12 Schritte frei

What is so complicated about alcoholism? In the context of addictions, it is the nexus of biology and human behavior. A gray area, where people try to parse out, what is what. However, alcoholism is not recognized as a medical disease, disorder, or anything that is genetic. It stems from behavior and a propensity for that person's body to be addicted to that chemical. However, the cure is to change the behavior and to eliminate the chemical from the body. How to go about this is the subject of much research and ill information.

AA does not really understand any of the science about alcohol, behavior, and biology. They say they do since it plays into reaching a particular audience, who feel that they cannot stop. They say to these people, it is not you, it is your disease, and we have the cure. However, the disease is bizarre and the cure is faith healing.

The disease idea of alcoholism is where A.A. gets really dicey. They claim that alcoholism is a medical disease that can only be arrested by spiritual intervention. It has to do with scaring people into thinking that they can never overcome alcoholism, and if they think they can, they will die (i.e. get drunk). It is an implicit death threat to keep people in A.A. and not have them leave, once they got sober.

The problem with A.A. is that it is frozen in the 1930s. At that time, the idea that alcoholism was not a moral affliction was revolutionary. Once A.A. decided that the 12-Steps was the answer, it did not update any ideas about drinking too much. The proof that A.A. teaches people that they have a spiritual disease is by members stating that if there were a cure for alcoholism they would not take it. Instead, the members would prefer going to meetings and be committed to the 12-Step religion.

Simple: Don't Drink Actually it is simple: don't drink. What the context of these slogans is that the simple journey is the 12-Steps („simple program“), people who drink too much are confused (well they may be that), and that alcoholism is a complicated disease. The problem is that A.A. does not understand what disease is. These slogans are full of loopholes for people who fail or drop out.

This is interesting that they always depict the most successful people as the ones who end up on the street. Actually, in many surveys of homeless people, drinking is not the main cause as why they were there. Mental illness accounted for more than 50 percent. Also being a war veteran (Gulf, Vietnam, WWII, etc) accounted for a large portion of homeless people. Drinking was low on the list of the causes of homelessness. (After reading many slogans about Park Avenue, I wonder why A.A. is so anti-success or anti-rich. It seems almost as if everyone had to be the same.)

The road to sobriety is a simple journey for confused people with a complicated disease.

Don't Blame Yourself: Addiction is a disease. You didn't cause it. You can't cure it. And you can't control it. It's not your fault. Be gentle with yourself. (From Cocaine Anon)

Alcoholism is a physical compulsion coupled with a mental obsession.

Alcoholism is an equal opportunity destroyer

I did my drinking from Park Avenue to park bench.

If The Cure Works….

Most mental illnesses tell people that they do not have a problem. Try to convince a paranoid person that that their reality is not true. If you follow the logic of these slogans, then alcoholism is a mental illness. If that is true, then why does A.A. insists that people should be treated exclusively by lay people. Well this explains A.A.'s hatred of therapists, since they are competing for the same group of people. The other emphasis of these slogans is 'only'. Of course you have to make an exception for A.A. people and make it sound like they are special.

If I wonder if I am six feet tall, then I probably am. If I wonder if I am a bus, then I probably am. If I wonder that I am the President of the United States, then I probably am. As you can see, how absurd these slogans are. They exist to create the double bind in the listener. To evade this bind, a person either slips through the horns of the dilemma or refute one of the horns. Refuting the horns is 'if you wonder, then you are asking yourself, you are finding out information. In finding out that information, you may find that what you thought was alcoholism might be symptoms of something else such as depression. So therefore, not everyone who wonders is one. `If the cure works' is a medieval idea of like cures like. What if the cure harms the person?

Alcoholism is the only disease that tells you, you're all right.

Alcoholism is a self-diagnosed disease.

We have a disease that tells us we don't have a disease.

If you wonder if you are an alcoholic, you probably are.

If the cure works, chances are you have a disease.

If I could drink like a normal drinker, I'd drink all the time!

Beware A.A. and Run! First the Big Book offers the way out of drinking, and then zaps the member with „well you are in this for a lifetime.“ A member is told that they have an incurable disease. Define incurable. What does this mean in A.A. language? If you stop drinking, are you not cured? Is that what this means? What is interesting about these slogans is that they are applied to people who have stopped drinking. If you are drinking, then yes as you put more poison into your body, alcohol is fatal. But if you stop drinking, how is it progressive and fatal? If no poisons are in your body, then how do you die from alcoholism?

The answer is that A.A. is doing a switch on the definition of disease. They flip from a physical disease to a mental disease. Since you cannot see it on a MRI, then alcoholism must be progressing in your mind. This strange disease whispers in your ear, „drink!“ Then if that strategy does not work to retain the prospective member, then A.A. trots out the allergy aspect of alcohol. However, all of this double talk distracts the person from the obvious that stopping drinking stops the progression. A poison can't kill you unless you put it in your body.

These strategies do not work, A.A. tries to scare people with „demon rum“, this monster hides under the bed or in the closet. Instead of shining a light on it, A.A. has you cower under your covers repeating, „There is no monster“.

Remember that alcoholism is incurable, progressive, and fatal

Quitting is easy; it's staying stopped that's hard.

This is A.A. brainwashing, pure and simple. If you stay in meetings long enough, you start thinking in terms of the present and not the past. You think that since you drank, you will drink again. So you do not recover, and you are sentenced to a lifetime of A.A.

Now what do people with chronic illnesses do? They live with the illness. They seek relief. They accept their illness. It is a fact. If taking medications puts the disease in remission, they take their medications. However, A.A. disease slogans make it seem that you lay down and die. You give up. AA strips you of your defensives and tells you to give up.

Why recovery never ends: the disease in alcoholISM, not alcoholWASM!

Once and alcoholic, always an alcoholic.

So now they are personifying a natural process. Actually my favorite quote about natural process is: „Civilizations exist with the permission of geology.“ by Will Durant. Meaning that earthquakes can wipe you out. If you approach alcoholism the same as a volcano, that volcanoes are cunning, baffling, powerful, and patient, then you should have a horde of scientists studying it trying to stop the destructive forces. You would have early warning systems in place. In short, you would not have people meeting in Volcanoes Anon meetings, saying that they were powerless over volcanoes. They should rely on god, and listen to god's messages.

Also the quotes on how alcoholism is doing push-ups leads to the superstitious mind. If you make this process personal, then you make it into a god, and therefore, you must sacrifice virgins to the angry god (which A.A. does). It „does pushups in the parking lot“ and makes itself stronger as you abstain, so it will MAKE you drink it the moment you get a weak spot, from not being in a „fit spiritual condition“ by praying to the step-god and doing its bidding. The step-god and demon alcohol clash forces locked in an eternal battle of good versus evil, with the members of A.A. enlisted as soldiers.

Cunning, baffling, powerful, and patient.

My disease is doing pushups, getting stronger–just waiting for me to slip.

Your disease progresses even when you are not drinking. After hearing about the disease of alcoholism, a person finds out that A.A. does a switch in definition of this `thing'. It turns out that alcoholism is not a medical problem that can be resolved by stopping drinking. It suddenly becomes something else. A.A. hints at an emotional malady and spiritual problems. But are these diseases? A.A. dismissed the emotional problems of its members with „emotions never killed anyone.“ Actually, there is no medical disease but a crisis of philosophy. A.A. thinks that people who drink too much need to be converted to a new way of thinking. This does not resolve any physical problems but takes the idea of alcoholism out of the area of doctors. A.A. slip sides all over the place trying to get people to join and to stay. They practice the classic `bait and switch' of con people. However, there is no concrete definition of alcoholism and A.A. prefers it that way.

There are no victims, only volunteers

Guilt of yesterday, fear of tomorrow, shame of today

I came for my drinking and stayed for my thinking.

If drinking were our only problem, rehabs would turn out winners.

Alcoholism doesn't come in bottles; it comes in people.

I am addicted, so I obsess over everybody.

I am addicted to everything, sex, food, TV..

AA appears to me a group of people aching to drink again, and coming close as possible to the buzz through a sick group regurgitation system. They revel in the memories. They use the sick label to purge themselves of any responsibility for their actions - after all, they are SICK, but God'll fix'em up in a jiffy. Today only, of course. Next day, you have to get a refill. Forever, cause there's no cure and jails, institutions and death are waiting for you.

A.A. presents the notion that when a person hits a superficial bottom, they will stop drinking. The concept of bottom is a strange one. Somehow a person will get to a point to voluntarily stop what they are doing. Then A.A. attaches to the idea of bottom that the only way to stop is by attending A.A. meetings. The concept of intervention where the entire family confronts the person was developed in rehab centers. The problem with these ideas is that drinking may be a symptom of something else. Another problem is the assumption that people will volunteer to stop. Most members in A.A. were sentenced by the courts or coerced by their work places. Also, A.A. does require that a person not be drinking when they attend a meeting, therefore stopping drinking is something a person does on their own. Again, A.A. manufactures concepts to confuse people with reality.

No one comes to A.A. on a good day.

When the last thing you lose is more important to you then booze

High bottoms have trap doors.

When things get worse faster than you can lower your standards.

Let's Play Twenty Questions

A.A. through its front organizations attached the name of Johns Hopkins University Hospital to their disease questions. When a person reads this list, they will realize that it is not the standard diagnosis questionnaire that doctors use. The questions here are more directed towards the A.A. point of view of drinking. These questions are actually A.A. propaganda to promote the disease idea of alcoholism.

1. Do you lose time from work due to drinking?

Yes a doctor would be interested in this.

2. Is drinking making your home life unhappy?

This one is hard to quantify. How would the patient know this? The doctor or therapist would have to explore what is meant by 'unhappy'.

3. Do you drink because you are shy with other people?

That is not a question a doctor would ask. Shyness is not a medical condition that doctors usually treat. Usually if that is the problem, general anxiety disorder (GAD) has other symptoms that are manifest and the doctor would explore those. However coupling drinking with shyness is an A.A. ploy.

4. Is drinking affecting your reputation?

How would the doctor be able to find out any symptoms with that one? How would the drinker know about their reputation? Again this is another propaganda question.

5. Have you ever felt remorse after drinking?

Remorse is a symptom of other things. The doctor would explore that angle and not the drinking one. Drinking is treated as a symptom of something else. Note the progression of the questions and how A.A. sets up the idea that drinking is evil and progressive.

6. Have you gotten into financial difficulties as a result of drinking?

Having financial difficulties is a separate problem from drinking. Lots of sober people have problems with finances. Most people go bankrupt because of unplanned illnesses or loss of jobs, not because of drinking. This question generalizes the idea that drinking causes financial difficulties. It also makes drinking the root cause. Having financial difficulties is a symptom of several mental illnesses such as bi-polar disorder.

7. Do you turn to lower companions and an inferior environment when drinking?

That is an A.A. question. No therapist would use the words 'lower companions' or 'inferior environment'. That is immaterial to finding out what is wrong with the person.

8. Does your drinking make you careless of your family's welfare?

Again the question ties drinking with something unrelated. It is hard to correlate the two. This is a soft leading question that only a 12-step counselor would not ask. If that question was more specific such as careless of driving or receiving tickets, then that is information for the doctor to work with.

9. Has your ambition decreased since drinking?

This lives in the world of 'how long have you stop beating your wife.'

10. Do you crave a drink at a definite time daily?

A doctor would ask this to find out what the habits of the person they are helping or to find out what is going on in the person's body.

11. Do you want a drink the next morning?

This is a layered question. The surface layer is does your body need something. The A.A. subtext is that the person is an addict.

12. Does your drinking cause you difficulty in sleeping?

Yes, a doctor would ask this.

13. Has your efficiency decreased since drinking?

How long have you stop beating your wife?

14. Is drinking jeopardizing your job or business?

This is a question that is asked by a social worker if the person is worried about the issue.

15. Do you drink to escape from worries or troubles?

Yes a doctor would ask this to determine anxiety disorders.

16. Do you drink alone?

According to A.A., drinking alone means you have a problem. Drinking groups means you are a social butterfly in the A.A. universe.

17. Have you ever had a complete loss of memory due to drinking?

A doctor would ask to determine the extent of damage to the brain by ingesting alcohol poison.

18. Has your physician ever treated you for drinking?

This question reveals A.A.'s intent. It means that doctors cannot treat people for drinking.

19. Do you drink to build up your self-confidence?

Nothing like zipping in this one to divert people's attention from the subject at hand.

20. Have you ever been to a hospital or institution on account of your drinking?

This would be asked by a doctor who wanted to know your medical history.

Looking at the progression of the questions and the inescapable conclusion that you are an alcoholic is revealed. The questions which center on 'remorse', 'ambition', 'efficiency', 'escape' are clues that that A.A. devised them. Some questions centers on the idea that drinkers are shy, withdrawn, and drink alone. The personality type that pops out of these questions is someone who is not comfortable with people and is a worrier. Those types of people are prone to A.A. propaganda.

Recovery the A.A. Way

Recover in A.A. is very important. However what is „recovery“? According to A.A., it is recovering from the effects of alcoholism. What are these effects? According to A.A., they are threefold: mental, physical, and spiritual. However, when people stop smoking, they do not discuss recovery. They just talk about the benefits of not smoking and how hard it is to stop. Why does not A.A. treat stopping drinking in the same way? A.A. has invested a great deal into the disease idea of alcoholism. Even though cigarettes have nicotine, an addictive drug. No one talks about the disease of smoking and set up a treatment industry just to deal with that. Smoking is not thought of as a disease but as a behavior. There are various drugs to help the smoker to stop. No impetus to put the smoker into drug rehab and teach them the 12-Steps. In fact if a person goes to A.A. meetings, they will witness people lighting up to smoke. A.A. meetings are famous for smoking and drinking coffee. There is a double standard in A.A. in regards to what „recovery and disease“ actually are.

A Wrench for Every Nut

These slogans certainly do tell people how to think about themselves. They are nuts that have only one „recovery“ in them. These concepts are truly bizarre. It sounds like A.A. is treating mentally ill people. If that is the case, then why does A.A. dislike social workers and therapists so much?

In A.A., there is wrench for every nut.

I may only have one recovery in me.

Discover yourself. Everything else has been done.

These slogans hint a recovery being a never-ending process. The English sense of the word is to become well. How is that sense displayed in these slogans, which are about personal growth and development? How do those ideas square with the disease concept?

Recovery is surrendering to acceptance.

I have suffered and gotten well. I give it all away and find that I keep it. I've died only to realize that I am living life anew.

Everything is O.K. in the end. If it I not O.K., then it's not the end.

I am not yet the person I want to be, but I am certainly not the person I was.

These slogans center on how people should approach recovery. However, when is anything „perfect“? If something is perfect then it is in the realm of religion and not science.

The process is perfect; let it work.

We take the steps, but it's funny where the steps take us.

Perfectionism leads to Procrastination leads to Paralysis

I have no idea why this slogan exists. Is it in reference to doing paid service work as opposed to volunteer work? If you get paid for serving coffee at a meeting, that demoralizes you? I guess you are supposed to work for A.A. for free. If that is so, then that slogan is a sign of the cult aspect of A.A. Everyone is expected to do everything for A.A. for free and not get paid for it. If you ask for gas money after transporting people to meetings, you are pitiful and will be demoralized. Therefore you will drink if you get paid your gas money. Also it is to separate the lay therapists of A.A. from the professional therapists of the medical field.

PAID = Pitiful And Incomprehensible Demoralization

Not Drinking and „Dry Drunks“

Sobriety in the A.A. essence of the word means something different than being abstinent. Sobriety means following the 12 Steps. People who stop drinking with other means are not considered by A.A. to be sober. They are still drunks only they are `dry'.

This group of slogans is really self-demeaning. Think about it. A person strives in A.A. to be sober and this is what they get are called. I do not think that these terms are used in a friendly way. But even if they were, do you want to be thought of in this way? Either you are a `stupid drunk' or a `sober old bitch.' What abuse. It really does tear people down. Some help to people who are trying not to drink.

SOB = Sober Old Bag

SOB = Sober Old Bastard

SOB = Sober Old Biker

SOB = Sober Old Bitch

The A.A. assumes that everyone drinks to escape life. They cannot live in the world. However, people drink for many reasons. They are too shy and feel to limber up. They are sad, and want to be numb. They crave the alcohol in their bodies. They find drinking to be fun.

But the other subtle idea in this slogan is that reality sucks. Does it? Reality is simply reality. It exists. It is neither good nor bad. But all reality is what is, not what is imagined. Actually, chronic worriers imagined worse than what was really happening.

SOBER = Son Of A Bitch, Everything's Real

Again these slogans both emphasize how awful sobriety is and that it is a gift, not a result. A gift means something someone gives to you. They can take it back as well. However, A.A. talks about working the Program and doing the Steps. If a person works the Steps then that implies that sobriety is a reward or a result. Then why does A.A. imply that sobriety is a gift? I suspect it has to do with the idea if someone gives you something, they can snatch it back. It is also to convince people in the Program that they did not get sober through their own efforts. That something magical or mysterious happened. It keeps people off balance.

Sobriety is its own reward.

Sobriety is a gift, the price of which is eternal vigilance.

Some of the greatest gifts in sobriety come wrapped in a shit sandwich.

These slogans point to the idea that sobriety is not about not drinking. The emphasis is that in order to be sober in the A.A. sense is that they need to be spiritual in a particular way. They instruct to be sober; you must be a member of A.A. The slogans also hint that somehow sobriety is a temporary condition. That someday, the person will drink again. This dooms the member since they did not get sober by their own means. The member only exists in the strange, netherworld of working the steps but receiving sobriety, as a gift.

Trying is what got me drunk; doing is what keeps me sober.

Maintance of your spiritual condition is key.

Three keys to sobriety; get a sobriety date and don't change it, get a sponsor, get a home group.

It is easier to stay sober that it is to get sober. Being sober doesn't keep you sober.

I grouped these slogans together since they made the most sense this way. Sobriety and serenity are the goals of 12-Step groups. However, the two concepts get mixed up as sobriety is serenity or serenity is sobriety. If a person compare and contrast these slogans, they get contradictory views of what these concepts are. Is serenity the absence of pain? Is sobriety the absence of pain? In A.A., it seems that these two are empty concepts. What do they mean? How does morality work in the A.A. universe?

Serenity in A.A. speak equals some sort of la=la=la numbness land where no one feels.

I think that serenity in A.A. is the opposite of strong feeling. Al-anon uses it in the same way to stop feeling so strongly. That is not the true meaning of the word. Actually the serenity prayer does give a working definition of serenity: courage, wisdom, and action. It is the opposite of flying off in different directions in order to face a situation. It is the calmness of mind that enables you to muddle through with a clear mind. A.A. never was big on active serenity. They were into the passive-aggressive type.

Sobriety delivers everything alcohol promised.

Sobriety and then serenity.

Serenity is for people who can't handle drugs.

When the pain of staying sober becomes les than the pain of getting drunk, you'll stay sober.

A sober alcoholic is like a turtle on a fence post, you know it had help.

(Again A.A. displays its ignorance over other things. Box turtles climb walls with their claws.)

These two betray the essence of A.A.'s concepts. They first equate sobriety as the greatest good and moral improvement. Then there is a slogan telling people that sobriety is really only about stopping drinking. The drunken slogan points to the same thing.

When you sober up a horse thief, all you have is a sober horse thief.

The longer I am sober, the drunker I was.

Who else would you stay sober for? Are people so group focused that they get drunk if the group asks them to. Actually, this slogan has another meaning in the context of A.A. – that of ignoring everyone else in your life except for the A.A. members. Usually this slogan is in response to a member complaining about their family or friends. The answer of the slogan is to ignore them because they do not count. The only thing that matters in your life is your sobriety, which what A.A. places at supreme importance. The subtext is stay in A.A. and stay away from family and friends.

Stay sober for yourself

Attitudes Are Everything

These slogans are the core of the A.A. program. Remember at meetings how much talk was taken up about gratitude and resentments. I imagine that many people have these ingrained into their brains.

Sounds of Norman Vincent Peale, positive thinking will get you places. If you change your thinking, you will change your life. PACE in the A.A. sense, what does that mean? Go at a fast pace? What is the context of these other than a handy memory device?

PACE = Positive Attitudes Change Everything

What is interesting is about this group is that sober people are miserable ducks. They are also all ingrates. People are supposed to be grateful for not drinking too much. Grateful to who? Is that what these slogans are for? To imprint on people's brains that they are grateful to A.A. for the good things that has happened to them. The members cannot be miserable, unhappy or question the program ever.

The other assumption is that people who are not grateful are all resentful. It is an either or situation. However, there is a middle, that is people carrying on, muddling through, going through the day. But A.A. doesn't want people to be neutral. AA wants people to grovel with gratitude until it hurts. It always reminded me of those people who would demand that you smile when you didn't feel like it.

The word blessings assume that the person believes in a religion that has a god who blesses them. Not all religions have that. Not all people believe in blessings. Counting blessings is a popular American cultural idea. It is one of the Christian things that leaked into the culture. How many other religions have people count blessings?

The second aspect of these slogans is that they redefine the disease of alcoholism. How did a disease become one of attitudes or negativity? These are not symptoms of a disease except perhaps mental illness. Buy why does A.A. persist in changing the idea of what alcoholism is?

This is a disease of the attitudes.

Gratitude is an attitude.

Write a gratitude list and count your blessings.

Try to be grateful and resentful at the same time, you can't serve two masters.

Grateful alcoholics don't drink, and drinking alcoholics aren't grateful.

Always be grateful, because a grateful addict won't get high.

I didn't get sober to be miserable

You should be grateful. It could be worse. It's really a blessing in disguise.

Negativity is my disease asking to come out and play.

Slipping in A.A. is equal to having a death sentence placed on the person. A.A. spends a great many words to shame people into not drinking. Instead of empowering their members, A.A. tells them they are doomed once they take a drink.

Actually, all 12-step groups have slogans about what they consider to be 'slips'. Deconstructing these A.A. ones will probably be helpful since quite a few have nothing to do with drinking. Notice the explicit death threats in these slogans and the meanness of them. I found these hateful.

This is what happens when someone slips. They do not stop until they are dead unless they return back to the meetings. Nothing about people just getting fed up and stopping on their own. Actually, I think that if a person has been in enough meetings, they will lose the ability to stop since they will have convinced themselves that they cannot stop.

DEAD = Drinking Ends All Dreams

The bottle, big house, or the box.

Death, insanity, or recovery.

These three contradict each other. First you don't watch slippers and then you find out that each alcoholic teaches lessons. ('Each and every' is like 'true facts' or a 'hot water heater'.) The middle one is basically telling people to help slippers while the first one tells you to ignore them. So what is it? I all notice that in many slogans that 'suffering' is an adjective for alcoholic.

Don't watch the slippers but watch those don't slip closely and watch them go through difficulties and pull through.

Danger sign: when your eyes have wandered from the alcoholics who still suffer and need help - to the faults of those whom the program has already helped.

Each and every alcoholic - sober or not - teaches us some valuable lessons about ourselves and recovery.

This is not very helpful. I mean it is used to shame people into staying and not leave. AA has the subtext in a few of the slogans of 'you are one too', `a chair with your name on it' – as though people are drifting through life unaware of the monster in their midst – the big bad alcoholism.

Slippers in A.A. use the RDP - revolving door policy

AA slogans have nasty slogans about women. Never „HE“ came through the back door. Nothing about under pants a slip. I guess people really like the word play on slip.

She came through the back door of A.A. - al-anon.

Beneath every dress is a slip.

A slip is a premeditated drunk? Was it planned and rehearsed as well? What do you do sit around thinking about slipping? Then you have the slip word play. Two of them have plans in them. Is it that you are not supposed to plan? Of course not, because in living one day at a time, a person cannot plan. Notice the adjectives for plan: stupid, lousy, and idiotic. I guess A.A. doesn't want people thinking, plotting or planning. Why no slogans with plotting in them?

A slip is a premeditated drunk.

SLIP : Sobriety loses its priority

SLIP : Something Lousy I planned.

SLIP : Stupid little idiotic plan.

These are phrases for failing. These are things that people need to look at their thinking. In the Program, people use these phrases a lot. Why? They are presented as „stinking thinking“. They are things that people need to look at. People who are resisting change use these phrases. They say them as a defense. However, sometimes having a defense is a good thing since it gives a person distance and time to consider the problems.

What if

Yeah but

If only

Formula for failure: try to please everyone.

Watch Out for the Caboose

These are A.A. twists on various concepts but are not nuance or thought out. However, there are glimpses into program thinking. The idea that a person cannot control something or are powerless over thing is drummed into the member's heads. They get killed by the first drink (engine.) These slogans present the hopeless feeling that a person is totally powerless over their actions. What happens to a person is beyond their ability to muddle through. The first drink kills the person. Let us reverse this: A person is mortified that they drank. They recap and reevaluate their activity. Then they stop.

However under the A.A. way of thinking, a person cannot stop after the first drink, period. The person gives up all personal responsibility to an inanimate substance. But underneath these concepts is the twisted idea that the person chose to drink and is totally responsible.

What is a slippery place? Actually, the answer is that everywhere is a slippery place except for A.A. But no one ever really states what is a slippery place other than a bar.

If you have to control your drinking, what is the point of drinking?

If you think you have a drinking problem, chances are you do.

When a person tries to control their drinking, they have already lost control.

It is the engine that kills you, not the caboose.

If you hang around a barbershop long enough, eventually you'll get a haircut.

The first drink gets you drunk.

If you don't want to slip, stay away from slippery places.

Again this is one of those slight of hand slogans that A.A. loves to play. What are the answers that people are failing to practice? What are the answers that people are given? The answers are in the Big Book. What are those answers? The steps of course. How do you practice the steps? On and on it goes until you end up in a circle. Practice is going to meetings the rest of your life.

Knowledge of the answers never made anyone slip - it was failing to practice the answers known.

These present the notion that if a person does not put the Program above everything else, they are doomed. But the A.A. slogan totally contradicts the idea that meetings are safe. What is the subtext of these slogans is that no place is safe and asserting yourself is the most dangerous thing of all. Slips are coupled with `self-will'.

What A.A. gives back to me could take me out again.

You start to skip; you start to slip.

The first thing you put before your sobriety is the first thing you'll lose.

The slip occurs before you pick up.

Relapse in A.A. means failure, utter and complete failure. However, A.A. regards the failure to be on the person's part. The onus is on the person for not attending enough meetings, taking the steps, taking back their self-will, and all that. There are few slogans on what to do after relapsing. It is though the people who relapse have dropped off the face of the earth. They no longer exist or are remembered with sorrow. If A.A. is to help people stop being destructive, they have to provide support to those who need it.

I find these ones on relapse revealing. That somehow A.A. expects people to relapse and tell how exactly they do it. They relive low and pitiful scenes and ruminate on the whole thing. There is nothing on people who drink at parties for fun or feel drinking is a way to get along with uncomfortable people.

RELAPSE: Reliving every low and pitiful scene exactly.

Relapse is not a requirement.

Relapse begins long before you pick up the drink.

This is something I cannot understand. You go in and you go out. I think the subtext is the same that people must stay and do the steps or else. The unintended subtext is that A.A. cannot prevent people from relapsing; therefore it is not a cure for drinking. You have enough slogans on relapses; you have to wonder what A.A. is really saying. We can't prevent you from drinking again. SO therefore A.A. is a hoax.

The door swings both ways.

Another one of those stupid drinking slogans is this slogan. A gallon? Not a beer, not a glass? A gallon? How about two gallons? Let's go all out. What is the ounce of prevention? Around, and around, we go where we stop is in a circle.

An ounce of prevention is worth a gallon of relapse. Powerlessness graduate school is the A.A. idea of being funny and tragic. Actually it is only another stupid meaningless A.A. idea trying to be profound. The hidden context is that people do not leave A.A.

The subtext to these slogans is that A.A. is a school that nobody graduates from. If a person leaves, they will inevitability relapse. A.A. firmly implants into people's heads that they are doomed no matter what they do. However, if they do stay in A.A., they can stave off the final drunk. The approach is similar to Aztecs who sacrificed people to ensure that the end of the world would be delayed.

These slogans point to that people are not expected to succeed. Instead of helping a person, A.A. members are instilled with the concept that tough love must be employed. This approach does not promote compassion.

Those who relapse are attending powerlessness graduate school.

Each time you come back, the tuition goes up.

The longer you stay away, the harder it is to come back.

A.A. discusses relapses and recovery in term of physical, mental, and spiritual aspects. Relapse is self-destructing, self-serving, and has no purpose. The process is neglecting the Steps.

The `relapse is a part of recovery' idea is explained by A.A. members as something that came from the treatment centers and the people who do not recover. A.A. members express the contempt that these people do not choose to recover. The treatment centers are to blame for the low recovery rates. Both are attempts to delude members that the Program really does work. However this is a concrete way of separating meetings from the centers. But the problem is still unresolved. Does the Program work have not been answered? Any way how did this concept enter the A.A. lexicon? Many long time members will blame the people who come in from the treatment centers.

Blaming others about diluting the Program and making less effective is a long time A.A. practice. Wilson discussed the problems of still drinking people entering the Program. In the 1950s, there was the problem of social drinkers versus alcoholics. In the 1970s, it was the people sent to A.A. from therapist. Today, it is the people from the treatment centers.

Relapse is a part of the process

Relapse is a part of recovery

Slips in long-term sobriety: too many yeas and not enough days.

Getting sober is a process, relapsing is a process too.

Relapse: Rehabs are for quitters.

Call before you drink and I will help you stay sober. Call after you drink, and you will help me stay sober.