AA
And wine that maketh glad the heart of man — Psalm 104
“once our cancer is treated, or our car is repaired, we don’t have to attend a meeting and give an organization cash. Daily. That would mean that we are addicted to and dependant on, the organization.” — J.W.Blackstock
This Is The Therapy Of Art.
My 12 Step Program Created My Discomfort Anxiety
Life must be easy, without discomfort or inconvenience.
Or I can’t stand it.
Horrible. Awful(izing).Terrible.
Means that I will die from it.
Am I dead?
No.
So there is no evidence for my belief.
The evidence is I am alive, and dealing with hard, uncomfortable inconveniences constantly. Like the stroke where half my body was (is) paralysed, or the time I lost part of my finger to an insane diabetic doggie with Alzheimer’s. Or when my wife developed terminal Huntington’s disease, or when later narcissist girlfriends conned me and broke my heart again.
Irrationally, then, I am saying I can’t do this (live), I must not have these perfectly normal experiences of discomfort and inconvenience, or else I will die.This is a definition of insanity. Because repeatedly, I don’t in fact, die.
Instead, evidence says I had experiences of pain (a lot), dealt with them as best I could, often seeking professional help, ignored the experiences such as losing an arm and a leg, then focused on common satisfactions. Communication companionship and sex. Art making, music making, writing, you get the idea.
The quest for certainty is the quest for anxiety. -Dr. Michael Edelstein
It was Epictetus, who said, “What disturbs men’s minds is not events but their judgments on events.”
Anxiety is created, for example, by attempting a charcoal rendering of the perfect, fully coloured, three dimensional hologram in our heads with a demand that it must be rendered exactly as envisioned. With a burnt stick. This kills hope and openness to the opportunity for making something new and original. Instead, by drawing from observation of the model using measurement, facts and evidence interpreted with the beauty of the hand-made mark, there is little anxiety because we aren’t saying ‘I must “. We are too busy enjoying the process of gathering evidence and recording it in our unique creative handwriting.
Anxiety comes on its own and it leaves on its own. It’s a consequence. Of What? Of the words ‘I must’.
The 12 step cults, programs that program folks, are narcissist magnets. “I am in such incredible pain that only a higher power can help me.” Ignoring the evidence of every woman who has ever given birth. Then recovered. Then ignored the painful experience and focused on satisfactions like enjoying the challenges of raising a child, or in my humbling experience, the stroke patient learning to walk.
Or the people the world over who said, this behaviour I tried in order to deal with my pain, has a shitty cost benefit. Since the only survival skill all humans have is incredible creativity, I’ll try a different strategy and see what happens, as predicting the future and mind reading are not in my skill set. If I feel stuck I’ll talk to strangers,as the artist studies the masters, and see what might benefit me aka asking for what I want.
Our natural creativity is the therapy of art.
It’s true that the British empire was founded on slavery and the pain relief opium trade, and the American one was founded on slavery and sugar pain relief (alcohol), both cultures having strong religious underpinnings that say you are a loser without your higher power. Anything that puts you down is an abuse, with the agenda of control, so this 12 step nonsense is controlling folks with self slavery using self abuse. For profit. Cold hard people collecting your cold hard cash.
To dump them, or have a religious organization dump you, all you have to do is, ask yourself, where is the evidence for my belief?
“Alcoholics Anonymous holds the copyright on the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions; you will need first to secure permission in writing from AA (Alcoholics Anonymous, P.O. Box 459, Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10163) to use the Steps or Traditions.” — Google search snippet.
OK! AA is a company, a business. The involving trust, especially with regard to the relationship between a trustee and a beneficiary, is that a company has a fiduciary duty to shareholders, the responsibility of a business is to create a profit.
The responsibility of AA then isn’t to help people. In fact, according to Gabrielle Glaser/The Atlantic, the programming program only has a 3% success rate in dealing with addictions in any measurably effective way. The most effective way to deal with an addiction is used daily by millions the world over; short-term pain for long-term gain. AKA adult behaviour.
All adults seek specialized assistance occasionally, for car repairs or medical and psychological issues for example. We don’t have to personally reinvent the wheel. But once our cancer is treated, we don’t have to attend a meeting and give an organization cash then be abused with fear, obligation and guilt, the narcissist tools along with withholding sex, of manipulation. Daily. That would mean that you are addicted to and dependent on the organization that calls you a lifelong loser and sucks on your bank account. And programs you into self-slavery; self-denying communication, companionship and sex because you are programmed to believe you are not worthy. “If you have self esteem you can lose self esteem. Dump the notion of self worth and focus on strategies for satisfaction instead.” — Albert Ellis, The Myth of Self Esteem.
AA is big business, a simple Google search result: “Full-year 2019 earnings were $3.79 per diluted share. Excluding net special items 2, earnings were $4.90 per diluted share, up 8% year over year. Accrued $213 million for the company’s profit-sharing program in 2019, including $74 million in the fourth quarter. Jan. 23, 2020”
I wish my business earned 74 million profit every 3 months. Sadly I have scruples I guess.
My Uncle Charlie was a 3 meeting a day man. As a child he was dumped on the Salvation Army, along with his brothers and sister during the depression, unable to be fed by my grandparent’s failed farm. So booze became his abandonment anxiety pain relief and institutions like prisons became his parents. He never resolved the trauma, and never achieved adulthood.
My uncle Harvey hit the rails and discovered first codeine and then heroin. He funded this lifestyle through crime. He was the first Canadian to be locked away indefinitely under the new incorrigible criminals act. He got a degree in English in jail, wrote ‘Bitter Humour’ and gained his release.
Somewhere in the AA Big Book, Bill W., the author, has everyone present chant at the beginning of every meeting that they sought treatment from the medical community with no success and only the other addicts are able to magically assist them through divine intervention. “In fact, AA is a religious organization with some very specific views, deriving from the religious body known as “The Oxford Group Movement” or “Moral Rearmament,” associated with Frank Buchman, who was extremely controversial both because of his political views (he said some friendly things about Hitler) and because of his intrusive, hard-sell methods of proselytizing.” — Dr. Michael Edelstein
Evidence-based psychology interferes with the profit margin.
So, with 3 meetings a day, donating his spare cash from his trade as a house painter to the A.A. institution, Uncle Charlie had enough left over to live on my grandmother’s couch, all his life after his last jail term, soiling himself in his relapses, addicted to sugar like nearly all AA members.
He had a diabetic-related stroke and passed away.
When there is an AA convention, the bakeshops are sold out for blocks around the convention centre. High fructose corn syrup, the AA drug of choice, and alcohol are almost identical on a molecular level, the former was created in a lab in Japan in the ’60s. It has all the harmful negative effects on the liver and brain of booze but without the high. Enjoy your Big Gulp.
High fructose corn syrup turns off the enzyme in your cells that tells your brain you are full, according to Dr. Lustig, the world’s foremost expert on the obesity epidemic of babies consuming formula containing high fructose corn syrup. Babies aren’t gluttons and they don’t under-exercise. So after your 3 big macs and you are still not feeling full, you have a worldwide epidemic of obesity blamed routinely on lazy gluttons by the soft drink folks, and no evidence for their claim, just these fat, now adult, baby-victims increasing their profit margin.
Alcoholics say they can’t control their drinking, they can’t have just one drink. I would suggest that based on the research of an almost molecularly identical substance, high fructose corn syrup, no one can, especially with repeated heavy use. It would appear that it’s the effect of the drug turning off the lipid enzyme affecting the brain and therefore the behaviour that creates the repeated heavy use in the first place, not your lack of religious character development. The miracle of the obsessive cravings magically disappearing has more to do with chemistry than turning your will and your life over to an organization willing to rape your bank account to the tune of 74 million every 3 months.
These AA victims are not diseased, as they narcissistically claim without evidence, as no etiology has been ascertained. They are simply human, having fallen prey to unscrupulous businessmen (cult recruiters) taking credit for the chemical process of healing from abuse, then manipulating them for for-profit purposes that are not in their best interests. The victims of cults are typical: vulnerable after a trauma, intelligent, educated, in transition and in pain.
The anxiety and hostility symptoms of the depressed AA ‘addict’ lashing out at others are easily dealt with using modern evidence-based techniques. No one is powerless over their drug/alcohol abuse. Or their emotions.
- Walk out the A.A. door.
- Feel shitty.
- See a doctor.
- Get treatment to help feel better. (diet and exercise)
- See a psychologist.
- Get treatment to learn to:
- Talk to strangers.
- Ask for what you want.
- Get communication.
- Get Companionship.
- Get Sex.
- Live long and prosper.
If it is to be, it’s up to me. — Albert Ellis
