Date: Fri, February 11, 2011 6:57 am     (answered 15 February 2011)
From: David
Subject: The Smartest Man In The World Syndrome

http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-powerless.html

Dear Recovering Genius,

So you say that Alcoholism is not a disease?

You do not say that in your opinion or diagnosis that Alcoholism is not a disease..

This is a lack of humility dear sir.

Are you a doctor?

Or are you just another garden variety drunk dope fiend, the same as I?

Yea, I am being a sarcastic smart-ass. It is a character flaw... Something is working in me pursing a doctrine degree in the college of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I am very confident from reading your article that you could go before the board of the American Medical Association and prove them wrong and alter their diagnosis that alcoholism is a disease.?

?disease (d?-z?z')
A pathological condition of a part, organ, or system of an organism resulting from various causes, such as infection, genetic defect, or environmental stress, and characterized by an identifiable group of signs or symptoms.

Let's see here,

Any opinion or statement I make is in accordance with first hand knowledge.

Not only is the disease Genetic, but also an enigma. It has a strong attraction to itself.

The following is typical, not a-typical. From countless cohorts, friends and people afflicted with the monster.

My wife's, Grandfather, Father, Uncle, Husband, Son, Father in law, and her daughters long term boyfriend all have the "disease?"...

Genetics...
Environmental Stress-
Infection-
Various Causes-

This is enough to discuss if you bother to return this email.

The garbage you are writing is only hurting people..

Email me back,
Let's chat,

With compassion,

David.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Date: Fri, February 11, 2011 12:05 am     (answered 15 February 2011)
From: David
Subject: Shoes

Do you drink?

David

Hello David,

Thanks for the questions.

Taking your last question first, I don't drink. I have ten years clean and sober now. And ten years off of cigarettes too.

Then, the question of "disease". No, I don't think I am the smartest man in the world. But I quote some men who are. For example, we were just talking about Herbert Fingarette and his book. Herbert Fingarette is a distinguished professor at the University of California, and has been a consultant on alcoholism and addiction to the World Health Organization and a Fellow of the Stanford Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences.

Read Herbert Fingarette's book, Heavy Drinking: The Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease.

Prof. Fingarette found that alcoholics are not "powerless", or suffering from a "loss of control". The truth is, they have lots of control over their drug and alcohol consumption. And they are not suffering from a "disease". There is no such "disease" as alcoholism.

Now you can play word games with definitions, and try to twist any little discomfort into a disease. Lots of people do, even drug addicts. "I'm sick, I need more medicine." (Look here for another definition of disease.) But that does not make habitual excessive drinking of alcohol into a disease like cancer, tuberculosis, or diabetes.

I know that the American Medical Association declared that "alcoholism" is a disease. The AMA is just a private club for doctors that has the goal of enriching itself and doctors. The AMA has a very sordid history. The longtime president of the AMA, the man who built the AMA up into the big, influential organization that it is, Morris Fishbein, was busted for racketeering. He would not endorse a pharmaceutical company's medicines unless they bought big, expensive, full-page ads in his Journal of the American Medical Association. So whether medicines were approved by the AMA depended on how much money Fishbein got. Look here for much more on the corruption of the AMA.

Back in the nineteen-fifties, the AMA even endorsed cigarette smoking as perfectly okay. Would you care to guess what kind of a bribe the AMA collected from the tobacco industry for that?

Also in the nineteen-fifties, the AMA declared that "alcoholism" was an "illness". Not a disease. An illness. They did not bother to actually define what the "illness" was. They just mollified some noisy A.A. members by declaring that alcoholism was an illness. They based that statement on no medical research — it was just politics, just like the declaration that cigarettes are okay for you.

So for forty years, the AMA had an "illness" without a definition.
      "What is alcoholism?"
      "I dunno, but Joe drinks too much, so I guess he's got it."

And how do you get this "illness"? Can you get it from sharing a drink with an alcoholic? Kissing an alcoholic? Rubbing against one? Can you get alcoholism from a dirty toilet seat?

Then in the nineteen-nineties, the AMA had a joint committee of two Alcoholics Anonymous front groups finally write a definition of "alcoholism". Look here. "The Joint Committee of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence and the American Society of Addiction Medicine" produced a definition of "alcoholism" that is so twisted and goofy that it does not even say that alcoholism is caused by drinking alcohol. Of course not. The true believers in the A.A. front groups wanted to leave the door open for declaring that "alcoholism is a spiritual disease", caused by "character defects".

Speaking of which, please define "character defects", and explain how they cause the "disease of alcoholism". That is just crazy Alcoholics Anonymous cult religion dogma, not medical knowledge.

The truth is, Bill Wilson was just serving up some reheated Buchmanism, when he declared that "alcoholism" was the result of "defects of character" and "moral shortcomings" and "wrongs". What Buchmanism said was "sins". "Sins are the cause of all human problems," Buchman said.

But Bill would have gotten into trouble with the Catholic Church if he said that alcoholism was caused by sins, and that the alcoholics have to go to meetings and confess their sins. The Catholic Church has a strong ban on public confessions. So, to avoid losing the Catholics, Bill declared that "alcoholism" is caused by "defects of character", and that the alcoholics have to "admit" their "wrongs" and "shortcomings". But Bill still meant "confess your sins". (And in Bill's second book, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, he dropped the pretense and went back to talking about sins, even harping on The Seven Deadly Sins and how bad we are.)

Please note that the American Psychiatric Association does not endorse any such mental illness as "alcoholism". So the AMA is lecturing us about a mental illness, while the APA says that there isn't any such disease.

Here is the page of the DSM-IV that lists the alcohol-related mental disorders:

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.org        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**    "We AA's have never called alcoholism a disease because,
**     technically speaking it is not a disease entity."
**        ==  Bill Wilson,
**        speaking to the National Catholic Clergy Conference On Alcoholism,
**             April 21, 1960, in New York

Date: Sun, February 13, 2011 6:20 pm     (answered 16 February 2011)
From: "El Salvador"
Subject: I was asked to leave this 12 stepper forum many years ago in a very rude fashion....

12 Step 'moderators' on line are a special breed...finally replied to him!!!!!!!

To one of those Who have harmed me psychologically. Blow it out your 12 Stepper rear. Now I feel better, now I am a member of no 12 Step group and I desire to remain anonymous, tired of having my rear kicked because my life was ruined at age 6, when I was innocent, abused by a pediatrician in the early 1950s, as were several others my age, only 3 of us survived, 2 of us committed suicide when young and only I and another have made it, abstinent, alive and functioning. Thanks for the memories bung hole, got the same treatment more or less on other 12 Step user groups. Have a great "24 hours" then, matey, and so shall I.

Hey guys and gals this message is to the person below, too bad I did not save his really nasty message to me years ago when he put me out in the "cold" but far better I guess, will send a copy on to our friendly website that publishes letters and testimony re the 12 Steppers as well. Lol. Feel great plus 16+ years abstinent as well!!!!!!

Hey guys and gals this message is to the person below, too bad I did not save his really nasty message to me years ago when he put me out in the ?cold? but far better I guess, will send a copy on to our friendly website that publishes letters and testimony re the 12 Steppers as well. Lol. Feel great plus 16+ years abstinent as well!!!!!!

[The correspondent then quoted the web page that described the "About.Com Alcoholism Forum":]

Contact the Alcoholism / Substance Abuse Guide
By Buddy T, About.com Guide since 1997

Hello El Salvador,

Thanks for the letter, and congratulations on your sobriety.

I'm sorry to hear about you getting kicked off of the About.Com forum. Unfortunately, I hear about that kind of stuff often. Most of those 12-Step-oriented "Sobriety" and "self-help" web sites are quick to banish anyone who challenges the standard 12-Step dogma. They just want people who will toe the line and parrot the common A.A. sayings and repeat the Big Book insanity and declare that it really works great. Steppers have a very funny idea of "free speech" and "rigorous honesty". They are quick to ban anyone who says things that they don't wish to hear, even if it's true. (Which is just some more proof that it really is a cult.)

On the bright side, I'm working on a forum here. It's close to working. I just have to figure out a few more technicalities of Drupal to get it operational. And I don't plan to ban anyone. I'm a firm believer in freedom of speech, and letting everyone have his or her say.

Have a good day now.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.org        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     Speak not in the ears of fools: because they
**     will despise the instruction of thy speech.
**       ==  Proverbs 23:9.

Date: Mon, February 14, 2011 1:31 pm     (answered 16 February 2011)
From: "Ds S"
Subject: Fw: Links that you might find interesting

Dear Agent Orange,

Again I realize the Tibet debate is ancillary to the main purpose of your website, but you mentioned that I was probably just repeating Chinese propaganda without even knowing it. I respectfully disagree please see my argument below. Again please do not post my e-mail address.

Very Respectfully,
No one of any importance

You mention that the Dali Lama wasn't ruling at the time of the Chinese invasion, but a regent was ruling in his stead. Ok, who elected the regent. Nobody he was appointed. Who ruled before the regent. The previous Dali Lama, whom no one elected. A dynasty of absolute monarchs whom the people did not get to choose. That is the definition of ruling with an iron fist. You come to power without the consent of the people, and make decisions without the consent of the people. Even though the Chinese invaded before the Dali Lama could take control of the government, it doesn't change the fact that he would have just been the latest of a long line of monarchs.

Now let us assume that all my accusations about tyranny during the rule of the Dali Lama dynasty is simply Chinese propaganda, and that life in Tibet under the rule of the Dali Lama dynasty was heaven on Earth. Let us further assume that philosophy that the Dali Lama espouses in his multiple books is what he really believes and how he would actually rule if he had the chance. All that means is that if he returned to power he would be an enlightened despot who ruled with an iron fist, rather than a cruel tyrant who ruled with an iron fist. There have been enlightened despots in history (Catherine the Great, Frederick the Great, Shan Nan Shah Palavi) who have attempted to bring about social reform based on Western philosophy and ideas about equality. Never the less they brought about reforms through tight fisted rule.

When the Dali Lama talks about freeing Tibet, does he discuss his plans for instituting education, health care, etc? Does he discuss writing a constitution to guarantee basic rights under law, establish a legislature so that the people have a say in what the laws are, and to curtail his powers as sovereign? Unless he does these things he could be the kindest, gentlest, benign ruler in the history of the planet when returned to power, but he would still be ruling with an iron fist. Just remember iron fisted rule doesn't necessarily barbaric or cruel, it means that it rule without consent of the governed.

As for Communist China let us assume all social programs are immersed in propaganda. It is more than like that they are, especially the education system, but here's the thing. As long as they teach the three R's (reading, writing arithmetic) it is a step in the right direction. Again I'm not asserting that China is a great place to live. It isn't for one very same reasons I stated in the paragraph above this one specifically the Chinese do not have rights guaranteed to them under a constitution, they do not get to elect members of the Politiburo, and there is no check on the powers of the Premeir.

If I may be so bold instead of "Free Tibet," perhaps a better stamp might be something to the effect of "Restore Human Rights to All People Oppressed by Chinese Rule", "Restore Human Rights to All People Oppressed by Tyranny", or maybe just "Sic Semper Tyrannus."

To summarize my point: I'm not saying Tibet doesn't need to be freed from Communist China. I'm just saying that returning an absolute monarch to the throne, regardless of how nice of guy he happens to be, is not freeing them.

Hello, "No one of any importance",

Thanks for the letter. And of course I won't print your email address.

The line that really had me gagging was:

Even though the Chinese invaded before the Dali Lama could take control of the government, it doesn't change the fact that he would have just been the latest of a long line of monarchs.   ...

All that means is that if he returned to power he would be an enlightened despot who ruled with an iron fist, rather than a cruel tyrant who ruled with an iron fist.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.org        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     We noted earlier that all the world's major religions stress
**     the importance of cultivating love and compassion. In the
**     Buddhist philosophical tradition, different levels of attainment
**     are described. At a basic level, compassion (nying je)
**     is understood mainly in terms of empathy — our ability to
**     enter into and, to some extent, share others' suffering.  But
**     Buddhists — and perhaps others — believe that this can be
**     developed to such a degree that not only does our compassion
**     arise without any effort, but it is unconditional,
**     undifferentiated and universal in scope. A feeling of intimacy
**     toward all other sentient beings, including, of course, those
**     who would harm us, is generated. This is likened in the
**     literature to the love a mother has for her only child.
**        ==  Ancient Wisdom, Modern World; Ethics for the New
**        Millenium, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, pages 127-128.

May 20, 2009, Wednesday: Day 20, continued: Carmen giving me a quizzical look while snuggling with her brothers

[More gosling photos below, here.]

Date: Tue, February 15, 2011 4:40 am     (answered 20 February 2011)
From: "Ted D."
Subject:

All this for what???
Sent from my iPhone

To get the truth out there.

Have a good day.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.org        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     Learn the truth, and the truth shall set you free.
**       == Jesus
**     There is no god higher than truth.
**       == Gandhi

[The next letter from Ted_D is here.]

Date: Wed, February 16, 2011 3:24 am     (answered 21 February 2011)
From: "Kenny G."
Subject:

Buchman wanted to convert Hitler.
Whether or not you believe this nonsense, you're either a sociopath or daddy was a drunk. Quite sure.
Therapy could work.

Kenny G.
Psychologist

Hello Kenny,

Thanks for the letter. Of course Frank Buchman wanted to convert Adolf Hitler. I never said that Buchman didn't. Where did you get that misimpression?

I clearly stated how the Oxford Group bothered the Mitford family, trying to get an invitation to see Hitler, with the goal of "changing" Hitler:

Later that evening Bobo's father, Lord Redesdale, also in Munich, was telephoned by an Oxford Group spokesman, saying the Group wanted to 'change' the Führer. Bobo said she did not want the Führer changed. 'No, damn it,' Redesdale agreed, 'I like the feller as he is.'
Himmler, Reichsführer, Peter Padfield, page 233.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.org        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**      That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history
**     is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.
**         ==  Aldous Huxley, Collected Essays (1959)

Date: Wed, February 16, 2011 5:39 am     (answered 21 February 2011)
From: Bob O.
Subject: they fear you

Mister T,

Two days after sending you the link to the Time.com article by Maia Szalavitz it is disabled. If that is the work of the steppers then you have them on the ropes.

Thank you for all you do.
Long Island Bob O.

Hello again, Bob,

Actually, the web page with Maia's story is still there. The problem was just a typo on my part, in putting your letter into a web page.

On the link that you sent, there was no "http://" on the front of it, and I forgot to add it. If I don't do that, then the web browser will interpret the link as a local link, and try to find a subdirectory named "www.Time.com" on my web site, and find the web page inside it. There is no such subdirectory, so you got an error message of "File Not Found". The web browser won't go to the Time.com web site without that "http://" in the link.

The full correct link is:
http://www.Time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2003160-3,000.html

Thanks again for the article, and have a good day now.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.org        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.  
**        == Mark Twain

Date: Wed, February 16, 2011 7:37 am     (answered 21 February 2011)
From: "Kashina Z."
Subject: The other women

Hi

English is my second language, but i will try to send e mail.

Thank you very much for your article "the other women".

I was born in Poland 57 years ago. Over 25 years ago I come to Australia.

I does not meter my drinking story. When I come to AA over 20 years ago. I believed that it was an honest program.

When i was nearly 4 years sober, a LONG timer with over 20 years of "RECOVERY" decided that i need his help.

I paid him for my healing. In 3 session we were in bad. He was JESUS. He ordered me to drink his urine as it had special powers.

Poverty, mental abuse, sexual abuse, biting my sons................... All in name of "Killing my ego." He was in AA cult before. !!!!!

It took me 15 years to get free. Last 3 years i have been to doctors, Buddhism........ I am ok, but someone must know.

I have FORGIVEN, BUT WE must not forget!!!!

I was not allowed to tell truth in AA.

kind regards

kashina

Hello Kashina,

Thank you for the letter. I'm sorry to hear about the suffering that you went through. I'm glad to hear that you are free now. And yes, you can tell the truth here.

Your story reminds us once again that anybody can pretend to be a recovery guru in Alcoholics Anonymous. All that someone needs to do is claim to have a lot of years of sobriety, and he can pass himself off as a wise man and a counselor and a healer. There are no tests to see if an A.A. sponsor is good, or qualified for the job. Or sane. Or even really sober.

Have a good day now, and a good life.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.org        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     Out, you imposters; quack-salving, cheating mountebanks;
**     your skill is to make sound men sick, and sick men to kill.
**       ==  Philip Massinger (1583—1640), English dramatist, playwright, poet

Date: Wed, February 16, 2011 8:03 am     (answered 21 February 2011)
From: "April H."
Subject: The Orange Papers rock!

Dear Orange,

Wow! Your site is amazing. I am in OA and have been struggling with staying. Not because I want to eat or the approach is worthless, but simply because it is based on a lie. I have chosen not to leave, but I will not quit seeking the truth. The Rockefellers are undoubtedly the key players here (as I see other letter writers have mentioned).

What do you know about Tom Driberg? He seems to have been the driving force behind discrediting Buchman in the UK/Europe. As you probably know, he was an MI5 intelligence agent and personal friends with Alister Crowley. (I'm not a conspiracy theorist or anything, he admitted this in his autobiography!) I had always heard rumors that Bill Wilson knew Crowley. Do you know anything about that? I've seen no evidence, but of course he was deeply into the occult.

Thank you so much for all your hard work. Keep it up!

Sincerely,
April H.

Hello April,

Thank you for the letter and the compliments.

Yes, Tom Driberg is an interesting person. He was all of the things that you described, including a newspaper reporter, and a former Communist who was drafted to work for MI5 and spy on the English Communists. And he was also the first openly-gay man elected to the British Parliament. The only item that I had not heard of was the link to Aleister Crowley. (Or just didn't remember it. I read his autobiography, but didn't recall that detail.)

Tom Driberg wrote an autobiography, Ruling Passions, where he told the story of a lot of that.

I guess it was kind of inevitable that Driberg would lock horns with the Oxford Group and Frank Buchman, considering Frank Buchman's vicious attacks on homosexuals (to cover up his own homosexuality). Also, Tom Driberg was very left-wing in his politics, while Frank Buchman was a Fascist. So they were bound to disagree. First, Tom Driberg wrote newspaper articles that were critical of the Oxford Group and their pro-Nazi attitudes. Then Driberg fought against them in Parliament. Then a book publisher, Secker & Warberg in London, invited Driberg to do a book about Moral Re-Armament, because of his previous writing about MRA. The book is The Mystery of Moral Re-Armament, A Study of Frank Buchman and His Movement, Secker & Warberg, London, 1964.

Needless to say, the MRA members hated it. They wrote a rebuttal, The Open Secret of MRA; an examination of Mr. Driberg's 'critical examination' of Moral Re-Armament, by J. P. Thornton-Duesbery, M.A. (Master of St. Peter's College, Oxford), Blandford Press, London, 1964, which is quite a collection of deceptive, angry and hateful propaganda tricks (as is much of the Oxford Group/Moral Re-Armament literature).

Ah, history. What a circus.

I have not heard of Bill Wilson having any contact with Aleister Crowley. Yes, he was very much into the occult, claiming to contact spirits of the dead with spirit rapping and channelling and the Ouija board.

And guess what famous cult leader really was associated with Aleister Crowley, for sure? Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. See L. Ron Hubbard, Messiah or Madman? by Bent Corydon and L. Ron Hubbard, Jr. (Lyle Stuart Inc., Secaucus, New Jersey, 1987). That book was actually co-authored by L. Ron Hubbard's own son, the heir apparent who defected from Scientology and let all of the family skeletons out of the closet.

What a small cult and occult world it is.

Have a good day now.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.org        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     
**
**     The ouija board got moving in earnest. What followed was
**     the fairly usual experience — it was a strange mélange
**     of Aristotle, St. Francis, diverse archangels with odd names,
**     deceased friends — some in purgatory and others doing
**     nicely, thank you! There were malign and mischievous ones of
**     all descriptions, telling of vices quite beyond my ken, even
**     as former alcoholics. Then, the seemingly virtuous entities would elbow
**     them out with messages of comfort, information, advice — and
**     sometimes just sheer nonsense."
**       ==  Bill Wilson, describing one of his seánces in
**       'PASS IT ON': The story of Bill Wilson and how the A.A. message
**     reached the world, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. staff,
**       1984, pages 278-279.

Date: Wed, February 16, 2011 2:50 pm     (answered 21 February 2011)
From: "Id Powers"
Subject: [Recovery 2 Day] I think the future of psychotherapy and...

Id Powers posted in Recovery 2 Day.

I think the future of psychotherapy and psychology is in the school system. We need to teach every child how to rarely seriously disturb himself or herself and how to overcome disturbance when it occurs.
— Albert Ellis

That wording seems awkward. I think that what Dr. Ellis meant was, "how to avoid becoming seriously disturbed". Or even better, Dr. Hank Robb's wording, "How to Stop Driving Yourself Crazy".

(By the way, Dr. Albert Ellis is the founder of SMART and one of the creators of Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy.

Have a good day now.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.org        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     Wouldn't it be terrible if I quoted some reliable statistics
**     which prove that more people are driven insane through
**     religious hysteria than by drinking alcohol?
**        ==  W. C. Fields

Date: Wed, February 16, 2011 3:18 pm     (answered 21 February 2011)
From: "david b."
Subject: AA Stuff

Hi Mr Orange,

my name is Dave and i'm in the UK. I've quick-read 'The 12 Steps Interpreted' and 'AA Booster...', I will read them again sometime.

I really appreciated 'The 12 Steps Interpreted'. As an active participant in AA just now contemplating step 4 (!), I am finding the whole 12 Steps programme goofy and your words helped put things into perspective for me.

There are intelligent people in my home groups and genuine ones. They, to a man, do not seem to see how daft the programme is nor how daft the 'big book' is. Daft means dumb in UK speak !

I believe you have 'Weight Watchers' in the US. That is how I regard AA. Meaning people go to Weight Watchers because they can't stop over-eating and people go to AA because they can't stop over-drinking.

I am writing a book about alcoholism (with my AA experience being focal). Can you tell me a little bit about you ?

Your '12 Steps Interpreted' and 'AA Booster...' sound like 2 different authors ? — Meaning the former is critique and the latter downright anti-AA !?

Hello David,

Thank you for the letter and the compliments and the questions. And good luck with your sobriety and breaking free of the craziness.

Starting at the top, yes, there are some intelligent people in A.A. groups. A sad truth of this world is the fact that even very intelligent people can get fooled by some of the worst of stupid hoaxes. Synanon had a doctor who performed vasectomies on all of the men (except the cult leader), so that the cult leader would not be bother by the inconvenience of crying babies and children. And Jim Jones's People's Temple had a doctor and a nurse who mixed up the cyanide Flavor-Aid® for everyone to drink and die. Intelligence is no defense against insanity or stupidity.

All of the autobiographical information is linked here: How did you get to where you are?.

There is a good reason for the difference in tone between The Twelve Steps Interpreted and A.A.-Booster Pseudo-Science: Spirituality: The key to recovery from alcoholism. The second web page is about an example of the worst kind of deception: using the trappings of science and medicine and spirituality to sell quackery to sick people. I am sort of scientific. I have studied science all of my life, since as far back as I can remember in childhood, and I majored in Biology in college. So I have a great deal of affection and respect for science, and it really pisses me off to see lying frauds pretending to be scientific as they push cult religion on sick people as a sure-fire cure for a deadly condition, and lie about how well it works.

I generally do not support the death penalty, because it seems that it is mostly the poor black boys who get it, while the rich guys hire dream teams of lawyers and walk free. But I could make an exception in my standards for those criminals who foist quack medicine on dying people.

I just received another letter that reveals the kind of suffering that fake healers cause, here.

Oh well, have a good day anyway.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.org        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**      If everybody is faking it until they make it,
**      all you are left with is a room full of fakes.
**         ==  Anonymous

Date: Wed, February 16, 2011 11:45 pm     (answered February 17, 2011)
From: "Paul Morantz"
Subject:

Read your paper on 12 steps. you are the foremost expert in this area. Why no book?

You might find this of interest. You quote Keith Ditman 60's studies on alcoholics. Ironically, he experimented in the 50's by giving LSD to alcoholics and one of them was Charles Dederich. Chuck later claimed it was while on LSD in that experiment he got the idea for Synanon and broke from AA. There is lot on Ditman on my site.... Just search "Ditman."

You might like Escape from Cielo Dr.

you misspelled my name.

>
> Read your paper on 12 steps.  you are the foremost expert in this area.
> Why no book?
>

Hi. That's flattering. I have an invitation to do a book; I just feel overwhelmed because I know just how much work it really is. Personally, I'd rather go play with some goslings.

> You might find this of interest.  You quote Keith Ditman 60's studies on
> alcoholics.  Ironically, he experimented in the 50's by giving LSD to
> alcoholics and one of them was Charles Dederich.    Chuck later claimed it
> was while on LSD in that experiment he got the idea for Synanon and broke
> from AA.   There is lot on Ditman on my site....
> Just search "Ditman."
>
> You might like Escape from Cielo Dr.
>
> you misspelled my name.
>

I knew about Keith Ditman and LSD. Didn't know that he gave it to Dederich.

Misspelled your name? Oops. Let me guess: Marantz?
Yes, I found it. I'll fix it.
That is my old electronics background creeping in there.
Marantz was a very expensive high-end line of audio gear in the 1960s. Some things just never leave your head.

I'll check out Cielo and Ditman.

Have a good one now. == Terry

*          orange@orange-papers.org       *
*      AA and Recovery Cult Debunking     *
*      http://www.orange-papers.org/      *
** "Now I know what it's like to be high on life.
** It isn't as good, but my driving has improved."
** == Nina, on "Just Shoot Me", 13 Jan 2006.

Date: Thu, February 17, 2011 5:00 pm     (answered 21 February 2011)
From: "Paul Morantz"
Subject: RE:

What is your background? Of interest True Believer was written by a longshoreman, best book on Synanon by a carpenter.

My background is everything from majored in biology in college, to was a cost accountant in the Air Force, to a hippie on a commune building log cabins, to TV repairman and rock band sound engineer, to electronics technician and computer programmer at Los Alamos, to web programmer, to alcoholic. Links to more autobiographical stuff is here.

They and you have a built in understanding. I am amazed, however, extent of your research. the time you committed must have been enormous. I suggest you take your best stuff and make an e-book out of. give it title that indicates a collection of essays om subject of mind coercive groups or something like that.

Yes, it has been a lot of research.

I think it already is an e-book. It's called a web site.

On my site Birth of Synanon and Dederich.... I tell story of AA and Chuck's experience, than LSD trip with Ditman, etc. My view on AA is little softer. They are cultish, become true believer's but Wilson put in good plan to prevent AA from being exploited as Dederich did Synanon. AA does not need to be forever for all, but for many. Synanon failed for not having a continuous program add on like AA once members split. that failure led to idea no one should ever leave and that cut off with outside reality grew into contained madne

Yes, I have a harsher attitude towards A.A. I would question the idea of Bill Wilson's plan to keep A.A. from being exploited. That is the standard fake A.A. history that they publish. The truth is, Bill wanted to arrange things so that nobody but him could get the goodies. Everybody else had to be anonymous and have no profit motive, and "abandon ego and self-seeking". But not Bill.

At the same time, Bill wanted to be seen as noble and selfless, so he made a big deal out of turning control of A.A. over to a Board of Trustees. But Bill expected them to rubber-stamp his dictates.

Bill Wilson was shocked to find that the Board of Trustees would not obey his orders and do as he demanded. They voted their consciences instead. Bill was outraged when they refused to pay his mistresses for him, and told him to pay his mistresses himself. The nerve of them. The effrontery.

Likewise, the Board refused to approve of Bill's new "Twelve Traditions" that he just made up one day. So Bill quit A.A. and went and sulked in his country home in Bedford Hills (that A.A. paid for). But he kept on collecting royalty checks for the stolen copyright of the Big Book for the rest of his life.

Then his wife Lois Wilson collected the checks after him. I hear that by the time of her death, she was getting $900,000 per year. I don't know exactly how much Bill was collecting while he was alive, but it's safe to say that he comfortably feathered his nest.

Then it became uncontained.

Yes, "uncontained". That is one way of describing it.

But actually, the story that A.A. was great in the good old days, and has just gone downhill lately, is another A.A. fairy tale. Alcoholics Anonymous was always a lying cult. Bill Wilson routinely lied about how many members A.A. had and how sober they were, and the A.A. history, and himself. There was never a Golden Age when A.A. worked great. That's all just the standard A.A. false history.

Most everything that you have ever heard about A.A. is a lie. A.A. has been promoting a false view of A.A. for 70 years now. For example, the Hallmark made-for-TV movie "My Name is Bill W." tells you that Bill Wilson met Dr. Bob in the spring of 1935, and they went around Akron hospitals recruiting and saving sick alcoholics, and figuring out how to help alcoholics by doing it. And they started Alcoholics Anonymous right there.

Wrong. The truth is that both Bill Wilson and Dr. Robert Smith were members of a pro-Nazi cult religion called the Oxford Group that was run by a renegade Lutheran minister name Dr. Frank Nathan Daniel Buchman. Bill and Dr. Bob were recruiting alcoholics for the Oxford Group because they believed that Frank Buchman's flavor of cult religion was the cure for alcoholism. They didn't care that Frank Buchman went to the Nuremberg Nazi Party rallies year after year. They kept right on recruiting more alcoholics for the Oxford Group, and teaching them to confess their sins and "surrender" (to the cult's leadership).

In 1936, Frank Buchman went to the Berlin Olympics as the personal guest of Heinrich Himmler, the vicious leader of the Gestapo and the SS who would soon run the Halocaust that exterminated 6 million Jews. Then Frank Buchman came home and declared to a New York newspaper, "I thank Heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler, who built a front line of defense against the anti-Christ of Communism." Neither Bill Wilson nor Dr. Robert Smith quit the Oxford Group in protest. They just kept on recruiting more alcoholics for Frank Buchman. But that isn't what the movie tells you, is it?

All of the rest of the Alcoholics Anonymous history is similarly white-washed and distorted.

The promotion of the myth that A.A. is a wonderful organization that has sobered up millions of alcoholics is actually A.A.'s greatest accomplishment. It may not get the drunks sober, but oh is it good at publicity. Not even Scientology with its Celebrity Center in Hollywood can match the A.A. publicity machine. Alcoholics Anonymous is the most successful cult in America.

If you read Escape from Golden State Manor... the defense used Ditman as an expert and I deposed him. My success in that case led to my being referred case against Synanon. Imagine my surprise when I learned Dederich claimed Synanon grew out of his LSD trip after Ditman gave it to him.

Yes, that is surprising. What a small world it is after all. I'll check out that book.

Have a good day now.

== Orange

*             orange@orange-papers.org        *
*         AA and Recovery Cult Debunking      *
*          http://www.Orange-Papers.org/      *
**     "One of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous [Bill Wilson]
**     described to me the transcendental experience he credits
**     with giving him control over his compulsive drinking.
**     Years later he took LSD five or six times. This, he
**     said, reinstated his original ecstasy, and consequently
**     he wishes that LSD were more available to alcoholics."
**     == Walter Houston Clark. Chemical Ecstasy: Psychedelic
**     Drugs and Religion, p 101. Sheed & Ward, New York, 1969.
**
**     (Note: Bill took LSD for two years, not just 5 or 6 times.)

May 20, 2009, Wednesday: Day 20, continued: Carmen's family, napping Carmen is the small one in the back. The one on the left is the "light-colored one".

[The story of Carmen continues here.]

More Letters

Previous Letters

Search the Orange Papers

Click Fruit for Menu

Last updated 19 March 2015.
The most recent version of this file can be found at http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-letters223.html