Well, folks, I apologize for the long hiatus, but these have been a rough few weeks for me, both physically and emotionally. I am hoping to eventually get my medical issues addressed. In the meantime, I make no prediction about regular posting. Check back.
On another front, I saw this article and had a good laugh:
The author, and most of the people she spoke with, really have very little idea about how the 12 Steps work. Let me summarize it for everyone...
The 12 Steps are a last resort for those who have tried everything else. Until you have tried everything else, don't bother.
If it sounds like I am trying to talk you out of AA or NA, I am... if you have not tried some other method to quit. Throwing a teenager with bad friends and over-protective parents into a rehab facility with the 'understanding' that he is an addict is pure baloney, particularly if he has never really tried to quit to begin with and is going so as not to interrupt the golden flow of cash and enabling.
Most American teenagers are dysfunctional because a) they are raised as 'teenagers' rather than adults, b) their brains are still not fully developed, and c) parenting itself has become a lost art. People read books from 'experts' rather than listening to their grandparents. Then again, since many people now have Baby Boomer ex-hippies as grandparents, I would say that you may want to go to the local immigrant family and rent one of theirs.
Parents raise their teenagers to be barely responsible, and then send them off into the world on a leash (largely because they know they have failed to raise an adult)... and then wonder why they freak out. They do not build self-confidence, but devalue praise through empty flattery... hence the 'participation trophy' as a symptom of character destruction.
The sad thing is that too many people get the wrong idea about the 12 Steps, trying to treat an 'addiction' that is not an addiction, because it is easier to diagnose a 'disease' rather than 'stupid.' Everyone gets off the hook, particularly the well-heeled parents who have raised a monster by purposefully shutting off their common sense so that they can fit in with their friends.
Kind of like the people that have not paid enough attention to history to ask themselves why we don't have polio, measles, and diphtheria outbreaks anymore... while running around denouncing immunizations.
back to the original article, here's an example of how the author misses the truth:
In contrast to A.A., which stresses a drinker’s lack of power in the presence of alcohol, M.M. encourages personal responsibility for drinking. The group, founded in 1993, encourages members to start with an alcohol-free month, and then allows for the reintroduction of moderate amounts of alcohol. (Critics note that one of its founders, Audrey Kishline, was involved in a fatal accident while driving drunk. She left the group in January 2000 with the intention of joining A.A., and three months later, crashed head-on into another vehicle, killing the driver and his 12-year-old daughter.)
Huh? AA does no such thing! The presence of alcohol isn't the issue... it is the drinking part that gets you in trouble. This article is full of these misunderstandings. So, take it with a grain of salt.
If you can find some other way to get clean and sober, then by all means do it. The 12 Steps are a final stop for those who have tried everything else.