Go to Jail

[Tonus]

Right. Which makes the "higher power" hyperbole that much more ridiculous.

S-s-so my penis... isn't god?

[Dorian Gray]

http://www.sossobriety.org/12steps.htm

They exist, I'm just not sure courts will recognise them.

I've run across this before and these secular 12 steps interested me for a moment, but as an actual atheist alcoholic who has "worked the steps," I found the whole idea of basing a program that hinges on belief in a higher power to fit into the 12-step paradigm to be a little absurd.

I believe the founders of AA essentially created a Christian program that is watered down and softened so that theists and people of other religions could deal with their vision of recovery. There are supposedly 12 steps because Jesus had 12 disciples. How 12 people corresponds to 12 steps, I don't know. Every meeting ends in the Lords Prayer. Prayer is a huge part of "working the program." To simply transfer the steps into a secular version is silly because it takes out the main element that is supposed to be what makes AA successful - a higher power.

Trying to emulate a system like AA which has extremely dubious success rates is also just dumb. AA's success rate is the same as spontaneous remission - which means that people that attend AA are just as likely to quit drinking (or not) as people that just decide to quit (or not).

I would be more interested in programs like Rational Recovery, but sadly, there aren't any meetings in the city where I live.

[Chas]

Right. Which makes the "higher power" hyperbole that much more ridiculous.

S-s-so my penis... isn't god?

Don't anyone tell Losty.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

It's a very bad ruling. A higher power, as it says in the article, can be anything: the greater good, aliens, his girlfriend, or even his own penis. Nothing says the higher power must be divine.

And it's acceptable to be imprisoned for not believing in this ill defined, non-descript, unscientific and ultimately unhelpful (in this guy's case) 'higher power'?

[Dorian Gray]

It's a very bad ruling. A higher power, as it says in the article, can be anything: the greater good, aliens, his girlfriend, or even his own penis. Nothing says the higher power must be divine.

People who believe in weird higher powers such as aliens, doorknobs, and penisis probably do not have much success in AA. Then again, people who believe in god do not have much success in AA, so....

When they say "fake it 'til you make it" or some other idiotic platitudes that AA is famous for, it really means "fake it until you're brainwashed." In other words, keep believing until something good happens in your life that you can falsely attribute to whatever your flavor of higher power is, and thus confirm your belief with a fallacy of false assumption.

[Jenny A]

My penis skills are substandard to be label as a higher power.

Yes, but we women would just as soon you-all had them, none-the-less. Enjoyment without worship. Yes?

[vorlon13]

It's a very bad ruling. A higher power, as it says in the article, can be anything: the greater good, aliens, his girlfriend, or even his own penis. Nothing says the higher power must be divine.

People who believe in weird higher powers such as aliens, doorknobs, and penisis probably do not have much success in AA. Then again, people who believe in god do not have much success in AA, so....

When they say "fake it 'til you make it" or some other idiotic platitudes that AA is famous for, it really means "fake it until you're brainwashed." In other words, keep believing until something good happens in your life that you can falsely attribute to whatever your flavor of higher power is, and thus confirm your belief with a fallacy of false assumption.

Obviously, whatever success accrues is not due to an invisible sky god, a coffee mug, tulips, or a pet dog.

It's the individual coughing up the will to do it.


As it turns out, unfortunately, the typical (but not universal) mindset of addicts is if it is actually themselves controlling abstinence, instead of an external agency of some kind (higher power), the thought that they can NOW, FINALLY AND AT LAST, resume drinking and CONTROL IT THIS TIME metastasizes in their corroded brains, and we wind up with one more goddamn relapser.

I firmly believe (after 28 years of sobriety) that the 'higher power' stuff is a necessary fiction in view of the pathology of addiction in most cases.

Obviously, spouting this off at a meeting is contra-indicated, but there are those of us in and around the program that understand.

Ever encounter someone with a coffee mug full of 30 day chips ?? We've got enough relapsers as it is. It is less insane to go with the higher power ruse than to go down a path that leads to a resumption of active addiction.

[Dorian Gray]

I firmly believe (after 28 years of sobriety) that the 'higher power' stuff is a necessary fiction in view of the pathology of addiction in most cases.

Obviously, spouting this off at a meeting is contra-indicated, but there are those of us in and around the program that understand.

Ever encounter someone with a coffee mug full of 30 day chips ?? We've got enough relapsers as it is. It is less insane to go with the higher power ruse than to go down a path that leads to a resumption of active addiction.

Thank you for the thoughtful response. This is exactly the point I was trying to examine in my "Do some people really need Jesus?" thread. If you take the AA philosophy to the higher level of religion in general, is it a necessary fiction that people need to have in order to just get by?

This "understanding" makes me wonder just how many people in power understand that religion is necessary in order to keep people in line....

[FatAndFaithless]

But the AA is notoriously shady with its data manipulation, particularly in the sense that anyone who relapses gets put into the "they didn't work the program" category, and those who remain sober stay in the "success story" category. Hell, there's a no true scotsman built into the first page of the AA book, where it asserts (more or less) that anyone who works the program honestly won't relapse. I've spent a lot of times at AA meetings as the support for a friend of mine who was struggling mightily with alcohol, and who was still drinking occasionally while simultaneously going to AA. Eventually I got him to discuss exactly what he thought he was missing, or why he wasn't satisfied with AA, and it really came down to the "Surrender to a higher power" part of the AA 'positions' (shockingly similar to commandments) which say more or less that an the alcoholic is inherently flawed, that they won't ever recover or manage to control their addiction, and that ONLY through utter submission to their higher power and a 'spiritual awakening' will they hope to control it. AA is not about recovery, according to the book you can never be cured or recovered, it literally just replaces the addiction of alcohol with the AA meetings and the constant reaffirmation of ones forever-flawed nature as an addict. Empowering it is not.

Are there people that have overcome their addiction through AA and other similar organizations? Of course, I'm happy for them, of course I'd rather people get over addictions than not. Are there individual groups in these organizations that don't emphasize the higher power stuff and focus instead on (utterly and completely secular with no mention of a higher power) companionship and mutual support? Of course, my buddy ended up going to these more secular groups by the end, and he was far happier, until he realized that he could get this kind of companionship and support and healthy interaction without subscribing to some nutty book about being permanently flawed and how the only way to progress is submission to a higher power (sounds like another certain book, don't it?).

Are there certain individuals that need a delusion in order to control themselves? Very possibly, I don't know. What we shouldn't do is give free pass or privilege or government endorsement (in some cases with the AA) to these types of organizations just because there might be some people somewhere that might need it, while the large part of society and government attention completely ignores legitimate psychological, medical, and emotional therapies that can actually be examined and data-analyzed without the tossing in of a supernatural element.

Not to mention the fact that AA doesn't do anything at all to address the social stigma of addiction, and instead pulls the victim card and embraces it.

[Kowlzer]

I wonder if they would let your higher power be Richard Dawkins or Hitchens?