Chapter 5 The Danger of A.A.
We as a people have allowed Alcoholics Anonymous to take control of our lives. Sure, we’re free to pray as we choose, or to not pray at all, but only until someone in power decides that they’ve had enough of that nonsense.
We live in a world where every person with any authority has the right to take samples of our bodies- urine, hair, spit, DNA. Anyone with authority over us now has the right to dictate what we are allowed to put in our bodies and how we manage our bodies. Employers may test for both legal and illegal drugs and, if they decide to institute a relevant policy, may require us to live according to their rules.
Alcoholics Anonymous has spread out far beyond alcohol. Today, you can find just-about-anything Anonymous for whatever the bad habit of the day is. Because employers have so much say over our bodies, and because Alcoholics Anonymous so successfully pretends to be non-religious medical treatment, just about anyone can be ordered into their churches. The potential for abuse is vast; in this instance, Cleveland Clinic employees could be forced into the Twelve Step Nicotine Anonymous’, whose program rings a bell;
The Twelve Steps of Nicotine Anonymous
1. We admitted we were powerless over nicotine – that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to nicotine users and to practice these principles in all our affairs
We live in a world where every person with any authority has the right to take samples of our bodies- urine, hair, spit, DNA. Anyone with authority over us now has the right to dictate what we are allowed to put in our bodies and how we manage our bodies. Employers may test for both legal and illegal drugs and, if they decide to institute a relevant policy, may require us to live according to their rules.
Alcoholics Anonymous has spread out far beyond alcohol. Today, you can find just-about-anything Anonymous for whatever the bad habit of the day is. Because employers have so much say over our bodies, and because Alcoholics Anonymous so successfully pretends to be non-religious medical treatment, just about anyone can be ordered into their churches. The potential for abuse is vast; in this instance, Cleveland Clinic employees could be forced into the Twelve Step Nicotine Anonymous’, whose program rings a bell;
The Twelve Steps of Nicotine Anonymous
1. We admitted we were powerless over nicotine – that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to nicotine users and to practice these principles in all our affairs