The Twelve Biggest Secrets of Alcoholics Anonymous

You are here to defend the pagan agenda of Alcoholics Anonymous, nothing else. You can't be that naive. So how many converts to the pagan religion of AA do you have? How many has your coven used as martyrs?

I doubt it will be so funny when it happens to someone you know and love.

But courts had that already, and it had nothing to do with your efforts. When I read the sentencing options, it never says AA or NA or SMART, Alcoholics Victorious or anything specific. It says "self-help" or similar language. And that is fine. AA has always taken the position that it isn't for everyone and they can vertainly choose. An entire chapter is based on that.

Exactly, C&E. The truth is slowly getting out there, and the voices of those who really care about the fate of alcoholics and addicts, and are concerned that people who need help get some real help, are beginning to be heard. There are still some out there who are in complete denial about the 12-step programme, and still seek to promote it as some kind of effective solution (why they continue to do this when it flies in the face of all the evidence is anyone’s guess), but fortunately the stranglehold that AA and the 12-step program has over ‘recovery’ is beginning to be questioned more and more.

There is a problem in that the very small percentage for whom it ‘works’ tend to be very vocal, and still insist in public that is a proper and effective approach to tackling addiction because they believe it 'worked for them' and are incapable of seeing the wider picture And there are also the financial self-interests of AA and the 12-step rehab industry to be considered, and these should never be underestimated. But blogs like this have made a big difference in improving things, I think, and have inspired many of us to go out and ‘carry the message’ to the wider public and to health providers and politicians.

But yes, I agree that we have out work cut out. We're small fry against powerful vested interests and people coming from a position of blinkered faith rather than reality. But we're beginning to make some difference, I think.

I don't know how to check this, but occasionally someone here posts that the Orange Papers are getting "a million hits a day" or something like that. Even if you take a tiny percentage of those people, where is that overflow to the forum? The same people are here day in and day out with a rare new poster joining the "discussions". It does not appear that there is any measurable way to determine the exact effectiveness of the "good works of the activists" on this forum. Of course people leave AA, but before, during and after their departures, how can you accurately say the Orange Papers or this forum - or your rantings - had anything to do with their leaving? That seems like credit where it is not necessarily due.