Twelve Steps for Recovery from Fundamentalism

[pelagius]

1. We admitted that we were powerful and that we alone could determine the significance and meaning of our own lives.

2. Came to believe that the specter of a punitive, all-male Deity had kept us from leading lives of harmony with our fellow humans.

3. Made a decision to take back our will and our lives from that Deity we had so long blindly believed in.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to our colleagues, friends, partners, and children the exact ways in which we had oppressed them with our religious terror.

6. Were entirely ready to recognize the validity of all types of spiritual expression, keeping in mind that metaphor, not literal truth, is what gives fairy tales their beauty.

7. Renounced patriarchal religion as a fear-based shortcoming of human imagination and psychology.

8. Made a list of all persons and groups we had bummed out with our superstitious, moralistic blather.

9. Made amends to such people, if not directly, then simply by getting over ourselves and making this life count.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and whenever we saw the world in black and white, promptly saw both sides of the story.

11. Sought through education and honest reflection to improve our understanding of how fundamentalism train-wrecks human progress.

12. Having been awakened to truth, freedom, and real spirituality by these Steps, we tried to rescue as many of our fundamentalist friends and family members as possible.

--Jeff Obser

More at: http://www.bigmamaschurch.org/

[kwassa]

1. I don't think Bill W. would call this Twelve Steps at all

I assume that it is satire, and won't take it seriously. The basic premise of all 12 step programs is that we are not the source of power in the universe, and that the idea that we are is precisely what got us in trouble in the first place. The concept of what constitutes a higher power is extremely broad, of course, but without the belief in something greater than ourselves recovery is impossible.

This author doesn't understand that, the premise of the program itself.

[Dookus]

4. actually

12-step programs have an abysmal success rate. It's about the same rate of success as people who just decide to quit drinking on their own.

[kwassa]

5. According to who?

[Dookus]

8. according to

whatever little research is done in the field.

http://aorange1.tripod.com/orange-effectiveness.html

the success rate of religion-based treatment for alcoholism is about the same as the religion-based treatment for homosexuality.

[kwassa]

10. sorry if I don't accept your source

His ideology is showing, as is his rather extreme case of bias.

There are people out there who hate 12-step programs based on their personal anti-religious prejudice, who say all kinds of things. They just can't document it with real numbers. There are also many who claim that their theoretical method, and their method only will cure drug addiction.

There aren't a lot of great statistical studies on the subject, so I think his numbers are not worth much. I've seen the 12-steps help many people, on a purely experiential level, enough to thing his numbers are pure bunk.

[Dookus]

11. MY source?

Did you read the citations? One of the biggest is the Harvard Medical School.

[kwassa]

13. So ..... anyone can pick and choose certain information, and ignore other

sources.

This man is an idealogue on a mission, and it is a blatantly obvious one. He has compiled a list of sources HE SAYS prove his point.

So what? I am not conviniced. He comes across as a nutter, that's for sure. I haven't heard his viewpoint confirmed elsewhere, or on any mass, legitimate level, so why should I accept this website? Anyone can put up a website, and does.

[Dookus]

14. Can you do me a favor

and check out some of the source material?

He links to legitimate research that shows no more than a 5-10% success rate for AA. Do you have links that show a higher rate of success? If so, please present them.

This article references a LOT of actual research that's been done on this issue. Just because you don't like his position it doesn't mean the source material is wrong.

[kwassa]

15. From the famous science magazine "DUH"!

Every link in his page goes back to his own page, not to any source material, not to other sites.

His crazy logic on how he comes up with a 95% failure rate for AA:

"According to the "Comments" document, the "% of those coming to AA within the first year that have remained the indicated number of months" is 19% after one month; 10% after three months; and 5% after 12 months. 12 In other words, AA has a 95% new-member dropout rate during the first year of attendance."

Golly gee! This means that if you don't stay in AA, AA doesn't do you any good?

How stupid can you get?

By the way, if you want to chase back his so-called research to his original sources, you go right ahead.

[Dookus]

16. OK

then don't read the research referenced and believe anything you want. He cites plenty of research which you choose to ignore.

Further, you don't proffer any statistics of your own.

So basically, you won't read his citations and you won't rebut his findings with any of your own. Dead end, I guess.

[kwassa]

17. I've rebutted his premise and yours, quite thoroughly, I believe

There is no substantiation for the 5-10% rate that you quote.

here is some quotes for you:

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism No. 49 October 2000 (National Institute of Health)

New Advances in Alcoholism Treatment

http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/aa49.htm

excerpts:

This issue focuses on the results of recent controlled clinical studies on the effectiveness of self-help groups, psychosocial approaches, and medications in achieving and maintaining abstinence.

(jump)

Although AA appears to produce positive outcomes in many of its members (5,6), its efficacy has rarely been assessed in randomized clinical trials (7).

One randomized study of patients entering employee assistance programs compared inpatient treatment combined with AA with referral to AA alone (8). This study found that inpatient treatment, a combination of professional treatment and AA, will achieve better results for more people than AA alone (8). Ouimette and colleagues (9), as part of a nonrandomized observational study involving 3,000 patients in Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals, compared predominantly 12-step programs with predominantly cognitive-behavioral programs as well as with courses of therapy that combined both approaches. In cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), the therapist helps the client learn new skills to cope with problems and to change harmful behavior patterns, such as alcohol abuse. One year after completion of treatment, the three types of programs had produced comparable improvements on measures of alcohol consumption and related problems. However, participants in the 12-step programs achieved more sustained abstinence and higher rates of employment compared with participants in the other two programs (9). Interpretation of these results is complicated by the nonrandom assignment of patients to the different treatment types (9).

The beneficial effects of AA may be attributable in part to the replacement of the participant's social network of drinking friends with a fellowship of AA members who can provide motivation and support for maintaining abstinence (4,10). In addition, AA's approach often results in the development of coping skills, many of which are similar to those taught in more structured psychosocial treatment settings, thereby leading to reductions in alcohol consumption (4,11).

[Modem Butterfly]

6. Did you see the Bullshit! episode on AA?

Very enlightening.

It irritates me that, in some states, repeat offenders with drinking problems are being sentenced to AA or have their sentences reduced for joining AA. So much for separation of church and state, eh?

[onager]

12. I saw that!

It was very good.

A non-believing friend of mine got a DWI here in Los Angeles. Part of his sentence was attending a certain number of AA meetings.

He got tired of the religious hokum REAL fast, and asked if he could attend non-religious meetings and still get credit.

He got a classic response: "I believe there's one atheist group like AA. But you don't want to go to that meeting. They're a bunch of devil worshippers."

(Or words to that effect. This has been quite a few years, but I distinctly remember the "atheists/devil worshippers" connection.)

[madeline_con]

19. I decided

I decided to quit drinking on my own and was successful.

I had only one reason. I looked at my son and realized he'd not done anything to deserve a drunken hag for a mother, and that my own mother hadn't treated me that way, either. End of drinking. :beer:

[arwalden]

7. You Give The Author Far Too Little Credit.

>> I assume that it is satire, and won't take it seriously. <<

Why must you assume such a thing? So that you won't HAVE to take it seriously?

[madeline_con]

18. 12 steps

I read an article that stated that some people do better kicking habits if they DON'T adopt the attitude of powerlessness that is used in programs like AA.

Depending on the personality, saying they're powerless sets the person up to have an 'out' if they fail, and can sabotage their progress and give them an excuse when they fail; they're hopeless, helpless addicts, after all, what did we expect?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. interesting

I'd say Step 1 a bit differently: we create our own reality. There is no other rule (to paraphrase Seth, a channelled being).

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. There actually is/was

a group called Fundamentalists Anonymous, designed for people trying to leave fundamentalist groups.

[pelagius]

9. Here's the FA "Twelve Steps"

1. I realize that I had turned control of my mind over to another person or group, who had assumed power over my thinking.

2. That person or group persuaded me of the inerrancy of the Bible, in spite of its many internal contradictions.

3. I became addicted to the Bible as the supreme focus of my faith, in spite of the commandment that God should come first.

4. I admit to God, to myself and to another person the shortcomings of my belief in the unbelievable.

5. I have made an inventory of my false claims about the Bible.

6. I have made a list of those whom I led into confusion about the Bible.

7. I am willing to make amends to all those whom I may have led astray.

8. I realize that I have the inner power to restore sanity to my life and to search Scripture for the truth.

9. I will reach out to friends who can help me clarify my thinking about the Bible, God and Jesus.

10. I confess that only with God's help can my mind grasp the truth.

11. I will seek through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God, praying for knowledge of God's will for me and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these twelve steps, I will offer these steps to other former biblical fundamentalists

More at: http://www.geocities.com/church_of_hank/fundamentalists_anonymous.html