If you commit a crime while intoxicated in Los Angeles you will likely be sentenced to AA by our local 12 Step Caliphate. Where you will learn that you have a disease and you are powerless to alcohol and likely to get drunk again and commit crimes – ‘relapse’ is expected.
Here is the fabled ‘court card’:
And the judge’s order:
Of course, perhaps you’ll be lucky enough to meet someone at your meeting who will tell you it’s a shame that judges are sending kids to AA but hey it’s better than jail or community service right? and as long as you’re here might as well not leave 5 minutes before the miracle happens and if you still aren’t interested they will gladly sign all the lines just meet them in the park after the meeting.
Don’t believe it? Just head over to your local AA meeting and see for yourself. Admitted criminals and self-professed liars will gladly regale you with their drunkalogs.
Is a twelve-step recovery program such as AA or NA an inherently religious activity?
Yes. Courts have analyzed this question in reference to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Courts have repeatedly found that traditional twelve-step programs contain religious content and are religious activities. It is important to keep in mind that a program or activity does not need to be a traditional form of religious worship to be a religious activity; a program can have a secular purpose such as providing drug or alcohol treatment but its programming may contain religious content. These activities must be separate in time or location from the program supported with government financial assistance and participation in these programs must be voluntary.
Fine but even secular ‘alternatives’ to AA that don’t mention ‘god’ or ‘dog’ or anything else for your higher power will still try to convince you that you have a disease that causes mischief and suicide. For example, a SMART member recently stated, “Addiction is a disease and I have the arrest record to prove it!” This whole ‘treatment’ approach is just wrong and only makes the problem worse. We might as well be sentencing these people to ISIS indoctrination and patting them on the back when they don’t manage to kill anyone.
I don’t know who you are or how long you’ve been around. I only discovered this blog recently. But, crazy or not, you’re right about the cult of AA. It is a scary place, populated by some even scarier people. For the life of me I don’t see how the courts get away with sentencing a person to a religious cult.
Ha! So it is a religious cult. How ridiculous it sounds to say this. Maybe jail would be much better? In spite of all the success that AA has had, there seems to be some who are negative about it regardless of the help many have received. I have been to AA meetings and understand that it helps a person replace the destructive mindset of the alcoholic with a mindset that is not destructive. Many alcoholics have a negative mindset similar to that shown by someone who calls AA a religious cult.
AA is a cult whose central dogma is: “Criticism of central dogma is proof of ‘destructive mindset'”. It’s actually pretty clever. Thanks for the demonstration!
It’s better than being sentenced to jail and one can probably learn something of value that he/she didn’t know if approached with an open mind. Of course alcohol doesn’t usually promote an open mind.
Uh, no. It’s actually possible to learn useful things in jail – like getting employment skills, a GED or college degree. All one would “learn” in AA is how to be an AA member and try to recruit more people into AA. That isn’t “learning something useful”.
AA does not recruit people and is not set up to sustain itself as an institution. It’s amazing how many people think they know what they don’t know about it.
AA doesn’t recruit people it just attacks people who say it does. And AA doesn’t sustain itself through the courts it just attacks people who show how it does. Yes, jail or fine or community service would be better and this has been proven scientifically. People sentenced to AA actually end up committing more crimes and the end result is even more jail time! You are right on about the ‘destructive mindset’ at AA. Avoid it and the tenacious liars who defend it!!!
Possible but not probable. It is possible to learn how to be a better criminal in jail too which has been shown to be more probable. I guess an alcoholic can commit a crime because of dui, go to jail, and learn something useful. It doesn’t make sense to speak of something that indicates you know little or nothing about.
After doing this for 3 years you might consider changing your program to “Steps that never succeed”.
A while back, Agent Orange posted a brilliant technique for people who are in this situation and don’t want to get into the clutches of the 12 stepppers – form your own AA group.
Here’s how:
http://www.orange-papers.org/forum/node/705
These people actually want to go to AA despite their shrill protestations to the contrary. Don’t believe it? That’s fine. I know better than to assert the existence of a pagan/satanic cult to a devout atheist (whose mind is strangely obsessed with the provability of the denial of The Beast, as if that matters in the least). The truth will be manifest soon enough.