From: Q Subject: Re: Is NA Bullshit ??? Date: 1996/07/23 newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard jablowme wrote: > > I tried two NA meetings and it seems like bullshit to me. It is not > that I don't admit my problems or that I don't want any assistance, or I > would not have gone in the first place. It just seemed like > cultish-fanatacism to me. > Is it bullshit??? I would like to hear from any level-headed persons > and their experiences with it. > PLEASE: no 12 step recitations or preaching parrots of dogma respond. > > Thanks I thought it was dogma too. Notice how "dogma" spells "amgod" backwards. Not only do the "12-Commandments" say something like "the program is COMPLETE abstinance from ALL drugs" and members often repeat the "a-drug- is-a-drug-is-a-drug" mantra, you will not find more caffeine-and-nicotine consumption anywhere on the planet. Also, I had some other problems involving issues of free speech and moderation policy enforcement, maybe that was just the particular group of people. The only reason I was there in the first place was because my high school made me go. When summer vacation started that year (you know what, I just realized that it was 10 years ago - 1986) my mother said I didn't have to go anymore. =================================================================== From: TheLorvigs Subject: Re: Is NA Bullshit ??? Date: 1996/07/26 newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard If you don't have spiritual leanings or a desire to become spiritual,, then NA probably isn't for you. That's not to say you can't get some benefit & support out of it, even if you don't buy the whole philosophy. One problem will be that EVERYBODY will say they thought it was BS at first. All those people will smile and say "I was just like you when I started." There's a little logical fallacy here that I won't go into. Check your newspaper and see if there are any other organizations, like Rational Recovery, for instance. If you're going because of the courts or whatever, oops too bad. Just make the best of it& maybe you'll even find a like-minded person there. ================================================================= From: (Peter McDermott) Subject: Re: Why NA Sucks Date: 1996/10/15 newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard In article <53u1n1$giq@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, cap608@aol.com (CAP608) wrote: >Maybe some people need brainwashing is what I was told when I went to my >first NA meeting twelve years ago. Igot off a heavy dope habit ( methadon >coke and morphine) thanks in some part to that brainwashing. I went back >to school, learned a profession and learned how to be a mensch a human >being who could offer something to others. Yet I looked around one day and >found that there was little tolerance to anyth8ing that threatened the 12 >step model. When I decided to use after 12 years, I was dropped like a hot >potato because I was a threat to in a lot of ways. This is what bothers me about NA. I believe it does work for some people, but only if you are able and prepared to embrace the ideology which actually conflicts with a lot of what we know to be true. (ie, addiction is a progressive and fatal disease.) If you _can_ buy into it, then it does seem to stand a good chance of working. Unfortunately, the majority of fiends just can't -- for whatever reason. But what really bothers me is how it works on status/prestige. The old-timers get respect, regardless of what they are like as people. You can be the biggest asshole in the world, but if you've got 15 years in you're deserving of respect. However, if you happen to slip one day and shoot a bag of dope, you turn into a piece of shit again overnight. What the fuck kinda value system is that? However, there is stuff that I like about it. Someone once said to me that the program was simply the accumulated wisdom of thousands and thousands of addicts and alcoholics trying to get clean, which I think is kinda nice. I also like the fact that it's us helping each other for free, which in my book is how it should be. So, it's not for me, but I do think it has some value. ================================================================ From: (Peter McDermott) Subject: Re: Drugs, The Universal Growth Inhibitor Date: 1996/09/28 newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard "zaphraud@dev.null.net" wrote: [...] >I believe, due to what I have seen with people in NA, that there is a sort of backlash >amongst those for who the program DOESNT work - it sets them up for a >relapse in a way. All-or-Nothing means, all to often, Nothing is Actually, there _is_ evidence for this. It's called the 'abstinence violation effect' and is well documented. Most good rehabilitation programmes (ie, those grounded in Cognitive-Behavioural techniques rather than just the magic of the steps) recognize it and attempt to teach strategies for dealing with it. I think that AA/NA is great for those people that it works for. Unfortunately, that's a tiny proportion of addicts at any given time. It doesn't have much at all to teach us about how we deal with the rest. ================================================================ From: (Peter McDermott) Newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard,alt.recovery.na,alt.support.recovery.na Subject: Re: ATTN NA people. Date: Sat, 28 Mar 1998 14:47:04 +0100 "NarcoticJones" wrote: >Q: when is the best time for an na neeting? >A: when you feel like posting to adh. PLEASE. >na is a great program insomuchas it teaches millions of addicts how to live >clean; I don't think so, personally. I think if addicts *are* inclined towards a 12 step program, they are much better off in AA than they are in NA for a number of reasons. AA people are so much more flexible and so much less dogmatic. Now don't be misled into thinking I'm saying they *are* flexible, just that they are a lot more flexible than AA. I think there are a couple of reasons for this, but mainly they have to do with the maturity of the program. In general, the groups tend to have a lot more experience of sobriety compared to NA, and this gives them both a wider experience of how different things work for different people, and the people involved tend to be a lot less inclined to the zealotry so common in recent converts (which is precisely what we're seeing on this newsgroup at the moment.) The other thing is that people I know with a lot of experience of both tell me that NA groups seem so much more macho than your typical AA group, with most of the focus in the shares being on war stories rather than on practical accounts of how the steps work for them. Again, this 'my dick's bigger than your dick' tendency is something else that we're seeing here among those NA people who are posting to this group. Now, some of you out there might be comfortable hanging out among such retards. Personally, I'd rather be living in a cardboard box with a crackpipe stuck to my face and a needle hanging out of my groin than spend five minutes in the company of such people. I've tended to stay out of the critiques of 12 step programs that have been posted here recently, because I've felt that they were often unfair. They tended to characterise all 12 steppers as being mindless automatons who mouth mindless platitudes and try to force their religion on other people at every possible step. I do know some 12 steppers who aren't at all like that (though again, they tend to be members of AA rather than NA.) They recognize that aspects of what the program teaches is bullshit, but they cling to it because they needed something that would get them and keep them clean, and AA did the job for them when nothing else would work. And I'm really not in the business of decrying something that people feels helps them... UNTIL THEY START DOING IT TO OTHER PEOPLE!!!! Which brings me to my biggest issue with many members of 12 step programs. All too often, they've been in the business of actually trying to *prevent* other people from having access to what works for them - and we're talking here about shit that saves lives. Stuff like methadone maintenance and needle exchange. Sadly, what you have with these people is a severe case of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing. Because X didn't work for them, and the program actually did, they believe that twelve step programs are the one true way, and that anything else is an evil spawn of satan. Many of them lean towards an arrogant anti-intellectualism, based on the notion that their own experience of addiction has taught them everything that they need to know about the subject, and so they completely ignore the enormous body of research on addiction and related issues, clinging to the program like a religious faith, but pretending that it's actually based on science. They smugly surround themselves with other 12 steppers and believe that this is evidence that the program *does* work. Well yeah. It does work. For some people. But it doesn't work for a majority of addicts. And the one treatment that's been shown to work (in the sense of producing real improvements in people's lives) for the largest number of opiate addicts is methadone. And this is not just because I say so. There's a huge body of research out there that demonstrates this. Sadly though, your average NA retard will tend to claim that this is simply evidence of a government conspiracy of some sort. I ask you, do you *really* want to take advice on how best to lead your life from someone who thinks like that? Just look through the NA posts to this newsgroup over the past week or so. I believe that you can detect a certain theme to them all, and that is the world is divided up into two halfs, good and evil, a state of grace vs. a state of sin, slavery vs. freedom. And whereabouts do they stand in these particular binary oppositions? Why, with the angels every time, of course. Now think about some of the addicts that you've known in the past. Among the many addicts I've known in my time, the most chaotic, the most out-of-control tended to be *precisely* this sort of person - the type who only saw things in extremes, in terms of right and wrong, good and bad. Indeed, it seems to me that it was precisely this type of extreme response that made them addicts in the first place, and now here they are, seeking to give other people advice on how best to live their lives when this fundamental flaw in their character has never been addressed? Well, you may think that's a good idea, but personally, I don't think so. Finally, I'd just like to address their 'methadone slavery' bullshit from my own experience. As I've said up above, I think that most of them probably need to believe this sort of thing in order to sustain their own belief in a shaky recovery, but from my own point of view, methadone maintenance hasn't been slavery, it's been liberating. I've been on various forms of opiate maintenance (including heroin, diconal and my current regime, injectable methadone) since 1975 now. Prior to that, I'd never had a job, I was always getting arrested, in and out of jail. You know the story. Since going on methadone, I've gone back to school, I got a first class degree, went on to do post graduate work at one of our most prestigious universities. Came out and went into an academic job in drugs research. I spent several years editing an academic journal on drug policy, then I moved over into journalism and have worked for some of the most prestigious newspapers and magazines in the UK, written for the BBC and sold stuff in both America and Japan. I'm married to a lawyer, I've got three kids, the oldest of whom is now 18 and in college and I get to spend at least eight weeks a year travelling. *And* I still feel my dose enough to get high every Saturday. So which one is the slave? Me, or some sucker who is ten years clean and *still* clinging desperately to their recovering addict identity, spending every waking moment in the rooms striving to increase their status among the other NA losers by putting someone down because they've gone onto anti-depressants? They might be clean and sober, but they sure as hell aren't happy? Give me *my* form of slavery anytime... ==================================================================== From: "chikmage" Newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard,alt.recovery.na,alt.support.recovery.na Subject: Re: ATTN NA people. Date: Sat, 28 Mar 1998 08:18:43 -0800 Peter McDermott wrote in message ... >Which brings me to my biggest issue with many members of 12 step >programs. All too often, they've been in the business of actually >trying to *prevent* other people from having access to what works >for them - and we're talking here about shit that saves lives. Stuff >like methadone maintenance and needle exchange. Sadly, what you have >with these people is a severe case of a little knowledge being a >dangerous thing. Because X didn't work for them, and the program >actually did, they believe that twelve step programs are the one >true way, and that anything else is an evil spawn of satan. You are so funny! Thanks so much for assuming to "know" about me. I agree that methadone can be a useful thing, but hopefully it is a means to an end as it was originally intended to be, and not the end in itself. As for needle exchange programs and such, that reaaches way beyond the realm of addiction. It is a very real social problem. Most of the twelve steppers I know are well aware that a person is not going to stop using dope unless that person wants to. It is crucial that with disease rampant we have a social obligation to minimize the spread of that diseasse in as many ways as we can. Narcotics Anonymous as a whole has no opinion on it, for or against. Many of its members do have opinions and are most willing to share them. Other things are an evil spawn of satan? Hahahaha!! Yeah right! For myself, I have to agree with what Bill Wilson said regarding AA and the same is true of NA, that it would be arrogant of us to think we have the only answer for all people. It simply is not true. Most people are aware of this once they have been around a for a little while. Even if 12-step recovery does work for people, there are always those people who will feel some need to "save us" from the cult, or "prove" that 12-step recovery is wrong or flawed. Well, most things do have their flaws. But by taking what I need from those programs I have been able to live clean for a long time. I am mostly happy, but life does happen. I didn't feel too happy at all after being a wreck that was not my fault. It sucked pretty hard. Life is still life. ==================================================================== From: "NYPhil" Newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard,alt.recovery.na Subject: Re: once in a while there's a voice of reason Date: 1 Apr 1998 06:26:31 GMT [...] I wouldn't disagree for a minute that there are some major assholes in regular attendance at 12-step meetings. I considered the fact that both AA and NA are open to anyone, and we draw our members from a sub-population which seems to have a much higher incidence of mental illness and serious personality disorders. It's a wonder they're aren't more jerks. I guess because I came into recovery rather late, at age 35 I did not find it to difficult to "rationalize" avoiding such people without feeling guilty about isolating. I eventually found a pretty weird mix of people for my "support group" No zealots or true believers among them but most with a pretty good grasp of whatever they called recovery. I never really used a sponsor. My first one was the friend who picked me up that night I told you about (I think). He sort of appointed himself my sponsor when he noticed I wasn't getting one. I let him "sponsor" me and he was pretty good. He continued to be unobtrusive, just occasionally asking how I was doing. He died of HIV about 5 years ago. Actually I did have another sponsor and my first sponsor got the same one a bit later. I became disenchanted when our mutual sponsor began expressing what I considered pointless concerns. This was over the fact that Alan (my first sponsor) was being prescribed Methadone for pain when he was in the hospital. He (Alan) never left the hospital. He was dying for Christ's sake! Who the hell cares if he on Methadone. Well that put me off sponsorship pretty much (and other than that misstep he was actually was an ok mutual sponsor) . I use a therapist instead. So as you can see perhaps, my road in recovery hasn't been without detours. I know the "concept" of a higher power has been one of the most troubling for many in the "rooms". My first sponsor Alan was very pragmatic in this regard. He stated that the only reason he got a "Higher Power" is that you needed one to work the rest of the steps. He had been a radar tech. in Viet Nam. He used the analogy of a radio broadcast to describe our responsibility towards this "Higher Power". All we were responsible for was sending out the signal. The response to it was out of our hands. I'm a bit surprised myself that I didn't have a harder time with it. I had a much harder time with the idea of making amends. I was raised a Roman Catholic and I went to a RC parochial school. I walked out of school in the eighth grade in the middle of an algebra class when a Nun would not accept the fact that I couldn't complete a problem. She threatened to hold the class from leaving until I worked the equation. I didn't have a clue as to how to complete it. She had used this method of humiliation and intimidation before in an attempt to control our (my) behavior. In the past she had directed the class bullies to teach us a lesson in the schoolyard at recess. those of us who she deemed disruptive would be found and dealt with. I share this with you to illustrate how skewed my concept of a higher power might have become had I allowed it to be spoiled by God's ordained representatives. I remember a line from a book about the incorruptible NY cop, Serpico which might illustrate my point. When he was asked why he didn't take the money like the others he responded by saying something to the effect that he wondered if he took the money how he would feel when he listened to music. My experience of a Higher Power is what I feel when I'm moved by music. It's when I find the strength to push a little father than I expected. When I do something decent or kind. Contrary to some I've heard share, drugs didn't cut me off completely from a Higher Power. Quite to the contrary, I experienced some of my most profound longing and occasional ecstasy while under the influence. I just found that to complete the circuit I wanted to be able to contribute something. To "give something back" to use a 12-step concept. I became less and less productive while using. I was working as a night manager in a motel. My life was adrift. I was utterly depressed and isolated. I really had very little to lose by trying something quite different. Hopefully for you it's quite different. You seem reasonably content and productive. As long as your honest with yourself about the overall effect of the drugs your taking you'll probably be fine. I have no doubt that many individuals perform quite well with a minimum of inconvenience on methadone. If you take care of your health, Doctor, Dentist etc. you should be ok physically as well. I just found that dispute being on meth, I got high on coke and valium. I also continued to use heroin sporadically as well. I didn't like or want a "blocking" dose. The one common element I find in people who found success in the "rooms" was not money or education or anything like that. It was the ability to make friends. If you build a group of friends around you that can support you in difficult times and whom you can help in return, you have created one of the basic systems that all of us need in or out of the "rooms" This well may serve you as well as any organized recovery program. I sometimes smile to myself when I hear the desire for the "still suffering addict" to get recovery spoken of in a meeting. Many of us in attendance are still suffering- all you have to do is listen to the caterwauling to know this. But for many of us, there is a real respite from suffering found there. Take Care, Phil