12 steps to destruction

 

Some say that A.A.'s Steps are based on the Bible. And they are: www.dickb.com/goodbook.shtml Some say that most came from the teachings of Rev. Sam Shoemaker, Jr., Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in New York. And they did: www.dickb.com/newlight.shtml. Some say they are "12 steps to destruction," and the contention is about as valueless as the erroneous documention behind the contention. Some say A.A. is not a Christian Fellowship. It isn't - today. Some say A.A. could not have had its origins in Christianity. But those who argue for that just haven't come close to looking at the history of the Christian Recovery Movement, the Christian upbringing of A.A.'s co-founders, the requirement in early A.A. that all profess belief in God and come to Him through Jesus Christ. www.dickb.com/drbobofaa.shtml, www.dickb.com/conversion.shtml, www.dickb.com/conversion.shtml, www.dickb.com/realhistory.com. Are all these "Christian issues?" Only among those who are blinded by their own lack of understanding, their own lack of research, and their own desire to cast down any and all who walk in the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous. There is a strong and growing Christian Recovery Movement moving forward today. Part of it is grounded in International Christian Recovery Coalition www.ChristianRecoveryCoalition.com. Part of it is grounded in the fact that early AAs were, called themslves, and were called a Christian Fellowship. www.dickb.com/IFCR-Class.shtml. Part of it is grounded in the frequent statements that early AAs considered the Book of James, Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, and 1 Corinthians 13 to be "absolutely essential" to their program. www.dickb.com/JamesClub.shtml. Correctly viewed, the only "modern Christian issues" are flawed by not beginning with the facts and then laying out a picture of error that certainly concerns the thousands of Christians who have been and presently are devoted members of Alcoholics Anonymous. We've provided 42 titles and over 675 articles that enable a viewer to see and decide for himself. That's how to deal with the "modern Christian issues," and find they are just drifting puffs of smoke. www.dickb.com. www.dickb.com/titles.shtml. We Christians in the recovery arena are not alone!

The Real "Power" Behind Alcoholics Anonymous

 

AA is Faith-Based, Not Evidence-Based Is it? Did someone apply an evidence-based test to Old Testament miracles? Did someone apply an evidence-based test to the countless healings by Jesus? Did someone apply an evidence-based test to the signs, miracles, and wonders of First Century Christians? Did someone look into the evidence-based test when writing about the Evangelists like Dwight Moody, the Rescue Mission leaders like Jerry Mc Auley and S.H. Hadley, the origins of the Salvation Army founded by General Booth, the 4.5 million membership of the Young People's Christian Endeavor Society, in which Dr. Bob was active, the successes of the YMCA brethren during the Great Awakening of 1875 in St. Johnsbury, Vermont? Did someone apply the evidence based test to the complete cure by the power of God of Bill Wilson's grandfather William? Did someone apply the evidenced base test to the miraculous cure of the first three AAs when there were no Steps, no Traditions, no drunkalogs, no textbook, and no meetings like those today? Did someone really look at the documented 75% and 93% success rates in Akron and Cleveland? Let the "evidence-based" writers begin looking at documented history instead of counting the number of alcoholics and addicts wandering the slums without ever turning to God for help? It's time for those who believe in God, rely on Him, and have been healed by Him to just close the book on the "evidence-based" nonsense when it comes to the power of God. And just keep fellowshipping and witnessing with time-honored and century-old victories in the hands of God!

Medical outfit gives a boost to de-addiction treatment

Oman's potential for medical tourism has got a new impetus with MediCare Tourist, a local outfit, stepping in to cover the constraints of inadequate manpower and facilities.
MediCare Tourism, a division of Travel Point LLC, has focused on providing the best partner hospitals and doctors for satisfying the needs of their patients. The partner hospitals and medical centres are among the largest, most trusted and internationally accredited available in Oman.
Dr Vishakha Deshmukh, medical adviser of MediCare Tourism, who has more than 15 years of experience in the medical profession in India and Oman, gives useful advice in understanding and analysing the patient’s disease as well as guiding them for quality treatment. Moreover, while discussing the patient’s ailments with the overseas treating doctors, it is much easier to convey the exact picture to them and get a realistic idea about the treatment programme outcome. MediCareTourism strives to take care of every detail, right from the time the patient goes to them with his complaint to the time he returns home after treatment. Patients are treated for orthopaedic, cardiac, cosmetic, ophthalmic, neurological and cancer treatment, as well as for weight reduction and rehabilitative programmes.
"We have added a treatment programme for alcohol and drug addiction to our numerous services. Oman has a large number of young population in need of this facility. Drug addiction is common among the youngsters of today, who will be the future of tomorrow. They resort to petty crimes to satisfy this need. Becoming a victim of drug is easy, what is difficult is to get rid of that habit. With the help of our trained and skilled partners we try to cure the addicts," said Dr Vishakha.
"Medical tourism or ‘global healthcare’ as it’s increasingly called, involves travelling to a foreign country for a medical procedure. This industry has been growing rapidly over the years as more and more people seek faster or cheaper alternatives to the healthcare offered in their own countries. Occasionally the medical procedure needed is urgent, but more often it is an elective treatment such as cosmetic surgery or dental care," said group general manager Travel Point LLC, Oman Sunil Prabhakar.

 

Britain's Got Talent? More like a very bizarre addiction

Roll up! Roll up! Take your seats for the hotly-denied Britain's Got Talent conspiracy theory, in which an anonymous blogger claims Simon Cowell has fixed tonight's final so it's won by some tween singer – a tween Cowell has in fact had on his books for the past two years. Not since the alleged Islamist plot to target The X Factor has it been possible to give quite such a toss, and I'm thrilled to learn that lawyers for Cowell have attended a west London police station. Unfortunately, they reported the alleged crime of malicious communications, as opposed to the theft of an entire generation's neurons.

If you can judge a society by its imagined enemies as well as its real ones, then I can't help feeling Britain's Got Problems. The point about being plugged into the Matrix was that it allowed humans to believe they were at the peak of their civilisation. On that model, Britain is plugged into a conspiracy in which the apogee of human cultural achievement consists of a merely adequate pre-pubescent singer, a keyboard-bashing granny, and a couple of performing dogs. Take the red pill, Keanu! Whatever the truth is, it couldn't possibly be crapper than this.

Once again, we are obliged to confront the smallness of this septic isle. Not for us the suggestion that Pearl Harbour was secretly allowed to happen, or that alien remains are stored in a government facility. For us, it is the suggestion that a couple of talentless chihuahuas are going to be done out of their rightful victory by a kid with six months of disappointing record sales in him before his voice breaks.

Many of you will prefer to wait until Oliver Stone immortalises the tale on film, but for those in need of a recap, the facts are these: this week, someone claiming to be "a Sony music executive" posted detailed claims that Cowell had fixed Britain's Got Talent – claims that spread round the internet like wildfire. That the story was arrant cobblers was obvious from the first paragraph, in which the notional executive claimed the business "has left me increasingly uncomfortable about the integrity of Britain's Got Talent". The what, love? The "integrity of Britain's Got Talent"? I can't imagine a more ludicrous concept, short of "the corporate social responsibility of Spectre".

The claim that such programmes are secretly manipulated is not exactly new. Indeed, it was first made in the form of a cave painting. But we are talking low-level, amusingly ghastly manipulation, exemplified by shameless editing, or the former X Factor contestant whose father had died, who claims he was ordered by producers to sing Luther Vandross's Dance With My Father.

In fact, the real conspiracy in all these shows is not secret. It is right up there on the screen, and that is Cowell's greatest trick – all the greater for its preposterous blatancy. Put simply, the formula of a Simon Cowell talent contest is this: ordinary people queue in their tens of thousands for the chance to work for scale or nothing on a primetime, top-rating TV show, in which Cowell persuades the public to pay him (via phonelines) to tell him which acts he may sell back to them.

Lex Luthor it ain't. But then it doesn't need to be. Instead of the Great and Powerful Oz, I frequently imagine Simon Cowell as the man behind the curtain, working the levers of public taste while torn between opportunistic enthusiasm and gnawing inner despair at how easy it is.

So what are we to make of people's need to believe in conspiracy theories such as the one floated above? In his famous essay on conspiracy theories in America, the historian Richard Hofstadter noted that a significant part of these tales is psychological projection – people ascribe their own worst traits to the imagined enemy, thus relieving themselves of various kinds of responsibility. And so with an increasingly savvy reality TV audience, who understand that Cowell always wins, yet watch in ever greater numbers and have to find a way of elevating their involvement into something more than a mug's game.

Both fans and haters need to develop outlandish conspiracy theories because they can't actually believe millions upon millions are genuinely in thrall to this stuff. The weeks after the finale of a Cowell show are a bit like that scene in A Midsummer Night's Dream where the drug wears off and Titania can't actually believe she was carrying on with a donkey. What visions have I seen! Methought I was enamoured of Steve Brookstein! Even now, there will be countless folk who can't believe they invested time and possibly money rooting for Matt Cardle – last year's X Factor winner and a chap of absolutely zero star quality – or indeed for almost all the previous victors, who are essentially competing for the chance to be dropped by Cowell's record company inside of a year.

The only bearable explanation is that we are being duped by some master villain. And as the steward of a deadly serious theory in which Cowell is designated the Karaoke Sauron, I am quite convinced I should know.

 

The Addicts Under The Bridge

Heroin addicts in Afghanistan's capital usually meet in hidden places. In an abandoned building. In a disused cargo container. In places where the dealers who bring them heroin paste can find them and they can spread the paste on tinfoil, light it, and inhale the smoke through a thin plastic tube.

But with so many addicts in Kabul, the hidden places are spilling into public view. One of those places is a bridge over the Kabul river in the neighborhood of Pol-e-Sukhta, near Kabul University. There, hundreds of addicts gather daily for their fix.

Recently, I went to the bridge to learn more. On the first visit, drug dealers chased me away with stones. On the second, accompanied by police, I was able to mingle with the addicts undisturbed and learn their stories.

The world I enter in the darkened recesses beneath the bridge stinks of urine and feces and is filled with trash. But the men there do not notice. Their attention is fixed only on the bright fire of their matches heating the heroin paste until it smokes and, then, for several blissful moments they enter the state they crave most of all, where nothing touches them.

Inadequate Medical Help

I speak with one user who had already been hours under the bridge and is between fixes. He says his story was typical of those around him, just as those around him were typical of the some 8 percent of Afghans the UN says is addicted to drugs, often opium or heroin. That is 8 percent of the population between the ages of 15 and 64, twice the world average.
I said, 'I'm sick, I can't walk.' But the doctor said, 'we have no bed for you'


The man, who does not give his name, says he is 38 and used to be a professional football player. He says he picked up his habit while he was a refugee in Iran. There, he says, drug dealers offered people their first tastes of opium and heroin for free, knowing they would become addicted.

I ask if he ever tried to kick his habit since returning to Afghanistan. Yes, he says.

"I decided to leave [this habit behind]. I went there [to the hospital] for one month, coming and going, coming and going, and they told me 'don't smoke.' I said, 'OK.' The doctor told me, the day you decide, then don't smoke. So, I stopped. But then I began to vomit and have diarrhea. I said, 'I'm sick, I can't walk.' But the doctor said, 'we have no bed for you,'" he said.

The doctor had only one treatment for him: "The doctor told me to take cold showers. But I didn't feel better, I felt worse. Later, the doctor asked, 'are you feeling better now?' I said, 'yes.' And then he said, 'take this broom and sweep the hospital'. I said, 'am I a patient or a cleaner?' And the doctor said, 'if you don't do it, I will kick you in the stomach.'"

The man, who soon relapsed, tells his story so matter-of-factly that he seems to have lost hope he will ever end his addiction. And, unfortunately, the statistics for drug use in Afghanistan support that view.

Only one in 10 addicts receives any drug treatment, because programs are rare and underfunded. According to a study last year by the UN Office of Drug Control (UNODC) there are roughly 700,000 people in Afghanistan who want treatment for their addictions but cannot gain access to a facility. And even when they gain access, long-term treatments like methadone substitution are rarely available, making the likelihood of relapse high.

Unhappy Locals

The presence of so many addicts under the bridge is deeply disturbing for residents of the area. One man, Hamidullah, who lives nearby recently left this recorded message for Radio Free Afghanistan's popular talk show "Liberty Listeners."

Related articles

• Process Addiction no different to the compulsions that drive drug addiction and substance abuse.
• Process Addiction is a relatively new way of describing an addiction to an activity, or a process
• A process addiction refers to compulsive behavior, such as compulsive gambling, sexual addiction, eating disorders and spending addictions.
• EVOPROJECT: One addiction can lead to other addictions, and one drug can make you relapse on another drug.
• Movies about destructive addiction.
• Why does a man become a drug addict
• The blame game is something that addicts can use to justify their addiction.
• Addiction is a disease of fundamental irrationality.
• Addiction "is not a moral failing on the part of the individual. It's a chronic disease of the brain that can be treated."
• Solution Based Recovery is the natural home for Process addiction

Bible Prophecy? Arkansas' dead birds and dead fish prompt massive Internet search for confirmation of apocalypse and the end times | God Discussion

Bible Prophecy? Arkansas' dead birds and dead fish prompt massive Internet search for confirmation of apocalypse and the end times | God Discussion: "There were many comments about 'biblical prophecy' coming true with dead birds falling from the sky, the dead birds being related to the seventh seal of Revelation (one suggested the sixth seal), and upon looking, neither the sixth or seventh seals mention anything about dead birds or dead fish.   In fact, upon consulting Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, research using 'birds' 'fish,' 'dead birds,' and 'dead fish' turned up zero Biblical references.  Hosea 4:3 was the closest the research turned up, and was brought up by one commenter.  However, this verse talks about the whoring of Israel and the unfaithfulness of the priests of Israel and the people of Israel. It is not talking about end times, or anything having to do with the apocalypse.

Today's massive reaction to the dead birds and dead fish article reminds us of the Pew Research Forum study where 41% of Americans believe that Jesus Christ will return by the year 2050:"

heavy drinkers often don't become "normal" drinkers on their own

Given that heavy drinkers often don't become "normal" drinkers on their own, the takeaway message for clinicians and family members is to help connect a problem drinker to a community social service agency or Alcoholics Anonymous.

Using a telephone-screening program, researchers identified 672 problem and dependent drinkers who had not been in an alcohol treatment program for at least 12 months.

Eleven years later, men in the study had reduced their average number of drinks per month by 51 percent, and women had reduced their average number of drinks by 57 percent.

However, even after this reduction, male and female problem drinkers still consumed 160 percent and 223 percent more alcohol, respectively, than the average adult without a drinking problem.

The researchers pointed out that the greatest reductions in alcohol consumption occurred within one to two years after the initial screening and then slowed, suggesting that problem drinkers and heavy drinkers may never lower their consumption to the level of the general population.

"Most heavy drinkers maintain a steady level of heavy alcohol consumption over time," said lead researcher Kevin L. Delucchi of the University of California.

"It's pretty toxic, but somehow they manage to keep drinking at a fairly sustained level. Our people were functional, for the most part. They had addresses, a lot of them had insurance at baseline, and they're not at the 'bottom of the barrel,' which is interesting," he said.

The researchers also examined the factors that appeared to be linked with continued heavy drinking.

Participants who received help from Alcoholics Anonymous or community social service agencies were likely to drink less.

However, those who had heavy-drinking friends in their social network, received general suggestions that they do something about their drinking, and went to a formal treatment program were actually likely to drink more.

The study appeared in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. (ANI)

charged with murder in connection to a stabbing death outside an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting

city man has been charged with murder in connection to a stabbing death outside an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting Wednesday night.

Jonathan Keith Niemic, 22, of 127 Hawthorn St., was arrested around 3:10 this morning, according to the Bristol District Attorney’s office. The victim, Michael Correia, 34, of Fairhaven, was found gravely injured and transported to St. Luke’s Hospital, where he died from his wounds, the DA said. The investigation led state and local police to an apartment complex at 159 Rockaway St., where Niemic was arrested without incident.

Eyewitnesses said Correia was at the meeting and, during a break, was stabbed multiple times by a man who pulled up near the entrance of a building that witnesses identified as the "Trinity Church soup kitchen" near the corner of Purchase and School streets around 7:15.

A crowd of dozens gathered near the crime scene in the aftermath of the attack. Some sipped coffee, others smoked cigarettes, others tried to get their cars moved before police cordoned off the block with yellow tape. Everyone was talking about the stabbing.

Accounts and narratives differed. Some said two people drove up in a silver SUV and a man exited the vehicle and stabbed the victim. Some said yelling and "commotion" could be heard from inside the building during the scuffle. Others said there did not appear to be any extensive argument before the violence erupted.

Kaiserstrasse pub, which opened last week, is the city's second "drinking room".

corner pub in Kiel's down-at-heel Gaarden district hollow-cheeked men with tattoos sat at the bar, chain-smoking roll-up cigarettes as they cracked open the beers they had just bought at the discount supermarket down the road.

"They let you do what you want in this town, there's no pressure to go to anything like Alcoholics Anonymous," insisted one of them.

Behind the bar a corpulent bartender with shoulder-length hair and a worried look on his face puffed at a fag as he served up tea, coffee, coke and mineral water to the motley crowd around him.

Oddly for a corner pub, the row of beer taps behind the bar were capped. Permanently sealed and covered with a dishcloth, they visibly crushed even the remotest hope of a pint.

As probably the only drinking establishment in Germany in which you can smoke your head off but will always be refused an alcoholic drink, the bar in Kaiserstrasse is no ordinary pub. It is the latest of the city's so-called "drinking rooms" – a taxpayer-funded pub for alcoholics which social workers and the public have hailed as a runaway success.

"We are giving space to people who have serious problems who we have been unable to help," is how Torsten Albig, Kiel's mayor, justifies the project. "These people are part of our society and they won't just go away because they are a nuisance."

The Kaiserstrasse pub, which opened last week, is the city's second "drinking room". It costs taxpayers €33,000 a year to run. The pub is staffed by reformed alcoholics and members of the Hempel's social welfare organisation, which deals with the city's so-called "street scene" – the homeless, alcoholics and drug addicts.

Reinhard Böttner is one of the social workers there. He takes exception to those who argue that the project is proof of the welfare state's failure because it simply panders the problematic without trying to reform them. "The drinking rooms are one of the few ways of reaching these people. Do you think that you can just walk in and persuade them to kick the habit?" he asked.

The city's first drinking room opened seven years ago as part of an attempt to discourage street drinkers. The project was inspired by the so-called "fixing rooms" in Zurich in the 1980s to keep heroin addicts off the streets. Kiel says that its drinking rooms are so successful that other German cities, such as Dortmund and Hamburg, are planning to copy the idea.

"There are no complaints about the drinking rooms. Everyone has come to regard them as something positive," insisted Christoph Schneider, of Kiel's housing department, who is credited with inventing the idea. "The public are pleased that drinkers are off the streets and the street scene is happy to have somewhere to go. They don't much like drinking on the street. They want a social life as well."

The project caters for a clientele of 70 alcoholics and drug addicts on the heroin substitute methadone who also use alcohol heavily. They open at 10am and close at 4pm, and customers are allowed to buy only tea, coffee and soft drinks. If they want to drink alcohol, they must bring their own, and it is limited to beer or wine with a low alcoholic content. Violent or abusive customers are banned for periods ranging from 24 hours to a month.

However, the drinking room's most controversial rule is that customers should not be required to seek assistance to help them quit. "We never force people to get help," said Jo Tein of the Hempel's welfare group. "We only provide assistance if people ask for it."

The help offered includes advice on how to solve problems with landlords or manage finances. Staff also help to find customers low-paying jobs behind the bar or selling the city's "street scene" newspaper.

Mr Schneider said the project's softly-softly approach had helped some 20 alcoholics to kick the habit. He claimed an 87 per cent success rate for the drinkers who really wanted to stop. "We've almost completely done away with complaints from the public about alcoholics in parks and squares and causing a nuisance," he said.

Dirk, one of the drinkers, said that together with a group of other drinkers, he used to go to a nearby Aldi discount store and buy palettes of cheap beer to consume outside.

"We soon got complaints from the manager. Then the police used to show up and turn us over. It became such a hassle that we had to move on, but within a matter of days we had the police on our backs again," he said.

Like several of the drinkers, Dirk has a criminal record. He took to alcohol after he lost his job in Kiel's docks and his wife divorced him. A series of petty offences landed him in prison for a year. He subsists on the minimum German social security payment of €359 a month and lives in a council flat. He said all the doors except his on his floor had been kicked in.

"I don't like hanging around there. It's much nicer here in the drinking room. At least you can meet your mates," he said.

Dirk said he had not had a job since leaving prison. "They all know me round here. The job office has written me off as unemployable," he insisted. Kiel has an unemployment rate of 7 per cent.

Kai, the drinking room's barman and one of the few alcoholics who have managed to kick the habit with help from drinking-room support staff, said the project meant everything to him: "I stopped 18 months ago. I couldn't have done it without the drinking room. For me it was the first place I was accepted as I am. There was nobody trying to push me around and I no longer had to feel afraid," he said.

It’s strange that Wilson lived worse sober than he did as a hopeless lush.

It’s strange that Wilson lived worse sober than he did as a hopeless lush. AA folklore casts his situation in a romantic light, using it to demonstrate that Wilson gave up everything for the cause, but this doesn’t fly. As a drunk, Wilson lived like his patron, Nelson Rockefeller, but when sober he and Lois used fruit boxes as furniture, and he continually bemoaned his tough financial situation. Wilson was no martyr, so his inability to earn a livable wage while sober is decidedly strange, especially from a man with such a finely-tuned financial mind. Wilson’s poverty was a boon to him, however, when the Cleveland chapter of AA accused him of embezzling funds from the Foundation and from royalties earned from the publication of the Big Book. The accusations were neither proved nor disproved, and most AA members seemed willing to cut Wilson some slack. In any event, Cleveland eventually got over their problem, and AA continued to flourish, even in the face of further controversy. From the time he was a young man, Wilson and the ladies were never far separated. He was an attractive fellow and women were drawn to his smarts and passion. His womanizing continued after his marriage to Lois and for the majority of his life. Though he had “cured” his addiction to alcohol, Wilson never lost his addiction to women. Late in her life, Lois claimed that, despite abundant evidence, she was never aware of any impropriety on the part of her husband. But she must’ve known.