I attended my first meeting 32 years ago when I was 18 years old. From day one, I was hit on by primarily 40 to 70 year old men. I was shy, insecure, and suffered from low self esteem and honestly was flattered by their attention at the time. I was clueless. This was not an occasional thing, it was constant. I was approached hundreds of times at meeting all over the state of MA. I thought I must be gorgous, all these men want me.
I did not understand that I was being used and lied to by these men. I figured it out fast as saw that I was not the only one and they were telling all the young girls the same thing. I am getting sick right now just thinking about it. I stopped going after several years, when I got pregnant by one of these men. I was in what I thought was a “relationship” and he said it was not his kid and I was on my own. The group supported him not me and his right to do as he pleased. Even the older women supported the men because as some have previously stated here, that is how the denial is perpetuated.
I came back years later, 4 years ago, hoping things had changed. I found it to be worse, now there is a culture where it is denied to the point where it is so common place for these men to hit on young new comers (girls and boys) that they don’t even acknowledge there is anything wrong with it. They have gotten away with it for years. I was at a meeting in Kingston, MA, 2 years ago, where a woman brought up that she was tired of woman being perstered by men in AA and the chairman went off on her and started screaming that she was out of her mind, this behavior does not go in AA. He said he was happily married and resented what she was saying. I was like, OMG, this man has been here for over 20 years and his best friend hits on girls all the time. He silenced her and she never brought it up himgain. She stuck her head back in the sand and “pretended” like him that she was wrong. The best friend who is wealthy, gave her concert tickets to silence her.
I was also told by a man that his “sponsor” was giving him grief because he did not have 2 or 3 girls lined up yet and he had been coming around for over 2 years. His sponser said, what is wrong with you? You shoud by hooked up by now. He also told him that you don’t marry these girls or spend money on them because they are all sick, you just sleep with them until you find someone, out of the program, for a real girl friend. They treat new girls like they are free hookers and these girls are like I was, initially they are flattered by all of this attention.
Unfortunately most of the woman who wind up in AA don’t have a strong suport network outside of the program so they actually believe at the time that these men are trying to help them. NOT. Thank you so much for creating a forum where the truth can be revealed. The AA “Grapevine” refuses to print these stories. Many girls have gone out again to get away from these preditors.
What amazes me, is that not many have the courage to bring this up in meetings. I did a few times and was looked at like I was crazy and having a bad day. My own sponsor told me to let it go and turn it over to God. The other woman are the worst, they tell you that you are having a bad attiutde if you complain about the men. My sponsor who was 65 told me not to bring it up again, that it was too negative and she needed to stay positive.
Thanks again, you are awesome for what you do. The truth will set us all free. I don’t go to AA anymore, I think it is a cult, it has all the components of a cult. Bill Wilson cheated on Lois throughout their marriage and died of lung cancer because he smoked like a fiend. Nice role model. I have researched alcoholism exstensively and AA DOES NOT have the highest success rate by any stretch. That is just more of their B.S. I stayed sober for 30 with no help from them, thank you, and they told me if I stopped coming I would be dead, in a prison, or mental instiution. Give me a break.
]]>Elizabeth,
Thank you for your nicely-written description of life “in recovery.” Because I’ve attended many AA meetings, and had direct contact with many thousands of men and women like you, I can say that your experiences are not exceptional in all, but actually quite commonplace throughout the recovery group movement.
It is not difficult to understand why moral depravity prevails as it does in recovery groups. Think for yourself about who the members are. They are drunkards, junkies, lushes, philanderers and whores, all of whom have already betrayed their own flesh and blood in exchange for addictive pleasures. While they normally gravitate toward the loud camaraderie of drinking establishments and other occasions, they gather for the somber occasion of recovery groups when they are in trouble, being ostracized, fired, evicted, divorced, or otherwise retaliated against by polite society because of their sociopathic nature.
Recovery groups are a fellowship of addicted people who have inverted universal family values in order to live out the law of addiction. Starting with the original denial, they insist that’s the vile act (for them) of self-intoxication is an innocent act, and act of self-defense against the unspeakable pain connected with personal responsibilities and morality. Just as addiction is a natural function of a healthy human body, lying is a natural function of a healthy addicted body.
just at the time when the family is striking back against their addicted family member, withholding all emotional supports and issuing firm resistance against continued self-intoxication, the recovery group steps forward as “your new family,” one who is immediately and unconditionally supportive, affectionate, and, yes, sexually intimate. In an act of consummate betrayal, the addict becomes betrothed to his new family, uttering oaths of allegiance and loyalty surpassing the vows which cemented the nascent family together long ago. Even his/her last name is surrendered in favor of a vestigal initial, which then stands as a symbol of the previous identity depleted by the ravages of synthetic drugs.
America has no addiction problem, no substance abuse problem, nor a problem with alcohol or other strong drugs. She is fatally ill however, with malignant, metastatic recoveryism with cell groups in every community. Your post, Elizabeth, is a good warning for addicted people to stay away from recovery groups of all kinds, and I will add the invitation to take on personal responsibility for permanent abstinence by learning AVRT-based recovery.
Jack Trimpey
I hope my entry helps someone else realize how very simple it is to seize control.
I felt compelled to see if you had commented this morning and want to assure anyone reading this that I continue to be free of the Beast and am getting stronger every day.
Life is good when you quit deceiving everyone, including yourself!
Maggie
]]>I stumbled across a link to the crash course while looking for information about pain pill addiction. On a forum, someone had suggested an 8-step plan for recovery and declared the importance of using links to rational recovery as 4 of the 8 steps. That kind of enthusiastic promotion made me curious and I jumped to the first link, which was the crash course.
I read through the crash course slowly, with a sinking feeling in my stomach. I think it was one of those “eureka, so this is it” moments tempered with one of those “boogeyman behind the door” moments. I could see the truth was being revealed, yet I was almost afraid to look.
It took me a few minutes to formulate the statements, but when I was finally able to say aloud “I will never take painkillers again and I will never change my mind” I felt a flutter in my stomach. I truly think it was the moment I recognized and confronted the Beast and I felt it move aside.
I followed that statement with “And my life was better before I started taking the painkillers.” And my eyes filled with tears when I recognized that as the truth. The Beast had stolen my ability to remember that as fact.
With an unfamiliar sense of relief, I said, “My life can be drug-free and good again.” Hope peeked around the corner at me and anxiety left the room.
I never attended an AA meeting, but I’ve read a lot of the tripe and tried to apply it. I’ve been “off” the pills for over a week, but had been hanging on to the refill number “just in case.” Because, of course, the recovery literature I’ve been reading told me not to blame myself if I couldn’t succeed at first. Addiction is a disease that takes time to overcome, say the books defending relapse. But, today I destroyed the refill numbers with a real sense of freedom and purpose.
I personally know a man who attended AA regularly for several years after his wife left him because of his alcoholism. He retired, shut himself into his home with several cases of whiskey and drank himself to death.
I refuse to join him.
Thank You.
]]>Maggie,
Your description of the Abstinence Commitment Effect is as good as any I’ve written, and it will certainly lead many others to investigate AVRT® instead of fearing it. In my case many years ago, I reached that point of desperation when I finally decided I would never drink again, no matter what, and, like you, I could feel the Beast let go inside of me. It happened unexpectedly, but very obviously resulting from my firm decision that no amount of suffering, nor any degree of addictive desire, could justify even one more drop of alcohol. Like you, I felt a grand sense of relief as well as the joy of freedom that comes from certain knowledge that I will never drink again.
For quite a while, I wondered if addiction recovery could be so simple, so final, and feel so good. That is because I was thoroughly convinced of the dry-drunk mythology of 12-step recoveryism, which lately I call “The Curse of AA.” I thought I was a rare bird, one who had beat the rap of serious addiction without paying the Pie-Eyed Piper of Akron his due. For some time my thoughts were haunted by 12-step slogans and mottoes such as, “You can’t go it alone,” and, “Every day sober is a day closer to a relapse,” and, “We have a disease that tells us we don’t have a disease.”
I slowly began to recognize the crippling effect of 12-step thinking, and decided I would devote my life to making information on independent recovery available to all addicted people, so that others would not be deprived of a simple, user-friendly means of recovery. AVRT® arose from my original experience, which was just like yours, and has evolved to become a truly magnificent entity, a working model of the human moral conscience.
Neither you nor I were aware that torrential addictive pleasures had washed away our moral conscience, leaving us without a rudder to steer away from the rip tides of addictive desire, nor any way to resist recovery group doctrines which permeate mainstream thinking. AVRT® now stands as a refuge from the social service system, a resource to make independent recovery a viable, immediate option for all addicted people. The problem, of course, is how to get the word to the millions of addicted people in a society under the influence of the Fellowship of the Beast, the recovery group movement.
Thanks for your concise statement! That I could be so brief…
Jack Trimpey
I have watch to many good men and woman die from the big lye we all where sold long before I ever used. What part of growing up with alcholic Mom, and a Father who would litteral by the time I was 8 put me in the ER MORE time then I can remember. We don’t choose our parents Today we have great relationship, but my pop passed on a modal he was given from his parents. So Dr Phil, Explain to me how for days of positive cheatering in my mirrior will change 40 years of shame guilt and emptiness’
By the way while I do periododically attend AA meeting, but I must confess it resembles very little of the solution and more about people yapping and finding somewhere to stuff theirs bellies after the meeting
]]>]]>Elaine,
If you believe anything you also believe is wrong or incorrect, then you all of your screws are loose. I am right, and others are wrong. If you agree with me, then you’re right. If you don’t, you’re wrong. Deal with it.
I suspect that recovery groups have turned your brain to pudding. If you agree with this, then you’re really crazy. Get it?
Hold your breath: The Addictive Voice is any thinking that supports or suggests the possible future use of alcohol or other drugs. The AV is the sole cause of addiction. Every word of the “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous exactly fits the definition of the Addictive Voice. AA is 100% wrong, wrong, wrong, and has helped no one at all, ever — not even its founders.
Jack Trimpey
When I was drinking, I was a drunk. Plain and simple.
Another problem I had was “admitting I was powerless.” With RATIONAL recovery I’ve been given the RIGHT to say “I AM NOT POWERLESS, AND I WILL NEVER DRINK AGAIN.” When my beast whispers to me I tell it point blank “Go away, you’re not in AA anymore, I am in charge.”
My sponsor in AA kept insisting that I accompany her to meetings all over town which seemed to be social gatherings for whiners. In the meantime, I had quit drinking, was working full time, had two kids at home, and was finishing my bachelor’s degree. My sponsor kept telling me that I should forget all of that and do 90 meetings in 90 days to “ensure” my sobriety because the fellowship comes first and by my involvement in the program I was also helping her stay sober. It was pure insanity. I fired her as my sponsor and never went back to AA again.
As a divorced woman in the program, I had at least 10 guys a week ask for my phone number “just in case” they needed someone to talk to if they were about to relapse. There was nothing anonymous about it and quite risky if you ask me.
Why did I go to AA in the first place? There was nothing else available and my drug and alcohol counselor required it. If I didn’t attend these religious freakfests twice a week, on top of the three outpatient group sessions a week, she would advise the court that I start all over again. That was the first time in AA.
The second or third times that I went back over the years were by my own choice because there simply was nothing else available and they convinced me that I would get drunk if I didn’t do the meetings. The ironic part is that although I never went to a meeting drunk, I wanted to slit my wrists and throw myself into a vat of whiskey every time I walked out just to be done with the madness of AA and it’s perpetual “victims.”
Thank you Jack and Lois, sanity is restored.
]]>Dear Track Gimpey,
Priceless. Anyone who uses or believes in statements like this on any level of life is in more trouble than any substance can get them into. A fool and his money, don’t you know…
]]>jtapps,
Amazing, that as a 12-stepper you would say this. You hold the 12-step program inerrant, but doubt that anyone can remain perfectly abstinent.
By the way, it’s AVRT®, not ATVR.
Jack Trimpey
]]>Cowboy,
Although your comments sound hyperbolic, I’ll stand by them with the observation that the act of self-intoxication by problem drinkers or so-called “alcoholics” is a crime against humanity. Let me explain.
Total, permanent abstinence is the only sane remedy for an established pattern of problem drinking because the action of alcohol is to impair one’s capacity for moral judgment. That is true of all who drink, but for problem drinkers, even small amounts of alcohol impair their judgment just enough that they might have just one more drink. In that semi-soused condition, their appetites for more alcohol roars to life, demanding continued drinking into deepening drunkenness. They have turned themselves loose on their families and on society as dangerous, wild animals who place others at grave risk of harm, and they neglect their duties and responsibilities to the human family.
Group recoveryism is created by and for addicted people, based on the beliefs and values of addicted people, serving the interests of addicted people, at the expense of humanity. One-day-at-a-time sobriety is a crime against humanity because that arrangement preserves the privilege of drinking/using under the pretext of disease, i.e., “relapse.” Recoveryism has become a massive industry, based upon a vast network of cell groups that exist in literally every city, village, and town. It consists of the growing population of substance abusers, the recovery group movement which feeds into the addiction treatment industry. Every part of our health and social service systems are operated by regulations and social policies created entirely by members of recovery groups in positions of social responsibility.
It follows clearly that judges and other public officials who create and enforce public policies that require problem drinkers and drug addicts to participate in group recoveryism or in the charades of addiction treatment are guilty of crimes against humanity, actually preventing these dangerous substance abusers from summarily quitting the use of alcohol and other drugs. Instead, they are funneled into the recoveryism industry, where they are instilled with addict-identity and force-fed debilitating doctrines that sharply contradict each participant’s ancestral heritage. Thus, problem drinking and drug using is converted to chronic addiction, and those who would otherwise quit altogether are identified as those who are “sicker than others.”
There can be no more forceful attack on the nuclear family than to induce family members to blame their ancestors for their own stupidity and to believe that their immorality and antisocial behavior has its origins in the family’s gene pool. Those who support the recoveryism syndicate are playing a lead role in the destruction of more lives than are claimed by addiction itself, and participating in the destruction of the greatest nation in human history, the United States of America.
Although your comments may sound hyperbolic, Cowboy, they are right on the mark. How sad that we must learn to see in the dark to actually spot the terrible thing, the Beast of addiction, that now runs freely in society. By learning a little AVRT®, anyone can see sharper and become an expert on addiction and recovery, more knowledgeable than physicians and other learned professionals on how to help addicted people and a nation that is also in the belly of the Beast.
Jack Trimpey
I was a meth whore when I was using heavily. When I first came into the Program, I was not thinking very clearly due to very heavy drug use. My sponsor took advantage of this. I realize I was not underage at the time, but I was willing “to go to any lengths to stay sober.” If that meant having sex with my sponsor, I was willing to do it.
The Midtown DC Group is not the first, last, or unique in anyway. Often, in meetings, people will talk about going to meetings when they are traveling and find that although each group has it’s nuances, you can always depend on feeling at “home” in an AA meeting…that they are not that different.
I’m glad I’ve found RR and AVRT. I’m not sure I’m ready to leave the recovery groups yet…I’ll miss my friends, but this is a start in the right direction. I came to AA looking to stop using meth and found a Higher Power instead. That’s all well and good, but I still keep using (not as much as I used to, but meth isn’t a drug you can use part time very easily). So, I need something that delivers what it promises: how to stop using drugs and stay stopped forever.
]]>Ken,
You seem unaware that your continued self-intoxication is profoundly immoral conduct, and that you are drawn to associate with others (recovery groups!) who also have the collective moral intelligence of a snail. I suggest you quit the use of alcohol and other drugs, and sever from the recovery group movement in thought and in deed:
Your Rational Recovery Sponsor
Cheers,
Jack Trimpey