Dr. Dave Moore and Bill Manville discuss "Isn’t it arrogant and self-serving to say 12 Step Programs are...." July 19, 2012

It would appear that the question of "Isn’t it arrogant and self-serving to say 12 Step Programs are the only road to sobriety?" is hitting all coasts of the United States (and abroad) and Dr. Dave Moore and Bill Manville are now discussing it online at the New York Daily News.

Addictions & Answers: ‘Isn’t it arrogant and self-serving to say 12 Step Programs are the only road to sobriety?’

Some former addicts have found other ways to get sober and stay sober, so are 12-step programs the only way to get over alcoholism?

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Thursday, July 19, 2012, 5:13 PM

BILL: Dave, that’s from Lucinda. “I dare you to print this,” she writes.

DR DAVE: She say how she got sober?

BILL: “Getting married gave me something to live for,” she says. “That was six months ago, and I haven’t had a drink since. The only reason I’m writing is my husband is afraid I will start again unless I join AA.”

DR DAVE: Lucinda is more charitable about AA than many others who define it in their own negative terms to avoid getting sober. Calling it, “the work of sissies,” Charlie Sheen recently went on. ”This bootleg cult,” he said “reports a 5 percent success rate. My success rate is 100 percent....”

BILL: Does that include his hospitalization rath fhehehe fmmm

DR. DAVE: Right - there are a lot odder ideas than Lucinda’s on beating booze, including Mr. Sheen’s reliance on “beating it with my brain” and “my two smoking hotties.”

BILL: I just read someone who credits her sobriety to a pet. “After a booze binge or bad coke bender, I’d end up suicidal and making impulsive decisions, like getting a tattoo or a cat,” writes Anna David, author of the Kindle Single Animal Attraction -- http://www.amazon.com/Animal-Attraction-Kindle-Single-ebook/dp/B007RQRU5.... “If a BF tried to get me to clean up, I’d merely hide my use from him. But after five tattoos I looked down one day at the almost mystical furball I’d brought home to live with me and realized I couldn’t keep killing myself with drugs and alcohol. It sounds ridiculous but after just one month of having her, I finally got sober.”

DR. DAVE: Ms. David is better known as the Executive Editor of The Fix [url: www.thefix.com], probably one of the best addiction websites on the net. I’d rather see our readers follow Anna’s adventures and blogging at her personal website than the Lohans, Sheens and Spearsèannadavid.com.

BILL: Hold it, Doc –you too? Promoting 12 Step alternatives? A spouse, a cat and maybe a few Hail Mary’s to keep sober?

DR. DAVE: I’m just going “back to the future,” Bill. Those first 100 drunks did pretty good at recovery without any formal Alcoholics Anonymous and 12 Steps.

BILL: Charlie Sheen dismisses AA as “a cult.” What do you see as the founding of recovery....or in Old Testament-style, who begat Bob and Bill, the founders of AA?

DR. DAVE: I’d credit the Psychologists William James and Carl Jung, with a healthy dose of an Evangelical Christian drunk named Rowland Hazard. BILL: I know that William James’ book of Spiritual Experiences led to the notion of taking spirituality out of religion—-

Follow the rest of the discussion at: https://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/addictions-answers-arrogan...?

Please note that Carl Jung is mentioned and his ONE letter is proudly displayed to Bill Wilson at the Stepping Stones compound in Beford Hills on 62 oak Road in New York.

See.... "Carl Jung, the cultist that made Bill Wilson, the man behind the cult of Alcoholics Anonymous proud of "ONE" letter" http://orange-papers.org/forum/node/1684

alkieanon's picture

More opinions?

JR Harris's picture

Religion is all about opinions. Of course at the Interchurch they are changing it to be Spiritualist, not Religious opinions. Have you talked to Boniface or Bill from Sunrise Detox lately?

Ouija board adventure as told by Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder http://orange-papers.org/forum/node/1999

Boniface: Intercessor of Addictions http://orange-papers.org/forum/node/1983

"Tradition 10 - Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy." Please follow orders from the Interchurch Center if you are an AA member and don't comment.

becket's picture

So, JR Harris, is this the fruit of your cut/paste labor? You must be extremely proud.

“The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Letters to a Young Contrarian

JR Harris's picture

You see, if no one connects the dots, abstract correlations and the root of the problem will not be identified. I am a researcher that aggregates what is available and connects the dots. If you have a problem with that, don't read my posts. Alcoholics Anonymous is a definite problem in all corners of the world, and I am proving it. You say it is cut and paste, alkieanon says it is opinion, I say it is what is reportedly going on in the rooms of the cult of Alcoholics Anonymous.

"Tradition 10 - Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy." Please follow orders from the Interchurch Center if you are an AA member and don't comment.

Pennywise's picture

Dr. Dave is NOT a MEDICAL DOCTOR! He has a phd in psychology, which basically makes him a glorified liberal artist: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-moore-phd-cdp/13/68b/918?_mSplash=1

"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."

live_free_or_die's picture
Pennywise's picture

Apparently he did have a science background, but I'd say he was more of a liberal artist than a scientist. On any account, Jellinek was not a MEDICAL DOCTOR. But I'm not sure if he ever called himself "doctor" or not.

"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."

live_free_or_die's picture

http://www.roizen.com/ron/jellinek-pres.htm
"By some accounts Jellinek was also a bit of a charlatan. Among other endearing frauds, for instance, he appears to have fabricated his doctorate and in fact may have held no college degree at all. A hint of the iffy quality of his academic certification is offered in the pages of the early Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol -- where his signatures to his first published papers described his doctorate as honorary,1 but that qualification disappeared in later publications.e.g., 2 I hasten to add that one of Jellinek's distinguished colleagues at Yale, Edith Lisansky Gomberg, once commented to me that if Jellinek was a fraud then "...the field needs more frauds like him -- at least he was interesting!"

The foundation of AA is built on numerous frauds.

Alcoholics Anonymous: MyNotGodHasItCovered®
http://www.expaa.org/
http://bereanresearch.com/
http://badrecovery.blogspot.com/
NOT AA:
Rational Recovery, SOS, HAMS
http://alcoholabusesolutions.com/