I don't think it is "unduly harsh". The truth hurts.

Although I have to say I have not read everything on that site, I have seen it before and this article is probably the best theological argument (from any faith based perspective) AGAINST the 12 steps I've yet seen:
http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-heresy.html (from your link)

As I see it, the basic problem with tying recovery of any kind, to religion is that it begins with a false premise, namely that:
the problem lies within a person's SOUL.
Although it may be true, from a religious perspective, that human failings often end in substance abuse, it is NOT necessarily true that all substance abuse COMES from human failings.

As a person of faith myself, I can say that I believe ALL people, sober and drunk alike, have problems within "the soul" it does not necessarily mean that they are to blame for a physical addiction, nor does it mean that they "need" a religious answer. Most people, when left to their own conscience, will sort out their problems on their own, and don't "need" a religious answer for everything. In fact, I would take a more apophatic approach and say that often, there is no answer to be found and that some things simply have to be endured for the sake of enduring it, not for any outcome of enlightenment. I guess I would summarise that by saying: Life sucks, then you die, and then you get accepted into paradise anyway. Cuz God is basically merciful and kind, and knows that you couldn't have it all figured out anyway. You weren't supposed to.

In short, for the mainstream, traditional Christian believer, here is the truth: When you die, God isn't going to ask if you spent your life "sober". he's going to ask if you did all the things he asked you to do: feed the naked, take care of widows, etc. it doesn't really matter if people do these things drunk or sober. What matters is whether you did them in the correct belief that they are simply, the right thing to do.

"Sobriety" is a relatively young concept, being born in the 20th century. If we were to be honest with ourselves, the truth is that the human race has been, quite literally drunk, for several thousand years, and that is not necessarily a "sinful" thing. Alcohol-free beverages are relatively "new" . Prior to the turn of the 20th century, no one drank "just water". It was beer, wine, whiskey, or water with a little of ANY of the former tiinctured in. Drinking "just water" was sort of like going to Ougadougou, and expecting to drink "the water" there. No one in their right mind would do that. To do so, would be to invite cholera, dysentery, and a host of other ills.

So going "alcohol free" is not really a "normal" state for human beings and their history.

Hey there 2muchwine!

I'm glad you liked it...it's very incomplete and doesn't completely express my full thoughts and feelings on it...just a few highlights of my thinking really. There isn't enough room on this board for me to fully give AA the "treatment" I feel it deserves on a theological level. I only wanted to point out a couple of the more glaring theological errors.

I only went to that meeting yesterday in order to remind myself of this "truth" often cited in AA meetings:

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, each time expecting a different result.

Yeah. Uh huh!

As for your relatives and "friends" (hmmm...): God bless them if AA helped them. But myopic devotion is often the kind of thing that leads people to believe things like:
a) the US never put anyone on the moon! Preposterous!
b) Queen of England is, in reality, a reptilian representative of the New World Order, and will soon have her son Charles on the anti-Christ throne...
and other nonsense.
Ad nauseum.

Allow me to say, "God bless you in your search and journey for sanity".

We are all jsut in the same boat: imperfect and needing some clarity. The fact that no one wants to admit that "the future has arrived" and this technology is now available and necessary to sustain life, is indicative of a social illness that afflicts even the smartest and brightest: insanity.

This may be "out of context" but I offer here a quote from St. Antony the Great, a 3rd century monk:
" A time is coming when men shall go mad. And when they meet someone who is not mad, they will say, 'he is mad! he is not like us!".

Hmmmmmm.......

"Some people take Beano to prevent gas before enjoying a meal they know will make them gaseous. It allows them to enjoy the meal without suffering, or making others suffer for their choice of cuisine. "

Excellent analogy!

Amen Pyrata ......

Seriously, people actually believe that if they do this rain-dance and recite these foolish little chants that they will be cured. This stuff is right out of a Sunday morning con artist's handbook. Maybe we should try blood-letting or lobotomies if AA doesn't work.

Although it isn't very "Christian" of me to admit it, I can think of several AA leaders and sponsors who NEED a lobotomy. For the sake of the greater good and the "group". As it were.

interesting thread.

I take a somewhat 'higher level' view (and I don't mean higher in an intellectual or theological sense - just in the sense of not focussing on small details) of AA. It goes something like this:

Alcohol causes some people major problems (pretty much accepted fact). For those that develop these major problems, it is exceptionally difficult for them to resolve them themselves, i.e. without assistance of some sort, whether medical, psychological, group therapeutic etc (ditto generally accepted). Once you accept that help is necessary, then you judge it on the criteria "Is the person better off overall after this intervention/assistance than before it". If you take someone in the serious throes of alcoholism then the answer will be yes for almost any intervention, probably up to and including chopping off a limb (if that stopped them).

In that sense I don't have an issue with the AA approach (or any other) - if it works for the person and satisfies that condition, then good for them.

When it comes to me personally, I'm not happy to leave things at that level. I don't just want something that works, I want the best thing that works and the thing that works best. AA to me seems a very crude sort of approach, brutally effective (for those for whom it works) and in many ways a lowest common denominator approach to the problem.
To continue the religious analogies alluded to earlier - all religion is in some sense about doing two things - 'explaining' those parts of the human experience which remain unexplained by conventional wisdom, and by codifying a set of behaviours that enable societies to function. When societies and conventional wisdom are limited, then you tend to have simplistic religions based on fear, punishment, self-abasement, group-think and discouragement of debate. As societies and wisdom advance these things become more tolerated and the religion becomes less about the dogma and more about the message.

I'd like to think that I can use my brain to explore more 'wholesome' methods of resolving my problem, at least up until the point where I've exhausted the more 'palatable' possibilities.

I guess what I'm saying in a long winded way is that AA might be the best model for some knuckle-dragging, window-licking, slack-jawed yokels, but it isn't the one for me

I really like this metaphor. Just imagine if beans were deemed to be "evil" and people had to live their lives "just one bean away" from a breakdown into total flatulence. Or if people kept an eye on each other lest they become tempted to eat beans, or if they counted others people's beans, or even held interventions for those whose bean eating had become unmanageable!

Higher power forbid! Fartunately the solution is at hand: have a Bean0 first. Good thing too, because I would hate to imagine sitting through those BA meetings

This is CLASSIC! I am printing this out and pasting it to my bathroom mirror....where it will replace some pretty bad philosophy I need to get rid of....

This is perfecT

Great thread Pyrata! I can totally relate to the thoughts of you and others on AA.

I read the Orange Papers website awhile back when I grew sick of AA, and was looking for something else. I think the guy is slightly hung up on discrediting Bill W, but looking past that, the site provided me with info that shocked me at first. I had never heard of Vaillaint's (sp?) study, (and remember this is a guy who is on the AA board) which showed AA's success rate to be around 5%. Like I said I was shocked! All I have ever heard was AA was a successful program, that it was the only real help out there, and once a drunk always a drunk.

This thinking is so ingrained in our culture now, and is part of the reason my family will not support me with TSM/Nal. I'm hoping to show them this thinking is flawed.