Why hate Athiest?

[Mystical]

I have discipled many people on addiction and tried to help them get their lives together, including people that have abused and sold MDMA (the last person that I discipled is now in jail for trying to steal oxycontin).

Did your discipleship include god as an answer to addiction? Just what is it you're counseling in your discipline?

What have you done for drug addicts? Do you share your pet ideas about addiction at AA meetings or at rehabs? You know what they would tell you there, right? You know what doctors who specialized in addiction would say, right?

In answer to your question: Do I go to AA meetings? Nope. Not worth the time, honestly. But that's my opinion on the subject based on their statistics of viability. I have never known an alcoholic who actually benefited from AA for more than a short period of time, and yes I've known quite a few. The book is nice, the 12 steps (I own it), are good proponent steps for reconciling their lives. But considering the dropout rate is staggering, I'd say it's ineffective. You know what's going to help these people kick their addiction? A detox mixed with counseling. That works. Detox centers cost money, and counseling is unattainable for most.

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AA's Triennial Surveys

AA's own statistics provide perhaps the most persuasive evidence that AA's success rate is minuscule. Since 1977, AA has conducted an extensive survey of its members every three years (though the survey scheduled for 1995 was conducted in 1996).

These surveys measure such things as length of membership, age distribution, male-female ratio, employment categories, and length of sobriety.

Following the 1989 survey, AA produced a large monograph, "Comments on A.A.'s Triennial Surveys,"xi that analyzed the results of all five surveys done to that point.

In terms of new-member dropout rate, all five surveys were in close agreement. According to the "Comments" document, the "% of those coming to AA within the first year that have remained the indicated number of months" is 19% after one month; 10% after three months; and 5% after 12 months.xii In other words, AA has a 95% new-member dropout rate during the first year of attendance.

If success is defined as one-year's sobriety, on the face of it this 95% dropout rate gives AA a maximum success rate of only 5%; and a great many new members do not remain continuously sober during their first year in AA, which causes the apparent AA success rate to fall even lower.

Of course, many of the 95% who drop out within the first year are probably "repeaters" who have previously investigated AA, and this would increase the apparent AA success rate; but at least for the present there is no way to know what percentage of the dropouts are repeaters.

Additionally, at least some of the 95% who drop out of AA during their first year do manage to sober up; but to date there's no way to know what their numbers are.

As well, it seems quite probable that most of those who drop out early in the program do so because they dislike and disagree with AA, so it could be argued that most of them who overcome their drinking problems do so in spite of, not because of, AA.

Finally, at least some curiosity seekers and relatives of alcohol abusers show up at meetings, and this would further increase the apparent AA success rate.

But to date, there are no reliable figures on what percentage of those who "walk through the door" fit those categories-though my personal estimate, and that of researcher/author Vince Fox, is that no more than 10% of new faces at AA meetings belong to relatives or curiosity seekers.xiii

One thing, however, is certain: An extremely high percentage of American drinkers who have been hospitalized for alcoholism or who have participated in other institutional alcoholism programs have participated in Alcoholics Anonymous.

The number of patients treated for alcoholism is now approximately 950,000 annually,xiv which (because 12-step treatment is used in well over 90% of institutional programs) is a good indication that the proportion of alcohol abusers who have been exposed to AA is very high.

It should also be kept in mind that in most parts of the country convicted drunk drivers are still routinely forced to attend AA as a condition of probation, which pushes the percentage of alcohol abusers exposed to AA even higher.

Further, in most areas AA is the only widely available-and widely media-promoted-alcoholism self-help group, so AA has a very high volume of "walk in" traffic.

But let's give AA the benefit of the doubt and estimate that only 50% of U.S. and Canadian alcohol abusers have tried AA. That would double the success rate calculated earlier (based on the total number of U.S. and Canadian alcohol abusers), and it would increase to 5.2% to 7.0% if the criterion of success is defined as five years' sobriety.

In a worst case scenario, where 90% of U.S. and Canadian alcohol abusers have tried AA, where success is defined as five or more years of sobriety, where 45% of AA members have been sober for five or more years (as AA indicates), and where there are 22 million alcohol abusers in the two countries, the AA success rate would be about 2.9% (and even lower than that if the criterion of success is lifelong sobriety rather than five years' sobriety).xv

The true success rate of AA is very probably somewhere between these two extremes, depending, of course, on how one defines "success"; that is, AA's success rate is probably somewhere between 2.9% and 7% (of those who have attended AA).

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As for fighting drugs, I feel the same thing is needed for addicts. You're talking about addicts, I was talking about recreational users such as Becca.
But since you want to talk about addiction, lets do.

Have you ever thought it was strange that some people can just drop the drug one day and never touch it while others spend their entire lives bouncing back and forth into it? What's the answer in the difference? It's resolve. Not so much the resolve itself, but the individuals' internal resolution to whatever reasons were keeping them in the weakened state that is addiction. You put words into my mouth as to what I would say to a drug addict about addiction. I'm not saying, "be stronger than the drug." I'm saying "face the reasons why you need the drug and move the fuck on."

Incidentally, I have helped drug addicts kick seriously addictive substances. I don't go out looking for addicts, since I spend most of my time fighting my own body for survival but when they end up in my life I don't go talk to them harshly or nicely. I do shit.

Example: Last year my best friend from childhood confided in me that she was on meth, that her live in husband had gotten her into it but she just keeps doing it and not to tell him she was smoking it (while I was there). They have a daughter, so I not only called her mom and took any question in her families' mind as to whether there needed to be an intervention: I also called CPS on my one and only childhood friend who asked her for a UA and gave the intervention teeth. Nowadays her daughter is doing good, her live in husband is happy beyond words that I did what he couldn't since he felt guilt at getting her into that world in the first place, he's proposed to her, she's going to college, and she spent some extensive amounts of time unloading on a volunteer counselor. What's more she did have to go detox. Now she's healthy, happy, and has a future.
She knows what I did for her, even though I've never said a single word to her harsh or not. She calls me to let me know how she's doing, and tells me she loves me. She's thankful beyond words that her family cared enough to intervene like that.

Another example, my neighbor asked me if I'd shoot him up with heroin one night because he'd broken both his risks and was in pain. I refused, and got his last name from a prescription bottle on his table and looked up his dad whom I knew from conversation was a physician. I called the father who said sa la vie call mom. I called mom and again gave her unequivocal proof that she needed to intervene for her sons well-being. I told her if she keeps paying his rent she's going to love him to death. I was not harsh but I was serious.
I didn't go to my neighbor and say at any point, "drugs are bad or you're stronger than the drug." I did give his mom the tools she needed, the inside info she needed, to get him help and suggested holding her paying of his rent hostage for his well being. I told her that he might choose homelessness for the drug but it wouldn't be for long; I knew the guy, he can't survive five minutes on his own. She took my advice, now he's a million times better. He went to a detox as they could afford it, and he had no choice really. Now he's happy healthy and texts me or calls me to tell me how well he's doing, that he's using his pharmaceutical degree to get a job rather than drug himself up.

Now, I'm not a drug warrior either. I just do the hard shit for people and their families. I counsel them on how to do the intervention, I offer my services, I show them that their son/daughter is just in need of help and to overcome whatever barriers in their relationship that the drug has built up. I explain to them that things said and done on the drug is not who those people are inside, it's just the chemical affecting how they act and think. That's the mindset of an addict.

That's why I think it's a little self serving of you to call Becca evil for saying she's going to do E this weekend. She isn't advertising E as the best fucking thing ever, she's just saying she's gonna have a good time. If she said, hey I'm gettin drunk camping this weekend, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
She isn't to be blamed for people and their decisions. Nor are their decisions going to be made based on what some random person online says. Their decisions are made in their heads, the risks are weighed, addiction is a CHOICE, and the reasons they do what they do were there long ago. Choosing not to deal with those issues is a choice, too.

I am against drugs because I almost lost my life to them. It is absolutely evil for anyone to simultaneously teach a belief system that severely undermines morality (I would say, fatally) and at the same time have casual discussions about drug use.

I re-iterate my point that recreational use of a drug and saying you're doing it does not make one evil, and I certainly don't submit to your belief that there's a 'force for evil' that she subscribes to.

Yeah. Drugs are bad, Mmmk. Doesn't change the fact that they'll be used, so hushing the whole subject is only going to do more harm than good. In my opinion, blaming drug use itself for addiction is misleading.

And no, not everyone who does a drug goes and does more. Not everyone does drugs more than a couple times a year. It can and is done regularly.

From what I can understand you are in that group of people who ended up making drugs their lives, got caught, and luckily cleaned yourself up. There's alot of these people but I guarantee the reason they are the way they are is not because they read a forum post by some girl named Becca who was 'gettin fucked up' this weekend.

For the rest of people and granted there's alot: in the big scheme of things they know goddamn well that if someone says, "lets get drunk this weekend," that if they drink that weekend and every night that week, they're an alcoholic and that they're not just doing it recreation-ally.

I don't understand your point. People know intently what they are doing, and should be responsible for their actions.
Addiction should be brought into the light, but that doesn't mean you have to suppress the rest of the world at the same time just because some people misuse the substances available.

Educate about how misuse becomes abuse, if that's your standpoint. That's mine, anyways.

As for the lifers who live drugs, give them a way out. Don't tell them to 'be clean' and then throw them back into a dirty fucking garbage can. Don't tell them "god can help you overcome' then throw them back into a dirty fucking garbage can. And certainly don't tell them "fuck you" or "you'll never be arrested do what you want you'll never overdose or be pimped out. That will not work. Just sayin
Review with them how they ended up in that garbage can, figure out why they felt they deserved the garbage can, and tell them to get the fuck out of the garbage can and give them tools to do so.

It is obviously both. You are very eager to place all the blame on people.

I'm eager for people to take responsibility for their actions is all. And yes, I am whole heartedly against blaming all this evil on some unseen evil force for bad that has it out for humans and uses their weaknesses to self-detonate the world.
If people don't want to change that's their choice and I think it's only fair that they shouldn't drag others down with them. I give everything I have to help those who want out, out. No matter how dirty I feel in being a 'snitch' or doing whats 'hard'.

Why are you so quick to defend drugs?

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It's that mans' fault for becoming an alcoholic in the first place and not seeking treatment for the reasons he feels he needs to drink. Mom's fault for not biting the bullet and detoxing so her kids don't starve. I've been on the equivalent (prescribed legally by doctors) of a drug 100 times stronger than morphine, for years for a legitimate health reason and I got off the SECOND I wasn't in pain anyore. And I quit cold turkey for reasons far less than my childs' empty stomach. That bitch chooses drugs over her kids, she isn't being held at gunpoint by the pills.
As they say, guns don't kill people, PEOPLE kill people.
Oh and being a drug addict does NOT make you a thief by default. NOPE. Being a low standard asshole makes you a thief. There's always a choice.

That is true, but is the compassionate thing to tell people "drugs aren't that bad, but if you do them it is ALL YOUR FAULT" or is the compassionate thing to tell people "drugs screw people up, and if you did them and they didn't screw you up, you were lucky". As someone with experience counseling people with addictions, reducing drug abuse to a simple "being stronger than the drugs" is a horrible way to approach recovery.

What have you done for drug addicts? Do you share your pet ideas about addiction at AA meetings or at rehabs? You know what they would tell you there, right? You know what doctors who specialized in addiction would say, right?

They would say this "Drugs are bad, but if you are strong enough, you can overcome the bad parts and have fun"

No. They would say that is a horrible thing to tell people, a psychological sting, especially for males that wounds and pierces them making them feel
like they have some sort of responsibility to be stronger than drugs. That is how I felt when I did drugs. It is some sort of weird ego thing. And I can tell you, I know a whole lot about the effects of drugs.
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I'm not. I'm against much needed energy like yours being wasted.

Telling people "you can use drugs, you just have to be stronger than the drugs" is just about the stupidiest thing that you can say. You cannot even demonstrate its veracity with an anecdote from your own life.

If you are so concerned about drug use, why don't you volunteer helping people that lives have been destroyed by drug use? Why don't you submit your pet ideas to them, see what they have to say. Maybe you could publish your theories about addiction in academic journals of medecine. As a matter of fact, why not come up with some theories about how people should do neuro-surgery. Maybe your pet ideas can help people [sarcasm].

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The audience I think you are targeting here, are recreational users. And I disagree with how you are approaching the subject. If you truly lived my life, you would take responsibility for your actions and not blame it on some inanimate pill that isn't even chemically dependent. Even you would have to admit that not everyone ended up like you or your friends did. People break the law because they choose to, not because a pill told them to do it. On the other hand, people do things because a book told them to do it so I'm not going to throw out the possibility that some poor fools empty bag of Percocet told them to rob the pharmacy. Apparently praying to god can become just as addictive as anything else because it too releases serotonin, as well. Alongside with eating, exercising, and masturbation (all of which ARE habit forming) because we're intrinsically habit forming creatures. The thing is, we all have the power within ourselves to overcome any amount of chemical in our brain, and that is what should be your message.

Why don't you go deliver drug addicts with that wisdom, if you know so much more than the medical community. You could help a lot more people than they could, since you understand addiction so much better than they do.

Research suggests that people who used ecstasy at least 25 times had lowered serotonin levels for as long as a year after quitting.

Exactly

The fact that you refuse to see that addictive drug use vs recreational use of nonaddictive substances is as different as black and white, and refuse to lay the blame where it lies: the people who take them for self medication purposes or the people who let those people spin out of control through inaction or ignorance: That. That is why the drug problem will continue to rise and become an issue. You're ignoring the real issue and fighting the wrong battle, friend. You wanna help? Really truly want to? Then face the true adversary: the reasons people feel so disheartened with life that they'd give up the value of their own. Fight to give those who want a way out of their despondent realities, a true out. Counseling and free mental healthcare would be a good step for those wanting out of their mental realities. Job corps would be a way for those born into drug infested and controlled lives a way out of their poverty. Or fight the misinformation in your own community. Fight the lack of mental and medical care. Fight the real life-altering chemicals like alcohol and heroin. Fight the laws that contribute to this status quo. Fight the social factors like abuse and neglect that inevitably lead to addicts. Fight the economic policies of your society that create an illegal market of jobs as being more viable than the 'straight' life. Fight the government that allows this to take place because they make money fighting it but never overcoming it. Fight anything, but fight something truly worth fighting for.

I would agree that these are relevant factors for drug addiction. Certainly there should be answers to all of these issues. That doesn't change the fact that drugs are bad. Economics is a big part of dependency. But that doesn't change the fact that people from wealthy areas get into the crime and the debilitating patterns of behavior too. Mental health is important, but medicine cannot treat all problems equally well, and people can become dependent on medications like benzodiazepines.

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You made up my standpoint, please re-review

There are many social problems that are important and demand an answer, however, at the end of the day, that does not justify drug use.

Agreed.

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What Luckie said is something that no doctor in America would ever say. She did not say that people have personal responsibility. She repeated a common drug addict lie that "drugs aren't responsible for peoples problems, people are".

Actually, I had a pain doctor tell me that I'd get off fentanyl whenever I felt I was ready to. He even went so far to say when I asked how long I'd be on it, that people are on it until they feel they don't need it, even after the pain goes away.
Then he offered me something called digoxin and gave me a referral to the clinic which would take care of me for life, if I wanted. I didn't go, I didn't want.

The confusion that centers around the dual roles that drug use and the role of personal decisions is not something you will see many medicals doctors talking about. It is what you will see enlightened 18 year olds on erowid arguing back and forth about, as well as crackheads, and the people in between. Drugs are addictive, period.

Again, not all drugs are addictive, strodel. Not physically. And if it's addictive mentally thats the persons fault, not the drugs. And my point still stands that a person like that can become addicted to sniffing baby powder or something. It does matter what their addiction is because some addictive substances like crack (which is physically addictive), will ruin your life.
My assertion is that a blanket "drugs are bad you are bad" approach isn't going to do shit, and hasn't done shit thus far. My assertion is to review what is and isn't chemically addictive, educate on proper use, provide proper care and identify those who are at risk and treat them before addictions are attained, and provide proper social and economical support services that target the real matters. Drugs are bad MMmmk.org signs all over the city for instance, aren't going to do shit. Providing free counseling and drug education in the community however, will.

There is no debating this. Drugs affect the brain directly, why not just stop in your tracks and accept that both the physical composition of drugs and their relationship to neurochemistry AND individual behavior play a role in addiction and be an adult instead of living in the fantasy world of the super-smart internet exotic psychedelic user who knows everything and is one step ahead of the medical community.

If your assertion is that all substances including alcohol should be banned, I am split on the matter. People are going to do what they want no matter what, you of all people should know that. In a perfect world we'd all be fuckin happy and healthy, carefree and eternal. But it's not a perfect world and again, you of all people should know that too. After all, you believe your deity made this system.
I disagree with you still on the harmfulness of recreational use in non-addictive chemical agents, and still feel you were being self serving by denegrading Becca for her (non propoganda) assertion.