Freedom and treatments for drug addicts

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LuckyR
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Re: Freedom and treatments for drug addicts

Post by LuckyR »

Well I live where marijuana is legal. But that isn't really a "drug" (like made in a Pharmaceutical house), it is a natural product. Making a marijuana plant illegal is like making a toad illegal because you can get high by sucking it's sweat. We aren't accustomed to illegal animals, just plants.
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Belinda
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Re: Freedom and treatments for drug addicts

Post by Belinda »

Just like I am today, about thirty years ago I supported the right of everybody to use their bodies as they pleased as long as this did not harm anyone else.

In the intervening time, I have learned that cannabis endangers the mind/brain of the user much more than, say, eating too much meat. Legal highs and synthetic mind altering stuff are worse in this respect than cannabis leaves and also cause deaths from other organ failures or from road traffic accidents. Knowledge alters moral perspective.

I have learned notably from Sanchez that it's important to show addicts that they must take personal responsibility for their behaviour towards self and others. I have no experience of criminal drug addicts . I only know of my old friend who was addicted to codeine and while I knew her she was not good at reasoning, although she had a lot of other talents. For such as her who are not good at reasoning and quiet reflection an authoritarian approach by the therapist was best. I gather that addicts in general are not good at reasoning and therefore I am supposing that authoritarian approach has much to recommend it regarding treatment of addicts.

However I also think that increase and application of knowledge of the causes of addiction, although this might not be accessible to addicts with mushed-up brains, is appropriate for the general public such as I suppose we are at Philosophy forums, and of course by the professionals.

I understand that Lucky lives in Oregon, and I like Oregon's reputation for liberality, so if Oregon made cannabis legal I pre-judge its approach as a good one. Thus far my knowledge goes and not further and I don;t know of any reliable studies of the matter. In short, drug addiction is a pragmatic problem not a moral one.
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Supine
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Re: Freedom and treatments for drug addicts

Post by Supine »

Post #1--the original inquiry that is--was a question in relation to positive liberty (freedom) versus negative liberty (freedom).

Libertarians (at least right wing ones) are generally accepted as the people that champion freedom as it is understood in the concept of "negative freedom."

In the United States Democrats and Republicans alike are no different than the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, Muslims, or Buddhist Dali Lamas in that they only perceive "freedom" under the concept of "positive freedom." That being freedom being something internal to the human, and as they all espouse, the person achieving "self realization." Central to the concept of "positive freedom" is the principal that no individual can know if they are free and only a higher authority (say... Obama) or the mass opinions of others (say... the NRA or LGBTQ) can determine if you are "free" via having "self realization."

Non-drug addicted Americans widely and ignorantly subscribe to the New Order religion brought down from on high by President Obama, his Secretary of Defense, and the clowns of confusion bestowed their life long positions (like the Bishops in Catholicism) as Supreme Court Justices, that an American male with tattoos on his arms ought never be allowed entrance into the US Marine Corps or Army out of moral and reasons of "image." But that Male-to-Female transsexuals will by the order of the pontiffs in US Government be FULLY INTEGRATED into all jobs of the US Marine Corps and Army. By reason then the infantry ranks. Apparently, the enemies of the US empire, all age 14 or so as they are, prefer to be speared in the face by bayonet by a woman with wide hips and penis tucked in her panties than by an American male with a tattoo of his state and girlfriend tattooed on her arm. And the Male-to-Female combat troop struggling carrying her pack, cursing the name of God and Christ, presumably is so fearsome the armed enemies of the US empire will forever be shacking in their boots.

So, a good reason to incarcerate Americans smoking marijuana or snorting heroin is because to not do so might mean they will awake within the Matrix and lose "self realization" by doubting their holy fathers and mothers in Government in all these new religious teachings they are giving them.

Simply working a job 9 to 5 and paying taxes and obeying Holy Father in Government does not de facto make one "free."

However, I do subscribe to the view personal finances, personal "wealth" $$$, makes one more free or less free. If one has to eat up everything their boss dishes out to them and must go to work miserable hating their job, all because they NEED the job, its income to survive, then they are not free. Too little money earned from your job resulting in you not being able to travel the country or world every so often, also indicates one is not free but enslaved.

The ability to quit a job you hate without fear of financial ruin and eviction or loss of home resulting is freedom. So is enough money to save and travel.

Freedom in a certain sense.

I'm religious and so I subscribe to "freedom" being the concept of "positive freedom." Ergo, I find abortion and homosexual activity and homosexual marriage to be in part a result of "self realization."

I have sympathies for the libertarian views though. Personally, I'd legalize prostitution, brothels, and probably all drugs. Back in the 1800's brothels openly operated in the City of Milwaukee (in its "Red Light District") and cocaine was widely sold out the back doors of pharmacies and openly tolerated by cops and courts. The city was more "wide open." Prostitution and cocaine use (for pleasure) are immoral and do is marrying more than one woman, premarital sex, masturbation, and homosexual activity. But not everything immoral ought be made illegal.

If cocaine crack smoking made men cross dress in female clothing or give oral sex to other men then Obama and every liberal would vehemently object to crack cocaine being made illegal. They would point to the supposed evil and "shame" or disgrace evident in crack addicts behavior. Yet these same clowns of contradiction (Satan is said to inspire confusion) champion and CELEBRATE non-drug addicted (presumably at least) men cross dressing and giving other men oral sex. Not even occasionally. But with a militant dedication.

Ergo, the need for Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders to become President. The hypocrisy, double standards, and state sponsored oppression (which is what arrest and incarceration is) embedded in the organizations of the Democrats and Republicans must come to an end.
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Re: Freedom and treatments for drug addicts

Post by Sanchez »

Belinda wrote: I have learned notably from Sanchez that it's important to show addicts that they must take personal responsibility for their behaviour towards self and others. I have no experience of criminal drug addicts . I only know of my old friend who was addicted to codeine and while I knew her she was not good at reasoning, although she had a lot of other talents. For such as her who are not good at reasoning and quiet reflection an authoritarian approach by the therapist was best. I gather that addicts in general are not good at reasoning and therefore I am supposing that authoritarian approach has much to recommend it regarding treatment of addicts.

However I also think that increase and application of knowledge of the causes of addiction, although this might not be accessible to addicts with mushed-up brains, is appropriate for the general public such as I suppose we are at Philosophy forums, and of course by the professionals.
I see why my view sounds authoritarian, but in a sense it's the exact opposite. Many of the current treatment paradigms presume that the addict is incapable of running his own life and in need of outside help. Many treatment programs, like the Twelve Steps, have an explicitly external locus of control, which I think is the main reason for their low effectiveness. I would like to see all addicts adopt an internal locus of control and reclaim the freedom they only imagined to lose in the first place. Recently I came across a study that showed the belief in the disease model to be the biggest single predictor of relapse. To me, that's no surprise. Placing full responsibility on the addict may sting at first and requires a bit of authoritarianism, but it's actually humane. It places the addict in charge and actually makes autonomy the main goal of recovery.

I think that the way out of addiction is more important than the way in. I get it, you probably want to prevent addictions from arising in the first place. As Wilson said, some people are more impulsive and more hedonistic than others. This fits within the normal variation in humans. I really do think that in many cases there aren't any interesting causes for addiction. Some people are just more into certain pleasures and some are into it too much for their own good. There are three problems with seeking out causes of addiction: 1) It's hard to prove anything. It seems to me much about the speculation on childhood experiences and so on is just wild speculation and guesswork. 2) It's hard to see how it would help to know the causes. The addict is deeply in love with the short-term effects of his drug and deeply hates the long-term effects. It's hard to see how knowing the origin of this ambivalence would help in defeating it. 3) Addicts like treatment because it tries to deal with addictive behavior indirectly, hence my point of treatment being something that people do instead of quitting. Digging into your past in therapy, sharing at group meetings etc. all give the option of appearing golden on the surface ("I'm working on the problem"), while retaining the right to use whenever one REALLY feels like it.

The "authoritarian" approach means that the problem is approached directly. Many think that the cravings need to be decreased somehow before the addict can resist them. In the moral model, one is willing to endure any and all cravings out of principle. Urges will fade over time and will be weakened by the mere fact that the person knows he wouldn't act on them regardless of how powerful they are. Cravings are subjective and as such, strongly shaped by the use of language. They seem intolerable mainly because that's how addicts want to perceive them. Part of the addict welcomes strong urges because it justifies using. If one is permanently sober out of moral principle, there is no point in feeling strong urges. So, to really condense the flaws of the disease model in one sentence: it mistakenly assumes that it's impossible to choose sobriety and to prevent relapse by giving up the belief in that concept.
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Re: Freedom and treatments for drug addicts

Post by Supine »

I attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, Sanchez.

One thing that irks me about AA is that it is cultish and pretty much like organized religion. As evanglical as any street corner Protestants preaching salvation by their path only. Although AA officially claims other paths to sobriety may exist, in practice they adamantly deny it and preach failure to routinely go to meetings will always result in relapse and demise.

The 12 Steps program was in fact created by Christians. High Church Protestants of the "Oxford Movement"--a movement meant to reconnect with Catholic past/origins--and its tradition of handing out token coins on abstinence birthday dates was established by a Catholic nun early in AA origins gave out tokens.

The so-called "Big Book" is every bit culturally, intellectually, and spiritually to AA members what the Bible is to evangelical Protestants. If something is written in the sacred texts of the Big Book then it must be true. So, AA fanatics think.

You are right AA and 12 Step programs have a horrible success rate. They will deny it of course. Like any converted Muslim or converted man to Christianity or any convert to atheism they zealous believe if x thing worked for them it therefore must work for every human on earth. Ridiculous but this is how humans are. Being religious rather than scientific in methodology and origins AA has one of the best claims and privilages on earth, that all failures are the individuals fault, not that of AA, because the person did not try hard enough or want it bad enough, but all successes are not that of the individual but of the AA program.

It would be like Catholicism claiming all successes but no failures. Or the equivalent of the No True Scotsman fallacy in a way.

Actual scientific methodology does not work that way. Science claims responsibility for both its defeats and successes in its war on cancer. No one in medical science blamed the cancer patient that subcums to brain cancer for "not trying hard enough." As if there is an accurate measure of that anyways.

But you are wrong about AA's model of carrying out jihad against drug addiction. It is not external but as internal as any organized religion on earth. Actually, AA and other 12 Step programs claim to be spiritually pure and 100 percent spiritual whereas they claim "religion" is not at all. The average Catholic or secular American could not endure the spiritual purification of internal works that AA offers. As AA and the 12 Steps Programs are one, if not the only, bastion of personal responsibility left on earth.

AA literature is even far more sexually conservative towards heterosexuals than Catholicism is and certainly more so than the secular world. The average American would think he or she defended into a 1950's conservative Christian hell of sexual Puritanism if they had to follow AA's perpetual interior religious jihad. The equivalent of the Islamic "lesser jihad" which is internal war with one's self.

The reason for AA's low success rate is due to its religious methodology. God is mention (the word "God") several times in the 12 Steps program. It's one of the big ironies, hypocrisies in the secular US courts in that they court order Americans into the scary oppression of the religiosity of AA meetings where the word God is used and prayers to God are frequent (most meetings end with the Serenity Prayer or the Christian "Our Father" prayer). But the lies and hypocrisy in the US Government never ceases and only picks up more steam as time goes by.

I'm not court ordered into AA but I find SOME (not total) benefit in it FOR MYSELF. I don't pontificate to others what will bring them salvation (other than God and Christ). Many paths have been used to achieve sobriety and conversion as far as I'm concerned. And my influence in science tells me that with the claim, "All birds are black," the hypothesis must be rejected if only a single white bird is seen. So, I tend to reject AA's holier than thou claim of the one and only way to salvation, as observation reveals others have achieved it by other means too.

And alcoholism and drug addiction are physical too and not only spiritual or mental. Take men that can't keep their penis in their pants before marriage. Does keeping their penis in their pants cause them to fall down into seizures and die (lack of alcohol does for a small percentage of alcoholics)? No. Does it cause them to wither in physical pain and defecate on themselves (lack of opiates does for opiate addicts)? No.

Sex causes a chemical reaction of pleasure in the brain that most humans become addicted too. Ergo, the popularity and profitability of pornography. Crack cocaine high feels like an organism times 10. It is no wonder then crack addiction gains such a hold when it is more sexually orgasmic in the brain than regular sex is to heterosexuals, homosexuals, bisexuals, or pederasts, or pedophiles.

Narcotics Anonymous (NA) only offers a "cold turkey" program of arresting use. Likewise with AA for alcohol. The actual medical community via medical science offers a non-cold turkey program of prescription drugs to reduce the stress and negative physical effects of withdrawal. Opiate withdrawal in particular is often given a slew of different prescription drugs to take, including Valium in some instances to combat a rise in anxiety. You can google all that up.

Crack cocaine addicts are low on the priority ladder of medical science, probably due to the addiction being associated mostly with poor blacks, and almost NEVER are drugs prescribed to crack addicts trying to kick the habit. Crack addicts go cold-turkey in that sense.

The intellectual program of combating drug addiction as taught in rehabs is mostly useless. It appeals to self righteous Western people who can't abstain from premarital sex that like to pontificate to drug addicts about how they should just "man up" and think their way out of it. LOL.

There are two hard facts about drug addiction/alcoholism (problem gamblers, prostitues, homosexuals, people that suffers from BIDS and can't be happy unless they cut off their arms or become paralyzed from the waist down, or people like Bruce Jenner suffering from GID's):

1) We don't understand this phenomenon all that much (nor the human brain) and have too much pride and self righteous pontification in us to admit it.

2) And these people will always be with us. But we can't accept that anymore than Nazis can accept Jews.
Belinda
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Re: Freedom and treatments for drug addicts

Post by Belinda »

Sanchez wrote:

T
o me, that's no surprise. Placing full responsibility on the addict may sting at first and requires a bit of authoritarianism, but it's actually humane. It places the addict in charge and actually makes autonomy the main goal of recovery.
I couldn't agree more!

But my old friend was not capable of taking responsibility for herself about deferring certain present pleasures. She was impressionable and needed to be told by someone whom she respected that she could never drink again. The doctor who said that to her could instead have argued with her along your lines, Sanchez, but she would not have understood.

She mostly enjoyed being compliant with certain authorities, which is why , when she decided to join a church, she was placid about its mildly authoritarian creed.
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Supine
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Re: Freedom and treatments for drug addicts

Post by Supine »

I should show these comments to the Black-American males who have been getting enraged that the US empire is building prisons to send them too for smoking weed whilst Obama and others are advancing the causes of people identifying as no gender or two genders.

They argued with me that this is solely done by the "elites" in Government whereas I argued it is the will of the American people. In other words Americans themselves are their enemies.

Full responsibility has been placed upon the addict--and black male addicts--ergo, their enslavement in US prisons and the judicial system. That is true oppression. Period.

Forced rehab is like forcing gays into therapy. Even AA bemoans 20 year sober people going out and using and ending up in prison in something like drunk driving that kills. But I'm pro choice rehab and pro choice gay therapy. Just like I'm pro choice obese Americans going on a diet if they want to.

If I marry a man how does that harm, Sanchez? It doesn't. Likewise, how did my drug use while simultaneously giving an alcoholic a place to live, giving money to homeless on the street, harm Sanchez? It didn't.

Of course, due to the rise of white suburbanites in the upper-middle-classes getting strung out on heroin and overdosing, the media of the US empire has been treating them akin to homosexuals and the LGBTQ: writing humanizing them in stories rather than caricaturing them as jumping out from behind trees raping and killing women through every city of the US nightly.

Food for thought. Two legal things were behind the Catholic Church sex scandal with underage boys: homosexuality and alcohol/alcoholism.

Sorry, but crack cocaine, heroin, and meth were not its principal culprits in that real life drama that cost enormous toll on both society and the Church.

But alcoholics far more, way far more, than drug addicts have personal stories of sexually molesting their own children or raping women. Yet, alcohol remains legal. The same substance that got me 3 bullets in my upper body from a cop while in a blackout. Crack cocaine never did that (crack is arguably less harmful physically over long term than obesity and certainly more so than alcoholism).

Let one crack addict in Utah molest a little girl and watch the media of the US empire portray ALL crack addicts in every city of the USA nightly doing the same thing. But that same media never portrays ALL alcoholics as incestuous child molesters or all homosexuals in the priesthood as boy child sexual molesters.

Portugal decriminalized (not legalized) cocaine and heroin addiction, doesn't force addicts into rehab (only offers it), and even gives them jobs (kind of like the US empire tries to do with felony murderers). The large city of Lisbon is safer than Milwaukee and even safer than London.

Drugs prescribed to cause abortions should be illegal. They cause fetal homicide. A felony charge in the US with abortion clinics and mothers exempted and privileged to carry out fetal homicide. But the USA is the same country of laws that made it illegal for black people to ride in the front of the bus and taught the Nazis their eugenics science. So, I don't accept all US laws as de facto "moral."

The ethnic Black-Americans I have less patience with than the white Americans that want to lock them up in the millions. I can even tolerate the attitudes in this thread that would send millions of black fathers to prison for decades for non-violent drug possession. As I tell the Black-American men face-to-face, don't come crying to me about what the empire is doing unjustly to you and or "your people." You vote them in. You militantly support them. The LGBTQ DEMANDS better and like white men when angry (such as many Trump supporters) will stand up and take what they believe is their right and due.

Of course, black people prefer to sit around complaining. Caitlyn Jenner and the new young, white, suburban IV heroin addict faces and pill poppers just flipped the script on them again. Now they're "human" and given full, round character stories and good for their families. Had they been both black and male they'd be presented in the media as having failed "black women." Same tired song. In that compassionate article on that Indiana town mostly white, poor, and ravaged by AIDS and IV opiate addiction not once did any journalist inquire as to why "white men have failed white women."

Too bad Bernie Sanders won't become President. But hopefully Trump will. I know Hilary marches forward in part by appealing to the emotions of ethnic Black-American women that enjoy hearing black men being put down while simultaneously speaking of black women as if all of them are rich and earning doctoral degrees in the US and none are drug addicted. Makes you wonder what planet these people are on.
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Re: Freedom and treatments for drug addicts

Post by Sanchez »

Supine: what really worries me about your rants is that this thread is about drug addiction, yet you seem to be obsessed with sexual minorities. Are you justifying your own use by telling yourself that gay people, or Bruce Jenner are even worse? You also seem to imply that by emphasizing personal responsibility, I explicitly want black people or people in general to rot in jail. Are you familiar with the term ad hominem? I just want all addicts, black or white, to accept responsibility, which is a better approach to addiction than becoming involved in that strange occult religion of Twelve Steps. Even if drug use results in jail time, people get out and are free to live on their own terms and stay sober their own way. If they get into AA/NA, they will be told that it's for life. Some people actually choose jail over forced attendance at support groups, a decision I totally understand. To be clear, I don't support jail sentences for using any substance. If anything, it's the results of that use that are punishable.

I attended a Twelve Step group for almost two years. Unfortunately I don't have a copy of the Big Book anymore, but I'll quote some things from memory to illustrate that personal responsibility is NOT what they teach.

"We admitted we were powerless over alcohol." = Alcohol is the active agent and you are the passive one.
"One day at a time" = You don't know whether you're gonna drink tomorrow.
"Only by the grace of God" = Sobriety is a gift you receive, not something that you do yourself.
"Nobody can do it alone" = Sobriety is a group assignment.
"HALT" = Certain very common, even inevitable, mental states can make you drink.
"Triggers" = Drinking is blamed on external events.
"Enablers" = Others are partially responsible for your drinking.
"Sometimes there are no defenses against the first drink." = Relapses just happen. It's not something you do, it's something that happens to you.
"Relapse" = Implying that the decision to resume drinking was a symptom of a disease.
"Slip" = Implying that the decision to resume drinking was an accident.

At your next meeting, pay attention to the way people describe their "relapses". They might beat themselves up, not for the act of drinking, but rather because they didn't work a good program. The problem is that they think their drinking is something that can be approached only indirectly. They see themselves as rats in a maze and relapse is around the corner if they take the wrong turn. I mentioned that the flaw of the disease model is that it mistakenly concludes that a decision to abstain won't help. You think gay bashing equals personal responsibility, but it seems to me you're tip-toeing around the real issue. Normally I wouldn't ask this from addicts, but since you throw around accusations of racism, I don't mind challenging you: are you gonna drink again? Because I think if you truly accepted full responsibility, you would decide that you will never drink again and also decide to never have any "relapses". After this it would become apparent that there is no reason to mingle with fellow addicts, especially if they will try their best to convince you that you cannot take responsibility, or that your commitment to sober living is useless.

As to effectiveness of AA: Around 50 % of alcoholics get better. Around 10 % ever attend AA. The drop-out rate for AA is around 95 %. Something like 50-60 % of the long-term members sober up. When we do the math, about 0,25 % of alcoholics recovered through AA, when in total half recovered. In other words, for every AA success story, there are about 200 others who recovered without it. Most recovered independently and took the kind of personal responsibility that AA explicitly forbids.

How does your use harm? It doesn't...if you're lucky. The fact is that addicts, when using, don't think about much. Often they eat up their family's finances, or neglect their duties as a parent, maybe lose their jobs, maybe physically harm someone driving intoxicated. If that's not you, congratulations. Of course, if your use were harmless, I'd be curious to know why you felt it necessary to join AA.

I'm sorry to say, but you are a good illustration of the mindset I've been describing all along. You see substance use as something that happens to people and like all AA members, you get really defensive and upset when this view is threatened. The fact is that a part of you is deeply in love with alcohol and is threatened when someone suggests you just cut off the supply for good.
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Re: Freedom and treatments for drug addicts

Post by Belinda »

Sanchez, maybe many addicts don't want to be responsible for themselves and need either a quasi- religious creed or an authority to instruct them what to do. To put it another way, maybe some addicts are not educable and need simple training or indoctrination techniques. I don't know about cocaine, but I understand that alcohol and cannabis and similar partially destroy the actual organic brain, relative to amount of poison taken. The destruction results in impaired reason and judgement.

The reason that a child cannot be held entirely responsible for crimes is that a child's reason and judgement are undeveloped. Similarly some addictive substances can permanently affect judgement and reason. Clearly this does not apply to yourself and I'd bet that there are causes for your power which don't include Free Will.

Much as I dislike the creed that you posted I suggest that it suits those addicts who are too damaged to reason and judge for themselves.
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Supine
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Re: Freedom and treatments for drug addicts

Post by Supine »

Sanchez wrote:Supine: what really worries me about your rants is that this thread is about drug addiction, yet you seem to be obsessed with sexual minorities. Are you justifying your own use by telling yourself that gay people, or Bruce Jenner are even worse? You also seem to imply that by emphasizing personal responsibility, I explicitly want black people or people in general to rot in jail. Are you familiar with the term ad hominem? I just want all addicts, black or white, to accept responsibility, which is a better approach to addiction than becoming involved in that strange occult religion of Twelve Steps. Even if drug use results in jail time, people get out and are free to live on their own terms and stay sober their own way. If they get into AA/NA, they will be told that it's for life. Some people actually choose jail over forced attendance at support groups, a decision I totally understand. To be clear, I don't support jail sentences for using any substance. If anything, it's the results of that use that are punishable.

I attended a Twelve Step group for almost two years. Unfortunately I don't have a copy of the Big Book anymore, but I'll quote some things from memory to illustrate that personal responsibility is NOT what they teach.

"We admitted we were powerless over alcohol." = Alcohol is the active agent and you are the passive one.
"One day at a time" = You don't know whether you're gonna drink tomorrow.
"Only by the grace of God" = Sobriety is a gift you receive, not something that you do yourself.
"Nobody can do it alone" = Sobriety is a group assignment.
"HALT" = Certain very common, even inevitable, mental states can make you drink.
"Triggers" = Drinking is blamed on external events.
"Enablers" = Others are partially responsible for your drinking.
"Sometimes there are no defenses against the first drink." = Relapses just happen. It's not something you do, it's something that happens to you.
"Relapse" = Implying that the decision to resume drinking was a symptom of a disease.
"Slip" = Implying that the decision to resume drinking was an accident.

At your next meeting, pay attention to the way people describe their "relapses". They might beat themselves up, not for the act of drinking, but rather because they didn't work a good program. The problem is that they think their drinking is something that can be approached only indirectly. They see themselves as rats in a maze and relapse is around the corner if they take the wrong turn. I mentioned that the flaw of the disease model is that it mistakenly concludes that a decision to abstain won't help. You think gay bashing equals personal responsibility, but it seems to me you're tip-toeing around the real issue. Normally I wouldn't ask this from addicts, but since you throw around accusations of racism, I don't mind challenging you: are you gonna drink again? Because I think if you truly accepted full responsibility, you would decide that you will never drink again and also decide to never have any "relapses". After this it would become apparent that there is no reason to mingle with fellow addicts, especially if they will try their best to convince you that you cannot take responsibility, or that your commitment to sober living is useless.

As to effectiveness of AA: Around 50 % of alcoholics get better. Around 10 % ever attend AA. The drop-out rate for AA is around 95 %. Something like 50-60 % of the long-term members sober up. When we do the math, about 0,25 % of alcoholics recovered through AA, when in total half recovered. In other words, for every AA success story, there are about 200 others who recovered without it. Most recovered independently and took the kind of personal responsibility that AA explicitly forbids.

How does your use harm? It doesn't...if you're lucky. The fact is that addicts, when using, don't think about much. Often they eat up their family's finances, or neglect their duties as a parent, maybe lose their jobs, maybe physically harm someone driving intoxicated. If that's not you, congratulations. Of course, if your use were harmless, I'd be curious to know why you felt it necessary to join AA.

I'm sorry to say, but you are a good illustration of the mindset I've been describing all along. You see substance use as something that happens to people and like all AA members, you get really defensive and upset when this view is threatened. The fact is that a part of you is deeply in love with alcohol and is threatened when someone suggests you just cut off the supply for good.
I spent over an hour typing a response on my iPad to all your accusations and errors. To my great anger all of it was lost when I hit submit and I had to be logged back it. :evil:

When I get the chance I'll respond once again--with a more full reply--when I get on a bigger PC.

For the moment I will quickly note that you have distorted and/or taken out of context so many AA propositions and phrases that it's doubtful you could have spent 2 years in AA. Even a critic of AA such as myself still attempts to quote their phrases fully (e.g., "Therefore but by the grace of God go I" rather than your claim of "By the grace of God", as the former is a phrase warning not to judge others harshly. I believe the phrase is lifted from the Bible) and presents their propositions fairly and ACCURATELY.

You quote the powerlessness over alcohol out of context. The proposition addresses addicts well known dilemma of thinking or trying to think they can STILL use the same substance and that "this time things will be different."

No, AA proposes that like being pickled, once becoming addicted (pickled) you can not go back to being unaddicted (unpickled) and if alcoholic then no more alcoholic and drink socially and regularly again. AA claims that is impossible, that once alcoholic ALWAYS alcoholic even if 25 years sober. One can NEVER drink again AA preaches. Once alcoholic that is.

You also mishmashed secular, "scientific based" rehab programs propositions with AA. Further indicating to me you have little to no experience with AA meetings. I've been in and out of both over the course of 20 years of crack addiction. It's the so-called scientific based rehab (like the inpatient ones at the VA hospitals I've gone too) programs that have the proposition "relapse is part of the recovery process." AA is in fact very antagonistic towards this proposition. AA claims that once an alcoholic graces their doors they never have to drink again. But if they do it is of their own foolish choice.

AA has an attitude of charity towards relapsing alcoholics (going in part by that therefore by the grace of God phrase, but also by the "cunning, baffling" nature of alcoholism they speak about) the way many today have an attitude of charity towards gay men married to women, that via election, organism, and ejaculation created 3 children with her but goes out periodically to sleep with men, even though he hates being gay and prays to God to cure him.

You confuse that attitude of charity rather than Scarlett lettering the addict, preaching from on high they are evil creature damned for hell, as telling alcoholics it's good and okay for them to drink. No, AA simply says pick yourself up, TRY HARDER, WORK MORE at recovery, and stick around them for the miracle to happen, for their positive influence to rub off so-to-speak.

Alright, I must log off. As I said, I'll return to address some of the other remarks in error you made.

For the record: I regard homosexuality as more preferable to drug addiction and rather any child I may have become homosexual rather than drug addicted. That said, I regard the homosexual sex I had, the drug use, all as sins. I regard homosexuals as sinners along with the rest of humanity but for Christ and Madonna. Noting the protagonist Jesus stated in that well read literary work, that "He who has not sinned cast the first stone." Giving indication to Americans in the 21st century that contrary to their New Order man-made religion, homosexuals and obese people self inducing diabetes, vain women on tanning beds self inducing skin cancer, that drug addicts are not the only sinners.
Steve3007
Posts: 10339
Joined: June 15th, 2011, 5:53 pm

Re: Freedom and treatments for drug addicts

Post by Steve3007 »

Supine:
I spent over an hour typing a response on my iPad to all your accusations and errors. To my great anger all of it was lost when I hit submit and I had to be logged back it. :evil:
I'd avoid using an iPad and use something with a proper keyboard but, more importantly, write your posts (especially long ones) in a separate application like Windows Notepad and save it. Then copy and paste it into the website when you're finished. Your unusual view of the world is far too important to just disappear into the ether.
Sanchez
Posts: 98
Joined: March 30th, 2016, 8:03 am

Re: Freedom and treatments for drug addicts

Post by Sanchez »

Supine: It would've been okay if you actually had just criticized my arguments but you went further by accusing me of being a liar. I did attend Twelve Steps meetings for almost two years. As to the quotes, please note that English is not my native language. The plaque that hung on the wall did translate as "Only by the grace of god".

You actually did confirm some of my points, for example the point about "working recovery". This means that sobriety is seen as an indirect outcome of a process, not something that can chosen directly. There is no good evidence that addiction is a disease, or that addicts actually lose control after the first drink. Even if this supposed lack of control was real, it wouldn't explain why people continue to drink. A persons blood alcohol content is zero at the moment the relapse begins. My point was that "working recovery" is something that people do instead of quitting. Just a thought: if you actually quit drinking, what exactly are you working when you work recovery?

My proposition is that all addictive behavior is voluntary (and there is evidence for this, I will search it and link to it), which means Yoda was right: there is no "try". Even during relapse, the person does exactly what he wants. You cannot honestly say that you didn't want to drink, but did it anyway. You also completely dodged my question of whether you're gonna drink again.
Belinda
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Location: UK

Re: Freedom and treatments for drug addicts

Post by Belinda »

Sanchez wrote:
My proposition is that all addictive behavior is voluntary (and there is evidence for this, I will search it and link to it), which means Yoda was right: there is no "try". Even during relapse, the person does exactly what he wants. You cannot honestly say that you didn't want to drink, but did it anyway. You also completely dodged my question of whether you're gonna drink again.
'Voluntary' and 'involuntary ' have more than one meaning.

The knee jerk reflex is wholly involuntary and cannot really be inhibited.

The nervous person's licking their lips is often referred to as involuntary but the lip licker can stop doing it when he is aware of it and wants to inhibit the licking.

The woman who places her lipstick by rubbing her lips together is doing a wholly voluntary act , however someone might inform her that using a lip brush is better.

What I am wondering is if the alcoholic might belong to any one of those 3 classes ,2 of which are separate varieties of voluntary.
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Sanchez
Posts: 98
Joined: March 30th, 2016, 8:03 am

Re: Freedom and treatments for drug addicts

Post by Sanchez »

Supine: You claim that my views on 12 steps are mistaken and accuse me of lying about my meeting attendance. I admit that your group might be an old-school group, which unlike most, hasn't been influenced by newer pop psychology elements. I have heard the "AA ain't what it used to be"-argument before so clearly there are differences among groups.

However from my extensive reading online, I gather that my experience wasn't in any way unique. The things that I mentioned are routinely taught in the meeting rooms. I don't think it's a new problem either. Jack Trimpey wrote of it in Rational Recovery twenty years ago and the meetings he attended in the late 1960s were very similar to what I experienced four decades later. Keep in mind that nobody speaks for AA, which means that everybody speaks for AA (which you are doing here). You effectively used the No true scotsman-fallacy by arguing that the real AA teaches personal responsibility.

I argue that personal responsibility over substance abuse is not only incompatible with AA, it's incompatible with any support group. If one takes full responsibility over substance use, he will solve the problem independently and make no appeals to diseases or any baffling entities to explain what is ultimately just ultra-hedonism. You got caught up in semantics and me quoting out of context, and I admit that these things are quoted from memory, not directly from the Big Book or other literature. However, I feel this is irrelevant because your posts themselves have proven my core argument: that AA members see their drinking as a process outside of their direct control and in case of a "relapse", they will blame themselves for not "working recovery", but not for the act of drinking because they assume that to be beyond their control.

I think the problems of AA were there from the beginning. Bill W. was a narcisstic cult leader who never really solved his own addiction. After sobering up, he spent years in deep depression and only extramarital sex seemed to bring him comfort. AA is built on the ideas of people who have never solved an addiction and are therefore poor teachers for others on that goal. Peer support is based on the idea that a lot of poor advice somehow accumulates into good advice. As the research I've mentioned below shows, most people get better without groups or any form of treatment (and conversely, very few benefit from AA). It also illustrates that there are deep problems with the disease model. For example, the supposed loss of control after consuming alcohol is disproven both by priming experiments where alcoholics unknowingly consume alcohol and also the research showing that many actually go back to moderate drinking.

I stand by my assertion that the teachings of Twelve Steps do treat addiction as a disease that people are powerless over. While the question of your future drinking might have gone too far, it is a good measure of personal responsibility. At the very least, AA members need to give some good reason why they actively prevent people from committing to sobriety. And don't tell me they don't do this. Tell people at an AA meeting that you will never drink again and never have any relapses. Will they pat you on the back for finally taking full responsibility? No, they will tell you that the idea is insane and a symptom of the disease. Their entire doctrine is built on keeping the door to relapse open.

One of the largest studies on drinking problems showed that independent recovery is the most common way of doing it and that untreated were more likely to recover. It also showed that quite a few people with drinking problems go back to moderate use: http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/ ... 31-142.pdf

The study is analyzed here: http://www.thecleanslate.org/self-chang ... treatment/

About priming experiments, which disprove the idea that alcohol causes some physical reaction in alcoholics and makes them lose control: http://www.thecleanslate.org/do-alcohol ... ts-say-no/

About the effectiveness of AA: http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html
(Although the website is explicitly anti-AA, all the research is cited, so you can't accuse the author of making it up. )

Another piece about the effectiveness and how AA beliefs may lead to more binge drinking: http://www.hamsnetwork.org/effective.pdf

Here's a good criticism of the disease model: http://www.thecleanslate.org/myths/addi ... -a-choice/

Here are quotes from experts opposing the disease model: http://www.thecleanslate.org/addiction- ... m-experts/

And finally some solid advice from a former drunk: https://rational.org/index.php?id=97

-- Updated May 12th, 2016, 10:56 am to add the following --
Belinda wrote: 'Voluntary' and 'involuntary ' have more than one meaning.

The knee jerk reflex is wholly involuntary and cannot really be inhibited.

The nervous person's licking their lips is often referred to as involuntary but the lip licker can stop doing it when he is aware of it and wants to inhibit the licking.

The woman who places her lipstick by rubbing her lips together is doing a wholly voluntary act , however someone might inform her that using a lip brush is better.

What I am wondering is if the alcoholic might belong to any one of those 3 classes ,2 of which are separate varieties of voluntary.
Think about how much effort sustaining an addiction actually takes. One cannot go to the store or visit his local dealer without the conscious intention of doing so. Money has to be set aside for this purpose. Purposeful motor control is needed to get there. Often excuses have to be made and prior appointments cancelled to make time for the WOW-Experience. Effort is needed to hide the act. Prior to "relapse", addicts even fantasize about what they're gonna take. As Jack Trimpey put it, people have "yummy relapses" with the finest stuff they can afford. If anything, thinking increases prior to resuming use. It's certainly not in the first two categories. I'm not saying it's a simple choice or a no-brainer. Often there is a lot of internal debate and second-guessing and even regretting it beforehand. This is not unique to addiction and doesn't change the fact that the addict ultimately chooses to go ahead with it.
Belinda
Premium Member
Posts: 13821
Joined: July 10th, 2008, 7:02 pm
Location: UK

Re: Freedom and treatments for drug addicts

Post by Belinda »

Sanchez, on the basis of what you wrote it sounds like the second meaning of 'voluntary'. Not involuntary but needs a determined effort to not take the drug.
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