This is just a general observation, but it seems to me that a lot of 12 steppers simply replace one addiction with another. There are people who feel that they must go to 3 or 4 NA/AA meetings a day. Granted that might be healthier for them vs continued drug use, but it's got to be a bitch on the non AA/NA social life. I know of a lady who had a real debate with herself over attending her sons birthday party or her AA meeting, she ended up choosing the meeting..which to me makes it seem as though the AA is causing her to be absent from his life just the same as the booze was, but being clean gives her some feeling of "its ok", which it's not. I think if you look at the traits of a cult, NA/AA and their members in a lot of cases would fit it.
So are you saying, for example, that people who move to the United States should learn to speak English? and maybe that the government should not be so helpful to those who refuse? That perhaps the requirement to speak Spanish in order to work at a McDonald's resturaunt anywhere in the United State's is rather silly?
I think it benefits people who move here to assimilate, which includes learning to speak the English language. Temporary workers are another story. If a business requires its employees to speak Spanish because that's how they make their money, servicing those who speak only Spanish...well, do the capitalism math on that one.
True, lots of 12 steppers replace a less dangerous addiction for another. So they die a slower death, or at least are not so dangerous. Better to be driving while having been gorging on donuts and Doritos than to be driving drunk. Many people don't actually work the steps. If you know your history, AA began with just two drunks talking to each other trying to get sober and stay sober. At first there were 6 steps, not 12, then like all groups, things evolved, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. There is an essential purity to AA, but not everyone finds it. Simply being clean is just the beginning, and getting sober the next step, and then learning to live a "normal" life is yet another step. I have to say that I have met a lot of friends of Bill W. and that doesn't mean they are living a "normal" life, or have learned to be completely honest with themselves or have done the work to get to the bottom of the hole in their soul to find real peace of mind in living without the need for a drug of choice. As far as cults go, anyone with a purely detached clinical observation would view the republican and democratic conventions this year would see the cultish nature that happens when groups hold to any dogmatic ideology. AA doesn't brainwash, but there are lots of folks who go to the various 12 step groups that do get brainwashed and recruited by other members similar to the way cults use their practices. I don't fault the 12 steps themselves, just as I don't fault the scriptures of religions for the way in which human beings interpret them for their own selfish purposes.
OK, I have a serious, non-confrontational question for you about AA: Don't you think the program is partially responsible for the U.S. culture of complete apathy toward government injustice? The Bill Of Rights is rapidly being erased, and the standard AA response is to apathetically shrug your shoulders, "let go and let God", and passively accept the status quo. <B>Sometimes collective outrage is necessary</b>, because without it the gov't has a free hand to push through their Patriot Acts, torture detainees, and commit all sorts of other blatant civil rights violations. "Apathy is the glove into which evil slips its hand." I'm sure you've thought of this before, so how can it not bother you?
George W. Bush is one of the greatest presidents of the past 100 years. without him none of this would have been possible. Osama bin Laden
Maybe for some, hard to say. I don't see apathy in the serenity prayer though... "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference." Letting go and letting God is not a call for apathy, it is about doing the best you can to improve the situation but understanding that sometimes the results are out of our hands, so to lose emotional control when our best efforts fail to the point of needing to drink or do drugs to cope with our powerless isn't going to help anyone. I think the apathy comes from a feeling of powerless over the level of corruption in government. Alcoholics do learn in AA that they are powerless over alcohol, and powerless over alcoholism, and it is no surprise to me that we have a country where nearly every president we have had in the past 50 years has been touched by the disease of alcoholism either personally, or through a family member. Really, we agree when it comes to the absurdity of a society that approves of the use of alcohol for recreational purposes, that has has glamorized drinking and smoking in TV and film, has made the town drunk in shows like Andy Griffith a lovable personality, and tests for drug use but not alcohol use in important jobs. Politicians we well known for having liquid lunches, and abuse of alcohol. Ted Kennedy, and red nosed Tip O'Neill are acceptable, but drug use is the devil? It is okay for an executive to come home and have several martinis, but illegal for someone to smoke a joint of two? If anything I would attribute the apathy in this country to Christianity and the politicians, not AA. The election of Obama is a slight movement away from apathy, we will see how it goes.