked the fires of addictive rage, the recovery group steps in as an outside ally offering the addict the cover of disease, and the deceptive appearance of constructive action. They are a new primary group, a permanent, new family, offering the emotional support, the unconditional acceptance, the affection, companionship, and, yes, the sexual contact wisely and appropriately denied by the members’ spouses and extended families.

The recovery group has contempt for original family values, which are incompatible with the rules and beliefs required of addiction. The disease concept of addiction indicts the immediate family as codependents and enablers, responsible for the addict’s plight, and condemns the ancestral tree as a rotten gene pool from which the seeds of their collective misery have fallen. Recovery groupers are not family people at all, and will not accommodate their families’ reasonable demand that they abandon their addictions. They are groupers first and foremost, and expect that their families will accommodate their addictions accept the indignity of living under the uncertainty of one-day-at-a-time sobriety. Many carry amulets proudly stating their misplaced loyalty, “My Recovery Comes First!”

If AA were just another silly sect or social cult, there would be little need to expound on its deficiencies here or anywhere else. However, America has tragically rejected the traditions and religions of her founders and ancestors, and chosen Alcoholics Anonymous as the foundation of moral authority throughout her health and social service systems, so that today we are a 12-step nation, streaming Hollywood recovery mythology into every home, school, church, and agency.

The fact is that AA Central, the General Services and World Service Organizations in New York City, is the administrative center of a vast political movement with cell-groups in every tiny locality, with members embedded throughout our health and social service systems, and with political activists in Congress, state legislatures, local government, and in appointed positions of great social responsibility and authority. Millions of men and women are forced into Alcoholics Anonymous by mandate, by intimidation, by force of law, and by lack of choice. The 12-step program does not work, but only instills the beliefs and values of chronic addiction into the minds of people who need only to discontinue the use of alcohol and other drugs.

Historical Footnote
There is no need for a competing version of AA, one that would consist of an alternative philosophy, alternative methods, catering to those who would refuse AA on religious or personal grounds. We now know that there is no need for AA in the first place, because recovery groups produce far less abstinence than no recovery programming at all. In other words, original family values, fortified by law-enforcement and enlightened public policies, will always be the most cost-effective, dignified, and Constitutional approach to mass, runaway addiction to alcohol and other drugs.

Long ago, Rational Recovery® fell into the trap of emulating AA’s inappropriate solution to addiction — group recoveryism based on the psychological disease concept of addiction. Rational Recovery® sponsored a great network of recovery groups, the Rational Recovery Self-Help Network (RRSN), with groups in 1000 cities. As AVRT® matured into the addiction-killing device it is today, the Rational Recovery Self-Help Network split into two irreconcilable factions, the backers of AVRT-based recovery and the hundreds of professional Advisors — substance abuse counselors who were part of the addiction treatment industry.

Although this schism appeared to be a setback, the outcome has been the emergence of independent recovery as the crown jewel of addiction recovery. Due to its cost-effectiveness and congruity with science, morality, ethics, the law, and the old-fashioned common sense contained in universal family values, AVRT® is the very best avenue for individuals, for families, and as social policy in every community.

Copyright 2007, Jack Trimpey, all rights reserved.

To those unacquainted with Wikipedia, it is an online, communal encyclopedia, consisting of articles on any subject by — well, by anyone. Once an article is posted, it may be revised or replaced by anyone. The problem is, just as with any encyclopedia, only one article informs the reader about any given subject. The editorial policy of Wikipedia is essentially like, “King of the Hill,” in which one goat butts the current goat off the hill, to become today’s headlines on reality.

I have been uncomfortable about the Wiki problem in recent years, as controversy has grown about its susceptibility to abuse. Alas, my concerns were justified when I recently got a “heads-up” that Wiki had gone whacky on the subject of Rational Recovery.

Until recently, there had been a fairly good, objective Wikipedia presentation on Rational Recovery written by a physican. It gave a little background and presented the essence of AVRT-based recovery, providing encouragment for addicted people that their difficulties with recovery groups and addiction treatment need not stop them from recovering independently. Here is the new article, which replaced the original.

1. The new, anonymous article starts off: “This program is considered controversial by many in the 12-step community. It offends by vitriolic attacks on 12-step programs…” Who else in the world, besides members of AA themselves, believes AA is above criticism? This is an article about the perceptions of Rational Recovery by members of Alcoholics Anonymous. The central Wiki-message for desperate people and their families is, “Rational Recovery offends!” In this first sentence, the writer appears almost certainly to be a substance abuse counselor, very likely a “two-hatter” — an AA’r doing the 12-step program on his clients for a fee, while skirting AA’s Tradition 10, forbidding members from entering public controversy. By linking the word “dissociation” with its psychological meaning, he blows his cover. He probably meant “disassociation,” but such an error is unprofessional. In an upcoming blog article, I will discuss the pretend profession, substance abuse counseling.

2. Fully one-half of the article is on irrelevant research done on Rational Recovery over a decade ago, truly meaningless research that says nothing and about which no one cares in the least. There is scant use of current references, only out-of-date citations from the 1990’s, one that even goes to an archive of obsolete websites! The author’s sense of humor is absent, typical of persons in recovery, as he bites on this page as evidence of my madness. As for his expression “independent recovery treatment,” I think the Beast got his tongue.

3. Other than one sentence showing the writer’s ignorance, there is no discussion nor linkage to Addictive Voice Recognition Technique® (AVRT®. He mistakenly says AVRT® “…shows the practitioner that he is in control of the Addictive Voice, not the other way around.” (Recognition is not control, but quite the opposite.) There are numerous “busy links” in the material, but only one Rational Recovery link, “RR-FAQ,” added as an afterthought in “external links.” External links? The authentic source on Rational Recovery is not linked in the main text but only as a obscurely named, “external link?” In a related Wiki article on “Jack Trimpey,” there is no link to the Rational Recovery website.

There is, however, a clear link to “Drink too much?” This is to a website associated with State University of New York which is obviously part of the 12-step syndicate, i.e., the addiction treatment industry and its business arm, the recovery group movement.

Independent recovery has been trashed by Wikipedia. The Rational Recovery page is now a portal to the addiction treatment industry. Behold, the 12-step syndicate in action!

Wiki-Dialectics

According to the Wiki rules, I am now supposed to go to the Wiki website and make corrections, so that some “balanced” outcome will emerge, one that is far more accurate and truthful than the Rational Recovery literature and website. However, I’m not playing ball, for this simple reason:

Wikipedia is a classical example of Hegelian dialectics, more commonly known as dialectical materialism (DM). Very briefly, DM is the belief that ultimate reality is in a perpetual state of gradual change resulting from compromises of observations, opposing beliefs, or opinions. The changes may be imperceptibly small, but when they accumulate in quantity, the quality or identity of the whole is suddenly, radically changed, as in water boiling or social revolution.

For example, if I say my brother is a wonderful person, you may possibly believe me. However, if someone else says he’s a rotten person, then you will likely see him as a basically good, yet flawed, person. As other negative opinions accumulate, you may conclude he is a real bastard. However, even if my brother is a scoundrel, that is only coincidental because you have not observed him but only considered a democratic process in action. Politics is largely a process of dialectical materialism, wherein voters consider the good and bad allegations about the candidates. Thus, politics cannot bring truth but only blurred perceptions about people driven by various agendas.

1. Thesis: My brother is wonderful.

2. Antithesis: Jack’s brother is a scoundrel.

3. Synthesis: Jack’s brother is somewhere in between.

4. The Synthesis has now become a new Thesis, to be reconciled with successive rips against it by new, anonymous critics.

I won’t subject AVRT®, nor myself, to this kind of abuse, conducted under the Wiki-guise of intellectual and academic respectability. I am under no obligation to become a Wiki volunteer, devoted to Wiki-Dialectics.

Rather than schlep over to Wiki, I would much rather send as many people as possible to the Wikipedia article on Rational Recovery, as a way of further exposing the means by which the 12-step syndicate comandeers mainstream media and maintains its death-grip on America’s substance abusers. I trust that readers and visitors will make better judgments about independent recovery (AVRT-based recovery) than the official story from Wikipedia recommends. Some of you may want to post whatever you like, to correct or confirm the current mess. By all means, have fun at this.

You might ask, “Aren’t you engaged in dialectics, with your constant AA-bashing?” Well, no, because I do not present falsehoods as a strategy of destroying fellowships of addiction. DM plays loosely with the truth, valuing change and revolution (the ends) more than honesty and ethics (the means). I am always interested in objections to this website using citations or illustrations of error or falsehood. The Wiki hit-piece has no comprehension of what he impugns.

I use Wikipedia; I suppose most everyone does. It is a lazy way to get a quick take on anything. It often has good links out for further reading. Wikipedia is free, however, and as with all non-profit organizations you get what you pay for, and that’s not much.

An interesting contrast to the Wikipedia hit piece may be found at Wiki-How, which is the best example I’ve ever seen of how to advance the cause of independent recovery without infringing on our protected trademarks. This author sees the concept of AVRT® clearly, paraphrases an outline for independent recovery, and then gives due credit to AVRT® as the original source material. You should have another article, “How to Deliver the Goods Without Ripping Them Off.” Congratulations, Wiki-How!

By the way, Readers, there are also some vicious attacks on your mothers at Wikipedia. If you want to defend her, you’d better scurry on down there, look up your family name, and get busy learning the ropes of Wiki-dialectics.*

* Aw, c’mon, I was just kidding. I hope you get my point, though.

©Copyright 2007, Jack Trimpey, all rights reserved.

I recently got this email from a suspicious person:

Why does the idea of rational recovery sound as if it is trying to provide a means of recovery or treatment? When one goes to sign up, the statement is made that AVRT is not a form of treatment. The feeling I get is that it is a legal disclaimer saying that all this is, is information on self recovery, but is not legally allowed to say it is a form of treatment. Can you help me understand this? — Matt P. MI

Matt,

Alcoholism and addictive disease are inventions, not realities. Alcoholism was invented by Bill Wilson, a common drunk who founded AA as a personal distraction from his own unrelenting desire to get drunk. All of the experts of the time knew there was no treatment for addiction, so they gladly yielded their obnoxious, addicted patients to Mr. Wilson’s fringe group of eccentrics.

Since then, AA has become an enormous fellowship of addiction, spreading its message of dependency through its zealous members in positions of responsibilty and opportunity. Consequently, the disease concept of addiction is widely accepted, a paradigm that makes it appear to you that addiction is a treatable condition, and that treatments do exist. These are faulty assumptions, based upon the false belief that addiction is or is caused by a pre-existing or acquired disease.

There are many who would like to identify AVRT® as a form of addiction treatment so they can (1) prohibit others from offering it to addicted people, and (2) charge fees for offering it as a form of addiction treatment. For example, the addiction treatment industry in California continues to lobby and legislate for licensure for substance abuse counselors, so that the only ones who can provide guidance to addicted people will be members of AA.

If AVRT® is identified as a form of addiction treatment, then it can be outlawed by the licensing authorities, unless offered by licensed substance abuse counselors, who are constitutionally incapable of explaining or even presenting AVRT®. Others may attempt to offer AVRT® as a professional service, as if it were a form of addiction treatment. Of course, that is both illogical, since AVRT® is independent recovery, and unlawful, because of the service mark. In other words, AVRT® is incompatible with the addiction treatment format, which presumes hidden causes, pathogenesis, addictive disease, and an elaborate array of worthless clinical servics.

Rational Recovery® is a refuge from the 12-step syndicate, which includes all of its groups and thousands of its false-front addiction treatment centers owned and operated by professional 12-steppers. Our mission page is here:

About Rational Recovery®

I am determined that AVRT® will remain free of charge, and never incorporated into the addiction treatment industry. The service mark simply prevents professionals and agencies from offering AVRT® to the public as part of addiction treatment. Although addiction treatment has become very popular, it helps no one, because there is no treatment or cure for stupidity, nor for immoral conduct.

The best outcome of addiction treatment is life in recovery, an outcome so depressing that most customers prefer active addiction and soon speak with their actions. Consequently, the only people who actually recover, and live as normal adults in freedom and dignity, do it independently, based upon their native beliefs and values. AVRT® is simply a description of the common thread of independent recovery, set forth in a brief, educational format.

Many thousands of addicted people recover simply by reading through the The Crash Course on AVRT®. However, AVRT® takes no credit at all for those success stories, because they are based upon the native beliefs and values of each individual who recovers. Here is one story that tells more about the nature of AVRT® than any amount of verbiage I can pour out:

Jack,

I came across your site through Wikipedia while researching for useful tools for a friend who recently confided in me his own alcohol addiction, and desire to stop drinking. I stoppped drinking myself a few years ago through some similar techniques I discovered on my own. I’ve been reading your website and you said you are interested in hearing how others have stopped their addictions on their own, so I thought I’d share what worked for me.

I was a closet drunk for a few years, basically starting drinking heavily through a real stressful part of my life, and then became addicted because I simply liked the feeling of being loaded really. Anyway, it’s pretty irrelevant how I got there now, but that I quit my addiction for good.

I’ve always been a very self reliant, independent person, and the idea of going to a shrink, or heaven forbid, a quasi-religious cult like AA was abhorent to me. I guess I just got to a point where this addiction was ruining my life in so many ways, I finally said enough! I can’t be drinker anymore, period, it’s simply not an option. It became totally unnaceptable to me.

I said I will never drink again, and I meant that. It was scary as hell at first making that commitment, I felt very insecure thinking of life without my old friend booze, I actually wanted a drink more than ever!. But I knew in my heart, intuitively that was the only way. I took a week off from work to do my “detox” on my own.

After a few days, the worst of the withdrawl symptoms were gone and I started feeling a whole lot better, but of course I still felt the desire to drink, but I wouldn’t go back to the hell of addiction, no way. I basically learned to let those feelings be, not try to fight them, but to just acknowledge them, but not act on them, and let them pass. I let my intellect be in control, not the booze hound.

It got surprisingly a lot easier after a while, just knowing that I’m in control, and those feelings would go away with just a thought, really, and would be powerless. Real easy, actually. It sounds very similar to AVRT in a lot of ways, perhaps anything that actually works is. And since I was a non drinker now, my moods, my energy level, my self confidence, all of it increased dramatically.

AVRT® was awesome and empowering, and no meetings or expensive shrinks. I can’t see the point in the “one day at a time,” disease model BS of AA. That seems like a very draining, unrewarding lifestyle that actually enables addiction. How awful!

I quit drinking, and once I realized I was in control, never went back, case closed. I made up my mind, and it’s behind me now. I rarely, if ever think about drinking anymore, it’s no longer part of my identity. It all reminds me of I believe a Zen saying I heard years ago, which I’m probably butchering to death: “A coward tries to hide from his desires; an enlightened person simply leaves them behind.”

Anyway, I gave my friend the address of your web site. It’s up to him whether he finds it useful or not. Your AVRT approach by far is the most sensical, honest, affirmative, and ultimately empowering one out there, I feel. Thanks for trademarking it and keeping it away from the whole “recovery” industry!

Regards,

Bill W.

Bill,

Thank you so much for the very interesting and well-written feedback on your own independent recovery. We receive thousands of “Thank you for AVRT®!” messages from people who have reclaimed their lives through our copyrighted and trademarked materials, but we get a special thrill hearing from people who figure out AVRT® all on their own, without ever hearing the words, ” Rational Recovery®,” just as I did back in the early 1980’s.

You and I, plus millions of others who have had serious drinking problems, and who fit every definition of “alcoholic” or “addict,” quit habitual vices every year, including alcohol and other hedonic drugs, gambling, sexual error, stealing, anorexia, bulemia, overeating, cigarette smoking, and other pleasure-producing substances and activities. Yet, when we do quit, demonstrating that we know something vitally important to others suffering from addiction, including their families, we are marginalized as “never had the problem in the first place,” “not a real alcoholic or real addict,” or worse, ” dry-drunk.”

It’s a good thing you trusted your intuitions about recovery groups and stayed away. You were on the verge of complete recovery, but if you had sat down in an AA meeting, you would have been jerked back from the brink and told that willful abstinence if futile, actually a symptom of the dread, unidentified disease, alcoholism. Against your better judgment, you may have conceded your better judgment and settled on one-day-at-a-time sobriety in order to consider the entire matter. Millions of newcomers succumb this way, and are soon visited by the sweet venom of recovery doctrine, which is truly 200 proof Addictive Voice.

Your experience was not “like AVRT®;” it was the generic, real-life drama of independent recovery I have synthesized into AVRT®. Remember, the definition of AVRT® is “the lore of independent recovery from substance addiction in a brief, educational format.” I’m determined to keep AVRT® free as the air we breathe, safe from the rapacious addiction treatment industry and its feeder system, the recovery group movement, both of which justify addiction, personal dependency, and substance abuse using clinical and occult language.

I will post your letter prominently at the website, so that others may be encouraged to undertake addiction recovery as a personal responsibility rather than as an anonymous, group project on the margins of society.

Thanks again!

Jack Trimpey