I am just curious, what is the true sucessful rate on interventions?

KWG,

The true successful rate of interventions, based upon secure abstinent outcome, is zero. The incidence of independent recovery, according to AA, is quite high, according to General Services Organization board member, George Vaillant, M.D. The only people who actually defeat addiction do so on their own, along the lines of AVRT®, which is essentially a summary of universal family values applied to addictions. One-day-at-a-time sobriety is a null commitment, little more than reserving the privilege of relapse under certain “perfect” condions.

Jack Trimpey

Dale,

Part of the reason the American addiction tragedy rolls on unabated is that AA enjoys immunity from direct criticism, exactly as you have attempted to silence my “AA-bashing.”

The Oxycontin travesty you complain about is a direct result of the disease concept of addiction that has been carried forward on the luminous reputation of that army of altruists, Alcoholics Anonymous, (who help other people stay sober one-day-at-a-time by telling others who still suffer from addiction their own stories of how AA saved them from death and destruction.)

In other words, the Hollywood mythology of 12-step recoveryism casts drug addicts as a victims of pleasure-producing substances in their environments, and the sources of those substances are held accountable and liable for the harm they cause. Thus, the stupid people who knowingly consumed Oxycontin for the pleasure of it are compensated .5 billion dollars for pain and suffering. As you know first hand, you are not a slave to bodily desire, as AA has impressed on several generations of increasingly addicted Americans.

In a recent article (Sun, July 22, 2007) in the Washington Post, exposing the social cultism of AA, this gratuitous praise inexplicably appears:

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.

In other words, AA is neither accountable nor liable for the results of their crippling doctrines, for the lives and families destroyed by 12-step recoveryism, for the predation of its predatory membership, for the suppression of informed consent on the risk/benefits of the 12-step program. Newpapers cannot even report on possible negative effects of 12-step recoveryism without “balancing” their accounts with gooey steptalk originating in AA official literature. When I am invited to speak on radio or TV, it is always with an AA chaperon, a 12-stepper to “balance” my criticisms of group recoveryism.

America does not have a drug problem, nor a drinking problem, nor an addiction problem. She has an AA problem, and the longer this monster in our midst is defended against scrutiny the less likely we’ll ever pull out of our nosedive into national mediocrity.

I want you to put your actions where your keyboard is. You go out and tell others “what works.” I will continue as one of the foremost critics of Alcoholics Anonymous, providing what I hope is the very best AA-bashing available anywhere. I will also make AVRT® freely available to all addicted people, so they may discover on their own (as apparently have not) that every word of AA-style recovery, spoken or written, fits the definition of the The Addictive Voice, “Any thinking that supports or suggests the possible future use of alcohol or other drugs.”

The most alarming part of the way the public defends AA is that AA is just a fellowship of addiction, http://www.rational.org/blog/36/ a special interest group based on the beliefs and values of addicted people, attending the the interests of addicted people, protecting addicted people from a world that is naturally and beneficially hostile toward substance abuse. There are many fellowships of addiction, starting with the corner tavern, to the AA meeting across the street, to the substance abuse counseling guilds, to the addiction treatment industry, on to the thousands of non-profit organizations that advance the disease concept of addiction and create the elaborate array of services and protections afforded addicted people.

Jack Trimpey

Marquis,

AVRT® is for the tough cases, the hopeless ones who have been in addiction treatment programs, AA and NA for many years without success. AVRT® is the only method ever devised specifically for defeating serious addictions to alcohol and other strong drugs.

Although many opiate addicts die from overdoses, none die from underdoses. In unusual cases, persons with other health problems such as high blood pressure or heart disease may die from stresses related to withdrawal, those cases are rare and not worthy of discussion as a risk normally associated with opiate withdrawal.

Opiate addicts are quite artful in portraying opiate withdrawal as intolerably painful and, as in your message above, as a direct threat to their lives. Their urgent pleas for compassionate treatment, which always means more drugs to alleviate the discomfort of withdrawal, have resulted in an elaborate array of agencies that provide detox centers, methadone maintenance, treatment on demand, harm-reduction services, and other programs that produce little, if any, abstinence from alcohol and other strong drugs.

The addiction treatment industry, however, has an interest in exaggerating the medical risks associated with detoxification from alcohol and other drugs, so that millions of men and women suffering hangovers are admitted to expensive detox programs that would be better managed conservatively on an outpatient basis or with no medical supervision at all.

Jack Trimpey

Marquis,

I’m sure you have some clear advice for addicted people you haven’t shared here. However, you’ll have trouble convincing the many thousands of drug addicts who have summarily quit their addictions for life that AVRT® is dangerous or wrong-headed.

Jack Trimpey

Before I drank alcoholically, I ate alcoholically with all the pain, bottoms and fall out of every other addiction. I’m a veteran 12 stepper and have had no lasting relief from this problem regardless of multiple surrenders, meetings, 4th steps, etc. I can say, unequivocally, that AA has not provided a solution to my original addiction which had simply diversified into other substances while the original irresponsibility remained.

AVRT is the solution.

I’m new to it. Even as a long-time practicing AA, I can say his analysis rings true to my own experience with addiction and recovery.

Annie

Readers,

Eileen is concerned that Rational Recovery is an ordinary, tax-paying corporation, while AA is a nonprofit organization, entirely self-supporting through the contributions of members. However, a non-profit organization is a dependent organization, dependent upon charitable gifts instead of profiting from productive enterprise. Addiction is a state of progressive dependency leading to death, and AA is based entirely upon the beliefs and values of dependent, addicted people rather than the beliefs and values of independent recovery and independent, productive living. The two are irreconcilable, although many would like to ignore the fact that AA glorifies dependence and chastizes independence.

But one thing I struggle with is that I just don’t understand how you can say you have nothing against organized religion, that RR is compatible with all religions, and yet you RAIL mercilessly against 12-step recovery, even though what it says is taken directly from religion, specifically the Christian Oxford movement of the early 1900s. Do you disagree with what Christianity says? Or Judaism, or Islam? These are the three Abrahamic, one-god faiths who espouse submission of all aspects of your life to God. And when you submit to God, oftentimes your life gets better (just what AA says). But sometimes life gets worse (or goes up and down) because God doesn’t answer our prayers the way we want him to and we are human and fallible and ultimately, God is the author of our lives. These are principles that my life-long Christian faith have taught me, and you say that RR is not incompatible with that.

But AA says that also, and according to you, AA is a damaging cult. I guess that means that my Christian faith is damaging to me also. Oh, well, if the awesome life that I live is damaging to me, I’ll take it over any other choices, especially those that don’t advocate a reliance on God. I do know that my way of living is not causing anyone harm, especially since I’m not married, I don’t have kids, both my parents are dead, and I’m not dating anyone. In fact, it has made me a more compassionate, caring, loving and giving person.

But I’m active in my church, I have a wonderfully supportive and loving extended family, and terrific friends in AA who have carried me through my divorce and the death of both my parents.

And contrary to popular misbelief, “God helps those who helps themselves” is mentioned NOWHERE in the Bible.

Nor is the disease concepts of sin and addiction mentioned in the Bible. Drunkenness is regarded as sin throughout the Bible, and the promise of God in 1 Corinthians 10, that we will never face a temptation we cannot overcome. The notorious heretic, Bill W, however, set forth Step 1 that we are powerless over the bodily desire to drink alcohol — heretical claptrap. Jesus said to “Name the demon,” not to name ourselves after the demon, and nowhere is it said that we need support in order to do the right thing. Indeed, moral action most often means acting against the group’s standards. Bill W was right, AA isn’t religious. However, it is bad religion, a false religion, a religion animated by the animal desire for addictive pleasures. AA is an emulation of Christianity, based upon the social cult, the Oxford Group which was founded and led by clerical maverick, Frank Buchman, whose house parties were condemned by the legitimate clergy of his day.

Rational Recovery is very friendly toward the religious community, however we are highly disappointed that religious leadership including the seminaries have failed to recognize the face of evil in the recovery group movement that resides in their church basements. We are confident that sincere clergy will inevitably find Biblical truth in AVRT-based recovery, and direct their congregations away from the Big Book and back to the Good Book, i.e., the Holy Bible, which is congruent with Biblical Christianity.

I’m pretty sure that either 1- you won’t answer this in your blogs, or 2- will come up with some attack and justification for your way of life. And that’s fine. I really don’t care as long as what you do or say doesn’t hurt another person. In fact, I recently told someone who didn’t like AA to try RR. I haven’t seen them in a few weeks, so hopefully they’ve discovered your website and are doing well. Why can’t you just do the same for people in AA?

AA isn’t for everyone, and I’m grateful there are organizations like RR and others who deal with addictions in a “non-AA, non-therapeutic” way. There is definitely more than one way to skin a cat, and thank God for that! That way, if something doesn’t work, you can try something else. I personally don’t agree with RR, and I have no desire to try it, but I’m not trying to convince anyone to NOT try it. Whatever works! If you’re not drinking or using drugs or having compulsive sex (or … addiction of choice) and have peace of mind, however it’s gotten, isn’t that the goal?

Jack, I wonder why it’s so difficult for you to take the above stance? It seems very easy for you to continually bash AA. Do you recall Jesus’ admonition in the gospel of Matthew to, “remove the log in your own eye before pointing out the speck in your brother’s eye”?

I warn everybody to stay away from recovery groups of all kinds because they are based on the beliefs and values of addicted people, and not of recovered people. People considering recovery groups are on the brink of recovery, needing only some credible encouragement that they can and should make a personal commitment to lifetime abstinence from alcohol and other drugs, and then study AVRT® diligently for a very short time in order to gain confidence in their stable abstinence. At their first meeting, they are met with the crippling message that they must not summarily quit intoxicating themselves base on moral principle, but claim that they are powerless over their bodily desire to drink on acccount of a mysterious, unidentified disease. Those who resist such drivel are subjected to ridicule and the grim prediction of self-destruction by their own hand. Newcomers are extremely gullible to anything that keeps open the option to continue getting high, and naturally, about half of newcomers keep coming back for more than a month, and acquire the lifelong thought disorder, recovery group disorder.

AA is the champion of making claims of universality, right from the start when Bill W posed the “difficult choice between our simple program and death.” Only recently, when called on their infamous, “Our way or the highway,” has AA been grudgingly, and only occasionally, admitted that AA isn’t for everyone. (I say AA is for no one.) However, that word hasn’t gotten to the “two-hatters” who make policies requiring 12-step program of drunk drivers and other substance abusers who come to the attention of the authorities.

There are not many roads to recovery. There is but one, which is to quit getting high. Whatever works is nonsensical, because nothing works; all one can do is cease and desist from alcohol and other drugs. To reserve the privilege of relapses is just a plan to drink whenever one really feels like it.

Jack Trimpey

Take care, and thanks for your forum!

Eileen

Tim

Tim,

I’ll say it again: AA has destroyed more lives than addiction itself. You are among millions who have been waylaid by the recovery group movement at a time of special vulnerability. The doctrines of AA are pristine Addictive Voice, as articulated by its profoundly addicted founder, Bill Wilson, and his addicted cohorts. AA is a fellowship of addiction, not of recovery, based upon the beliefs and values of addicted people who have no concept of recovery and who are constitutionally incapabable of being honest about why they drink/use.  The 12-step program is high-proof Addictive Voice which evokes the call of the wild in every addicted reader or listener.

Jack Trimpey

Edward,

AA, following the sociopathic character of its founder, Bill W, is the Great Deceiver, a Beast in good shepherd’s clothing. As detailed in Code of the Beast, AA mimicks God without hesitation, and will just as easily pretend to legal powers it does not have. That AA has become our state religion while ACLU tries to strangle Christianity is one of the ironies of all the ages.

Bravo to you for finally taking control! Be sure to let others know about AVRT® so they can avoid the difficulties you had to face.

Jack Trimpey   

Thanks,
Edward

Edward,

Jack Trimpey